American financial scandals, then and now

"When Americans saw the scope of the savings an loan scandal in the 1980s, which today just seems like a bad day on the unregulated derivatives market, Ronald Reagan's Attorney General, Edwin Meese III, put nearly a thousand bankers behind bars. In contrast, Eric H. Holder, Jr., can't seem to smell the stench of a fraud that cost millions of people their jobs or homes."

--Drew Weston in The New York Times today, in his article "America's Leftward Tilt?"

We need to push for banking reform, support of regulations and breaking up the "too big to fail."

Link: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/americas-leftward-tilt/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121104

I only have two questions

1) If the President says his administration did nothing illegal in the "fast and furious" weapons case down South, why won't they release the information?

2) If Julian Assange is innocent, as he says, of any sexual abuse of any kind in Europe, why doesn't he face the charges?

Links: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/white-house-denies-fast-furious-cover-obama-full-212027627.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9349556/Julian-Assange-WikiLeaks-founder-could-be-holed-up-in-Ecuadorian-embassy-for-years.html

Juxtaposition: Arizona rampage then and MLK Day now

"Last week a senseless rampage in Tucson reminded us that more than 40 years after Dr. King's own tragic death, our struggle to eradicate violence and to promote peace goes on," --US Attorney Gereral Eric Holder


Link to original post:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110117/ap_on_re_us/us_king_holiday

We agree to pay a half-billion dollar fine but no, we deny any wrongdoing

Did you see this?

The federal government on Tuesday reached a $520 million settlement with pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca, resolving allegations of illegal marketing of the company's antipsychotic drug Seroquel.

At a news conference, Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the case a centerpiece of the federal government's crackdown on health care fraud.

AstraZeneca allegedly marketed Seroquel for off-label uses — those not approved by federal drug regulators — including insomnia and psychiatric conditions other than schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

U.S. Attorney Michael Levy of Philadelphia, where the settlement was filed, said that the company had "turned patients into guinea pigs in an unsupervised drug test."

AstraZeneca, which has its U.S. headquarters in Wilmington, Del., faces more than 25,000 product liability lawsuits over Seroquel, with most alleging that the drug caused diabetes. Seroquel has been on the market since 1997.

The government said AstraZeneca paid kickbacks to doctors recruited to serve as authors of articles by Astra Zeneca and the company's agents about the unapproved uses of Seroquel.

The company also made payments to doctors to travel to resort locations to advise AstraZeneca about marketing messages for unapproved uses of the drug, the government stated.

AstraZeneca denied the allegations leveled by the government in the civil case settled Tuesday, saying it wanted to avoid the delay, uncertainty and expense of a protracted legal battle.

Right.

You, AstraZeneca, just paid more than a HALF BILLION DOLLARS to the Federal Government but you "deny any allegations..."

Right.

And Goldman Sachs is an honest, forthright company that didn't swindle the America people.

Got it.

Link to original story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100427/ap_on_bi_ge/us_doj_astrazeneca

Do we really realize how big a change this is?

Just now, I'm sitting here, watching "The News Hour with Jim Lehr" on our local PBS channel, KCPT and Gwen Ifill is shown interviewing the top law enforcement chief and Attorney General Eric Holder at the National Press Club and it hit me immediately.

Here was an African-American female reporter of some skills, notoriety and import, interviewing another African-American of some incredible power in this Presidcent's administration, and he also, of course, happens to be African-American.

To an extent, we take this all for granted but we really shouldn't--we really can't.

It is a huge, watershed movement in our country and our country's history and we need to recognize the importance of all this change and advancement.

At the same time, there were two articles in The New York Times today, pointing out how far we still have to go, too. Here were the Headlines:

"The Supreme Court's Hostility to the Voting Rights Act" and

"Homeownership-Losses Are Greatest Among Minorities, Report Finds"

As always, as Stevie Wonder said, "Them that has, gets."

And them that doesn't have, gets screwed.