The Administration has managed the impressive task of operating in a more cynical fashion than even its worst critics predicted.
Remember the widely ballyhooed mortgage fraud investigation, announced at the State of the Union address? This was the shiny toy that succeeded in getting New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman to abandon his opposition to the mortgage settlement. Schneiderman had been the defacto leader of the dissenters by virtue both of being the first to stand against the effort and by having the Martin Act. Suborning Schneiderman put the objecting state attorneys general in disarray and enabled the Administration to push this toxic deal over the finish line.
It was pretty obvious Schneiderman had been had. Obama tellingly did not mention his name in the SOTU. Schneiderman was only a co-chairman of the effort and would still stay on in his day job as state AG, begging the question of how much time he would be able to spend on the task force. His co-chairman is Lanny Breuer from the missing-in-action Department of Justice. And most important, no one on the committee was head of an agency, again demonstrating that this wasn’t a top Administration priority.
The Administration started undercutting Schneiderman almost immediately. He announced that the task force would have “hundreds” of investigators. Breuer said it would have only 55, a simply pathetic number (the far less costly savings & loan crisis had over 1000 FBI agents assigned to it). And they taunted him publicly by exposing that he hadn’t gotten a tougher release as he has claimed to justify his sabotage.
We had assumed that the Administration would engage in a Potemkin version of an investigation, bringing a few cases close to the election to generate deceptive and useful “tough on crime” headlines. But having succeeded in protecting the banks, it looks like they can’t even be bothered to go through the motions. This update comes from the New York Daily News (hat tip Matt Stoller):
On March 9 — 45 days after the speech and 30 days after the announcement — we met with Schneiderman in New York City and asked him for an update…As of that date, he had no office, no phones, no staff and no executive director. None of the 55 staff members promised by Holder had materialized. On April 2, we bumped into Schneiderman on a train leaving Washington for New York and learned that the situation was the same.
Tuesday, calls to the Justice Department’s switchboard requesting to be connected with the working group produced the answer, “I really don’t know where to send you.” After being transferred to the attorney general’s office and asking for a phone number for the working group, the answer was, “I’m not aware of one.”…
In fact, the new Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group was the sixth such entity formed since the start of the financial crisis in 2009. The grand total of staff working for all of the previous five groups was one, according to a surprised Schneiderman. In Washington, where staffs grow like cherry blossoms, this is a remarkable occurrence.
We are led to conclude that Donovan was right. The settlement and working group — taken together — were a coup: a public relations coup for the White House and the banks…
But for 12 million American homeowners, collectively $700 billion under water, this was just another in a long series of sham transactions.
However, we disagree with the charitable conclusion made by the Daily News:
Schneiderman, who has acted boldly and honorably, should distance himself from this cynical arrangement. He should resign and go back to working effectively with fellow attorneys general in Delaware, Massachusetts and Nevada.
As we indicated, Schneiderman’s actions were neither bold nor honorable. Not surprisingly, his effort at a star turn in the national media has not led to favorable poll results for him in New York. And the Daily News offers a fantasy as an alternative. There is no “going back.” The attorneys general gave up their best legal theories, and with it, their ability to protect the integrity of title, for grossly inadequate compensation and a photo opportunity.
It would be better if we were proven wrong, but Schneiderman entered into an obvious Faustian pact. He’s not getting his soul or his reputation back.
73 comments
Comments are closed.
Breuer & Holder are a joke. The only mortgage related issue they went after was TBW and aside from that the only financial issues they attacked were insider trading. They’re going after the easy stuff and refusing to hold banks accountable. This latest piece of info about not staffing the mortage fraud investigation team is no surprise.
” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.
The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington’s biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for. ”
-Huff Po
Breuer is giving the other meaning to the phrase “criminal DOJ division”.
Quite simply, wtf?
Why is this surprising?
Could we hold the BS to a minimum around here.
I looked in the North Carolina White Pages and found 32,463 Joe Smiths.
That doesn’t sound understaffed to me.
Thankyou.
A Potemkin village had at least to have a convincingly built facade. This doesn’t even rise to the level of “Potemkin investigation”.
It’s fairly obvious the latest effort is a rebranding of a failed effort in an election year. Nothing new here.
Seriously, what will it take for everyone to realize that the entire system is a sham, an inverted totalitarianism in which the economic elite are to be protected at all costs?
What is happening in the USA and EU crosses political parties and co-opts those seemingly in opposition.
I’ve see some here advocate for the Green Party and Jill Stein – both of which btw are still capitalist boosters no matter the green washing.
