White House

Earlier, we reported that Obama mentioned that NATO is currently evaluating military options against Libya. Now, White House spokesman Carney adds some additional color on what Operation "Nobel Peace Prize", aka the invasion of Libya, will look like. From Reuters: "White House says no option removed from table on Libya response but use of ground troops not at top of list."Does that mean air force intervention is at the top? Luckily Zero Hedge readers know very well that the USS Enterprise is now peacefully sailing in the Mediterranean, awaiting for its moment in the sun. And on the use of the SPR: "White House says no specific price point would trigger the use of oil reserve; the issue is oil supply disruption." But what supply disruption: wasn't the spin up to now that Libya is largely irrelevant for the US from a supply perspective?

A little-known program to aid the economy by distributing money to bloggers is gathering support in the White House and Congress. In the bruising fight to see which party can give away more borrowed money, Republicans and the Obama administration hammered out a compromise on the White House plan to pay "qualified" bloggers $100 per post, up to $100,000 each. The Obama administration had originally included income limits in its "Web Entrepreneur Program" (WEP) legislation, but Republicans forced the White House to drop the stipulations which would have limited payments to bloggers who earned more than $250,000 annually.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs blows the whistle on a suggested faux casus belli.

Next time you swing by the White House, remember to tell your now desperately insecure president that he has your support, or else we may get another temper tantrum like the one yesterday. It appears that now none other than the White House has the (in)security issues of a 14 year old girl. In what has to be the epitome of a surreal joke, the official White House website has released a list of actual individuals and institutions (among these, shockingly, the New York Times, Market Watch, Harvard and, no shit, Bank of America) who have voiced their "statements of support on the framework agreement on middle class tax cuts and unemployment insurance." Oddly, nowhere in this list is even a passing mention of the Zero Hedge reminder that just the tax cut extension portion of the deal is likely to boost the deficit, and thus the US funding need, by $5 trillon over the next decade. In other news, the market is up because consumer confidence is higher... and consumer confidence is higher because the market is up. The adventures of Alice through the looking glass have nothing on America's blind meanderings through the depression zone.

Perhaps for the best demonstration of what cutting education budgets in the US means for our nation's current and future mathematical capabilities, look no further than the White House's Propaganda, pardon Fact Sheet on the tax extensions. The only notable item is the following (which is stunningly added as an accomplishment): "The plan has three key accomplishments: Does not worsen the medium- and long-term deficit.
These are responsible, temporary measures to support our economy that
will not add costs by the middle of the decade. The President does not
believe it is affordable to make the high-income tax cuts permanent and
will continue to have that debate in the years ahead." Alas, that is a flat out lie. According to the Congressional Research Service, the cost of keeping the tax cuts will be just over $5 trillion over the next 10 years. And it will be at least 10 years: after Obama loses the 2012 presidential election, Republicans will have a carte blanche to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and will likely do so. And, furthermore, this figure does not include the cost of the Unemployment Insurance extension.

From the WSJ: "White House proposes temporary payroll tax reduction. The 6.2% Social Security tax would drop to 4.2% for workers for one year." Unclear if this is on top of any additional Bush tax cut extensions. It is amazing that it took D.C. only 1 month to forget that the people are sick and tired of reckless deficit spending (today's debt: 13,833,512,000,000) and will vote out all corrupt idiots who merely pass the hot debt potato to the next generation.

Just a headline from Reuters right now: "White House says WikiLeaks and people who share information with them are criminals"

Unclear is Assange is about to be charged with treason. It is also unclear if the First Amendment is still valid. If so, we will try to bring you an update on this situation.

