Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on May 4, 2009

By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone

Tony Soprano rarely ever took any guff. Even with all those mother issues he had, what he wanted, he got, one way or another. Looks like President Obama, or a thug-minion brigade of his White House staffers, are acting more “thuggish gangster-like” than “Hope and Change-like,” with what reportedly happened this past week with the Chrysler bankruptcy.

Reportedly, Obama’s administration is upset with an investment firm that opposed its union-friendly Chrysler bankruptcy (ripoff) plan. Representatives from the White House reportedly forced senior lenders to take a much lower percentage than they were entitled to contractually for buying up the bad loans of Chrysler (they wanted 50 cents on the dollar, Obama reportedly said no, sacrifices must be made, so they could only get 29 cents on the dollar).

This evolved into reported threats by the White House representatives that if compliance they were seeking did not occur with what the president wanted, the White House Press Corps would be used to destroy their reputation. Essentially, they were saying menacingly, “We don’t need no stinkin’ contracts, we spit on your lousy contracts! Take the deal if ya know what’s good for ya, or else ya’ll regret the day ya was ever born, ya lyin’, greedy, dirty rat…”

To make myself perfectly clear, should WH reps ever read this, they didn’t actually say that. I wasn’t there. I’m being satirical and jocular, it was a harmless J/K blurt, so no need for strong-arm retaliation. But, I’ll bet one of them was probably THINKING it.

The White House is now denying any threats ever took place.

I find that REALLY hard to swallow. Too many instances of strong-arming CEOs and banking heads have been reported since Obama took office.

Chilling and sickening. This isn’t an episode of The Sopranos or a midnight showing of GoodFellas or The Godfather. This is real life, and this is our cherished White House. It’s our country, founded on principles and ideals that are a million miles away from this kind of insane, thugged-out power lust. The White House is not a replacement for the seedy back streets of Chicago that once was the kingdom of mob boss Al Capone.

I’m outraged and sick and tired of this crap. But, who isn’t? Those who voted for Obama are humming quietly until this incident, too, blows over like all the others so that they don’t have to wipe any egg off their faces and can continue to blindly worship Obama. We mustn’t ruin the cloyingly sweet fantasy they’ve created in their heads with anything so “buzzkill” as sour reality.

I’m hoping that protests against this violation of the Constitution are waged soon and waged loudly. This is America, not Cuba, no matter how chummy Democrats are now getting with the ruthless Castro brothers.

Here’s the write-up by Zero Hedge, followed by the WJR video of the radio interview.

Zero Hedge: The White House Threatened to Destroy Perella Weinberg’s Reputation
In an interview of momentous importance, WJR’s Frank Beckmann interviews Tom Lauria, the Head of Restructuring at top five law firm White & Case, in which the lawyer, who represents Chrysler hold-out hedge funds Stairway Capital and Oppenheimer Funds, discusses on the record the amazing treatment by the White House of Perella Weinberg, which initially had been a transaction hold out but after threats by the White House (not my words) was forced to drop their objection and go with the administration. Says Lauria:

“One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight…That was Perella Weinberg.”

In the clip below, fast forward to the two minute mark, where the Obama administration’s negotiating tactics become very, very clear.

What is very odd is that Perella Weinberg could possibly have veered away from the administration’s path in the first place: Zero Hedge readers know that P-W is the very firm advising the rapidly sinking FDIC “on transactions and strategies to stabilize the banking system, and also on the proper way to dispose failed institutions and how to handle delinquent securities assumed from banks, as well as the creation of the aggregator bank.”

This leads to the conclusion that this was really the work of one Dan Arbess, who runs the recently acquired by P-W, Xerion Capital, but nonetheless does not explain the lack of strategic integration at this most critical of advisers to Sheila Bair, and by implication the U.S. administration. How it is possible that one’s core advisor would go against its client, even if offset by a Chinese Wall, is likely the big story here, and speaks volumes about the chaos behind the scenes currently occurring with regard to Wall Street’s sentiment for the ruling administration.