Um, care to discuss how the Greens have been yet another victim of the neoliberal co-opting in Europe, much like the socialists and other “left” parties.
No, we need parties that advocate for the entire dismantling of the economic system we live under.
No major thinkers/journalists among the political “left” want to “go there” concerning what needs be said be it for lack of a clear plan or because they’re inevitably shouted down for being too “unrealistic”.
The “there” is there due to the human and environmental damage our capitalistic system causes, it needs to be ended.
Once more and more people understand this, solutions will become more plentiful and realizable but you have to first understand the endpoint.
The system needs to be dismantled.
What will take its place?
Who knows but what we have a present is an abortion of human thought.
Should read:
The “there” is that due to the human and environmental damage our capitalistic system causes, it needs to be ended.
Don’t blame capitalism, blame corruption and tolerance of that corruption.
By all appearances, that’s what capitalism is: corruption and fraud. I don’t care what ‘capitalism’ means in theory, in practice, that’s always what it turns into.
Capitalism is as capitalism does.
Right-wingers encourage “capitalism” without progressive taxation, which is and encourages an explicitly anti-social, *selfish* way of looking at everything and everyone else.
What happens to a society based on selfishness?
feature, not a bug
ZeroHedge had an article today saying more or less a vote for Romney is a vote for Obama. A majority of the people I know are fed up with the two parties but almost to a person they ultimately vote for “the lesser of two evils” ensuring a responsible candidate will never have a platform to stand on.
Giving Obama and Holder the benefit of the doubt, that this is just some outlying oversight not representitive of the government overall, it is incredibly sad that there’s no effort to at least appear attentive. It’s like Obama’s not even trying to give us the propaganda anymore.
If you have a society which has decades of propaganda which tells them that electing one of two parties (Democratic or Republican) is the mark of a “democracy” and they believe it, once those two parties are completely taken over for and by one group of interests (the wealthy and powerful), the politicians no longer have to “pretend” to care about the citizens. They know they only need “care” about the wealthy and powerful who will then direct the “message” towards the candidate who represents their interests. You can’t expect a country of over 300 million people to function on the whims of a very small elitist group which puts their personal interests above that of society as a whole. Whether it is President Obama or Mitt Romney in the future, they will have aided and abetted in our collapse.
“What will take its place?”
Anarchism.
That has not happened, not even once in approximately 5000 years of recorded human history. The US is a massively millitarized Nuclear power. What makes you think that, even if human psychology made Anarchism possible,(a premise for which there is not s shred of evidence), that it could happen in the US (former) ?
Have you got a better idea?
The Eunuchs are looting the treasury and storehouses and i think i smell smoke coming from the direction of the archives.
“r”-please don’t steal theme of my writing..(book=China, 16th c)
The degree of corruption was plainly obvious to many when the whole of a building containing evidence of much previous fraud, on a grand scale, and the offices of more than one investigating authority, fell to the ground for no logical reason. All evidence destroyed and, even that of the building’s demise, wiped away.
Eleven years later on the discussion is still on a case to case basis of fraud and corruption and how it ought get investigated or resolved.I guess the full picture is too terrifying for many to accept or comtemplate, and many who are aware have resigned to the idea that there is nothing they can do about it all but try to survive, and for others the ” as long as i can get mine then I’ll go with the flow ” attitude prevails.
Where’s the southern district court of NY in all of this? If this resource is not on the committee it’s not happening.
If Obama had wanted to pursue a progressive agenda—banning foreclosures, jailing bankers, closing Guantánamo, stopping the wars, pushing for the public option he promised in his healthcare plan—he could have. He had ample political capital, yet he choses not to spend it.” – Ted Rall
no one sensibly “spends” capital, political or otherwise. The question is how to use it.
Why, it’s almost as if one set of crony capitalists left the White House in 2008, and a second, almost identical set moved in to replace them.
No, Mogden, it’s not two separate groups – it’s the same group, just additional members. The Crony Capitalist combine is very well-staffed, unlike the Mortgage Fraud Investigation unit.
I am sick to my stomach after reading how we’ve been deceived. If the working group is not in place and ready to take aggressive measures within 30 days then I can’t vote for Obama again. There’s lots of folks like me–we went door to door for O in 2008, held parties, blogged and donated money. No guarantees for future support if he doesn’t make good on part promises. Is anybody listening?
wow – that’s the only thing? He caved when he was a freshman.
I think it ’twas tort reform that first raised bile. By the time he appeared before AIPA,C he’d been throughly vetted and combed over, funded and so on.
