Wall Street's Investment In Barack Hussein Obama

What do Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski and Bernie Madoff have in common? I can think of at least two things. All three were among approximately 1300 scoundrels successfully prosecuted for financial malfeasance during the Bush Administration. One other thing they have in common is that all were prominently featured in a ludicrously immature campaign advertisement produced by Obama’s desperate reelection team.

The video begins with grainy black and white photographs of these notorious crooks. As dark, ominous music plays in the background, the narrator gravely recites their names: “Bernie Maddof, Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowski. Criminals! Gluttons of greed! And the evil genius who towered over them? One man has the guts to speak his name.”

“Big Bird,” says Mitt Romney in three brief, out of context clips.

The narrator resumes: “Big Yellow. A menace to our economy. Mitt Romney knows it’s not Wall Street you have to worry about. It’s Sesame Street. Mitt Romney: Taking on our enemies, no matter where they nest.”

You might have wondered why the commercial had to reach back into the previous administration and failed to cite any desperadoes successfully prosecuted by Barack Obama’s Justice Department. After all, the 2008 financial crisis and resultant Great Recession were blamed on massive fraud in the financial sector.

Much of Obama’s 2008 campaign consisted of pounding his hairy chest while promising retribution against Wall Street. Early in his term, Obama even threatened to unleash his goon squads for a little extra-judicial Chicago-style revenge.

So with such a target rich environment, you’d think that by now President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder would have quite a trophy collection of convicted Wall Street felons hanging on their walls. You’d be wrong.

As it turns out, after four years of cleansing Wall Street of avaricious lawlessness, the comprehensive list of all the crooks that Obama and Holder have put behind bars has no names on it.

During his eight years in office, George W. Bush’s Justice Department successfully prosecuted 1300. His predecessor, William Jefferson Blythe Clinton III jugged 1000. Barack Obama hasn’t even attempted a single prosecution. Not one.

If Barack Obama was trying to make the case with that idiotic commercial that he is better equipped to defend the American people against Wall Street criminality than Mitt Romney, his assertion is contradicted by the data.

In fact, Eric Holder has pardoned more swindlers than he has convicted.

If Eric Holder is too inept to conduct the investigations himself, then he should pick up a copy of Gretchen Morgensen’s book, “Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed and Corruption Created the Worst Financial Crisis of our Time.”

Morgensen’s research exposes the crimes and names the names. And she cannot be dismissed as some right wing wacko. She’s a Pulitzer Prize winning business reporter for the New York Times. I don’t think that Republicans are permitted to even cross the Times’ threshold, let alone work there.

Unfortunately for the cause of justice, the roster of villains she identifies is largely populated by well-connected Democrats. Two of the worst, James Johnson and Franklin Raines, were prominent Obama advisers. Johnson here. Raines here.

Another obvious target would be Jon Corzine, the former Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. Under Corzine’s leadership, Goldman Sachs was a leading contributor to the subprime mortgage crisis that was at the root of the meltdown.

From Goldman Sachs he went on to become the Senator from New Jersey. He then won that state’s governor’s seat. After losing his reelection bid, he founded MF Global, which went bankrupt almost immediately. He also “misplaced” $1.6 billion of supposedly untouchable investor cash.

Corzine would seem to be a prime candidate for prosecution. And it’s not as though he’s hard to find. Vice President Joe Biden campaigned for Corzine in 2010 and hailed him as the “first person” whom the Obama Administration called when it required financial advice.

But, after raising more than a million dollars for Obama’s reelection campaign, Corzine was granted a get-out-of-jail-free card by Attorney General Eric Holder.

There remains the inescapable fact that Barack Obama, as a US senator and as a presidential candidate, raised more money from Wall Street than any other politician ever. And he rewards his allies.

While the rest of America has struggled, Wall Street has harvested record profits during Barack Obama’s reign of error. And no one who works there has any fear of prosecution as long as Obama sits in the Oval Office.