I just spent 40 minutes in a fast food restaurant equipped with a dining area TV attuned to CNN. There was BREAKING NEWS: Casey Anthony was acquitted! The talking heads talked and talked and talked about that shocking fact -- and only that shocking fact -- for the entire 40 minutes. I was told that they did likewise yesterday. And the day before.
How the hell can these "journalists" stretch thirty seconds' worth of information into 140-plus hours of coverage? For the record: The Casey Anthony verdict was rendered on July 5 -- nearly a week ago.
On a completely unrelated note, consider some interesting figures: In 1995, when the presidency was in the hands of the despised Bill Clinton, government regulators overseeing skullduggery on Wall Street referred 1,837 cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. That number has gone down. Between 2007 and 2010, the Justice Department has received just 72 referrals a year (on average).
Gosh. How can this be? I guess investment bankers are simply more honest than they used to be.
You won't see this issue discussed on CNN. It's not newsworthy.
4 comments:
As Wall St. Polices Itself, Prosecutors Use Softer Approach
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As the financial storm brewed in the summer of 2008 and institutions feared for their survival, a bit of good news bubbled through large banks and the law firms that defend them.
Federal prosecutors officially adopted new guidelines about charging corporations with crimes — a softer approach that, longtime white-collar lawyers and former federal prosecutors say, helps explain the dearth of criminal cases despite a raft of inquiries into the financial crisis.
Though little noticed outside legal circles, the guidelines were welcomed by firms representing banks. The Justice Department’s directive, involving a process known as deferred prosecutions, signaled “an important step away from the more aggressive prosecutorial practices seen in some cases under their predecessors,” Sullivan & Cromwell, a prominent Wall Street law firm, told clients in a memo that September.
The guidelines left open a possibility other than guilty or not guilty, giving leniency often if companies investigated and reported their own wrongdoing. In return, the government could enter into agreements to delay or cancel the prosecution if the companies promised to change their behavior...
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So there are less referrals to the Justice Department and the Justice Department is no longer interested in prosecuting the few cases handed to them.
Unless your an illegal alien, a pot smoker or purse snatcher!
...or unless there are photos of penis'.
The cable news outlets give the people what they want, dead children and missing blond cheerleaders. The United States has the most politically apathetic population of any industrialized country.
We don't want information about how other nations do health care and how it works. We couldn't care less about cloak room deals that enrich the special interests in congress unless genitalia is somehow involved.
Until people realize that news is not entertainment but necessary to make informed decisions politicians will continue to apply the shaft to our backsides.
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