Zzzzzzz
Really, the “knew all along” slogan’s a little off. The information was buried deep, and most of us work at something other than politics.
Of course, cooperatively hiring one of the many journalists working behind the counter at the neighborhood C-store is another idea, but it takes a lot of organization and swimming upstream. One still has to look for leaks in the stonewall/disinformation/distraction industry most of us need for data.
Uh…actually it’s not buried all that deep. It took me about two minutes back in 2008 to look up then candidate Obama’s contributors list. I saw Goldman Sachs at number one and stopped listening to his rhetoric and believing all the messianic BS everyone was spewing about him. It’s not all that hard to find this stuff out, if you really want to.
But I think we could all save a lot of time if we would just admit to the fact that ONLY elitist puppets are allowed to win national office. Holding high level national office should be considered PROOF of corruption and moral/ethical lassitude, regardless of political party and pretty rhetoric. Anyone who gives any national politician the benefit of the doubt at this point in our history needs to have their head examined. Until we’ve remade our political system we should take it as a given that no politician can be trusted, and none should be relied upon. Sure, they might do something positive once in awhile, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
It’s the final straw, not the only one.
“Is anybody listening?”
No.
Now what are you going to do?
This is what I’ve see the past decade: “Nyeah-nyeah. Look at what we can do, and you can’t do a damn thing about it.”
bushbama…I took entire precinct for him-sister accompanied Hillary-education
tour-China, saw Hillary bought and sold-as was Clinton..
bushbama can elect himself this time…NDAA, HB347, police state america..as Hedges states, the only excuse for all this-government is afraid of its’ own people…
Dude, it’s so obvious you are posting for the Romney campaign.
And I thought he’s posting for Kodos!
Your cynicism would be amusing if it weren’t so depressing. I couldn’t vote for Romney under any circumstances, but will cast a protest vote. Perhaps guessing at other’s motives is not the best use of your time.
Well, Romney would be better than Obama.
Then Democrats might save Social Security and Medicare rather than leading the charge to kill it. Same thing with the Endless Global Domination with War Crimes foreign policy. At least the Democrats would go back to pretending they opposed war crimes if it’s a Republican doing it.
The plutocrats power has always been in the lies they make us believe. They and their members and agents are great deceivers of mankind. All lies, liars and traitors are slowly being revealed. Once they lie or decieve they reveal who they are working for. These traitors are in both parties and have infiltrated and hijacked America and all branches of Government with a NEW WORLD ORDER ideology that is neither constitutional or legal. That includes Romney who is a war mongering, tax evading oligarch. I like Eliot Spitzer for third party candidate 2012. He is not perfect but either was J.F.K when it came to the ladies. We need a President who knows the rule of law and will see that the criminals are prosecuted.
I would vote for Spitzer as a third party candidate even if it was only a symbolic gesture.
The “hundreds of investigators” have been reassigned to the PLEY CLUB in Catagena, Columbia.
Quelle Surprise! Whocouldanode?
“It was pretty obvious Schneiderman had been had.”? No, your conclusion of a Faustian pact is inescapable. Eric’s deafening silence on this proves that, for his complicity, he’s exchanged his soul for a vast kingdom in hell, just under Lucifer’s apprentice, BHO. He’s been given a perfect soapbox to burnish his flagging polls, yet he remains conspicuously mum — zippered (or unzipped?).
Anyway, hooray, we have two new teapot tempests to keep us distracted from this 300th-plus BHO scandal — far more heinous ones, in fact, involving salacious sex and the misuse of up to (gasp!) ONE MEEELION tax dollars for drunken debauchery in Vegas. The Secret Service putas in Columbia and the GSA parties just scream for congressional kangaroo hearings and rolling heads, enough to keep the MSM trivia outlets busy 24/7 for another week or two.
Meanwhile, pay no attention at all to the trillion dollar amnesty bill for gang-banksters behind BHO’s Teflon curtain. Nothing to see and nothing worth mentioning. BHO’s re[s]election is such a lock, that he now feels perfectly free to flip his critics a stiff bird with smiling impunity.
Been trying to get in the swing of things since we did our time jump thingy again and have some shore leave time to…is it “blow”?….
Anyway, this money thing is taking some getting used to. My point of reference is I learned vacations are 10 million dollars. (thanks for that hint, Mrs President Obama)
So I figure if I beam over to Vegas and drop 1 million dollars in the slots, that’s not bad, especially since I don’t need to rentier a room and Scotty ‘ll just beam me back to my cabin.
