Beyond Sleazy Details and Moral-Come-Uppance: Why Spitzer Matters

Another spin - Not just Spitzer but anyone else who might kick up a fuss.

baltimorechronicle.com...

What is interesting, however, is why the security apparat didn't keep the prostitution angle under wraps. They could have used it as leverage for years to "guide" Spitzer toward the "correct" policies as he made his national ascent. Maybe somebody just had a grudge against him. Or perhaps -- more likely -- Spitzer's fall was engineered as a warning (or a reminder) to even higher figures to play ball, or else. "Just remember: anyone can be gotten to, and we won't hesitate to do it. Go ahead and play the game, pander to your base, use any kind of rhetoric you want, nobody cares about all that. But when push comes to shove, you better support the interests of the imperial-corporate complex, or you are going down. You savvy?"

reply to post by kosmicjack


Waaa Waaa Waaa...the guy is a bum, glad he is out!

reply to post by traderonwallst


Come on Trader...don't you even want to play my fun CT game? As a local, a finance type and most likely a conservative, I am sure you have lots of insight.

The whole thing is outrageous and people brushing it off are fools. First off, we all choose which laws we break, and the reasons are 2. first off we are all adults and are the final judges of what in life is wrong or right for us, and that is absolute. Secondly, in a country pushing towards fascism, one of the steps is to criminalize all people, so when you need to take anyone out there is a legitimate reason, such as happened here. Im sure most of us can be bankrupted and locked in prison simply for the contents of our computers, and there really is no morality involved there. Nor is there any morality involved in engaging in consensual adult sex, except for the morality those two people choose for themselves. Im sure all of us do things we think are right that others think are horrible...personally i think forcing a religion upon a child with no ability to understand reality yet is a horrible offense, yet many people feel perfectly fine committing this horror of choosing the childs beliefs for them.
So i agree with the questioner of this article....Our governments actions are not to be questioned or you will be taken down. I am a buddhist and a pacifist, yet i truly believe that the people involved in both the war, and the destruction of americans lives due to this financial debacle all deserve to be killed so future rulers and corporate leaders will know not to repeat these mistakes.
Our tax dollars are going to bail out billionaires who so badly managed their businesses that not only are they bankrupt, but millions of familys are losing homes. And how much of our tax dollars are going to bail out the millions of familys losing homes???? zilch. I think if this was truly a representative government, and we could vote on that, it would be the other way around. Just like in New Orleans, hundreds of billions of dollars went to help in Katrina....and how much of that went to government lackey building companies??? All of it....and how much to the victims of Katrina? BUTKISS!!!
Our tax dollars are being spent to keep the billionaires rich, even as they lose our country....and when we are all poor but the upper crust...how much of OUR tax dollars are going to help us out? I think we all know the answer to that.
Its time we take out our government, its time we take out the federal reserve, its time we take out the fortune 500 (make no mistake, thats where it all starts), and until we do we will continue to lose and decline. But dont look for it to happen until the middle class is totally gone, and the lower class can no longer afford its alcohol or cable bills....so i'd give it another 10-15 years.

reply to post by jmdewey60


look up Kremlin intel.. they have allot of info on American capitalists and their true agendas..

Liveleak was where it was reported...great site for the real news of the world...


Take care..

The Bank reported suspicious charges ... why? this is the Governer of NY I am sure the Bank knows this.. its so obvious he was being watched..

Originally posted by buddhasystem
...He was not framed, the facts are there and the timeline of the investigastion (re: money transfers) is quite credible.

Ahh yes what about those facts you mention? Those questioning his structured offshore financial activities, (said "tens of thousands of dollars") - could you could give me an affidavit link to them so I can examine them?

LOL, and where BTW is McCain's lobbyist blonde-tart story? Where are his news helicopters chasing his motorcade down the ‘road to the Whitehouse?’ How is it that similar 'facts' (see above) which paint a sitting US Senator and Presidential contender as selling favors for favors doesn't register on the old MSNBC/CNN? What no Federal/IRS financial investigation uncovering sex? No worries he denies it all.

