I would assume both citizen journalists came to it themselves, but the new RS blog by Taibbi is a welcome addition to the voices bringing this issue up. I recieved it from former State Senate candidate David Weiss in an e-mail, and I hope this gets more attention. Fat chance it will break through Very Important Nonstop Hurricane Updates, but I implore you, check out Taibbi's full article if these choice quotes mean anything to you:
Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal
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The idea behind this federally-guided “settlement” is to concentrate and centralize all the legal exposure accrued by this generation of grotesque banker corruption in one place, put one single price tag on it that everyone can live with, and then stuff the details into a titanium canister before shooting it into deep space.
This is all about protecting the banks from future enforcement actions on both the civil and criminal sides. The plan is to provide year-after-year, repeat-offending banks like Bank of America with cost certainty, so that they know exactly how much they’ll have to pay in fines (trust me, it will end up being a tiny fraction of what they made off the fraudulent practices) and will also get to know for sure that there are no more criminal investigations in the pipeline.
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So this deal being cooked up is the ultimate Papal indulgence. By the time that $20 billion (if it even ends up being that high) gets divvied up between all the major players, the broadest and most destructive fraud scheme in American history, one that makes the S&L crisis look like a cheap liquor store holdup, will be safely reduced to a single painful but eminently survivable one-time line item for all the major perpetrators.
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Why? My theory is that the Obama administration is trying to secure its 2012 campaign war chest with this settlement deal. If Barry can make this foreclosure thing go away for the banks, you can bet he’ll win the contributions battle against the Republicans next summer.
Which is good for him, I guess. But it seems to me that it might be time to wonder if is this the most disappointing president we’ve ever had.
Emphasis mine - SP
The same fellow who e-mailed this to me began calling him Obummer a couple years back. Now, with this, it's worth it to add "Obanker" to the list of worthy aliases attributable to this mockery of a president.
