Penny & Me

More connected cronyism from President Obama, as he has selected Penny Pritzker for Commerce secretary.

For Obama she's raised millions, for taxpayers she's cost us millions and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Pritzker's family-owned Superior Bank, Penny served as head of the bank’s board until 1994, and they specialized in sub-prime lending before ending up becoming one of the greater banking collapses in American history.

The Pritzkers agreed to pay a record $460 million to the federal government to avoid being punished for the failure of Superior Bank FSB. It was a 15 year, interest-free settlement that granted the Pritzkers a share of the government's settlement with the bank's former accountants.

But after paying $316 million of the interest-free debt, the family quietly struck a deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) in June 2011 to discount the balance in return for paying off the debt early.  The FDIC Insurance Fund is still out $296 million after paying off Superior’s insured depositors. 

I suppose it's just a coincidence that her pal Barry was President when this all came down.

The Internal Revenue Service sued her family to collect taxes from the estate of Abram Pritzker, Penny’s grandfather. The case centered on hundreds of trust funds he’d set up in the Caribbean to avoid taxes. The IRS sought $53 million in taxes, before the two sides settled in 1994 for $9.5 million.

Mere pennys on the dollars, which enables her to sustain a personal fortune estimated at $1.85 billion, making her among the 300 wealthiest Americans.

Chump Change

Real Change from Obama was not supposed to include Washington Insiders.

Yet, from his first pick it has meant more of the same Dummycrats and the scientific community is united in that fact.


Joe Biden as Vice President has been a U.S. Senator since 1973.

Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff has been in Washington since 1993.

Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State? Hard to be more of an insider than that.

Eric Holder for Attorney General? He's been employed by the U.S. Justice Department since Jimmy Carter and has less than an outstanding record.

Tom Daschle at Health and Human Services? He's been in Washington for 30 years and his wife is a LOBBYIST!

Penny Pritzker for Commerce Secretary? She's partially responsible for one of the greater banking collapses in American history.

Greg Craig as White House Counsel? A Washington lawyer for over 35 years, with a fine list of clients!

It's like a take off of that bad war joke...

The men of Charlie Company had been in the field for two weeks when the Sargeant announces,

"I ve got good news and bad news.

First the good news.

Today we are going to change our underwear."

The troops start cheering wildly.

"Now the bad news," continues the Sarge.

"Smith, you change with Jones. Andrews, you change with Murphy..."

See Bilious

Maybe it's because she was in Iowa City, the capitol of the People's Republic of Johnson County, that caused Kansas Governor Kathleen See Bilious to utter her bile.

She accused Republicans of using "code language" to convince Midwestern voters that Obama is an unworthy choice for president.

The article doesn't state what the "code language" is, but the See Bilious one said...

"Have any of you noticed that Barack Obama is part African-American?" she asked with sarcasm. "(Republicans) are not going to go lightly into the darkness."

The only ones who are playing the race card are the Dummycrats, Obama himself and the media.

And the scientific community is united in that fact.

The See Bilious one tried to tie a former McCain adviser, Phil Gramm, into recent economic woes...

"(Gramm) is the author of a lot of the chaos you're seeing."

As James Taranto points out a CO-author was then-Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, is a co-founder of Republicans for Obama. If he has had second thoughts about banking deregulation, he did not mention them in his Democratic Convention speech.

Taranto also notes that Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, voted for the measure and it was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

It should also be noted that Obama's national finance chair is partially responsible for one of the greater banking collapses in American history.

Penny Pritzker, and family, were half owner's of Superior Bank, which was shut down in 2001 by the FDIC after it had lost nearly all of its more than $2 billion of assets on bad loans to high-risk borrowers.