Bloomberg will be/running for NY Governor by Jan, 2010 with (me and my wife both had lengthy separate affairs) Patterson taking some form of dive.







[edit on 18-3-2008 by scrapple]

Originally posted by kosmicjack
Another spin - Not just Spitzer but anyone else who might kick up a fuss.

I think you have hit the head of the issue here KJ. Just stop and think on it; - a prosecutorial State Governor, popularly elected by the people of his state removes himself with no apparent plea deal on the table in less than (2) days of public pressure?

This man was removed, period. Aside from all the moral titillation, investigations, government allegation, and kabuki apology, a past, present and FUTURE thorn of the current establishment was effectively knee-capped.

Was his own weakness used to achieve this act - so it seems. Will there be a trial with evidence in an official court to evaluate the gain/loss for the electorate - probably never.

Originally posted by thefreepatriot
The Bank reported suspicious charges ... why? this is the Governer of NY I am sure the Bank knows this.. its so obvious he was being watched..

Excellent and timely post here Freepatriot,

- to which I might add that if said bank was JP Morgan or Bear Sterns hypothetically speaking, then the FEDS ownership / Bush administration collusion would make the whiff of political 'targeting' interestingly circular wouldn't you agree.

NOT that I am advocating that Spitz shouldn't be caught for funding an illegal fight against Hezbollah via 2000 dollar a pop donations to the Emperors Club - but until a trial with EVIDENCE is achieved its simply the 'banks' word, and that of this current administration's and its agents.



[edit on 18-3-2008 by scrapple]

The hipocrisy is so monolithic I can't even bear to think of it. Name a polititian who HASN'T enjoyed the company of a hooker-it's all insane. The false moral outrage is what irks me the most because Americans are trained to be sexual puritans and have all manner of explicit imagery shoved at them from an early age-it makes us kind of schitzoid about sex. All those creeps running him out of office are more than likely doing the same thing-when the "public" stops pretending to give a shiite about hookers and all that garbage, maybe effective public servants can do their jobs and still support the sex industry, with no fallout.

To me that is what this boils down to, wether or not his ousting was by design, which I would agree is entirely possible, the stupid stupid STUPID "sexcrime" scandal really needs to be put to rest as a valid excuse to blackmail.

[edit on 18-3-2008 by Pilot]

A few related news items in regards to Spitzer:

US defends tough tactics on Spitzer

“If the government gets a Suspicious Activity Report about a high-ranking public official, they would be negligent not to pursue it, if only to determine whether there was bribery or extortion involved,” said Robert D. Luskin, a defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor. Mr. Luskin said that as the case proceeds, the more difficult questions could well involve how the information about Mr. Spitzer became public and whether the government “will prosecute Spitzer if it doesn’t prosecute others in the same situation.”

I think this article is actually of more importance:

Unintended Consequences: Spitzer got snagged by the fine print of the Patriot Act

When Congress passed the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, law-enforcement agencies hailed it as a powerful tool to help track down the confederates of Osama bin Laden. No one expected it would end up helping to snag the likes of Eliot Spitzer. The odd connection between the antiterror law and Spitzer's trysts with call girls illustrates how laws enacted for one purpose often end up being used very differently once they're on the books.

He was caught by an anti-terror law. How interesting. There's more:

The Patriot Act gave the FBI new powers to snoop on suspected terrorists. In the fine print were provisions that gave the Treasury Department authority to demand more information from banks about their customers' financial transactions. Congress wanted to help the Feds identify terrorist money launderers. But Treasury went further. It issued stringent new regulations that required banks themselves to look for unusual transactions (such as odd patterns of cash withdrawals or wire transfers) and submit SARs—Suspicious Activity Reports—to the government.

Another element of the formulas: whether an account holder was a "politically exposed person." At first focused on potentially crooked foreign officials, the PEP lists expanded to include many U.S. politicians and public officials who were conceivably vulnerable to corruption.

He may not have been exclusively targeted, but he was certainly singled out by the FBI as the first article mentions.

reply to post by biggie smalls


Biggie you are so right.

