"U" Now Stands for "Unlimited"; "S" is for "Serfdom"

Even the fellow's title is a little scary: "Civil Liberties Protection Officer".  Add to that his Master's information - "Office of the Director of National Intelligence" - and "the willlies" (sorry, Willie) run amok.
More disturbing is how I came to know that a ClePto exists (ok, klepto is spelled wrong, and it's a bit of a reach, but so are most of the acronyms our supposed servants use; like naming a bill "United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" (USA PATRIOT Act) just so they can call it "the Patriot Act", when it has nothing to do with patriotism). 
Seems that the guy in charge at the Department of Jus...(gets progressively harder to finish that phrase as time goes by, so I'll start again).
General Holder (has a kind of military ring, doesn't it?) issued an order "allowing" expansion of the completely anticonstitutional SURVEILLANCE of EVERYONE.
Described by Wired magazine a "a secret government agreement", this blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment (and arguably, the Fifth, in the context of the Right to Privacy - yes, Privacy is a Right, and was declared so by Congress in the Privacy Act) was, in Wired's words, "granted without approval or debate from lawmakers" (who could not, by the way, Constitutionally approve without an amendment) to the "National Counterterrorism Center".
"Oh, well," you say, "if it's to fight terrorism..."
Maybe you didn't catch what I said about SURVEILLANCE of EVERYONE.
The *beauty* of ignoring the contract that created "the government" is that any and all restrictions on the power conferred by that contract effectively disappear.  Can't tell us what to believe, say, print?  You haven't been paying attention.  Can't search without probable cause or a warrant?  You REALLY haven't been paying attention.  Due Process of Law?  Right to counsel? Right to jury trial? Protection against "cruel and unusual" punishment?  Stolen.  Pilfered.  Misappropriated.  Negated.
So, remember, when one of your more vocal friends, or family members, no longer calls, or returns yours...
YOU let this happen.

Just Us Prevails (Again)

Bloods.  Crips.  Eastside Thrillseekers.  Hell's Angels. Mongols.  Bandidos.  As diverse as these might appear, they all have one thing, if only one thing, in common:

They simply aren't big enough yet.

That's the only conclusion that can be reached.  It was curious enough that Forbes magazine published an opinion piece titled

"Is the Federal Reserve Using Money-Laundering Techniques To Cleanse Banks' Balance Sheets?" (http://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencehunter/2012/10/29/are-federal-reserve-regulated-banks-laundering-dirty-money/

Granted, it wasn't Forbes' own, but a Forbes "contributor"'s opinion, that Forbes published.  But from a non-elite perspective, my observation was that one of "them" (see the subtitle of this blog) was "eating their own":

"Immediately after the 2008 financial meltdown, the Fed laundered more than $2 trillion in worthless assets held on the balance sheets of private banks. According to a watered-down 2011 audit of the Fed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), there have been $16 trillion in Fed bailouts to banks and corporations around the world since the financial meltdown in 2008. Since that report, Bloomberg has reported on an additional $9 trillion in secret, off-balance-sheet Fed transactions that the central bank refuses to discuss. Now, Ben Bernanke is ginning up assembly-line washing machines at the Fed with QE∞ to spin an opened-ended, $40-billion-monthly cleansing campaign to purchase worthless mortgage backed securities from banks at face value, which could run to an additional $1.3 trillion loan laundering accompanied by downscale resales."

But, in case you were wondering what "THE FED" has to do with the groups mentioned above, I bring you:

HSBC pays $1.9 billion to settle US probe

By James O'Toole and Charles Riley @CNNMoneyDecember 11, 2012: 2:25 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Global banking giant HSBC will pay $1.92 billion in a record settlement with U.S. regulators to resolve money-laundering allegations.

The Department of Justice and U.S. Treasury said Tuesday that HSBC allowed the most notorious international drug cartels to launder billions of dollars across borders. In addition, the government said HSBC violated U.S. sanctions for years by illegally conducting transactions on behalf of customers in Iran, Libya, Cuba, Sudan and Burma.                                           

(fair use claimed under 17 U.S.C. § 107)

After a five-year investigation, involving 9,000,000 documents, and the outright admission (confession) of money laundering, there will be exactly 0 indictments. 

Oh, yes, HSBC will "pay" a LOT of counterfeit "money".  But not one bankster will see the insid of a courtroom, let alone a cell.

Which is where the bankster cartel differs from the groups named above .

 

"Will It Never End?!?" Goldfinger Laments

from the New York Times  ("fair use" authorized under 17 U.S.C. § 107):

"The nation’s largest banks are facing a fresh torrent of lawsuits asserting that they sold shoddy mortgage securities that imploded during the financial crisis, potentially adding significantly to the tens of billions of dollars the banks have already paid to settle other cases."