Incidentally, Zero Hedge is considering launching a FOIA to Ms. Sheila Bair to disclose the compensation structure for Perella Weinberg as it continues to advise the FDIC on the “proper” shuttering and liquidation of bank after bank. After all, we have already seen 31 bank failures for 2009, a number that will likely hit the 100s, and it is every taxpayer’s right to understand the motivations behind Perella-Weinberg’s recommendations to the FDIC and to the White House, especially ahead of next week, when the stress test results could potentially lead to the closure of some of the “too big to fail” systematically important financial institutions.

The full interview with Tom Lauria below is a must hear for everyone as it discloses not only the administration’s strong arming tactics in black and white, but also discloses some other critical facts that the president on his regular TV appearances has failed to mention such as:

- First lien holders were willing to accept a 50% discount on their positions, however, the 71% demanded by the administration was seen as too much.

- The cash going to Junior claims (creditors below the first liens) will be between $10 and $20 billion, a number which in practice should satisfy a par recovery for the 1st liens if the Absolute Priority Rule was actually withheld.

- Among the creditors are not just vulturous hedge funds but “pensioners, teachers, credit unions, college endowments, retirement plans, and personal retirement accounts.”

In conclusion, Lauria summarizes the developing Chryslerf#%k best:

“The President is trying to abrogate contractual rights; if he will attack that contractual right, what right will he not attack?”

Barack Obama & The Chrysler Bankruptcy: Frank Beckmann, Thomas Lauria, Esq., Discussion | Broadcast May 1, 2009

Unrelated (or, not really), but I thought these links would be of interest to many readers:

Mere Rhetoric: Petty: White House Permanently Deletes Bush-Era Twitter Archive
Gawker, Valley Wag: Why Did the White House Delete Bush’s Tweets?

One more off-topic blog post I stumbled on, again at Gawker:
Barack Obama Wants You to Take a Loyalty Oath

Additional reading about Chrysler and reported White House thuggery:
Hot Air: Obama uses WH press corps as threat against Chrysler investors; Update: Tapper reports, WH denies and Senior creditors: Chrysler deal violates 5th Amendment
PoliGazette: Report: Obama Threatened Chrysler Investors With Public Humiliation
Jane Q. Republican: Nepotism And Earmarks Alive And Well In Murtha-land
Pink Elephant Pundit: The Obama Administration? COERCION? Surely You Jest.
Michelle Malkin: Chrysler and coercion and Here we go again; Update: The auto repairman-in-chief speaks and Introducing the Obama Suckers Mutual Fund
Conservative Nation: White House Strong-Arms, Threatens Chrysler Bondholders
Radio Vice Online: Lawyer for Chrysler bond holders backs off … sort of.
Jane Q. Republican: President Obama Threatening Bankers With The WH Press Corp
Amused Cynic: Radio Free America…Are you listening to Rush today?
ABC News, Political Punch: White House Denies Charge By Attorney that Administration Threatened to Destroy Investment Firm’s Reputation
Swanky Conservative: May 4th, 2009
Moderate in the MiddleYou Belong to Me: The Chrysler Files: Senior non-Tarp Lenders fight back, file motion citing Radford ruling
Finding Ponies in Piles of Poop: Torture is Only Right When It’s Not Your Money
NEOAVATARA: Obama: Chicagoland Strong Arm Politics At Play
Fire Andrea Mitchell! Obama to Chrysler creditors: “I will publicly humilate you!” – Either Obama is turning into Nixon or the Godfather
Vets On The Watch: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
Danishova: Stuart Varney on Thomas Lauria v. The White House flap
Bent Notes Blog Archive: The post-American thugogracy – today’s edition
Gazzer’s Gabfest: Chauncey Gardner on steroids
silent E speaks, Blog Archive: President Borg: Union Thug
Around The Sphere: Everybody Open Your Hymnals To Section 363
The Plucked Chicken: Persecution, Alive and Well

Categories: Conservatism, Economy, Government, Law & Constitution, Social and Political Climate
Tags: auto, bankruptcy, Castro, Chrysler, coercion, Frank Beckmann, George Bush, Government, loans, loyalty, Obama, Perella Weinberg, press, reputation, threats, thugs, Tom Lauria, Tony Soprano, Tweet, Tweets, White House, White House Press Corps, WJR, Zero Hedge