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

Regardless of one's opinion on his morals or ethics, it is a fact that Eliot Spitzer was often the only voice speaking out against corporate greed and corruption on Wall Street. Why would someone with such power and influence, as well as everything to lose - his family - exercise such a colossal lack of judgment? He probably wouldn't. The reality is, he assumed a certain amount of protection and immunity from either discovery or prosecution.

The question needs to be asked: He has been participating in these activities for 8 to 10 years, so why is it only now being used against him? People knew, people always know. People didn't used to care but now they do. It would lead one to believe that it was a successful working arrangement - until now. Why do deals go wrong? It's always about the money.

The take-down of Spitzer, the Sheriff of Wall Street, was followed quickly by the Fed bail-out of certain lenders and the collapse of BearStearns this weekend. It's time to really pay attention, as things will likely happen quickly during this next round of the fleecing of America. After all, the loudest voice has been silenced.

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.

reply to post by kosmicjack
Informative and good post kosmicjack.
Starred and flagged.

Is it just me or did Mr. Spitzer look like a rat with his big ears and pointy chin?

I imagine there will be many interesting events in the coming days. The domino effect has begun.

Mr. Spitzer was, in my opinion, an effective governor. Had he not become involved in the sordid world of call girls he may have been presidential material four years from now.

And yes, always follow the money trail.

Dizzie

Don't ask what is the big deal ask why are they targeting him...After all this is the guy that brought down the Gambino Family and revealing corporation fraud is his thing...

Now ...what was he involved in a week prior to his outing....well he was probing into the Larry Silverstein WTC insurance fraud and also into the ever so popular bush carlyle group....
Now usually they don't care for probing but I think this guy scares Them...he needed to be takin out of the equation..

It has been rumored that the Gambino crime family was laudering money through the call girl service and Spitzer was accidently stumbled upon. I wonder sometimes if there is not a conspiracy to dirty every politician through temptation in order to hold the power of blackmail over them. So if this was known about for 8-10 years as a poster above suggested someone has been pulling Spitzers strings with the threat of revealing this hurtful information. Possibly....

or Spitzer is just an arrogant fool with problems living his life perfectly, just like the rest of us.

No one ever forced Spitzer to spend $80,000 on prostitutes. Therefore this thesis=fail.

Originally posted by chromatico
No one ever forced Spitzer to spend $80,000 on prostitutes. Therefore this thesis=fail.

An excelent point, even if it's an obvious one. He was not framed, the facts are there and the timeline of the investigastion (re: money transfers) is quite credible. I don't believe for a second there was a highly engineered plot to bring him down, he did that himself. Ultimately, it was him who let people down (as he did before with his driver-license-to-illegals treasonous plan).

I like Mr. Palast's style. A few incredible parts:

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.

talk about justice. This guy stands up for the little people, not only in his district, but through-out the country, and he is ripped to shreds for paying for sex...and out of HIS own pocket too. At least he doesnt have his hand in the cookie jar.

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.

Jesus, the man made over half a billion dollars ripping low income americans off.

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.

Thats not suprising at all. Not only are their wealthy Middle East connections getting pissed off at the failing scam, but highly wealthy and well connected Americans too.

Finally, Id like to quote Spitzers never to be seen article on the whole sub-prime mortguage debacle:

“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 the federal government was turning a blind eye.”


....

Bush, Spitzer said 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.”

I hope the mods will forgive me for dumping much of that article here, but for some reason, I dont think many will read it, and this info should get out.

reply to post by InSpiteOf


I think it is sad that we've lost a crusader like Spitzer but he really has no one to blame but himself. I did not read most of your text, I view it as an unwelcome screenjack.

This wouldnt have been such huge news if Spitzer hadnt been such a "moral authority" in the past.
Its just like Britney Spears claiming to be a virgin... when people realise the truth they hound you even more.

Truth is, people these days seem to love watching an angel fall.

reply to post by chromatico


Your absolutly right. Did you read the article, if you did, you would notice that Palast never suggests such a thing. In fact, he says something to that effect:

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.

He isnt saying Spitzer isnt guitly of having sex with hookers, he's saying the take down of Spitzer was way to convienient for the Bush administration and its friends in the banking industry.

Edit to add: Think what you want about the post, but at the very least, read the source article before inferring that Greg was trying to push the blame on others, instead of Spitzer.