Apparently, investors take issue with being sold "securities" that weren't, well, "secured".

Who'da thunk? 

And they, along with "regulators" (Goldfinger personnel at SEC, etc., with whom this was all A-OK till the organic matter hit the rotating oscillator), prosecutors (ditto), and insurers (ditto, as long as they didn't have to actually pay out) are on the offensive, taking the TBTFs (BofA, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, et al) to court over more than $1,000,000,000,000.00 (that's what "1 trillion" looks like in actual numbers) in "securities" that were, supposedly, "backed by residential mortgages."

At that, NYT reports that "some in the banking industry" think that losing ALL of these lawsuits could result in "losses" of as mush as 300,000,000,000.00 (30%; gotta love the math!).  But at least one "mucky-muck" (a term that has reached a whole new level of meaning) at Tangent Capital Partners (italics are mine - but you just can't make this stuff up)  admits

“The real price tag is terrifying.” 

Seems that the 25 billion (see how different it looks in words?) that the cartel - um, industry - put up as a "settlement" awhile back just ain't gonna cut it.

In as classic a line as I've ever read, NYT paraphrases "several senior officials in the insustry" as saying "But in the most extreme situation, the litigation could empty even more well-stocked reserves and weigh down profits..." (emphases mine). 

Think about THAT for a moment.  If 1,000,000,000,000.00 will only "weigh down profits", I guess Goldfinger really is "Too Big To Fail".  Then again, the NYT article does overlook one facet of all this, saying,

"The banks are battling on three fronts: with prosecutors who accuse them of fraud, with regulators who claim that they duped investors into buying bad mortgage securities, and with investors seeking to force them to buy back the soured loans."

What NYT overlooks is that the momentum is building from a fourth "front":  the other side.  As time passes, more and more mortgagor-victims are prevailing in their own battles against foreclosure, based upon fraud of varying types.  One recent example is a property owner who had a "securitization audit" done, and obtained verification from SEC of these findings:

"Our search of EDGAR, the Commission’s electronic database of corporate filings, for the CWABS Asset-Backed Certificates Trust Series 2006-23 (http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001381999&owner=include&count=40&hidefilings=) produced no filings referencing the loan number you provided.  We also did not locate a pooling and servicing agreement attached as an exhibit to the Trust’s registration statement.  A Form 15 to terminate the Trust’s registration was filed in January 2007."

Which, if you've been paying attention, leads directly back to the securities-victims discussed above, who, it appears, invested in mortgage "pools" that Karl Denninger, at Market Ticker, calls "empty trusts".

Giddy-up!.










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Spinning Heads and Revolving Doors

Anyone who's ever read this blog (or Liberty's Blog, http://taketheliberty.wordpress.com) knows I'm a wee bit cynical when it comes to government, and the PTB that own it. A trip through the archives might enlighten new readers in that regard.

(If, after reading this post, any reader doesn't understand why I'm so distrustful of the medical-industrial complex, well...explaining it won't help.)

Turns out that one Gary Nabel, soon to be former head of the National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center, has announced that he's leaving the VRC to become chief scientific officer in the research labs at Sanofi. http://chrisinmaryville.net/nih-vaccine-chief-gary-nabel-trades-dream-job-for-big-pharma.html. 

According to Sanofi's website, http://en.sanofi.com/products/human_vaccines/human_vaccines.aspx , vaccines division Sanofi Pasteur "is a world leader in...pediatric combination vaccines, influenza vaccines, booster vaccines for adolescents and adults, meningitis vaccines, and travel/endemic vaccines...assuring vaccine commercialization  in the United States and Canada, as well as 19 countries in Europe...[and] has also developed its presence in Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and in eastern Europe.."  Not bad for a little "Mom & Pop" shop, right?

Nabel won't be lonely, though. In January 2011, Elias Zerhouni, former director of the NIH, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, became the president of Sanofi-Aventis’ research labs. Zerhouni recruited him.

This is good, no? Now, we'll have 2 former "watchdogs" at the global giant, so we can rest easy.  Except, In the fall of 2003, Zerhouni, as head of NIH, faced serious accusations regarding hundreds of NIH scientists and their financial ties to the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

So, forgive me if things like a jump of over FOUR THOUSAND PERCENT in dead babies http://real-agenda.com/2012/11/26/fetal-deaths-up-4000-after-pregnant-mothers-took-flu-vaccine/ give me pause.

