The only real prosecution for securities fraud relating to the subprime crisis has flopped: Bear Stearns hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were acquitted today of fraud charges. A federal jury in Brooklyn took less than six hours to reach the verdict, after a month-long trial.

They were indicted in June 2008, a year after two funds they managed failed, costing investors a cool $1.6 billion. The duo were accused of not telling investors about the the shaky subprime-mortgage foundation of their funds.

The WSJ notes that the trial "trial was viewed a test of the boundary between putting a positive spin on bad results and outright fraud."

As my colleague James Lieber recently noted in a Voice cover story, Cioffi and Tannin were the targets of a Bush-era prosecution (and they were hardly big fish), and Barack Obama's crew has yet to launch a major securities fraud prosecution of its own.

In any case, the not-guilty verdict makes such prosecutions even more unlikely now.

CNN early this morning came flat out and headlined, "Stimulus creates 650,000 jobs."

Wise not to be too hasty about this as a sign that things are getting better for anyone but Wall Street. Go deeper into the subject with the Economic Policy Institute's analysis of the White House's Recovery.gov reports. On the eve of today's release of the 650,000 figure, the EPI said the website's reports from federal contractors are "a substantial step toward federal accountability and transparency" but cautioned that "the estimates of the numbers of job created or retained by individual recipients are deeply flawed in many cases."

This thoughtful debunking is not coming from a right-wing group, either. The EPI is definitely a liberal think tank, though not a knee-jerk defender of the Obama administration.

It's vital for the administration — not for the country but for the White House — to crank up the p.r. about the supposed size of job creation. The question is whether the Obama administration is focusing more on convincing us that the recession is over than on taking firmer steps to actually end the recession.

It wasn't long ago when Frank DiPascali was called the "key" to the "global intrigue" of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

That was when his lawyer (Marc Mukasey, son of Bush era Department of Terror chief Michael Mukasey) crowed that DiPascali would be a snitch ""of a historic nature, somebody who can pull the curtain back on a fraud and answer a lot of questions" — questions that "the whole world wants to be answered."

You want answers? You want financial crooks brought to justice? Barack Obama's administration isn't doing it, as my colleague James Lieber points out this week. The best steps toward justice so far in both the Madoff scandal and Wall Street's meltdown are being taken by 2nd District federal judges in lower Manhattan. They're talking the talk and walking the walk.

In the murky Bank of America/Merrill Lynch affair, federal judge Jed Rakoff previously blasted both the bankers and Obama's SEC, rejecting their suspiciously kid-gloved settlement and ordering the case to trial. And now, in the Madoff scheme, federal judge Richard Sullivan has rejected a joint request by Obama's Justice Department prosecutors and DiPascali's lawyers to grant bail to the Madoff flunky.

Few things are more boring than watching journalists talk about journalism, but yesterday's George Stephanopolous roundtable on Barack Obama's publicly declared war with Fox News shows how the nation's most charismatic previous president handled the press without being heavy-handed or thin-skinned about it.

The staff of former Clinton press secretary Stephanopolous dredged up a clip of John F. Kennedy from May 1962. Asked at a press conference how he thought the press was treating his administration and "the issues of the day," the president who used to sleep Marilyn Monroe said (transcript):

Not that JFK let all propagandists off so lightly. During that same press conference, JFK blistered corporate crookedness regarding a tax bill:

They're delirious over at Fox News about landing the top spot on the White House enemies list. And I don't blame them.

There's no higher honor for a journalist than to land on a government's enemies list — particularly when the pol throws down the gantlet publicly. And it's something that you can enjoy when you know the government's not going to actually murder you, as it does in so many countries. (See the Committee to Protect Journalists.)

Sure, I'd like to strangle Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity — who wouldn't? But that would be wrong — mostly because I'd be caught. For a government, that would be wrong on all counts.

When paranoid Richard Nixon and his aides were compiling the most famous White House Enemies List, Barack Obama was just a child of 10. That might be why Obama's acting like a child now.