Then I heard about the Columbia puta attraction. Usually we stop in to Risa when we are in the neighborhood (once you go Klingon you never hold back..hahaha) So I figure I’ll see how Columbian women…is it “stack up”?
Again, we don’t use money, the Risa women are just happy to see us, and we are certainly happy to see them! Funny too…one said once, “is that a phaser in your pocket…”.
So I figure if vacations are 10 million, then 1 million sounds about right to tip the puta sweetie.
But have go to now. Scotty says he’s got the coordinates of your Federal Reserve money vault and he’ll beam me down to pick up a little “mad money”.
I’ll get a holo of the puta sweetie too so I can share with all you folks when I get back!
A read of Ron Susskind’s book “Confidence Men” was very enlightening on the subject of Obama’s handling of the mortgage crisis. In a meeting with CEO’s of all 5 of the TBTF banks, at a time when he basically held their balls in his hand with the ability to slice off their bonuses and make their lives hell, he gave them a pass; something to the effect of “you’ll need to provide some PR cover”. That’s why “HAMP” was voluntary and of course did nothing.
That’s all we’ve gotten from this administration because the criminals are now in lockstep with the government. That’s why we’ve not seen investigation/indictments of the assholes who stole our money. It’s all PR with no substance. And we’re not likely to see any.
Ball cupping is a sign of affection. They are all friends: For example, Dimon and Barack are close, they shook hands *and* pressed chests together. Laughter is the only way to cure the delusions of “he coulda shoulda, he had da’ chance’, them guys blocked him, he shoulda coulda woulda, oh please wouldja now, please wouldja” FAIL!
Well, I guess if I were President Obama and had who knows how many million dollars in a bank, I would be a little cautious of making enemies.
I read a little bit about re-hypothication and it sounds like banks can just beam your money into thin air!
At least Obama hasn’t claimed the ability to order the killing of American citizens with no due process.
“Soon after his election, various military and political figures reported that Obama reportedly promised Bush officials in private that no one would be investigated or prosecuted for torture,” Professor Turley wrote.
Mr. Turley concludes, “In time, the election of Barack Obama may stand as one of the single most devastating events in our history for civil liberties.”
OF COURSE we made Schneiderman eat the vomlette, I ate the vomlette, EVERBODY has to eat the vomlette, THAT’S WHAT BROTHERHOOD IS!!! Now pull my trigger, I feel bad, uurlp, blpp.
Well-done, sir…and timely. May I have another?
Most awesome quote of the entire financial catastrophe, if you have some vague recall of your Winter Carnivals:
“And with that Paulson ducked into the private bathroom adjoining his office, closed the big paneled door, and audibly, violently, and repeatedly threw up. He emerged a moment later as if nothing had happened, but in a few minutes he did the same thing all over again. I asked if he wouldn’t rather stop, and resume our conversation another time. “That’s O.K.,” he said. “I’m just going to go through this all. I won’t remember it. You know, I barely remember the details now.”
In the months to come, I would think of Paulson’s perseverance in the face of gastric distress as a metaphor for the way he persevered through the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.”
( http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/10/henry-paulson200910 )
Gee, I wonder why Paulson pukes like a dog.
He’s a big guy too, those are three-eggers.
Only Vanity Fair would call this “the way he persevered.” I don’t have time to read the whole thing, but does it mention what he wore to the red carpet? Was that the issue with Paulson wearing a flowing gown, photographed by Annie Liebovits, on the cover?
Trust a Princeton Triangle chump like Purdum to totally miss the point. What could be a better metaphor for Paulson’s own financial crisis than an EPIC BOOT AND RALLY!
How is this surprising to anyone? D and R are merely teams playing on the field, in a stadium filled with rabid fans.
The owners box has a chummy camaraderie, as the plutocrats walk away with the money. Their supposed “differences” are merely for show, and the consumption of the fans in the stadium. The real objective is power, achieved with money by the acquisition of competitive advantage through government.
Want to make a change? Don’t buy a ticket to watch the game, nor support its corporate sponsors, nor vote to build the stadium with public funds in the first place.
Power, in this context, requires legitimacy. Remove your legitimate support from the plutocrats. Don’t believe in the system, and take actions that actually reflect that. Know that doing so will be hard. Opt-out.
Yep, exactly, distractions as the plundering continues.
I’m sure the Republicans will be all over this.