[edit on 17-3-2008 by InSpiteOf]

[edit on 17-3-2008 by InSpiteOf]

I just think they couldn't get Michael Jackson to bite this time ...the spun that fable till it dried out like that nose....Its another distraction to again make the masses focus on something completely un-important...

Discovering that a man is a perv and put in the perfect situation will jump at the chance for some free rides at the park is like CNN discovering that water is wet....



Let the light in now...
life repeats =0 left

reply to post by chromatico


I guess you just don't get it. That's fine.

No one is suggesting that Spitzer isn't wrong or doesn't have a hooker habit. I'm just saying that it was okay with the PTB for 8-10 years, so what changed? Furthermore, I am suggesting that we should be suspicious of the confluence of events taking place.

This is a vaible theory. Dirty tricks on a guy who payed for tricks.

Here is a link and excerpt for the article Spitzer wrote for the Washington Post on the day before he was "busted" (BTW - I don't consider supporting articles or material to be a "screenjack"! )
Washington Post

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 the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

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. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

[edit on 17/3/08 by kosmicjack]

The Spitzer scandal doesn't matter. At all.

Just more political sideshows to keep the mass media drooling all over itself.

Seriously. This crap does not matter. America is such a mess... I can't believe how much time we waste on crap like this.

This guy stands up for the little people, not only in his district, but through-out the country

Yeah right, with his proposal to grant driver license to illegal immigrants he sure cares

and he is ripped to shreds for paying for sex...and out of HIS own pocket too.

I think it's everybody's right to do that, however one has to live with consequences. It IS illegal in the state of NY, and to break a law for a lawyer is unbecoming. Where do you draw the line? What if he was a habitual user of coke (he's not)?

There is something assinine in prosecuting somebody for breaking statute number such and such, and then partaking in same. Make your choice -- indulge yourself, or, be honest for real and be in the high office. It's that simple.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
Yeah right, with his proposal to grant driver license to illegal immigrants he sure cares

I'm not saying he doesn't have stupid idea's or make stupid choices. All I am saying is he was actually trying to fight a very high level of corruption and scandal that ripped off hundreds, if not thousands, of American Citizens.

To be sure, some of his policy idea's are outright baffling, but that should not take away from what he was attempting to do here.

I think it's everybody's right to do that, however one has to live with consequences. It IS illegal in the state of NY, and to break a law for a lawyer is unbecoming. Where do you draw the line? What if he was a habitual user of coke (he's not)?

Absolutely, I agree 100% He broke the law, now he must face the consequences. But the timing of this "breaking story" is interesting and certainly seems politically motivated. As such, his arrest and soon to be conviction, are self serving to those that his investigation were subject.

There is something assinine in prosecuting somebody for breaking statute number such and such, and then partaking in same. Make your choice -- indulge yourself, or, be honest for real and be in the high office. It's that simple.

You don't actually believe thats how the system works, do you? Indulgence or honesty?

reply to post by NewWorldOver


Ashley Dupre' doesn't matter. What Spitzer did with her doesn't matter. What happens to his marriage shouldn't matter to anyone but his family.

However, why the tide turned in this game of high-stakes hookers does matter. It implies a shift in power or a blocked threat. Someone cashed out big on Spitzer, someone who was affording him a measure of protection and security.

This thread is for those members interested in figuring out who is behind the crash and burn - Who gained from it? If you think it's a distraction, quit double-clicking on the thread title.

The events of last week seem to me to indicate an unseen architecture at work. It almost seems as if the Neo-cons are tidying up and cleaning house, taking care of all outstanding business so to speak.

- Spitzer taken down
- Fallon booted out
- Obama knee capped by long-held info on his minister.

That only leaves Hillary and she will be a piece of cake now that she has wasted so much money and gotten dirty while fighting Obama. In the meantime, the Republicans practically had a coronation for McCain, who they don't even like.

What's the urgency? The Economy? Something else?

Originally posted by gmac1000
Don't ask what is the big deal ask why are they targeting him...After all this is the guy that brought down the Gambino Family and revealing corporation fraud is his thing...

Now ...what was he involved in a week prior to his outing....well he was probing into the Larry Silverstein WTC insurance fraud and also into the ever so popular bush carlyle group....
Now usually they don't care for probing but I think this guy scares Them...he needed to be takin out of the equation..

I just had to quote this!
I really love this!
Oops, you mean someone was investigating Bush and his cronies?
Woe! You can not mess with royalty! Everyone knows that!. The biggest crime family in existance who effectively ruled the world, at one time, at least all the money in the world, one way or another.
Really? Please give us more info....