“You don’t mess–with Mary Jo.”                                                                                                                     –Barack Obama, last week

Those were the words President Obama used when announcing his nomination of Mary Jo White as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC). The corporate media jumped on the bandwagon, proclaiming that the former Federal Prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, with a proven track record of prosecuting organized crime, the terrorists in the failed 1993 attack on  the World Trade Center, and some white collar criminals, showed that the Obama Administration was going to get tough on making Wall Street follow the law.

As the New York Times gushed about both White and Richard Cordray, the former Ohio Attorney General who Obama nominated to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPT):

The White House delivered a strong message to Wall Street on Thursday, taking the unusual step of choosing two former prosecutors as top financial regulators.

Since I wouldn’t believe Obama if he said rain was wet, or the Times if it said Manhattan was once New Amsterdam, I decided to do a little digging. It didn’t take much.

Thank the Odd Gods for the Trotskyites over at the World Socialist Web Site. They make digging so much easier. While I don’t always(often, but not always) agree with their conclusions or their rhetoric, they’re good investigative journalists. They point out that Mary Jo White, after her tenure as Federal Prosecutor was up, represented the Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley, helping them respond to SEC investigations. She also served as Chair of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

Furthermore, according to the article:

Her husband, John W. White, is co-head of Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP, a law firm that advises corporations and banks on their public reporting obligations to the SEC and other regulators. He is also an example of the revolving door between Wall Street and the SEC, having served as head of the SEC’s division of corporation finance from 2006 through 2008.

So, she’s not married to the Mob, but she is married to Wall Street. Literally. For the full article, please click on the link below:

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/26/whit-j26.html

The WSWJ also talks some about what Cordray did and didn’t do after his recess appointment to head the CFPT, but I don’t really understand it. Maybe someone who reads the article will and will be so kind as to explain it.

The bottom line is, that once again, Barack Obama has talked a good game, and then done what he had to do to make sure that his buddies on Wall Street are insulated from any effective regulation or prosecution from the federal government. He uses government power to advance and protect corporate interests, which is why he fits Benito Mussolini’s definition of a Fascist to a T, and that is why I label him as such. If the shoe fits…

Cross-posted at Voices on the Square