Matt Taibbi says that we have an atmosphere where...

[OHDEM]

a certain class never gets punished and never goes to jail. (On Bill Maher tonight.) He gave the example that someone would get 5 years in prison for selling a dime bag, but a 14 trillion dollar hole blown in the economy and the only one to go to jail is Bernie Madoff.

On edit: You Tube video 7:22 to 8:30 The whole thing is good, but that's THIS part.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7_7he5G5bc

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Or a White House operative

outs a CIA covert agent and walks...................

[OHDEM]

2. Or the White House endorses a war crime...

and everyone walks. :puke:

[Psychic Consortium]

3. We have been an oligarchy. Rule by the rich.

Obama is going to change that.

[OHDEM]

4. I call it the Trust-Fund Baby Mentality

They have never been held accountable for anything so they don't believe any laws apply to them.

I think you're very opptomistic, but I hope you're right.

[Psychic Consortium]

14. PC calls it like it is. And has made correct predictions in past 9 months.

Obama will transform this country.

Edit to add:
9 months ago PC said it was a 100% certainty
that Obama would be elected, the GOP would not steal
the elections again, that Obama would be safe
and that he would be a transformative president.
At the time people who read PC's posts thought
them unrealistic.

PC will be happy to provide the links to the posts
with date and time marked by DU.

[dorkulon]

5. Well, they eliminated all of the laws against what happened first.

So they didn't really break the law, they changed it. Then there's the fact of open corruption in congress... but that's not illegal anymore either.

[OHDEM]

8. No. They did not have the power to make torture legal.

They had unethical attorneys use orwellian tactics and change what has long been defined as torture into "enhanced interrogation". Just like POWs became "detainees". But that doesn't make their actions legal. The attorneys who did this should be disbarred and probably named as war criminals.

[dorkulon]

12. Who was talking about torture?

Torture didn't cost us $14 trillion, now did it?

[JackRiddler]

11. They wish.

There are enough laws on the books outlawing fraud in general that law is determined by enforcement and court rulings as to which laws are relevant and what their spirit, intent and wording really is.

What I'm saying is, they may have used their lobby power to deregulate and legalize all manner of crime in advance of Operation Plunder the Planet, but what the bankers just did to the world with the derivatives schemes and the "bailouts" remains criminal in spirit and intent and is no doubt covered by all manner of general purpose fraud law. Justice is very much open for the authorities and the judges to pursue, but guess who pays for them to be where they are?

Twenty million people marching and not stopping to shut down cities, demanding that the government establish new banks as public utilities and seize Wall Street's plundered assets also ain't happening. So there you are. The fuckers are getting off scot free.

ON EDIT: As for the crimes directly perpetrated by the Bush Regime, they have no cover. Torture is illegal, aggressive war is illegal, war on false pretexts is illegal, treason is illegal. They're relying on an impossibly "activist" interpretation of a clause in the constitution that says nothing other than that the President is the commander in chief during war time to produce the idea that they can do anything they like, in secret, without consequences, long as they pretend to be motivated by national security. And on a conspiracy in which they get the lawyers to write bogus memos claiming torture is legal and then declare the lawyers immune as Justice Dept. employees, so in the end everything's allowed. This is an unsustainable construct.

Unsustainable, that is, if anyone's going to bother with enforcement. Again it ain't happening without millions outraged and demanding justice no matter what to provide sufficient pressure. (I don't believe this is Nazi Germany, resistance can achieve results, but we're well trained not to see the obvious.)

[Gabi Hayes]

13. tumbrils roll at dawn!

[spanone]

6. ...or the white house has a torture program and no one get prosecuted

[Gabi Hayes]

7. thanks for this. here's part III, with Seth McFarlane.....very funny stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9qZQ3MI3Gw&feature=channel

[OHDEM]

9. You're welcome!

Seth MacFarland is HOT! Good-looking, smart, funny AND liberal...sounds like the perfect man! LOL

[kentuck]

10. A great episode!

Very thought-provoking and funny.