Any time one of my Democratic friends gets bent out of shape by Trump's criminality, or his sexual predation, I have to remind them how Clinton and Obama paved the way for legitimizing those things.
Perhaps the worst is Obama (see the Twitter thread below). Not only did he not prosecute the war crimes of Bush 43/Cheney, he promoted the torturers and prosecuted the whistle blowers (more than all previous administrations combined).
But to really appreciate the corruption of the Obama administration, one has to compare its behavior with the previous biggest-ever bank scandal, the Savings & Loans. At its time, the S&Ls was the biggest scandal in American history, in terms of dollars, people involved, amount of theft... you name it. So what happened during Reagan / Bush 41? Answer: The regulators did their jobs. They filed 30,000+ referrals for criminal prosecution, and the Justice Dept. prosecuted 1200+ cases with a 90% conviction rate. They got really big fish, too: Mike Milken and Charles Keating among them.
Fast forward to the scandal Obama inherited, the subprime/derivatives scandal enabled by Clinton's deregulation of Wall Street. The latest bank scandal was about 70 times larger than the S&Ls. Just bailing out a single bank (IndyMAC in Southern California) cost more than the entire S&L bailout.
So...how many referrals for criminal prosecution from the Obama regulators? Answer: zero!
The crookedest Attorney General in American history, Eric Holder, prosecuted about a dozen cases, all small fish. Instead, he chose to settle with the malefactors in what is perhaps the largest theft in human history--U.S. net worth declined 40% in the wake of Lehman's bankruptcy--for dimes on the dollar of their loot. These cost-of-doing-business fines included no admission of guilt, so the civil cases against the thieves were harder to prosecute.
So any time someone asks me whether I'd vote for Joe Biden, I have to respond "What difference would it make?"
Recommended reading: Thomas Frank's Listen Liberal: Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?
Perhaps the worst is Obama (see the Twitter thread below). Not only did he not prosecute the war crimes of Bush 43/Cheney, he promoted the torturers and prosecuted the whistle blowers (more than all previous administrations combined).
But to really appreciate the corruption of the Obama administration, one has to compare its behavior with the previous biggest-ever bank scandal, the Savings & Loans. At its time, the S&Ls was the biggest scandal in American history, in terms of dollars, people involved, amount of theft... you name it. So what happened during Reagan / Bush 41? Answer: The regulators did their jobs. They filed 30,000+ referrals for criminal prosecution, and the Justice Dept. prosecuted 1200+ cases with a 90% conviction rate. They got really big fish, too: Mike Milken and Charles Keating among them.
Fast forward to the scandal Obama inherited, the subprime/derivatives scandal enabled by Clinton's deregulation of Wall Street. The latest bank scandal was about 70 times larger than the S&Ls. Just bailing out a single bank (IndyMAC in Southern California) cost more than the entire S&L bailout.
So...how many referrals for criminal prosecution from the Obama regulators? Answer: zero!
The crookedest Attorney General in American history, Eric Holder, prosecuted about a dozen cases, all small fish. Instead, he chose to settle with the malefactors in what is perhaps the largest theft in human history--U.S. net worth declined 40% in the wake of Lehman's bankruptcy--for dimes on the dollar of their loot. These cost-of-doing-business fines included no admission of guilt, so the civil cases against the thieves were harder to prosecute.
So any time someone asks me whether I'd vote for Joe Biden, I have to respond "What difference would it make?"
Recommended reading: Thomas Frank's Listen Liberal: Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?
[Thread] Obama years, in no particular order .... pic.twitter.com/jCdg0m8liU— Esha🌹🌷🌹 (@eshaLegal) December 19, 2017
No comments:
Post a Comment
One of the objects if this blog is to elevate civil discourse. Please do your part by presenting arguments rather than attacks or unfounded accusations.