I am shocked! Henry Paulson threatened Congress with Martial Law to get his $700 billion. What is next? Dana Perino will threaten us with economic collapse if Congress goes home?

Speaking on Tulsa Oklahoma’s 1170 KFAQ, when asked who was behind threats of martial law and civil unrest if the bailout bill failed, Senator James Inhofe named Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as the source.

“Somebody in D.C. was feeding you guys quite a story prior to the bailout, a story that if we didn’t do this we were going to see something on the scale of the depression, there were people talking about martial law being instituted, civil unrest….who was feeding you guys this stuff?,” asked host Pat Campbell.

“That’s Henry Paulson,” responded Inhofe, “We had a conference call early on, it was on a Friday I think – a week and half before the vote on Oct. 1. So it would have been the middle … what was it – the 19th of September, we had a conference call. In this conference call – and I guess there’s no reason for me not to repeat what he said, but he said – he painted this picture you just described. He said, ‘This is serious. This is the most serious thing that we faced.’”

Inhofe said that Paulson told members of Congress the crisis would be “far worse than the great depression” if Congress didn’t authorize the bill to buy out toxic debt, a proposal “which he abandoned the day after he got the money,” added Inhofe.

THAT is why Pelosi, Reid and Obama were correct to push for the bailout! What does it say about the Republicans who voted against it?

I find it interesting that Republicans were willing to dole out $700 billion to bank execs BEFORE the election, but they don’t want to bail anyone out now that Democrats will be left holding the bag.

More than just ‘banks vs. car makers’ there is ‘Wall Street bankers vs. other banks, car makers or anybody else’. That’s what makes it crystal clear they’re not just incompetent, but are executing a focused plan to hurt everybody but their ‘have and have-mores base’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8

the most frustrating thing about the hearing was that the idiot from the sec used it to try to make the case for why the sec should be in charge of regulating credit derivatives, even though the argument was weak and they were not ready to do it. petty empire building. like we have time for that shit.

I hear Bushie is now making noise about working with Congress on some kind of aid to the auto industry. Maybe someone told him there might not be a stock market left before he leaves if he doesn’t do something.