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1.) Forget Occupy Wall Street, what about just prosecute a few Wall Streeters? — You don’t have to be a member of Occupy Wall Street to believe that the financial crisis was at least partly caused by great malfeasance by Wall Street and probably some criminality — just read the great Michael Lewis’ “The Big Short.” Given this, why hasn’t the Justice Department charged anyone of consequence on Wall Street with, well, anything? TheDC’s Matthew Boyle reports on the possible answer:
“A new report from the conservative Government Accountability Institute (GAI) finds that President Barack Obama’s and Attorney General Eric Holder’s failure to criminally charge any top Wall Street bankers is likely a result of cronyism inside the Department of Justice and political donations made to Obama’s campaign. Despite Obama’s and Holder’s ‘heated rhetoric’ against Wall Street (in 2009, Obama blamed the 2008 financial collapse on ‘reckless speculation of bankers’ while Holder charged that ‘unscrupulous executives, Ponzi scheme operators and common criminals alike have targeted the pocketbooks and retirement accounts of middle class Americans’), they haven’t ‘filed a single criminal charge against any top executive of an elite financial institution,’ GAI wrote in its report, exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller.”
This doesn’t, of course, suggest that others weren’t also to blame — like the government.
2.) Jackie Mason rips Obama — Borscht belt comedian Jackie Mason isn’t particularly happy that President Obama hasn’t visited Israel during his first term. TheDC’s Jeff Poor reports:
“And according to Mason, Obama could have easily made a stop while he was in the Middle East. ‘Can someone answer this question? The Jews gave him 78 percent of their vote,’ Mason continued. ‘They went everywhere to help him but he can’t go across the street to help them? … He is in Egypt and in Lebanon and every country around there within a block and a half of Israel and he couldn’t cross the street to say hello to them because there was too much of an effort there? Five years to cross the street to say hello to the Israelis and only if he is re-elected?'”
Of all the legitimate areas to attack Obama, particularly on foreign policy, this line of attack strikes TheDC Morning as the least salient — and it’s not just a comedian that is using it to attack the president. George W. Bush didn’t visit Israel during his first term and he seemed like a pretty strong proponent of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Shouldn’t the American pro-Israel community hope that the U.S. president reduce his focus on Israel and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, especially when the prospects for peace are currently non-existent and there are so many other pressing problems to focus on? Like, how about focusing on stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon? That seems like a better use of time for the American president than going out of their way to visit the Holy Land. Remember friends: It’s actions that matter — not Passport stamps.
3.) Non-union, non-human — TheDC’s Matthew Boyle reports on some possible misdeeds committed by the Treasury Department:
“Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company. The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions. The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures.”
4.) Trillions, not billions — Some economists are arguing that the actual amount of stimulus pumped into the economy by the government was not hundreds of billions of dollars, but rather trillions. Michael Bastasch reports for The Daily Caller News Foundation:
“Left-leaning economists often argue that the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was too small and that more stimulus is needed to get the economy going again. The real amount of fiscal stimulus pumped into the economy, however, may be much higher … Tom Firey of the libertarian Cato Institute estimates that the U.S. has dumped at least $2.5 trillion of fiscal stimulus into the economy since 2008 … Art Laffer, economist and former economics adviser to President Ronald Reagan, also puts the true amount of stimulus spending much higher than $819 billion — at more than $4 trillion.”
Perhaps all the economy needed wasn’t trillions, but quadrillions? If only we pumped a zillion dollars into the economy, everything would be booming right now.
5.) Poll of the Day: Mitt Romney viewed unfavorably — Pew Research Center asks adults nationwide about what they think of Mitt Romney: 34% said they have a favorable opinion of him, 50% said they have a negative opinion of him, 13% couldn’t respond or refused to respond and 3% said they never heard of him.
6.) Tweet of Yesterday — David M. Drucker: Bill Kristol says on @FoxNews that he believes @MittRomney will make VP choice Thursday, & that finalists are Christie/Rubio/Ryan