I know, it's not like these guys work for the PhDA (oops, FDA. I think of them as the "Pharmaceutical Defense Agency"), which agency is OK with vaccines containing mercury. http://www.naturalnews.com/037653_vaccine_additives_thimerosal_formaldehyde.html.

Hell, even the courts are ok with that. http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/03/23/44979.htm, although, to be precise, the National Coalition of Organized Women (NCOW) (I know! What the hell were they thinking?) really has no standing (a legal term that means a plaintiff must have an injury that can be redressed by a judgment (Constitutional standing), and must be the actual injured party (prudential standing)).  Apparently, none of the NCOW herd was.

Can't help but think that the attorneys who took NCOW's retainer were bought by the PTB that own Sanofi; that own, through their wholly-owned subsidiary, NIH and PhDA (sorry; habit) FDA.

Of course, I'm just a cynic.
 

Blood Money

(cross-posted to Liberty's Blog)

We’d seen his face often, on “the networks of NBC”, giving his expert opinion on what was needed for United States forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a “military analyst”, you couldn’t ask for much more.  After all, who better than a four star general to explain to the American People, and even to Congress, just what was needed to “support our troops”, and “win the hearts and minds” of Iraqis and Afghanis?  It never occurred to us to question whether or how much he was being paid to make those “news” appearances. Or who was paying him.  Some were shocked, years later, to find out he was being paid by the defense contractors whose weapons and equipment he pimped on the Today show, and NBC Nightly News.  In November, 2008, well after the quadrennial (s)election of  the new “Commander-In-Chief” of United States military forces, the New York Times described “retired general” Barry McCaffrey’s “post-service” career as “One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex”.  And for good reason.

After “rising to fame” as Bill Clinton’s “Drug Czar” (Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)) from 1996 to 2001, where he developed a program of paying millions in misappropriated tax money to five major television networks for adding anti-drug messages in their programs, including (but certainly not limited to) ER, Beverly Hills, 90210, Chicago Hope, The Drew Carey Show and 7th Heaven, he founded B R McCaffrey Associates, and became NBC’s most-frequently-seen military analyst, around the same time his company began representing  defense contractors at the Pentgon, and in Congress.  And according to the graphic published in that New York Times article, he’s done quite well, joining the boards of eight defense contractors, and “advising” four more.

For one “tiny defense contractor”, Defense Solutions, Defense Solutions, hiring McCaffrey was a watershed. Within days the company had a 15 page briefing packet in front of recently “retired” CIA Director David Petraeus, then the US commanding general in Iraq.  Of course, McCaffrey didn’t mention to Petraeus, or to Congress, that he had a financial stake in the company he recommended to provide 5,000 armored vehicles for service in Iraq.

Disturbingly, McCaffrey’s story is far from a rarity.  A report released by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Brave New Foundation last week revealed that between 2009 and 2011, more than 70 percent of retired three-and-four star generals either took jobs with or became consultants for defense contractors.  Retired general James Cartwright took a paid position on Raytheon’s board of directors, and Admiral Gary Roughead went to work for NorthropGrumman, each while serving on the Defense Policy Board.  

And that 70 percent? That was actually a decline. Between 2004 and 2008, while American fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, aunts and uncles were filling casualty lists, 80 percent of their “retiring” commanders became war profiteers, as consultants or executives of companies whose bottom lines rise in a sea of blood.  Many began these lucrative activities before retirement, a practice the Pentagon supports.

The path from command to certain “defense” contracting jobs is laid out like paving stones. As put on AntiWar.com, “the last seven generals and admirals who worked as Department of Defense gatekeepers for international arms sales are now helping military contractors sell weapons and defense technology overseas.”

McCaffrey does just fine “on the home front”, though. VeritasCapital, described in the NYT article as “a relatively small player in 2001”, had announced, on Sept. 6, 2001, forming an “advisory council” including McCaffrey and other “well-connected retired generals and admirals”.   Veritas gave those advisers board seats on its military companies, profit sharing,  and even equity stakes; attractive because Veritas intended to turn quick profits through I.P.O.’s.

That might have looked like a gamble at the time, since revenue growth is important to the Goldfinger entities that underwrite Initial Public Offerings, like Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers.  Five days later, the only question was just how big those increases would be.

McCaffrey’s banging on NBC's war drum, his rants for ongoing  increases in military spending, for a global campaign against terrorism, and for ever-greater spending for high-tech weapons, like the drones that local police agencies are increasingly encouraged to “buy” (with “Homeland Security” grants), has answered the question.

Oh, and those networks?  Imagine what they were paid for The Agency (first broadcast: September 26, 2001!); Alias (first broadcast: September 30, 2001); and even West Wing (first aired in ‘99).  But those are subjects for other posts. Maybe even another blog.

