TIME MACHINE: Eliot Spitzer was suing Countrywide on PREDATORY mortgage practices

[BrainStorm]

In retrospect, the Spitzer firing makes demonic sense, and Spitzer was a frigging hero:


GREG PALAST: From earlier this year
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/


"...But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hearty – it was OK now to steer’m, fake’m, charge’m and take’m.

But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.

Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush’s regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of “federal pre-emption,” Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce their consumer protection laws.

Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block Spitzer’s investigation of ugly racial mortgage steering. Bush’s banking buddies were especially steamed that Spitzer hammered bank practices across the nation using New York State laws.

Spitzer not only took on Countrywide, he took on their predatory enablers in the investment banking community. Behind Countrywide was the Mother Shark, its funder and now owner, Bank of America. Others joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup’s Citibank made mortgage usury their major profit centers. They did this through a bit of financial legerdemain called “securitization.”..."

Read the whole article. If we had known then what we know now....

[Muttocracy]

1. I was so thrilled when Spitzer took office. Wish he'd had better self-control. Sigh. nt

[izquierdista]

2. Wish Americans had better self-control

Were Spitzer any nationality other than American or British, his romps with call girls would barely be newsworthy.

[BrainStorm]

5. Actually, they weren't even newsworthy by American standards. Spitzer was brought down

"Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.

The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.

Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value. Mozilo’s Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The Citi sheiks saw their company’s stock rise $10 billion in an afternoon.

And that very same day the bail-out was decided – what a coinkydink! – the man called, ‘The Sheriff of Wall Street’ was cuffed. Spitzer was silenced.

Do I believe the banks called Justice and said, “Take him down today!” Naw, that’s not how the system works. But the big players knew that unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was “Wall Street Declares War on Spitzer” - made clear to Bush’s enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden."

http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

[BrainStorm]

4. Joe, read the article first before you go blaming Spitzer. (He was targeted)

"Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”

Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.

Or maybe we should say, 'indiscretion.'"

http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

[Muttocracy]

6. I'm not saying it's fair, but after Clinton, Spitzer should have known they'd go after him. nt

[BrainStorm]

7. I honestly don't care about anyone getting a hooker and neither do TPTB

They wanted him gone.

[BrainStorm]

3. The day Spitzer was brought down, Bernanke gave a 200 Billion bailout to bankers

Add that to the 800 billion bailout last week and the additional 150Bn that Pelosi has asked for and we are talking about 1 TRILLION 150 Billion DOLLARS to bankers!

(And not one homeowner bailed out.)

[Irish Girl]

8. k&r

:kick:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

9. Well, he should have had the barest decency to NOT BE A JOHN!!

I mean, goddamnit, how HARD was it to NOT BUY A WOMAN'S BODY TO BOLSTER YOUR MASCULINITY??!!? :banghead:

I put him right up there with Bill Clinton in the pantheon of "Democratic men who fucked our country over for a cheap thrill".

[Iodine99]

10. Eliot Spitzer

I believe that Spitzer was targeted because we allowed BUSH and COMRADES and our government to listen to anything they wanted to. I had read before that he was targeted because of something he said about Bush.

Read Character by Gail Sheehey - she says that GHWB was true to Barbara until the 70's.
Read The Family by Kitty Kelley - more about the sex lives of the Bush family

Talk to people in Houston - they have been talking about GHWB and Jennifer Fitzgerald for years.
Go to Wikipedia. That family is bad in my opinion.

I am a Christian who believes we should live like the Bible says.

And, worse than sex - GOOGLE the Bush family and Rev Soon Moon.

By the way. George W Bush - is not from Texas - he is from Connecticut. He is not a cowboy. So don't ever say he is from Texas.

[aikoaiko]

11. sadly, he was willing to risk his important public service to fuck a whore.

All heros have failings, but not fucking a prostitute is pretty easy not to do.