Subject: THE NEW YORKER on Trump

Subject: THE NEW YORKER on Trump

No matter who your favorite candidate might be … the article is an interesting read.  

  

The author is the political correspondent for Bloomberg and wrote extensively about Obama even before he was elected and he did it with facts .  This article is a reminder that history shows presidential candidates are often elected based on the state of the union and mood of the people in a particular election cycle.  If either Hillary or Bernie is elected, better start preparing for the collapse of America as we know it.  The author seems to understand that and is sending a warning.   

 

"Who is Donald Trump?"  The better question may be, "What is Donald Trump?"   

 

The answer?  A giant middle finger from average Americans to the political and media establishment.

 

Some Trump supporters are like the 60s white girls who dated black guys just to annoy their parents.  But most Trump supporters have simply had it with the Demo-socialists and the "Republicans In Name Only."  They know there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Hillary Rodham and Jeb Bush, and only a few cents worth between Rodham and the other GOP candidates.

 

Ben Carson is not an "establishment" candidate, but the Clinton machine would pulverize Carson ; and the somewhat rebellious Ted Cruz will (justifiably so) be tied up with natural born citizen lawsuits (as might Marco Rubio).  The Trump supporters figure they may as well have some fun tossing Molotov cocktails at Wall Street and Georgetown while they watch the nation collapse.  Besides - lightning might strike, Trump might get elected, and he might actually fix a few things.  Stranger things have happened (the nation elected an[islamo-]Marxist in 2008 and Bruce Jenner now wears designer dresses.)

 

Millions of conservatives are justifiably furious.  They gave the Republicans control of the House in 2010 and control of the Senate in 2014, and have seen them govern no differently than Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  Yet those same voters are supposed to trust the GOP in 2016?  Why?

 

Trump did not come from out of nowhere.  His candidacy was created by the last six years of Republican failures.

 

No reasonable person can believe that any of the establishment candidates [dems or reps] will slash federal spending, rein in the Federal Reserve, cut burdensome business regulations, reform the tax code, or eliminate useless federal departments (the Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, etc.).  Even Ronald Reagan was unable to eliminate the Department of Education.  (Of course, getting shot at tends to make a person less of a risk-taker.)  No reasonable person can believe that any of the nation's major problems will be solved by Rodham, Bush, and the other dishers of donkey fazoo now eagerly eating corn in Iowa and pancakes in New Hampshire .

 

Many Americans, and especially Trump supporters, have had it with:

·     Anyone named Bush

·     Anyone named Clinton

·     Anyone who's held political office

·     Political correctness

·     Illegal immigration

·     Massive unemployment

·     Phony "official" unemployment and inflation figures

·     Welfare waste and fraud

·     People faking disabilities to go on the dole

·     VA waiting lists

·     TSA airport groping

·     ObamaCare

·     The Federal Reserve's money-printing schemes

·     Wall Street crooks like Jon Corzine

·     Michelle Obama's vacations

·     Michelle Obama's food police

·     Barack Obama's golf

·     Barack Obama's arrogant and condescending lectures

·     Barack Obama's criticism/hatred of America

·     Valerie Jarrett

·     " Holiday trees"

·     Hollywood hypocrites

·     Global warming nonsense

·     Cop killers

·     Gun confiscation threats

·     Stagnant wages

·     Boys in girls' bathrooms

·     Whiny, spoiled college students who can't even place the Civil War in the correct century... and that's just the short list.

 

Trump supporters believe that no Democrat wants to address these issues, and that few Republicans have the courage to address these issues.  They certainly know that none of the establishment candidates are better than barely listening to them, and Trump is their way of saying, "Screw you, Hillary Rodham Rove Bush!"  The more the talking head political pundits insult the Trump supporters, the more supporters he gains.  (The only pundits who seem to understand what is going on are Democrats Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell and Republican John LeBoutillier.  All the others argue that the voters will eventually "come to their senses" and support an establishment candidate.)

