President Obama’s view of fraud “from 40,000 feet”

[Huey P. Long]

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[izquierdista]

1. This is who should be Attorney General

Not Eric "Who's Holding Weed" Holder.

[Autumn]

2. Bradley Manning comes to mind Sir

" Well, I think you're absolutely right in your interpretation. And, you know, I can't, as President of the United States, comment on the decisions about particular prosecutions. That's the job of the Justice Department. And we keep those things separate, so that there's no political influence on decisions made by professional prosecutors."

I guess it all depends on what or who is being prosecuted

[emulatorloo]

5. There is a difference between military and civilian prosecution

So you are comparing apples and oranges.

Military people take an oath and work for the government.

Should Obama have said what he did about Manning? No probably not.

[Autumn]

6. Yes there is a difference

and this was what I commented on "Well, I think you're absolutely right in your interpretation. And, you know, I can't, as President of the United States, comment on the decisions about particular prosecutions."

[Whisp]

3. As if Obama would talk about ongoing investigations.

Like he kept us all in the loop for 2 years on the status of the search for Bin Laden.

[kenny blankenship]

4. From here it looks so peaceful. A lotta fuss over nuthin

[Huey P. Long]

7. Obama and the Rule of Law

Obama and the Rule of Law
Posted: 12/19/11 01:55 PM ET

Long silent and now contradictory, President Obama needs to deliver a clarifying speech about our financial markets and the rule of law. Speaking in Kansas on December 6, he said, "Too often, we've seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there's no price for being a repeat offender." Just five days later on 60 Minutes, he said, "Some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street wasn't illegal." Which is it? Have there been no prosecutions because Wall Street acted legally (albeit unethically)? Or did Wall Street repeatedly violate major anti-fraud laws (and should thus find itself in the dock)?

The President is confusing "legal" with "difficult to prosecute successfully." The Justice Department's repeated decisions not to risk losing at trial against Wall Street executives don't make these person's actions legal. (If a district attorney can't prove the actual thief stole your wallet, that doesn't make stealing legal. It simply means that, regrettably, a malefactor goes unpunished.) As Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said in Senate testimony in 2009, Wall Street perpetrators "are smart people who understand that they are crossing the line" and "are plotting their defense at the same time they're committing their crime."


Moreover, the President is misleading us when he says that Wall Street firms violate anti-fraud law because the penalties are too weak. Repeat financial fraudsters don't pay relatively paltry -- and therefore painless -- penalties because of statutory caps on such penalties. Rather, regulatory officials, appointed by Obama, negotiated these comparatively trifling fines. This week, the F.D.I.C. settled a suit against Washington Mutual officials for just $64 million, an amount that will be covered mostly by insurance policies WaMu took out on behalf of executives, who themselves will pay just $400,000. And recently a federal judge rejected the S.E.C.'s latest settlement with Citigroup, an action even the Wall Street Journal called "a rebuke of the cozy relationship between regulators and the regulated that too often leaves justice as an orphan."

The Obama Justice Department hasn't tried a single Wall Street executive in a criminal court. Against a handful, it decided to let the S.E.C. bring civil charges of fraud, which are easier to prove. So if defendants' wrists are merely being slapped by the S.E.C. instead of cuffed by the Justice Department, Obama has only his appointees to blame.

full-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-connaughton/obama-wall-street-laws_b_1157915.html?ref=email_share

[T S Justly]

8. Down goes Frazier ... I mean Barack O'Bush. K&R (nt)

[SixthSense]

9. The truth was told once

When Obama told the banksters that he was all that was standing in between them and the pitchforks, he was 100% correct.

That is the position you are in when you are protecting them!

[Huey P. Long]

10. Take Back the Land Rochester Moves a Homeless Family Into a Vacant Bank Owned Home

Take Back the Land Rochester Moves a Homeless Family Into a Vacant Bank Owned Home

Uploaded by blackcatfilmsltd on Dec 21, 2011

Since September of 2008, Take Back the Land Rochester has been defending homes against foreclosure and liberating empty bank owned homes by moving homeless families into them. Recently they moved in another family into a home, taking them off the streets and giving their family and health a chance to survive.

Take Back the Land Rochester Moves a Homeless Family Into a Vacant Bank Owned Home

[Huey P. Long]

11. Toil Index

22 Dec 2011 09:39 AM Chart Of The Day

http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e20162fe26f749970d-800wi

Ezra Klein asked economists and politicians to submit their favorite charts. Here's Robert Frank's submission:

My entry is the attached graph of what I call the Toil Index. It's an index I constructed to portray the most dramatic element of the middle-class squeeze -- the effort required to rent a house served by a school of average quality.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/chart-of-the-day-5.html

[Huey P. Long]

12. The watchdogs that didn't bark

Special Report: The watchdogs that didn't bark

By Scot Paltrow
Thu Dec 22, 2011 8:17am EST
(Reuters) - Four years after the banking system nearly collapsed from reckless mortgage lending, federal prosecutors have stayed on the sidelines, even as judges around the country are pointing fingers at possible wrongdoing.

The federal government, as has been widely noted, has pressed few criminal cases against major lenders or senior executives for the events that led to the meltdown of 2007. Finding hard evidence has proved difficult, the Justice Department has said.

The government also hasn't brought any prosecutions for dubious foreclosure practices deployed since 2007 by big banks and other mortgage-servicing companies.

But this part of the financial system, a Reuters examination shows, is filled with potential leads. Foreclosure-related case files in just one New York federal bankruptcy court, for example, hold at least a dozen mortgage documents known as promissory notes bearing evidence of recently forged signatures and illegal alterations, according to a judge's rulings and records reviewed by Reuters. Similarly altered notes have appeared in courts around the country.


full=
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/22/us-foreclosures-idUSTRE7BL0MC20111222

[Huey P. Long]

13. A Banker Speaks, With Regret

A Banker Speaks, With Regret
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: November 30, 2011

If you want to understand why the Occupy movement has found such traction, it helps to listen to a former banker like James Theckston. He fully acknowledges that he and other bankers are mostly responsible for the country’s housing mess.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/opinion/kristof-a-banker-speaks-with-regret.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all