JENNIFER RUBIN: Government Bullying of Private Industry More Serious than Imagined. “Three cheers for Andrew Cuomo! No, honestly. He’s taken a break from extorting AIG execs to give up their bonuses to expose a far more frightening extortion plot: the effort by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to force Bank of America to go through with the Merrill Lynch deal — and conceal the mammoth losses from the shareholders.” I continue to wonder why this isn’t a massive securities law violation.