another huge gamble. you wonder, gene, you re in washington, how could it be that after september 15th, 2008, and we elected the democratic president who said he was going to change the system the democratic majority. you had at times a filibuster approved senate. how could it be that the progressives that have campaigned against wall street greed for so long because, you know, a lot of people how could it be that they didn t reform the system? you just said they didn t reform it. why? nobody wanted wanted to do any sort of fundamental reform. and from the administration s initial proposals. for example, we were all talking about these toxic synthetic derivatives and this huge gazillion dollar unregulated unforeseen market that had essentially caused everything to crash because they were making
we re still paying a price for. and of course, wall street running wild. and now this president gathers the economy and what he has done over the last 35 months of private sector job growth. but was the president s speech proof positive that the mainstream in america is left of center? i think we ve seen the left center emerge over the last years, ed, but too often the media doesn t pay attention to it. survey after survey shows americans want to see defense cut instead of social programs. they want to see higher taxes on the very rich as opposed to cuts in social programs. that majority, that view has been there. and i think president obama, with the wind at his back of a rising american majority, of a new coalition in this country has seized that energy and is moving with it and understands in the speech he spoke of we, we the citizens invoking the greatest documents of our
drastic action. he says he s had enough. legendary golfer phil mickelson is complaining about his new tax rates. we ll tell you why he should stick to golf. and the pbs series frontline is out with a new documentary about a lack of accountability on wall street. in the due diligence world, fraud was the f word. you can t use that word. correspondent martin smith is here tonight with a preview.
founding, saying you must participate in order to do that. but here is one thing, ed. you know, this country has been confronted with the politics of cycles. in some ways, the politics of the 20th century into the 21st century has been the unending struggle between the forces of the right and reaganism and the forces of roosevelt, the great society, a progressive majority. and i think the democrats need to understand that they need to be closer to main street than to wall street. and that when they don t defend the interests of the ordinary, average common american that they re letting slip away the power to shape a new coalition. when you look at gay rights, when you look at immigration reform, which the republicans and the conservatives have rejected, when you look at the economy of income inequality in this country, has conservatism been rejected? conservatism has been rejected. and even more broadly, ed, conservatism has degenerated into an extremism that is out of touch with t
have to make a determination whether what they say is really a criminal case. we re not able to show criminal intent sufficiently enough to obtain what we believe to obtain conviction. i m joined tonight by martin smith, producer and correspondent for frontline s the untouchables which premiers tonight 10:00 on most pbs stations and can be viewed at forward slash frontline. due diligence underwriters told you it wasn t uncommon to see school teachers claiming salaries of $12,000 a month on their mortgage applications. yet some of these whistle-blowers say they ve never been contacted by the justice department. why is that? that s a question for the justice department. and i want to add to your opening remarks, which is that no high level wall street ceo leader on wall street has gone and faced any jail time. no mid level executive on wall