There's No Rule of Law Here - Things Have Changed

At the time of the November 2008 elections someone filmed a pair of armed New Black Panther Party members blocking the entrance of a voting sight. Clearly, the intention was to intimidate voters. The clip was shown repeatedly on national television. Today we learned from one of the prosecutors that the federal government ordered the case dismissed (see story).

Tuesday, Bloomberg ran a story describing how Mexican gangs laundered hundreds of billions in illicit drug dollar with the complicity of  Wachovia and Bank of America (story here). The article describes the damage to the economy and pretty much leaves up to the imagination the amount of monetary gain realized by the banks. No significant official of either bank has been indicted. We know that billions of dollars went unaccounted for in Iraq during the Bush administration and now we know that billions of drug related dollars are currently being shuffled in and out of Afghanistan.

The country is changed. Corporations and interest groups, including the financial industry, have captured Congress. The financial industry basically controls the SEC, the Treasury (first Paulson, now Geithner), and the advisors to the President (Summers, Ruben). Lawyers representing unions draw up much of the incomprehensible legislation voted on by Congress and pushed by President Obama. This would include the Health Care Bill with respect to unions and the Financial Reform Bill with respect to banks.  In a late compromise to the latter, a bank tax will be dropped and surplus TARP money (yes, taxpayer dollars) will be substituted in its place.

Sadly, the dropped charges brought against the New Black Panther thugs shouldn’t surprise anyone. If you’ve paid any attention to the Rod Blagojevich trial, the relationships with shady figures in Chicago such as Tony Revco, Williams Ayers, are the hate-spewing preacher where the President attended church,  you know that Obama is up to his eyeballs in sleaze. In a fair, competitive system, cream rises to the top. In a cesspool, the heaviest turd sinks to the bottom.  Our President is the shit.