New York Blog

mitch says:

Has this Hypocrite nation forgotten what ELLIOT SPITZER has done for NY and the world, by exposing corrupt SOB CEO's, mutual fund thieves who were milking the poor guys, wall street bottom-top level crooks who were making sure to make an illegal buck on the side and making investors suffer while a few made millions. They ALL must be visiting prostitutes and having affairs and taking drugs but they have not been caught yet, because they are nobodies. They are not Harvard Grad Governors. Have the forgotten how Spitzer got rid of the gambino families’ organized crime grip on the garment district, trucking, etc. NY lost a GREAT MAN called ELLIOT SPTIZER...we will miss you sir. I applaud you and GOD BLESS YOU; hope to see you soon kicking the butts of all the people who are mocking you now. I don’t know one married guy who does not mess around on his wife, go to bachelor parties get drunk and mess around with the strippers, have affairs, watch porn and visit prostitutes. The hierocracy is not with you SIR, it is with the world. YOU DID NOTHING WRONG, only wrong was not to allow these people to do to you what they are doing now. You are too smart to allow this to happen, that is the only thing bothering me ELLIOT, how did you allow the fed and irs and the other corrupt republicans to get you like this. GET THEM BACK with a vengeance not seen by this world. Make revenge your ultimate goal the likes not even seen by god. I salute you sir, this is not goodbye but only "Until We See You Again" BTW, I don’t think most people know you are worth 100's of millions of dollars more than 99.9% of the all the low life poor good for nothing new yorkers that are against you, more than those 75K/year fed and irs low life’s. More than those corrupt republicans. TAKE CARE...

Posted On: Monday, Mar. 24 2008 @ 1:09PM

EARTHMAN says:

Ted Bundy was a sweet kid who just happened to be a very bad date. Jeffrey Dahmer (sp?) was a sweet kid who just had an eating disorder. The Hillside Strangler was a sweet kid who just had a rope fetish, and so on. Bill Clinton is a fine guy who was just bored and lonely, yada, yada, yada.

Eliot Spitzer is whatever he is. First and foremost, a hypocrite. People can stand most any eccentric behavior (as long as nobody gets hurt) but most people cannot abide a hypocrite.

Posted On: Monday, Mar. 24 2008 @ 3:03PM

Andy Miller says:

As Attorney General Eliot Spitzer trampled on people's civil right enriched his freinds and broke the law repeatedly to aggrandize himself

He illegally financed his political career with his Daddy's money and lied about it under oath when the financing was challenged in court.

he used the NY State Police to spy on his political opponents- exactly what Nixon went down for.

Roger Stone deserves a medal for taking this scumbag down.

Posted On: Monday, Mar. 24 2008 @ 5:54PM

joe parents says:

Eliot's Mess

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked
The sex scandal is the coverup - the full truth is here! Just like JFK and Abraham Lincoln, Spitzer tried stopping the bankers.
For any amazing video on How the Federal Reserve Board (The Fed) Violates the United States Constitution - Go to Google Video and Type Fiat

Empire, watch teh movie for free. We have been duped by those we are supposed to be able to trust. You can't even trust our elected

leaders. The whole fiat empire banking system is corrupt. It is time to abolish fractional reserve banking now!

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new

Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was

using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to

guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who

have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’

bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they

couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.

Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants

including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage

lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ‘sub-prime.’

Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955

monthly payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But

in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the

mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to

50% of pre-tax income. The Grinnings move into their Toyota.

Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given

sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s

called in the mortgage sharking business.

‘Steering,’ sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called ‘fraudulent conveyance’ or ‘predatory lending’

under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws

as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.

But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hearty – it was OK now to steer’m, fake’m,

charge’m and take’m.

But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or

tried to.

Instead of regulating the banks that had run amok, Bush’s regulators went on the warpath against Spitzer and states attempting to stop

predatory practices. Making an unprecedented use of the legal power of “federal pre-emption,” Bush-bots ordered the states to NOT enforce

their consumer protection laws.

Indeed, the feds actually filed a lawsuit to block Spitzer’s investigation of ugly racial mortgage steering. Bush’s banking buddies were

especially steamed that Spitzer hammered bank practices across the nation using New York State laws.

Spitzer not only took on Countrywide, he took on their predatory enablers in the investment banking community. Behind Countrywide was the

Mother Shark, its funder and now owner, Bank of America. Others joined the sharkfest: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup’s Citibank

made mortgage usury their major profit centers. They did this through a bit of financial legerdemain called “securitization.”

What that means is that they took a bunch of junk mortgages, like the Grinning's, loans about to go down the toilet and re-packaged them

into “tranches” of bonds which were stamped “AAA” - top grade - by bond rating agencies. These gold-painted turds were sold as sparkling

safe investments to US school district pension funds and town governments in Finland (really).

When the housing bubble burst and the paint flaked off, investors were left with the poop and the bankers were left with bonuses.

Countrywide’s top man, Angelo Mozilo, will ‘earn’ a $77 million buy-out bonus this year on top of the $656 million - over half a billion

dollars – he pulled in from 1998 through 2007.

But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to

be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks

who now control its biggest share blocks.

Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James

Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and

presidents than you can count.

The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure –

and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family

was saved – but not one banker was left behind.

Every mortgage sharking operation shot up in value. Mozilo’s Countrywide stock rose 17% in one day. The Citi sheiks saw their company’s

stock rise $10 billion in an afternoon.

And that very same day the bail-out was decided – what a coinkydink! – the man called, ‘The Sheriff of Wall Street’ was cuffed. Spitzer was

silenced.

Do I believe the banks called Justice and said, “Take him down today!” Naw, that’s not how the system works. But the big players knew that

unless Spitzer was taken out, he would create enough ruckus to spoil the party. Headlines in the financial press – one was “Wall Street

Declares War on Spitzer” - made clear to Bush’s enforcers at Justice who their number one target should be. And it wasn’t Bin Laden.