A group of homeowners who last week did a similar barrage of phone calls to the NY AG office to find out where to serve a “subpeona” or a “return receipt requested letter” to the “Mortgage Task Force” produced interesting results…..we did get one woman who read the “official talking points” but off the record, she told us that there was no such working group. She said she didn’t want to lie….and she watched as all the major news organizations broadcast that there was such a working group. She said that the announcement should have been on Nickelodeon as it was a cartoon.
However, after multiple calls to AAG Breuer’s office (being hung up on repeatedly) I got through to AG Holder’s office and actually got a Asst Deputy Chief arranging interviews with the Inspector General of the FHFA with myself and a few select foreclosure investigators…..so the heat is on.
FHFA-OIG Departmental Leadership
Office of Administration, Adam Silverman, Deputy Inspector General
(202) 730-4949
Office of Audits, Russell Rau, Deputy Inspector General
(202) 730-0385
Office of Evaluations, George Grob, Deputy Inspector General
(202) 730-0386
Office of Investigations, Chris Sharpley, Deputy Inspector General
(202) 730-0384
Executive Office, Steve A. Linick, Inspector General
(202) 730-0381
Executive Office, Michael Stephens, Principal Deputy Inspector General
(202) 730-0381
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! The New World Order Globalist pirates are disguised as Americans. They and their ideology have hijacked America and are very sneaky in how they are bankrupting the American people and stealing our Freedom, our Independence, our wealth, our prosperity and our National Sovereignty. The FED have imposed the unsustainable $1.2 quadrillion dollars in debt fraud that has been committed by their financiers onto the American people. The politicians are allowing this. This robbery is all being done unconstitutionally and illegally under many guises such as money lending, color of law, hypertaxation, skyrocketting utility bills, gas and food prices thanks to FED MONETARY POLICY. The FED owners have hijacked the U.S. and are robbing America blind by way of monopolization of everything including the U.S. GOVERNMENT. The truth is the FED FINANCIERS never lent anyone any money and the massive debt is all theirs and can never be repaid.
How is this any different than the story of Joseph Smith Jr, who in today’a Washington Post we learn was the only monitor the banks didn’t object to and who has stated in that same article that he doesn’t intend to hire a big staff and will rely on the Banks self reporting their own bad behavior. I’d post a link but it looks like your site blocks that.
CHANGING THE GAME RULES
It seems a cop-out, but, in an election year, it seems really ‘n truly stupid for a sitting PotUS to go after Wall Street.
Yes, yes, I know – it should have started earlier. But even that would have simply pushed the court trials into an election year.
Look, Obama did not create the political situation this year that allows SuperPAC funding of elections; our dysfunctional Supreme Court did that. A candidate may not like the game rules by which s/he may have to play an election, but they would be idiots not to obey them – which would lead to certain defeat.
Let’s also remember these simple facts:
*A PotUS newly elected remains beholden to their chances for a second-term. There are some things – though they would like to do them – they just cannot accomplish in the first term.
*Yet, in their second term they are free to do what they could not previously. Particularly if they have a Congressional majority on their side.
Let’s not forget that it was we, the sheeple, who stayed away from the mid-terms, that allowed a minority (48% of all voters) to push the T-Party into control of the HofR. This action alone was sufficient to take the wind out of Obama’s sails. The Replicants stonewalled ALL spending-legislation that could have a brought a quicker-end to the recession.
We all relish revenge upon those Wall Street Golden Boys for the havoc they wreaked upon us – from the SubPrime Mess to selling Toxic Waste as Triple-A “realty backed” debt to the Credit Mechanism Seizure of 2008 that provoked the Great Recession of 2009 and put thousands of innocent Americans out of house and home and a job.
MY POINT?
The best way to obtain that revenge, I submit, is not the courts – though I would not surrender that option either.
The best way is to elect progressives to Congress who will pass higher taxation rates on these rascals. Even to the point of raising inheritance-taxes so that they cannot bequeath their ill-gotten gains as Unearned Income to whomever. And thus claw-back some of the loot.
What will remedy the greed throughout the Business World? Much higher taxes on Marginal and Capital Gain Incomes. It takes the incentive that motivated TopManagement to callously game the Financial System.
Thanks for the pure Dem propaganda. Tax tinkering. Yeah, that’ll do it. A, uh, remedy, from a party that can’t can’t be bothered with ethical and legal imperatives such as Torture Convention Articles 12 and 16; or Article 23 of Hague Convention (IV) governing murder of prisoners and noncombatants; or Convention Against Corruption Articles 18 and 19 on abuse of function and trading in influence.
