Judge blocks “pocket change” Citibank settlement

By Dan Brooks in corporatocracy 9 Comments

Manhattan district court judge Jed S. Rakoff, speaking at an unknown location

Possibly as an aftereffect of his symbiosis with the Beard of Reason, federal district court judge Jed Rakoff has blocked a settlement between the SEC and Citibank on the grounds that he has no way of determining whether the agreement was “fair, reasonable, adequate and in the public interest.” The answers to his questions are define “fair,” not really and nope. At issue in the case is whether the banking giant committed fraud when it assembled a $1 billion mortgage fund from high-risk loans that it then sold to clients, even as it shorted* the fund in its own investments. The SEC alleges that Citibank failed to inform investors that the mortgages in the fund had been deliberately selected to fail. As it often does, the federal enforcement agency agreed to let Citibank settle the case without admitting or denying any fault. Judge Rakoff, however, does not play that.

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Least sympathetic man ever constructs even less sympathetic defense

By Dan Brooks in corporatocracy 2 Comments

The source of all Erzinger's suffering

About a month ago, we discussed Martin Joel Erzinger, the Solomon Smith Barney money manager who ran over a surgeon and then fled the scene—only to have his felony charges dropped by the Eagle County district attorney, who helpfully explained that he didn’t want to hurt Erzinger’s ability to make money. Those charges have since been re-filed, presumably as a result of massive outrage rays bombarding the Eagle County DA’s office and making the coke stick to the hookers. Recognizing that their client once again faces a PR disaster, Erzinger’s attorneys have constructed a new defense: his Mercedes was so new that its overpowering new Mercedes smell messed him up. Now to sit back and let the sympathy roll in.

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Subscription-based firefighters watch as house burns

By Dan Brooks in corporatocracy 2 Comments

Obion County, Tennessee homeowner Gene Cranick called the fire department of nearby South Fulton when his house caught fire last week, but the hadn’t paid the $75 subscription fee that allows county residents to use city fire services. Consequently, firefighters watched as his home burned to the ground, only interceding when the flames spread to the yard of Cranick’s neighbor, who had paid his fire subscription. Props to Bag-‘Em Ben Gabriel for the link.

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Friday links! Rule of the commentariat edition

By Dan Brooks in conservatism, conservative liars, corporatocracy, glenn beck, Just Sayin' Stuff, obama, Reactionary Populism, representative democracy, sarah palin, shows 1 Comment

It’s been a bonanza week for news commentators, with earthquakes, tell-all books, people saying “negro” two years ago—everything that makes a vibrant political discourse thrive. The big news, though, was that a certain someone jumped from national electoral politics to the big show: cable news commentating. When Bill O’Reilly welcomed Sarah Palin to Fox News, he told her that she had acquired a powerful tool, a bigger megaphone that she could at last use to shout back at her critics. The implication was that being a Fox commentator was a position of greater power than being governor of Alaska. And was he wrong? Sarah Palin is more popular now than she was when she had the full might of the Republican Party behind her. Rush Limbaugh has outlasted the Contract With America, three Presidents and presumably dozens of minor coronaries. And Glenn Beck can’t think. Powerful men all, and it’s hard to argue that they wield less influence over the American people than do Pelosi, Boehner and Reid. Perhaps that is as it should be. I, for one, welcome our new and increasingly bloated masters, and urge them to form a new government of Real Americans and questionable analogies to Hitler just as soon as they can. Won’t you join me in considering the beautiful world they’re creating? No? Okay, back to cat videos, then. I’ll see the rest of you after the jump.

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Lieberman has killed the public option, and Harry Reid should give him what he wants

By Dan Brooks in corporatocracy, health care, representative democracy 8 Comments
Joe Lieberman has proven once again that a man who refuses to sacrifice his principles can achieve anything: invasion of a foreign country on false pretenses, denial of health care to the poor—you name it.

Joe Lieberman proves once again that a man who refuses to sacrifice his principles can achieve anything: invasion of a foreign country on false pretenses, denial of health care to the poor—you name it.

Good news for people who live in Connecticut, already have health insurance and work for Aetna, Cigna or Oxford Health Plans! According to the New York Times, Joe Lierberman (D–CT, net worth $2 million) seems finally to have succeeded in torpedoing the public option. The former Democrat announced Sunday that he would filibuster any Senate bill that included the Medicare buy-in compromise Harry Reid struck with ten liberal and centrist Democrats last week. That’s a slight difference from the position he articulated last Tuesday, when he said he was against the public option but for the expansion of Medicare, and an utter goddamn sea change from the position he articulated in 2000, when he ran for Vice President promising the exact same Medicare expansion he now threatens to filibuster the Senate to stop. How soon we forget, Joe Lieberman. Either that, or how willing we are to do whatever we think might get us elected to public office. “My wife said to me, ‘Why do you always end up being the point person here?’” Lieberman told reporters on Monday. She was probably eating caviar out of an ostrich egg at the time, and considered it rude to add, “Is it because you’re an unprincipled dwarf?” with her mouth full.

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