As those of us who still believe those silly "rights" our Founders put in the Constitution push to investigate and prosecute the Bush/Cheney crowd for their crimes, we have other criminals still running around free in the private and public sector.
1.Why isn\'t Bernie Madoff behind bars?
2.Why hasn\'t Congress thrown Roland Burris out of the Senate on his lying ass?
3.Why hasn\'t Fitzgerald reeled in Blago yet, instead of letting him run around giving interviews and signing book contracts?
4.Why hasn\'t the Attorney General Holder filed scores of civil recovery actions to reclaim for taxpayers the billions in excess salary and bonuses pocketed by the people who lost/squandered the life savings of millions of Americans?
5.Why hasn\'t Congress or the administration introduced and passed legislation requiring the above?
6.Why haven\'t Wall Street wheeler dealers who got us into this mess been fired and/or indicted instead of bailed out?
7.Why is it that only ordinary citizens are feeling the full impact of the chaos these movers and shakers caused?
In short, why are the very people whose actions ignited a worldwide depression still sitting pretty, at least compared to their victims? (That would now include taxpayers.)
I don\'t know about you, but I want the administration and Congress to do two things at once; start repairing the damage cause by hurricane Bush, and punish the few -- maybe as few as 100 -- individuals, like Mazillo, Madoff, Sanford et al, who aided, abetted and profited at the expense of everyone else.
Because if we just clean up the mess and don\'t also make an example of the people who caused it, we\'ll be cleaning up another mess in few years. I know this is true because this is the third financial meltdown I\'ve covered in less than 25 years.. 1) The S&L mess, 2) The Dot-Com mess, and 3) Now this one.
Each had the same things in common, including some of the very same actors; loose to non-existent regulations and/or enforcement, phony-baloney accounting methods that allowed a handful of bankers, borrowers, Wall Street firms and accounting firms to pocket billions, all of which eventually collapsed under the weight of its own bullshit costing average investors and average taxpayers billions ... and this time around, trillions of dollars.
As they used to say in the old west, there\'s nothing like a noose to focus one\'s attention.
Alternet.org
Answer to all of the above:
"Laissez faire"
I would add. INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. Just because you are CHARGED with a crime does not make you immediately guilty of said crime. Now we can argue all day long about whether or not these people are guilty but we in te USA have a set of rules in place for trying and convicting people of crimes.
madoff has yet to be convicted and as such should remain free unless a compelling argument can be made that he is a flight risk or risk to community. They same way you or I would be assessed. Punishing people for crimes prior to trial is not very American.
Has Blago even been indited yet ? Last time I checked he hadn\'t been charged with any crime. He has been removed etc as Gov but have they actually leveled any charges against him yet ? And even still see above
Many of the things you are railing against ie. corporate bailout monies etc, had no strings attached. The Government basically said here is all this money go ahead and do what you think is best. They are now attempting to add those strings but They CANNOT create ex post facto laws that would criminalize something that was perfectly legal at the time (retroactively)
I agree wholeheartedly about the previous administration. It is what makes me cycnical about the whole process. The president and his people break laws, people get pissed. New administration comes in and they ALWAYS say I don\'t want to be looking to the past etc. What they really mean is I don\'t want to prosecute these folks as it may be miy turn in the next 4 - 8 years.
It happened with Nixon, it happened with Reagen and it has happened with Bush. No US president or high ranking offiicial will ever be held accountable to the same laws as the citizens. They are basically above the law even tho people will foam at the mouth telling you otherwise. They are never held accountable, they start BS wars, kill hundreds of thousands, sell drugs, funnel money to terrorists / freedom fighters etc etc etc. They all walk only sometimes to low level guys go down and even then they are usually pardoned by the out going Pres. ala Ollie North and all the other traitors.