Non-sensical. If the POTUS would grow some balls, perhaps we would vote for him. Not I. I am voting 3rd Party all the way. If they do not put out a good candidate, I will write in Mickey Mouse.
Lmfao. What is this, 2006? 2008? It doesn’t sound like a cop-out, it is a cop-out. We tried things your way and it failed. That’s the biggest problem you folks have now. We *just* – like 4-6 years ago – did exactly what you now claim we need to do, and we didn’t get anything out of it. Obama and the Democrats sat there making excuses and doing nothing.
It’s hard to accept that you actually believe what you’re saying here. Doing what you suggest we do is what brought us to this point.
“A PotUS newly elected remains beholden to their chances for a second-term. There are some things – though they would like to do them – they just cannot accomplish in the first term.”
Nonsense. To other excellent responses, I would note that you inadvertently expose the heart of Obama’s treachery and deceit. First-term political triangulation (no change there, huh?) is a pathetic excuse for impotence, deceit, and cowardice, but that’s really beside the point.
It’s not what Obama FAILED to accomplish (facing mythical opposition from a zombie GOP in 09); it’s what he affirmatively, unilaterally pushed through without exigent external forces driving him (except Wall Street, AIPAC and the MIC). Witness his neoliberal cabinet appointments (incl. “Mr. NAFTA” Daley named as new COS after Emanuel, Mr. Outsource GE Immelt named as jobs czar, Gene Sperling after Summers), new mass-bailouts in 09 with bankster bonus protections, billionaire tax cut extensions, illegal war power grabs, the war on Libya, rigged trade, the death of single payer and public option, denial of habeas corpus, the expanded Patriot Act, expanded surveillance, tightened secrecy, attacks on whistleblowers, the illegal detention and torture of Bradley Manning … Blackwater, the Cat Food Commission, assassinations … arctic and deepwater drilling, cap and fade … fraudclosure settlement as amnesty for banksters …………………………………….
Fatigued yet? This list just goes interminably. In addition to his deliberate resuscitation of a comatose GOP in 2010 (how do you lose so many seats, incl. Kennedy’s seat without trying?), none of these “achievements” were forced on him. These were his pursuits; he was in the driver’s seat all the way. No honest, informed person could possibly defend such an Obysmal record of mal-achievement.
Next up on Obama’s agenda after reappointment in November: New Deal conerstones, Medicare and Social Security.
Doug Terpstra….Spot-on!
obama is the triumph of someone promoted and advanced thru his political career based not on experience, hard work and merit but instead whom he could find and seek out who were powerful, had influence, could be easily impressed and who would advance him
state senate, 4 years in the us senate then the white house
along the way his future secured by a multi million dollar book deal
it should therefore not surprise anyone that he displays a sense of self confidence to the point of entitlement while all the time seeming less and less in touch with reality and what people are thinking and feeling
he left his roots and where he came from behind
the only other similar model i see in washington is clarence thomas
I can’t think of two people more ideologically different than Obama and Thomas. But still, there is a similarity between the two.
Let me ponder …
Jim
You can pretty much forget about any investigation and/or prosecution coming from any governmental agency, unless by some miracle someone like Bill Black or Elliot Spitzer comes along.
The only hope for any investigation is civil class action lawsuits.
Most of the people who read NC probably don’t care much for Lerach and Milberg Weiss from the early 2000s, if they remember them at at all, but at least they did SOMETHING to uncover the rampant fraud in the tech stock world and Enron.
I’m not sure exactly why there haven’t been any class action lawsuits thus far. The 10b5 requirements have certainly been met.
It could be that Lerach himself was criminally prosecuted and jailed (and disbarred) after poking around Cheney and Halliburton, which would deter a lot of law firms. Or it could be that the injured plaintiffs are mostly institutional investors who of course are part of the system and don’t want to make waves.
But unless there is some sort of financial motive to go after the banks, nothing will ever happen.
(I found this interesting “eerily prescient warning” from 1995, when Lerach was testifying in Congress against the passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (an anti class-action law): “In 10 or 15 years you will be holding another hearing about a debacle in the securities market that will make you remember the S&L mess with fondness.”)
Ron Paul 2012 and vote out every encumbant in the house and Senate, then we got a shot at taking back our country
Yves,
In case you haven’t noticed: truthout.org changed the title of this piece when they reprinted it today. They took out “Obama” so it reads “Yet Another Big Lie.” Absolutely shameless.
I just discovered how we can cut a Trillion Dollars in one year! Watch this http://bit.ly/zz6Bmh