I Know Your Dirty Little Secret...

And I Think That It Is Time To Tell:

dlsxpatriate.blogspot.com

Spitzer's Media Enablers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120528114453028807.html

As State Attorney General, Spitzer served as the Bush admin's fall guy. The fall of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer holds many lessons, and the press will surely be examining them in coming months. But don't expect the press corps to delve into the biggest lesson of all -- its own role as his enabler.

Journalism has many functions, but perhaps the most important is keeping tabs on public officials. That duty is even more vital concerning government positions such as campaign contributor that are subject to few other checks and balances. Chief among those is the political operative, who can use his awesome state power to attack, frame, even destroy, innocent private citizens.

Yet from the start, the press corps acted as an adjunct of Spitzer's power, rather than a skeptic of it. Many journalists get into this business because they want to see wrongs righted. Mr. Spitzer portrayed himself as the moral avenger. He was the slayer of the big guy, the fat cat, the Wall Street titan -- all allegedly on behalf of the little guy, heheh, heheh. The press ate it up, and came back for more.

New York Stock Exchange caretaker CEO John Reed suggested Mr. Spitzer hadn't told the truth. The press never investigated.

The press would do well to meditate on that, and consider how many violations they winked at and validated over the years. Politicians don't exist to be idolized by the press, at least not by any press corps doing its job.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0801.torture.html

yada, yada, yada, politics has dirty money in it. i watch THE WIRE. what i want to know is: will POST reveal cust.# 1 - 8 - thru end? so the public can see who else is involved in this whole sorted mess. we must root out anyone in a power position that supports stuff like this. let the sun shine on these guys and let them be driven from any position of leadership they may hold. did you guys post the whole vitter list? well anyway this is a short list. and is this not funny that it was exposed as bush fired ANOTHER military guy for going off the res.? that is a big story burried and another half explored.

There are a lot of details missing about this story and more needs to be done about who the other customers are, and where or what industry, political, or their business interests, etc...

It was on a blog that the Maryland DOJ's fired and KILLED (yes folks...killed) investigating the DC Madam sex scandal ring had a familiar Governor in the midst of getting serviced..was the GOP Maryland Governor Ehrlich. Luna was MURDERED and 30 days later, the only other atty on the case was fired. His name was DiBiagio.

So, is the Spitzer bust part of the DC madam scandal that Vitter was busted for?

Because it was said Cheney had the other Maryland DOJ fired. Ehrlich, a nice friend to the Gas LNG tanker terminal approvals (same companies as Mass Romney and Florida Jeb Bush)was up for re-election.

If it is true, honestly, let's find the other DOJ atty who was fired and is still alive...There was two other DEATHS of DOJ attys in Texas-Medicare FRAUD billions of dollars in Ca, Ks, Tx and Mo. The Texas Chief atty was drowned the DAY BEFORE her subcommittee testimony against Novation and Tenet health care...

It required the approval of the US attorney general for Spitzer to be wire tapped. Am I the only one to wonder if the approval would have been forthcomming if stitzer had benn a republican?

It is claimed that we are a nation of laws. If so, the Spitzer resignation if approprate. If we are a nation of laws, why is Bush still president?

As exemplified by Theloneconsumer, there's a conspiracy theorist in every crowd.

At least Spitzer had the decency to resign after the scandal broke. Slick Willie--I mean Bill Clinton--disgraced the office of the Presidency. He got his legacy though: Monica. I wonder if Hillary would be doing better in the Presidential race if she had divorced him.

Maybe the Democrats are waking up to the notion that people are responsible for their actions, and not victims of society or "vast right-wing conspiracies? Nah.

WHAT IS REALLY BEHIND THE SPITZER REVELATION :

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked
By Greg Palast
Reporting for Air America Radio's Clout

Listen to Palast on Clout at www.GregPalast.com

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an 'escort' $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush's new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there's a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush's man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke's Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks' mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers' bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer's lynching and the bankers' enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

The press has swallowed Wall Street's line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn't afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That's blaming the victim.

Here's what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the 'sub-prime' mortgage and it's variants including loans with teeny "introductory" interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called 'Countrywide' became America's top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chuck of these 'sub-prime.'

Here's how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 a month payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain't worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the "discount" they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. Grinnings move into their Toyota.

Now, what kind of American is 'sub-prime.' Guess. No peeking. Here's a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren't stupid - they had no choice. They were 'steered' as it's called in the mortgage sharking business.

'Steering,' sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called 'fraudulent conveyance' or 'predatory lending' under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.

But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hardy - 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."

What that means is that they took a bunch of junk mortgages, like the Grinnings, loans about to go down the toilet and re-packaged them into "tranches" of bonds which were stamped "AAA" - top grade - by bond rating agencies. These gold-painted turds were sold as sparkling safe investments to US school district pension funds and town governments in Finland (really).

When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers were left with bonuses. Countrywide's top man, Angelo Mozilo, will 'earn' a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion dollars - he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.

But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide's stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.

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 bail-out. 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.

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

"Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which he federal government was turning a blind eye."

Bush, said Spitzer right in the headline, was the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime." The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, "When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably."

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story - of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all - now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

A note on "Prosecutorial Indiscretion."

Back in the day when I was an investigator of racketeers for government, the federal prosecutor I was assisting was deciding whether to launch a case based on his negotiations for airtime with 60 Minutes. I'm not allowed to tell you the prosecutor's name, but I want to mention he was recently seen shouting, "Florida is Rudi country! Florida is Rudi country!"

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 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.'

************
Greg Palast, former investigator of financial fraud, is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

It's whole SORDID mess...not whole "sorted" mess....lol.

If they had "sorted," they wouldn't HAVE a mess, as the money shortages would have been caught a whole lot sooner.

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Not a comment intended to favor Mr. Spitzer, his stupidity brought him his deserves. However, some articles now coming out are showing the Government (Justice Department) really pushed hard on this investigation and more so than on other prostitue/political situations.

Giving consideration on how little interest the Justice Department has with their own party problems areas and the intense investigations and subsquent proscutions of wall street Republicans while New York States Attorney, why such hard work to prove a New York politican (Democrat) was dinking a prostitute. We've just recently has a couple Republican Congressmen forced to admit to the same type activities with no or little Department investigations or at least Public exposure or the same. Has the Justice department taken advantage of Mr. Spitzers situations to play a little politics??