How Eric Holder's Corporate Law Firm Is Turning Into a 'Shadow Justice Department'

[LiberalArkie]

https://news.vice.com/article/how-eric-holders-corporate-law-firm-is-turning-into-shadow-justice-department


The revolving door between the Department of Justice and a certain corporate law firm is spinning faster than ever. On July 6, former Attorney General Eric Holder returned to his previous employer, Covington & Burling — a firm that's represented the biggest banks on Wall Street, and is internationally known for its white-collar defense practice. A week later, his DOJ chief of staff Margaret Richardson announced that she would be following him there.

Meanwhile, the latest data from the DOJ reveals that criminal prosecutions for white-collar crimes are at a 20-year low. This decline and the rapid circulation of personnel between Covington and the DOJ has raised questions about the Obama administration's handling of the banking industry and the 2008 financial crisis.

Under Obama, the DOJ decided not to pursue criminal charges against most of the executives and financial institutions behind the economic collapse, opting instead to impose hefty fines that were paid out by shareholders, not the employees or executives of the banks. In contrast, some 1,100 individuals faced criminal prosecution during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, and the heads of several major banks served jail time.

"I'm not accusing anyone of anything specific, but we're looking at a gigantic built-in conflict of interest revolving in and out of the attorney general's office," Ted Kaufman, a former Delaware senator who went on to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel tasked with monitoring the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry during the crisis, told VICE News.

Snip

[think]

1. Unfortunately the revolving door mentality permeates the American political culture

And is even condoned and accepted by some here in DU...

[truebluegreen]

2. What a surprise. nt

[Wilms]

3. ^

[progressoid]

4. Well that's just changetastic!

[hifiguy]

5. Face it, people, we were all gulled, snookered, had, chumped

and pantsed in 2008.

Change, my shiny metal ass.

[Scuba]

12. Yep.

[Enthusiast]

13. If I said 'yep' I might get alerted on.

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[Octafish]

6. Pots of Gold

...await those absent integrity.

Neil Barofsky Gave Us The Best Explanation For Washington's Dysfunction We've Ever Heard

Linette Lopez
Business Insider, Aug. 1, 2012, 2:57 PM

Neil Barofsky was the Inspector General for TARP, and just wrote a book about his time in D.C. called Bailout: An Insider Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.

SNIP...

Bottom line: Barofsky said the incentive structure in our nation's capitol is all wrong. There's a revolving door between bureaucrats in Washington and Wall Street banks, and politicians just want to keep their jobs.

For regulators it's something like this:

[font color="green"]"You can play ball and good things can happen to you get a big pot of gold at the end of the Wall Street rainbow or you can do your job be aggressive and face personal ruin...We really need to rethink how we govern and how regulate," Barofsky said.[/font color]

CONTINUED... http://www.businessinsider.com/neil-barofsky-2012-8

For the rest of us minions supporting the Wall Street on the Potomac gold mining operation, we get the shaft.

[closeupready]

8. Earth to Barofsky: This arrangement works well for everyone involved.

Ergo, nobody who makes decisions is going to re-think Anything. (Sadly.)

Government doesn't function the way it should due to the corrupting influence of big money. The people who pay for that dysfunction are ordinary Americans, who cares about them.

[Octafish]

9. It used to be called ''Treason.''

"When demagoguery and deceit become a national political movement, we Americans are in trouble, not just Democrats, but ALL of us…Corruption in public office is treason." -- Adlai Stevenson, Jr.

Now, for some reason, it's "Business as usual."

[closeupready]

10. It's sad that ethics seems to be something people laugh about today.

It should be priority #1.

[Enthusiast]

14. If we had a responsible media they wouldn't get away with this malfeasance.

[Octafish]

17. When most of the information USA consumes comes from 6 Big Corporations...

...that makes it tough for the average citizen to monitor, let alone combat.

The New Communications Cartel

from the

Preface to the Fifth Edition (1997)

of the book

The Media Monopoly

by Ben H. Bagdikian

published by Beacon Press, 1997

In the last 5 years, a small number of the country's largest industrial corporations has acquired more public communications power-including ownership of the news-than any private businesses have ever before possessed in world history.

Nothing in earlier history matches this corporate group's power to penetrate the social landscape. Using both old and new technology, by owning each other's shares, engaging in joint ventures as partners, and other forms of cooperation, this handful of giants has created what is, in effect, a new communications cartel within the United States.

At issue is not just a financial statistic, like production numbers or ordinary industrial products like refrigerators or clothing. At issue is the possession of power to surround almost every man, woman, and child in the country with controlled images and words, to socialize each new generation of Americans, to alter the political agenda of the country. And with that power comes the ability to exert influence that in many ways is greater than that of schools, religion, parents, and even government itself.

Aided by the digital revolution and the acquisition of subsidiaries that operate at every step in the mass communications process, from the creation of content to its delivery into the home, the communications cartel has exercised stunning influence over national legislation and government agencies, an influence whose scope and power would have been considered scandalous or illegal twenty years ago.

The new communications cartel has been made possible by the withdrawal of earlier government intervention that once aspired to protect consumers and move toward the ideal of diversity of content and ownership in the mass media. Government's passivity has emboldened the new giants to boast openly of monopoly and their ability to project news, commercial messages, and graphic images into the consciousness and subconscious of almost every American.

Strict control of public information is not new in the world, but historical dictatorships lacked the late twentieth century's digital multimedia and distribution technology. As the country approaches the millennium, the new cartel exercises a more complex and subtle kind of control.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/CommunCartel_Bagdikian.html

Thank you for being one of the brave ones to stand up to Them, Enthusiast.

[snooper2]

7. This is my #1 beef with President Obama

[Enthusiast]

15. Mine too. Impossible to ignore.

[Doctor_J]

11. wall street has gone from running the country in the background to running it in

broad daylight. This is disgusting, and won't get any better under president Clinton.

[Enthusiast]

16. That's why we must elect Bernie.

Out of necessity. Besides, Bernie would make a great president anyway.