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April 21, 2009
They Are Too Big to WHAT?
By Stephen Pizzo
The concept of "too big to fail" is costing us trillions of dollars, and counting. How much will the politically charged decision that some in America are "too big to jail," cost us?
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It was an expensive lesson... at least $2 trillion so far, and the meter continues to click off additional billions every day.“...Mr. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, made a pretty unequivocal statement that these lawyers should not be targeted...."Those who devised policy, he believes that they were -- should not be prosecuted either," Emanuel told ABC's George Stephanopolous.”So, it's come to this; to quote from the very lips of Richard Nixon, “If the President does it, it's not illegal.”
"You have to firewall politics out of the Department of Justice. Because once it gets in, people question every decision you make," the former U.S. Attorney from Arkansas, Bud Cummins, told the Los Angeles Times in March.”I know Barack graduated from Harvard, but there's also a pretty good law school over at Yale, as well. Apparently Yale's teachings on executive branch obligations under the constitution were a bit more precise:
“...there is something about the modern presidency that overwhelms the rule of law. That something is the White House staff, hundreds of bright and ambitious loyalists constantly struggling on the president’s behalf. This ongoing struggle has sometimes generated an “us against them” mentality that supported the repeated assaults on legality over the past generation...Eric Holder.. must take effective action to restore the professionalism of his badly demoralized department. He must insulate the department’s Office of Legal Counsel from political pressures..” (Restoring the Rule of Law to the White House ---- Bruce Ackerman. Yale Law School, Class of 1967)Nevertheless, we are where we are. And here's where we are: The concept of “too big to fail,” rather than of fixing the system, is simply feeding and keeping alive the very tumor-like institutions that landed us in fiscal intensive care to begin with. And that in turn simply sets the stage for another future round of taxpayer-funded chemo. (It's feels like being mugged then finding out the mugger bailed himself out jail on your credit card.)
P.S. Oh, and Eric Holder – here's a proposition for you to meditate upon as well; will you go down in history as another Alberto Gonzales? If so, at least you'll have the peace of mind knowing you too have transcended the mortal realm rendering yourself too big to jail.
Stephen Pizzo has been published everywhere from The New York Times to Mother Jones magazine. His book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, was nominated for a Pulitzer.