Just Who's In Charge?

"Mighty oaks from little acorns grow", goes the proverb, and as Oscar Wilde is credited with saying, "No good deed goes unpunished".  And so it is with that creation of global imperialists, theUnited Nations.

Conceived, purportedly, to maintain peace among nations of the world, the UN has been the apparent source of "conflicts", "operations", and other euphemisms for war from its very beginning. Now, it may well ignite the spark of war, within and against American states.

Coloradans and Washingtonians (The People in those respective states) had the audacity to pass referenda legalizing marijuana. After forty years of a declared "war on drugs" (it started much, much earlier), resulting in a quadrupling of the prison population nationwide (since 1980), earning "the land of the free"  the dubious distinction of being the single, largest incarceration nation in the history of the world, imprisoning a larger raw number and greatest percentage of its citizenry than any totalitarian regime, anywhere, anytime,

The People of Colorado, and The People of Washington have had enough.

We already know Goldfinger's people in the branches and various departments and agencies of what began as a federation of states routinely ignore the will of those states.  Medical marijuana dispensaries, approved by the true Sovereigns of those states, The People, have repeatedly been raided by the Drug Enforcement Agency (to the financial benefit of the major pharmaceutical manufacturers), more often than not with the "assistance" of "local law enforcement", who no longer answer to their local constitutencies, but to those who provide them with off-budget cash and weapons.

Now, a UN organization is displeased with The People of Colorado, and The People of Washington. http://investmentwatchblog.com/un-impose-treaties-on-states-legalizing-marijuana/ .  Raymond Yans, President of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), described as "the quasi-judicial body charged with monitoring the implementation of the international drug control conventions",  (did you know there was an "International Narcotics Control Board"? - gives new meaning to "cartel" & "kingpin", doesn't it?), wants Goldfinger's servants to "take the necessary measures to ensure full compliance with the international drug control treaties within the entire territory of the United States, in order to protect the health and well-being of its citizens."

From the November 15th press release from the UN Information Service in Vienna (Austria; not Virginia): 

The limiting of the use of cannabis to medical and scientific purposes is laid out in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which was agreed to by 185 States, who by consensus decided to place cannabis under control and limit its use to medical purposes.

This raises a number of interesting questions.  First, the federal go(d)vernment has had "
an obligation" -- since 1961 -- to recognize the medical purposes of marijuana. (Another 1961"agreement" will be the subject of a post on http://taketheliberty.wordpress.com ) So why does "the" United States (a thing - not a place) insist that there is no medical benefit to marijuana?

Second, just how does UNIS expect "the" United States "to ensure [the states'] full compliance with the conventions within their entire territory, including federated states and/or provinces"?  Apparently, through perpetuating the destructive and expensive War on Drugs and the prison-industrial complex it fostered.




 

 

   

One IS the Loneliest Number, But Is It Better Than Nothing?

You'd think that I'd "take the day off" on Thanksgiving. And I will, later. But the world won't stop turning, and those who assume the power to run the world won't stop, either.
"They" - the Powers That Be - Goldfinger, in other words, have ample reason to be thankful today.
Justice in America: Systematic Document Forgery and Fabrication Yield One Criminal Plea Bargain « naked capitalism
Goldfinger's wholly-owned subsidiary law firm (trade name: "Department of Justice") stepped in when the "show me state" proceeded on its own case.  Both anounced a plea bargain in the "robosigning" scam "exposed", in part, by Goldfinger subsidiary CBS on their variety show, "60 Minutes". 
Lorraine Brown, once "chief executive" of Lender Processing Service subsidiary DocX, whose "mortgage document fabrication price sheet" established the forgery of more than a million documents used in fraudulent foreclosures, fell on her sword. Brown pleaded guilty, in the state case, to one (1) count each, of felony forgery; felony perjury; and misdemeanor making a false declaration, and to one (1) "federal" count: "Count One"; Conspiracy to Commit Mail and Wire Fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Which makes the news exponentially more curious.
18 U.S.C. § 371 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371) reads: "If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States...". More curious, Brown "admits" deceiving Lender Processing Services about her illegal actions, exonerating LPS, and its clients, the banksters' empty mortgage trusts.
By "agreement", Brown's sacrifice(s) will be a maximum potential penalty of five years in "Club Fed" (where banksters typically spend their sabbatical) and a $250,000 fine, and imprisonment of not less than two years and not to exceed three years in the Missouri Department of Corrections (any odds on concurrent sentences?).
The huddled masses may now rest easy (in their tent-cities and shelters). A "bad guy" has been caught, and appropriate punishment shall ensue.
"Just us" has been served.