 

But America does not need a tune-up at the same old garage.  It needs a new engine installed by experts - and neither Rodham nor Bush are mechanics with the skills or experience to install it.  Hillary Rodham is not a mechanic; she merely manages a garage her philandering husband abandoned.  Jeb Bush is not a mechanic; he merely inherited a garage.  Granted, Trump is also not a mechanic, but he knows where to find the best ones to work in his garage.  He won't hire his brother-in-law or someone to whom he owes a favor; he will hire someone who lives and breathes cars.

 

"How dare they revolt!" the "elites" are bellowing.  Well, the citizens are daring to revolt, and the RINOs had better get used to it.  "But Trump will hand the election to Clinton !"  That is what the Karl Rove-types want people to believe, just as the leftist media eagerly shoved "Maverick" McCain down GOP throats in 2008 - knowing he would lose to Obama.  But even if Trump loses and Rodham wins, she would not be dramatically different than Bush or most of his fellow candidates.  They would be nothing more than caretakers, not working to restore America 's greatness but merely presiding over the collapse of a massively in-debt nation.  A nation can perhaps survive open borders; a nation can perhaps survive a generous welfare system.  But no nation can survive both - and there is little evidence that the establishment candidates of either party understand that.  The United States cannot forever continue on the path it is on.  At some point it will be destroyed by its debt.

 

Yes, Trump speaks like a bull wander[ing] through a china shop, but the truth is that the borders do need to be sealed; we cannot afford to feed, house, and clothe 200,000 Syrian immigrants for decades (even if we get inordinately lucky and none of them are ISIS infiltrators or Syed Farook wannabes); the world is at war with radical Islamists; all the world's glaciers are not melting; and Rosie O'Donnell is a fat pig.

 

Is Trump the perfect candidate?  Of course not.  Neither was Ronald Reagan.  But unless we close our borders and restrict immigration, all the other issues are irrelevant.  One terrorist blowing up a bridge or a tunnel could kill thousands.  One jihadist poisoning a city's water supply could kill tens of thousands.  One electromagnetic pulse attack from a single Iranian nuclear device could kill tens of millions.  Faced with those possibilities, most Americans probably don't care that Trump relied on eminent domain to grab up a final quarter acre of property for a hotel, or that he boils the blood of the Muslim Brotherhood thugs running the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  While Attorney General Loretta Lynch's greatest fear is someone giving a Muslim a dirty look, most Americans are more worried about being gunned down at a shopping mall by a crazed [islamic] lunatic who treats his prayer mat better than his three wives and who thinks 72 virgins are waiting for him in paradise.

 

The establishment is frightened to death that Trump will win, but not because they believe he will harm the nation.  They are afraid he will upset their taxpayer-subsidized apple carts.  While Obama threatens to veto legislation that spends too little, they worry that Trump will veto legislation that spends too much. 

 

You can be certain that if an establishment candidate wins in November 2016 … [their] cabinet positions will be filled with the same people we've seen before.  The washed-up has-beens of the Clinton and Bush administrations will be back in charge.  The hacks from Goldman Sachs will continue to call the shots.  Whether it is Bush's Karl Rove or Clinton 's John Podesta, who makes the decisions in the White House will matter little.  

If the establishment wins, America loses. 

 

17 Dec 2013 at 3:21 PM

2nd Circuit, Benchslaps, Department of Justice, Eric Holder, Jed Rakoff, Media and Journalism, S.D.N.Y., U.S. Attorneys Offices, Wall Street, White-Collar Crime

Judge Rakoff Rips The Government For Dropping The Ball On Financial Crimes

By Joe Patrice

Remember the 80s? Big hair, Dynasty, Huey Lewis was popular for some reason. Well, Judge Jed Rakoff remembers the 80s, and he also remembers the way the federal government used to actually investigate and prosecute people who committed massive financial crimes — Mike Milken, Ivan Boesky, Charles Keating, a bevy of other savings and loans kingpins. Good times.
And Judge Rakoff wants to know what happened to prosecuting financial crimes, specifically the sort of fraud that crippled the economy. So he took to the pages of the New York Review of Books to ponder all the financial prosecutions that could have been. And he has some theories about what happened and how prosecutors could do a better job in the future.
It’s a fascinating look at a bunch of ideas that the government is going to totally ignore…

