Truthdigger of the Week: Eric Schneiderman

Posted on May 20, 2011

AP / Frank Franklin II

Every week, Truthdig recognizes an individual or group of people who spoke truth to power, blew the whistle or stood up in the face of injustice. You can see past winners here, and make your own nomination for our next awardee here.

This week we celebrate New York’s attorney general for refusing to let Wall Street off the hook. As Robert Scheer put it in his column, “ ... No one else, from the White House on down, seems to be concerned with holding the bailed-out banks accountable for the massive pain and suffering they inflicted on the public.”

The New York Times reported Monday that Schneiderman’s office is investigating Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America over the banks’ mortgage-bundling business. The Times also reported that New York will not accept the settlement being negotiated by other states—a settlement we believe would amount to a pittance when compared with Wall Street profits and bailouts gleaned from the financial crisis.

As it was put by Truthdig reader Anton, who, among others, nominated Schneiderman this week, the AG deserves the honor “because of his work to hold the banks accountable.” We couldn’t agree more.

Honorable mentions: We had a lot of great nominations this week.

Jonathan Knauft suggested journalist Jeremy Scahill “for his unflinching coverage of Erik Prince and the shady dealings of his mercenary armies.” Victoria Else proposed another journalist, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, whose “most recent article reads like a criminal indictment of Goldman Sachs.”

Larinda Nomikos nominated former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold for exposing corruption in his own party, and Martine Zee argued for Madea Benjamin “for leading CodePink and planning the amazing Move Over AIPAC conference coming up this weekend in DC.”

And last but not least, Truthdig reader Scott wanted us to recognize professor Cornel West for having “the courage to call out Obama on his conservative, militaristic, corporatist, fake-liberal bullcrap.”

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