ATS members frequently express moral outrage about the civil rights-stomping effect of the Patriot act. However, when it rounds up someone they despise, they are relatively quiet. More hypocracy.

Everyone should be concerned about how these events regarding Spitzer have played out. Astonishingly, it has dropped off the MSM radar except to cover the hooker's stellar ascent to 15 minutes of stardom. We will probably never know the exact intent or full scope of the investigation and there will likely be no other developments. The PTB have already achieved their goal.

I don't understand why he had to resign because of this. Him banging prostitutes has nothing to do with his job. He should face legal consequences sure, but I don't see why he had to resign. Why not give him the same penalty any other american would receive for seeing a prostitute,(and I don't mean VD) allow him to keep his job, and let him sort out his personal life on his own behind closed doors?

reply to post by ThePiemaker


The reality is Johns are almost never prosecuted. Spitzer was forced to resign as part of a bigger agenda.

When I first heard of Spitzer's downfall, the first thing I thought was that it had something to do with money. I didn't know how to make that connection, but history is a good teacher and these type of things always - without exception - involve money.

That Spitzer was a bit of a slime is not surprising. We know that every politician has a little dirt on his hands. But what is interesting and makes this a bitter tale is that Spitzer was really going after some the biggest slime balls that have ever graced the shores of the United States. He really wanted them to pay for their crimes!

Such a sad story, really. Saying, "He should have known better." doesn't cut it. Nobody is perfect. What Spitzer did cannot be excused. What he was doing toward curbing rampant Wall Street corruption could have helped hundreds of millions of Americans. All he needed was for the Federal Prosecutor to have been his friend. Too bad he wasn't.

reply to post by kosmicjack


I thought you might some more news on this subject:

Beach man told FBI of alleged Spitzer sexscapades

Stone is a Spitzer enemy, which makes this article very very interesting.

Almost four months before Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ''used the services of high-priced call girls'' while in Florida.

The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from ''a social contact in an adult-themed club.'' It offered one potentially identifying detail: the man in question hadn't taken off his calf-length black socks ``during the sex act.''

Stone, known for shutting down the 2000 presidential election recount effort in Miami-Dade County, is a longtime Spitzer nemesis whose political experience ranges from the Nixon White House to Al Sharpton's presidential campaign. His lawyer wrote the letter containing the call-girl allegations after FBI agents had asked to speak to Stone, though he says the FBI did not specify why he was contacted.

Stone had connections to this prostitution ring. How else would he know?

That is a very interesting article but it really leaves me with more questions. Was this guy out for Spitzer for all these year? Was he, as it would seem obvious, involved in the prostitution ring directly? This thing just might blow up if it is messy enough with too many hangers-on and loose ends. Maybe the Bushies won't get away with this after all...

Spitzer got was was coming to him. The wheel keeps turning and this time it came up on his number. He lived in a glass house and yet made his living throwing stones. He lived by the sword and was so arrogant he forgot he could die by the sword.

Crusaders should keep their noses clean. He broke the same laws he prosecuted other for breaking and he was brought down. Spin it any way you want. Justice was served.

There is a lot of material to digest here. You folks touch on each aspect and leaving waiting for the other show to drop. You're killing me here . I can;t wait for some enterprising person to accumulate a comprehensive collection of 'potential connections' between Spitzer's downfall and 9/11 - international banking - Zionist retaliation (oy) - organized crime - Trilateral commission - Carlyle Group - CFR - etc.!

Thanks for posting!

In light of what has happened this past week and, specifically the proposed bail-out, maybe ATS should revisit this topic.

Surely more can be determined about the investigation surrounding Spitzer, which BTW went nowhere, with no repercussions other than to embarrass and remove the biggest Wall St. watchdog and consumer advocate in the nation. It was very possibly a set up to remove the biggest obstacle to routing the market - Spitzer.

Remember - it was a stretching of the Patriot Act that allowed for the wire tap that revealed the little secret that brought him down. The proposed bail-out is little more than a the financial industry's version of the Patriot Act.