First of all, congratulations to Judge Rakoff on hearing the last financial crime case he’ll ever hear. The Second Circuit recently set forth its “Jesus, keep your mouth shut” standard for judges — removing judges sua sponte from cases if the judge expresses any public opinion that could be construed as a bias. A scathing essay calling out the government for failing to prosecute high-profile financial criminals is not appreciably different than saying, “I do think that I treat the government as only one more litigant” or “they have to prove their case like anybody else.” In fact, while Judge Rakoff reminds the reader that his general conclusions do not indicate that he prejudges any case, this essay is probably more provocative than Judge Scheindlin’s statements. David Lat thinks courts should not impede judicial transparency, but he’s not on the Second Circuit. Yet.
Anyway, back to the present essay. Judge Rakoff rejects the premise that there aren’t any prosecutions because when the business practices that led to the financial crisis were entirely innocent upon closer scrutiny. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a multibillion-dollar, economy-crippling fraud. If you don’t feel like reading the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report that Judge Rakoff cites, this is pretty much everything you need to know about how we got cornholed by these guys:

Subprime Primer from guesta9d12e

And these folks have basically escaped all criminal liability for these actions as the statute of limitations on all the possible claims run out. Yet the bigwigs on Wall Street are feeling persecuted. So sensitive.
Judge Rakoff notes that the Department of Justice has provided three — really, really weaksauce — reasons for its reticence to prosecute anyone involved in this debacle. First, that it is difficult to prove intent, prompting Judge Rakoff to offer a refresher course on the concepts of “willful blindness” and “conscious disregard.” Second, the Judge cites Lanny Breuer, the former head of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division who’s now back at Covington, for the proposition that prosecutors were gun-shy because they had to prove that the other side of the transaction, often sophisticated institutions, relied on misleading statements:

Actually, given the fact that these securities were bought and sold at lightning speed, it is by no means obvious that even a sophisticated counterparty would have detected the problems with the arcane, convoluted mortgage-backed derivatives they were being asked to purchase. But there is a more fundamental problem with the above-quoted statement from the former head of the Criminal Division, which is that it totally misstates the law. In actuality, in a criminal fraud case the government is never required to prove — ever — that one party to a transaction relied on the word of another.

Crackerjack legal insight from the Department of Justice. The average share of stock is held for a mere 22 seconds. In the 60s, we envisioned supercomputers guiding astronauts to Jupiter — and killing them. Fast forward to today and we’re building supercomputers to churn 10,000 shares of Toys Я Us in 2 seconds.^[1] Progress!
Putting aside whether all the local school boards and the like who bought these toxic assets are really “sophisticated” financial entities, Judge Rakoff seems to recognize, unlike the Department of Justice, this new lightspeed reality where sophisticated institutions consciously forfeit their considered judgment to make fast cash. A system that calls olly olly oxen free so long as the direct victims have in-house counsel isn’t really a justice system.
The DOJ doesn’t think it’s done anything wrong:

Brian Fallon, a Justice Department spokesman, said Judge Rakoff “does not identify a single case where a financial executive should have been charged, but wasn’t.”
“The department has criminally prosecuted thousands of defendants for financial fraud and other related crimes in the last five years, and there are a number of active investigations still ongoing,” he added. “Even in striking the nation’s largest-ever settlement with JPMorgan last month, the department preserved its ability to investigate and potentially charge individuals at the company if the evidence supports it.”