Take a look at "Is Fox Part of a Larger White House Enemies List?" That's the nutwork's own celebration from Wednesday's "On the Record" (transcript) in which bore correspondent Greta Van Susteren starts it by saying, "There is breaking news in the White House war on Fox News ..."

As usual, Fox News's talking heads are full of shit, but the broadcast wasn't. Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander warned Obama not to compile what amounts to an official enemies list, and Fox News gave him a big bear hug. But Alexander was being more than just another partisan Republican when he sternly lectured Obama. Alexander speaks from experience:

Give Alexander some props for publicly acknowledging that he was an operative for the most paranoid and petulant president in U.S. history.

Obama's bone-headed move just gives an excuse to his political opponents, who should have their arms twisted on health-care and financial-industry reform, to waste their time responding to him and getting face time while doing it.

Stating the obvious six months after the fact, the NYT tells America that Paul Volcker's not being listened to, splashing on today's front page, "Volcker Fails to Sell a Bank Strategy."

The aging (82 years old), giant (6-7) former Fed chairman was marginalized months ago by Barack Obama, relegated to do-nothing, dog-and-pony panel called the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Volcker's voice — particularly his view that the megabanks be reined in from their risky behavior — was drowned out way early this year by the nattering of Larry Summers, the current administration's version of Karl Rove. (See my "Obama de-regulates Larry Summers, reins in Volcker," March 26.)

Both sides control vast media. The president's more lovable, but Fox News is louder and on the air 24/7, so my money's on Fox. At the very least, this will just harden Fox's true believers and give them more fodder.

His communications chief, Anita Dunn, tells the NYT's Brian Stelter:

A cynical view of the American public from the Obama team, which must think that it nees to counter Fox directly and by name because the right-wing channel is duping many average Americans with its steady anti-president rants. And the Obama team is absolutely right about that.

Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympics, the IOC decided. Chicago, despite a strong pitch by the ever-mellifluous Barack Obama, was eliminated in the first round of voting.

Chicago became a windbag city, wasting an estimated $100 million on its bid, which should piss off anyone, especially during the Great Recession. But at least the city (and Illinois and the federal government) won't be spending billions on the jingoistic boondoggle.

Bread and circuses are great, but this circus costs way too much bread, especially these days.

What's worse than the destruction of jobs? The permanent destruction of jobs. Just because the market's humming right along for now doesn't mean that the jobless rate is going to suddenly drop toward normalcy.

Barack Obama's future will only get more complicated. Hidden in a rambling Bloomberg piece by Rich Miller are some really harsh truths about the unemployment rate, the deficit, and the interest rate. Plus the differentiation, if it's even possible, between the mere destruction of jobs and the permanent destruction of jobs in industries ranging from housing to finance.

Good details to skim before you tackle Liam Halligan's screed in the Telegraph (U.K.) about the hot air produced by Obama and others at the G-20 summit in already polluted Pittsburgh.

Big Merger Deals Signal Restored Confidence (NYT)

N.Y. Poverty Data Paint Mixed Picture (NYT)

Actually, the same grim picture with a desperate attempt to paint at least a faint smile on it.

Deals Drive Push Back Into Stocks (WSJ)

"The Dow industrials rose 124 points and are on course for the best quarter since 1998 amid a burst of deals and analyst upgrades."

Obama Enters Olympics Race (WSJ)

Going to Denmark this week to use his charm to try to get the costly Olympics in Chicago in 2016.

Exelon to Quit Chamber Over Climate Bill (NYT)

"The carbon-based free lunch is over," says the CEO of one of the nation's biggest utilities, rebelling against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's head-in-sand stance against global-warming legislation.

Sex Drive Boosted by Testosterone Spray, Study Says (Bloomberg)

Bailout of Wall Street execs gets personal: Aussie drug company Acrux will ask FDA to let it sell Axiron, an underarm spray that boosts testosterone. Global markets for testosterone treatments, story says, is $1 billion a year and has risen up, up, up by more than 20 percent in the U.S. Meanwhile, "U.S. Drug Companies Chase Vaccines," WSJ says of impending flu profits.

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