NY Gov. Spitzer indicted, will resign

[KBCraig]

No need to post a link... just go to any news site, the stories are everywhere.

NY Gov. Elliot Spitzer, famed crusher of liberty, has been linked to a high-end prostitution ring, has been indicted, and is expected to resign shortly.

Booo-yah!

[Pat K]

LOL ! oh this is to good another holier than thou
scumbag politician goes down.

[Kat Kanning]

Guess they don't allow hotlinking photos.

[freedominnh]

If he weren't the AG for eight years---maybe he'd have some support for being involved in a victimless crime.    Friggin politicians....

[KBCraig]

If he weren't the AG for eight years---maybe he'd have some support for being involved in a victimless crime.    Friggin politicians....

He ran a big bust on escort services in 2004 and prosecuted over a hundred men for doing exactly what he did.

There is karmic justice in this world. 

[David]

Appropriate phrase?  "He who lives in a glass house should not be throwing stones"   

[J’raxis 270145]

Normally I would support someone being prosecuted for victimless sex crimes such as this. But not when we're talking about a worse police statist than New York's other famous fascist, Giuliani. This one's for you, Governor:—

[KBCraig]

The news reports have now deleted the I-word, no longer saying that he has been indicted. They're not saying he hasn't been, either.

Now for the irony... this didn't begin as an investigation into prosecution. The U.S. DoJ, using the "snitch out your customers" banking regulations, saw Spitzer's "unusual" financial transactions, and investigated whether he was hiding bribes. They used Patriot Act wiretaps and surveillance of his email to find out that he was really just paying for hookers.

These are exactly the kind of things Spitzer pushed for and used as AG to root out "corruption".

I feel kind of dirty for cheering, but he was hoisted on his own petard.

[J’raxis 270145]

People have said the Bush administration has dirt on everyone (what do you think all that surveillance is really for?), and they just wait until someone pisses them off in order to use it. Isn't it interesting that Spitzer just went down about a month after he wrote this:—

The Washington Post
Feb. 14, 2008

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

The writer is governor of New York.

(Came across this here.)

[kola]

interesting, jraxis.

wow.

just how the mafioso's do things.

lets watch and see what might happen next.

[Raineyrocks]

He's gone.  Okay George...you're next!!!!!!!

Yes!  And then it's Dick's turn!

[freedominnh]

multi-millionaires paying exorbitant fees for hookers----trying to influence the free markets....probably not a crime....fools and their money soon part quickly....