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just

finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent

states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

Bush, Spitzer said right in the headline, was the “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from

justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many

innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that

the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

A note on “Prosecutorial Indiscretion.”

Back in the day when I was an investigator of racketeers for government, the federal prosecutor I was assisting was deciding whether to

launch a case based on his negotiations for airtime with 60 Minutes. I’m not allowed to tell you the prosecutor’s name, but I want to

mention he was recently seen shouting, “Florida is Rudi country! Florida is Rudi country!”

Not all crimes lead to federal bust or even public exposure. It’s up to something called “prosecutorial discretion.”

Funny thing, this ‘discretion.’ For example, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, paid Washington DC prostitutes to put him in

diapers (ewww!), yet the Senator was not exposed by the US prosecutors busting the pimp-ring that pampered him.
Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.

Or maybe we should say, 'indiscretion.'

************
Greg Palast, former investigator of financial fraud, is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy

Money Can Buy.

http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

for the original url of this story.

For those of you bloggers who have not seen or read Eliot Sptitzer damming critique of George Bush and the Bankers, here it is:

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

By Eliot Spitzer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; A25

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of

predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers'

ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges

and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In

addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect

American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I

joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together,

state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in

predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As

Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a

resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent

states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the

Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140

years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few

years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal

opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented

states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious

and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In

fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal

lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending

would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair

lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have

stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our

economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent

homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged

as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of

the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side

of consumers.

The writer is governor of New York. Eliot Spitzer

Posted On: Tuesday, Mar. 25 2008 @ 3:42AM

AFA, Author says:

ROGER STONE, A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL POLITICAL ASSASSIN FOR 35 YEARS IS THE MOST DANGEROUS PERSON IN AMERICA TODAY--BAR NONE. HE IS AMERICA'S OWN OSAMA BIN LADEN--BEWARE.

Expert at covering his tracks and adept at sending investigators spiraling off onto false trails, an evil viper,
Stone uses FALSE fronts, FALSE addresses, FRAUDULENT CAMPAIGN RECORDS, FRAUDULENT ADVERTISEMENTS (for which he and accomplice D.TRUMP were heavily fined by NYS Lobbying Commission) and FALSE NAMES--and when FRAUD doesn't work, resorts to VIOLENCE--like ORGANIZING A MILITIA to lay siege to a GOVERNMENT OFFICE in Florida in 2000, and most recently THREATENING SPITZER'S FATHER.

His ugly public reference to Senator Clinton as CUNT shows he has her in his sights now, nothing off the table, not even MURDER:

ROGER STONE IS THE MOST DANGEROUS PERSON IN AMERICA TODAY--BAR NONE

Paid $20,000 per month, as much as $100,000, to dig dirt on Spitzer and other Democrat politicians, by Senate Republicans, Stone was under heavy pressure "to produce," and installed well-paid MOLES--his MO--throughout New York State's Government to spy on politicians everywhere so that no one is safe--similar to the PELLICANO trial in LA, where a P.I. was digging dirt to blackmail wealthy politicians. Look it up and learn how VIOLENT AND DANGEROUS THESE MEN REALLY ARE.

Sitting and plotting assassinations in a strip club in Florida somehow sounds familiar:

Marilyn Monroe was a MOLE--a spy, a plant--supposed to character assassinate JFK, whose presidential success in 1960 was an "adverse event" for Big Oil Texas Republicans. Standing on stage singing "Happy Birthday" she was actually MOCKING him.

Threats to her career, her own reputation damning her if she went public, racked with guilt and feeling helpless, on a torrid August night she collapsed full of drugs and committed suicide. But not before making a confessional phonecall to JFK--Bobby Kennedy coming by quietly the next morning.

With their main weapon gone, Nixon along with other Inner Circle Republicans spent the next year plotting to assassinate JFK (remember Jack Ruby, strip club owner, blowing a hole in Oswald's stomach?) JFK's skull blown apart on Novermber 22, 1963. Of course Bobby Kennedy had to be killed out of necessity: Marilyn Monroe's, JFK's and Bobby Kennedy's deaths all connected.

And assassin Nixon is Stone's hallowed mentor. Nothing is off the table, not even MURDER and ROGER STONE IS THE MOST DANGEROUS PERSON IN AMERICA TODAY--BEWARE

WANT THE TRUTH? Check Stone's phone records if you want to find out what he's been up to since the Senate put him on their payroll at $20,000 a month last year.

Bruno's trip to play golf with Trump--friend and accomplice of Stone--recently in Florida was A RUSE to gather information about Spitzer's impending destruction, Bruno's gloating about "gaining seats" is very revealing.

Clearly, the feds are investigating the wrong man. What a country.

Posted On: Tuesday, Mar. 25 2008 @ 7:16PM

Andy Miller says:

Left wing Lies !

Roger Stone and Donald trump were not fined by the NY State lobby commision. They paid a settlement when the commission tried to silence them about a member of the Pataki Administration's secret ownership in a proposed Indian Casino in NY State.

Roger Stone, the most dangerous man in America? No, maybe the smartest.

Eliot Spitzer illegally financed ALL of campaigns for public office with Daddy's money- why arent you psycho bloggers wild about that?

Eliot Spitzer used the NY State Police to spy on his political opponents. His cover-up of his criminal acts is crumbling and the fact that he personnally directed the cover up will be clear once his e-mails are made public.
Funny I dont hear you civil libertarian bloggers going wild about that.

Eliot Spitzer was a stone cold crook. Stone is hero for bring him down.

Posted On: Wednesday, Mar. 26 2008 @ 9:02PM