Right. Because Judge Rakoff repeatedly points out that he isn’t passing judgment on any individual cases. Trying to derail a broad policy discussion by appealing to “where’s the specific case” instead of actually responding to the warrants is just lazy.
The final DOJ excuse that Judge Rakoff swats down is the notion that bankers can be “too big to jail.” He notes that the infamous Eric Holder quote suggesting that prosecutions could “have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,” referred to prosecuting institutions rather than the individuals who run them. And this gets to Judge Rakoff’s ultimate point — the DOJ is far too obsessed with prosecuting institutions instead of individuals:

In recent decades, however, prosecutors have been increasingly attracted to prosecuting companies, often even without indicting a single person. This shift has often been rationalized as part of an attempt to transform “corporate cultures,” so as to prevent future such crimes; and as a result, government policy has taken the form of “deferred prosecution agreements” or even “nonprosecution agreements,” in which the company, under threat of criminal prosecution, agrees to take various prophylactic measures to prevent future wrongdoing. Such agreements have become, in the words of Lanny Breuer, the former head of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, “a mainstay of white-collar criminal law enforcement,” with the department entering into 233 such agreements over the last decade. But in practice, I suggest, this approach has led to some lax and dubious behavior on the part of prosecutors, with deleterious results.

This is a tad unfair. In a world where the government has slashed resources for investigating financial crime and the SEC has more or less walked away from this kind of thing, getting the company to pony up for outside counsel to conduct an investigation is all but a practical necessity. Plus, since one half of the government is hell-bent on having no regulations at all, any policy that encourages prophylactic measures is probably worth it. However, Judge Rakoff is right that this “mainstay of white-collar criminal law enforcement” is regrettable. If the government were allowed to invest in expanding the FBI and the SEC wasn’t so afraid of its own shadow that it focuses on what Judge Rakoff calls “smaller, easily resolved cases,” we wouldn’t need internal investigations — but it’s not like the DOJ had a ton of choice in drifting toward this result.
Ultimately, Judge Rakoff appeals to the DOJ to refocus its efforts on investigating criminal cases against individuals committing financial crimes. Contrary to what Matt Kaiser posited last week, the reason the U.S. Attorney’s Office isn’t highlighting the number of people it lands in prison is because it’s doing a really bad job of it.^[2] The value in SIGTARP’s declaration that it’s securing longer prison sentences than anyone else is in telegraphing to Wall Street that at least one agency is not asleep at the switch.
Prison may be an overused response in the United States,^[3] especially for low-level, non-violent offenders. But the threat of prison is critically underemployed when it comes to the criminals capable of wrecking the most damage on the most Americans.
As Adam Liptak characterizes the Judge’s words, “The fear of prison concentrates the mind in a way the prospect of writing a check on a corporate account does not.”

---

[1] 2014: A Wall Street Odyssey
[2] Not to mention, the U.S. Attorney’s Office does highlight the number of people it puts in prison and for how long, in the United States Attorneys’ Annual Statistical Report.
[3] The incarceration rate in the United States from 1920 through 2006:

The Financial Crisis: Why Have No High-Level Executives Been Prosecuted? [New York Review of Books]
Stern Words for Wall Street’s Watchdogs, From a Judge [New York Times]
Err on the Side of Allowing Speech [New York Times]
Earlier: Putting People In Prison To Get To The Cool Kids’ Table

Editor's note: “reckless disregard for the truth.” This is the credo of the Probate Court of Cook County.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

24 Jun 2013 at 5:09 PM

2nd Circuit, Crime, Hedge Funds / Private Equity, Insider Trading, Money, Quote of the Day, Wall Street

A Big House For A Big Man: A Raj Rajaratnam Ruling

By Staci Zaretsky

Raj Rajaratnam

Rajaratnam’s arguments are not persuasive.

– Judge José A. Cabranes, writing for a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit in upholding the insider trading convictions of former hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam. On appeal, Rajaratnam unsuccessfully argued that federal prosecutors obtained a wiretap warrant with a “reckless disregard for the truth.” Rajaratnam will serve the remainder of his 11-year sentence.

(If you’re interested, continue reading for the Second Circuit’s opinion.)

Second Circuit Opinion: U.S. v. Rajaratnam

Rajaratnam Conviction Upheld by Appeals Court [DealBook / New York Times]

8 Comments

• Tags: 2nd Circuit, Crime, Hedge Funds, Hedge Funds / Private Equity, Insider Trading, José A. Cabranes, Judge José A. Cabranes, Money, Quote of the Day, Raj Rajaratnam, Second Circuit, Wall Street