The real reason for Geithner’s reluctance about a foreclosure moratorium is that he’s scared stiff about those securities – because even if he won’t admit it, he knows that the bailout wasn’t just about TARP and Bernanke isn’t just an economic savior. The government owns or is backing trillions of dollars worth of assets predicated on the same or similar suspicious loans that defaulted during the 2008 crisis period, which they did nothing to stop (or force banks to restructure). Instead, the Fed now owns nearly $1.5 trillion of toxic assets that have no bid (meaning no one but the Fed wants them). They would have less of a bid if there was even more uncertainty about the loans that fill them. The Treasury is directly backing $400 billion of government-sponsored entity (GSE) securities, and is indirectly backing another $6.8 trillion. If foreclosed homes couldn’t be sold because of fraudulent paperwork or had to wait for more detailed inspections, you can imagine how difficult selling assets stuffed with faulty loans might be. If it’s tough to find a title for a foreclosed home, think how tough it is to back the related loan out of a pyramid of securities sitting on top of it. - Nomi Prins

Bill H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010, which was discussed yesterday, and which according to both Reuters and the NYT may have a material impact on mitigating the impact of the High Freq Signing scandal, at least on the servicers, is now open for public comments at the white house.

Those wishing to tell the president how they feel, may do so at the following link:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/webform/comment-legislation?billname=H.R.%203808%20-%20Interstate%20Recognition%20of%20Notarizations%20Act%20of%202010

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made a rather startling statement in a press briefing on September 21st. He acknowledged that the economy is bad and he further stated under questioning that the recovery would take several years.

And then there was one, even if it was a TurboTax One. Bloomberg headlines flashing that Larry Summers is dunzo in November. He follows such other economic failures as Romer and Orszag, both of whom left the economy in a far more horrendous state than they found it. We wish godspeed to Larry, and hope he managed to get thick windows in the limo that will take him to his next private sector job, presumably somewhere above the 40th floor in 200 West.

On June 9, BP COO Doug Suttles, in response to complaints that the media was being prevented from talking to BP workers, issued a letter (link), in which he said "Recent media reports have suggested that individuals involved in the clean up operation have been prohibited from speaking to the media, and this is simply not true." Alas, as the following clip from WDSU, a New Orleans TV station taken several days later demonstrates, the BP public front is just for show, and the media blackout continues. While it is certainly understandable why BP would want to not show off its oil stained laundry, what is more troublesome is that the administration itself may have a finger in this ongoing attempt to prevent the general public from understanding just what is going on. In an AP article from the 16th, we learn that Michael Oreskes, an AP senior managing editor wrote to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday, “demanding that President Barack Obama’s administration improve media access.” "AP first contacted Obama on June 5, outlining its concerns in a letter from President and CEO Tom Curley. Gibbs followed up with a call to AP editors and a written response. If journalists have concerns, Gibbs said, they can call to report their experiences with a joint information center run by the federal government and BP in Houma, La." Further, we learn from the CJR that Oreskes called the number from his office in New York on Tuesday and left a message, but has not received a response. Is the media blackout campaign a collusive one between BP and our government? If so, the people probably have the right to demand why a member of the administration is not receiving the same idiotic treatment before Congress as CEO's BP had to undergo for 8 hours yesterday.

What's another $50 billion?

According to Reuters headlines, the White House has just announced that penalties for the oil spill will be in the "many billions of dollars" range. Then again, with Goldman downgrading BP and thus actively buying the stock, is all this now fully priced in? Elsewhere, DealBook's Peter Henning says that the criminal charges, which will likely be filed soon, will likely also result in fines and likely prison time if executives of the implicated company are found to have lied to the US government. "Criminal penalties for environmental violations are not as severe as for other white-collar crimes. For a Clean Water Act violation, the maximum fine is $25,000 a day and up to one year in prison for a conviction based on negligence, and $50,000 a day and up to three years in prison for a conviction based on conduct shown to be done 'knowingly.'" We hope someone has set up some markets on InTrade for over/unders on jail time for some of the key executives.

In an exclusive for Oilprice.com, the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) has learned from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sources that U.S. Navy submarines deployed to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast have detected what amounts to a frozen oil blob from the oil geyser at the destroyed Deep Horizon off-shore oil rig south of Louisiana. The Navy submarines have trained video cameras on the moving blob, which remains frozen at depths of between 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Because the oil blob is heavier than water, it remains frozen at current depths.