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Coming from an influential Federal judge - this is pretty amazing:
A federal judge with a history of slamming the regulatory system issued scathing remarks against the Department of Justice on Tuesday for allowing Wall Street executives to escape criminal prosecutions.
Speaking at an event hosted by the New York City Bar Association on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of Manhattan said the DoJ's "unconvincing" excuses for not prosecuting individuals were "technically and morally suspect."
"[Not] a single high level executive has been successfully prosecuted in connection with the recent financial crisis, and given the fact that most of the relevant criminal provisions are governed by a five-year statute of limitations, it appears very likely that none will be," Rakoff said.http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/14-4
This is probably the principal reason that The Gadfly will not find reason to praise Obama's legacy once he leaves office.
The people directly responsible for the world financial crisis - a crisis that has ruined the lives of millions of people and set American economic progress back at least a decade, are walking the streets as free men, when everyone knows damn well that they are criminals - their white collars be damned.
Obama has coddled these fuckers and pretty much given them free reign to continue their financial monkeyshines unencumbered from the fear of oversight and prosecution of their illicit money rackets.
All the more reason to vocally support Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren in her quest to break up the big banks and implement bona fide regulatory reforms to throttle the recklessness and corruption that has run rampant on Wall Street and the financial services industry. Sen. Warren also is demanding that the Obama DOJ investigate thoroughly the financial irregularities that the big firms and banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase have been actively and openly involved in. The Gadfly is certain that if we aggressively prosecute and jail a dozen or so top executives of these organizations, you will see Wall Street clean up it's despicable act pretty fucking quick - guaranteed.
In sweeping summary -- good on Judge Rakoff for bucking the system and telling the truth to the American people as to the reprobate behavior that our elite overlords are knee deep in and not being held accountable for. That shit needs to change - and Obama has the power to do it --- but alas, The Gadfly has come to the conclusion that Obama is not a progressive in the sense that The Gadfly practices --- he truly is a centrist, establishment Democrat, who like most of the other establishment pols, gives deference to the moneyed elites at the expense of seeing that true justice is meted in accordance with written law.
It's the same old American story. Be a poor man and steal a loaf of bread to stay your hunger and you go to prison. Be a wealthy man and steal millions and you get a corporate promotion, a golden parachute retirement plan, and as a bonus, you get to go in front of Congress and be praised by those craven politicians for your brilliant business acumen.
All the more reason as to why The Gadfly urges you dear readers to get engaged in the process of governing your country and purge The People's Congress of the bought and paid for bootlicker congress critters who assign predominant priority to the interests of the moneyed elites over the interests and real-life needs of you the people - the very people who put that representative in to office in the first place.
It is unfortunate, but The Gadfly is of the view that our Congress, as an entire entity, has forsaken the hallowed concept of "We The People" and alternatively given unfettered fealty to affluent individuals and to corporations (whom the SCOTUS says are people now), demonstrating their submissive allegiance to "The Almighty Dollar" and to those who stuff more of it in to their political campaign coffers. It is a vicious and intrinsically aristocratic cycle of misrepresentation and indifference to "The People's" needs and will.
Nonetheless -- "We The People" can change this if we have the will to do so. Contrarily - if we choose not to confront this crisis with collective vigor and resolve, then we automatically forfeit the right to bemoan the consequences of granting free reign to the very people who have caused a level of human wreckage that, in a sane world, would, and in the course of time and fair trial, culminate in a public spectacle wherein a handful of CEO's have met Lady Justice in the form of dangling from the expertly constructed scaffold of the people's gallows.
And that is about all that The Gadfly has to say on this sordid matter.
----TFG
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