Press reports document criminality of US financial elite

Dandelion Salad

by Tom Eley and Barry Grey
http://www.wsws.org
24 December 2008

Fallout from the Madoff scandal continues to batter investors, banks and private charities in the US, Europe and Japan. The massive fraud carried out by a prominent Wall Street insider, Bernard Madoff, the former head of the Nasdaq stock exchange, has exposed clients to as much as $50 billion in losses.

Recent press reports make clear that the Madoff affair is not an aberration. It is indicative of pervasive fraud and criminality in the highest echelons of the financial establishment, aided and abetted by government regulatory agencies.

On Monday, Truthout, an independent internet news service, published an interview with former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigative attorney Gary Aguirre. The SEC is the federal regulatory agency tasked with enforcing securities law and regulating stock exchanges and the securities industry.

[…]

via Press reports document criminality of US financial elite.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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SEC Whistleblower Speaks on Madoff Fraud

The Madoff Scandal

Wealth Creation, or a Ponzi Scheme? by Michael Hudson

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2

Pakistan sends 20,000 troops to Indian frontier

Dandelion Salad

Zahid Hussain in Islamabad
Times Online
Dec 27, 2008

Pakistan moved thousands of troops away from its border with Afghanistan towards its Indian frontier yesterday, marking a big increase in tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours after the Mumbai terror attacks.

Religion will be the death of us all By Roland Michel Tremblay

By Roland Michel Tremblay
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
December 26, 2008
Originally published on OpEdNews August 4 2008

Please, forgive me. As I am drunk and about to talk about religion. Something that should never be done, as religion is the last remaining taboo in this world, and God, do I know it. I just hope I won’t be censored for talking about religion, and, oh, being drunk at the same time. Hopefully it is within your book of truth, your Bible, to forgive such things as I am about to do. What has Jesus Christ said exactly? I am so drunk, I can’t remember anything.

If you are about to judge me, you are following the wrong immoral type of religion. And you’d better wake up to this world, the real world, before someone else takes advantage of you, using against you your most cherished beliefs, your own religion. It happens more often than you think. Just think about it.

Just finished a hell of a week at work, drank myself to death tonight, after I had sex with my boyfriend (a homosexual deviant diseased mind like me, to use the religious term), smoke more roll ups than I would care to count, and here I am, I will talk about religion. Did I mention drugs in there somewhere? Oh!

I am your son! I am the son of every good American out there! Because I am just a statistic, and according to statistics, so many are just like me. I am your Useless American Alcoholic Gay Son! Please remember that, if you cannot remember anything else.

Ahmadinejad: Jesus WILL return

Dandelion Salad

President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Alternative Christmas Message
Translation of the Alternative Christmas Message, delivered by the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

By Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
ICH
December 25, 2008 “Channel 4”

“In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful.

Upon the anniversary of the birth of Jesus, Son of Mary, the Word of God, the Messenger of mercy, I would like to congratulate the followers of Abrahamic faiths, especially the followers of Jesus Christ, and the people of Britain.

The Almighty created the universe for human beings and human beings for Himself.

Ahmadinejad: “Jesus WILL return” (When did you ever hear Western leaders talk with this conviction)

setfree68

Dec 25, 2008

The Noose Tightens By Jonathan Tepperman

Dandelion Salad

By Jonathan Tepperman
ICH
December 19, 2008 Newsweek Web Exclusive“

Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and other top Bush officials could soon face legal jeopardy.

The United States, like many countries, has a bad habit of committing wartime excesses and an even worse record of accounting for them afterward. But a remarkable string of recent events suggests that may finally be changing—and that top Bush administration officials could soon face legal jeopardy for prisoner abuse committed under their watch in the war on terror.

In early December, in a highly unusual move, a federal court in New York agreed to rehear a lawsuit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft brought by a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar. (Arar was a victim of the administration’s extraordinary rendition program: he was seized by U.S. officials in 2002 while in transit through Kennedy Airport and deported to Syria, where he was tortured.) Then, on Dec. 15, the Supreme Court revived a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld by four Guantánamo detainees alleging abuse there—a reminder that the court, unlike the White House, will extend Constitutional protections to foreigners at Gitmo. Finally, in the same week the Senate Armed Service Committee, led by Carl Levin and John McCain, released a blistering report specifically blaming key administration figures for prisoner mistreatment and interrogation techniques that broke the law. The bipartisan report reads like a brief for the prosecution—calling, for example, Rumsfeld’s behavior a “direct cause” of abuse. Analysts say it gives a green light to prosecutors, and supplies them with political cover and factual ammunition. Administration officials, with a few exceptions, deny wrongdoing. Vice President Dick Cheney says there was nothing improper with U.S. interrogation techniques—”we don’t do torture,” he repeated in an ABC interview on Dec. 15. The government blamed the worst abuses, such as those at Abu Ghraib, on a few bad apples.

via The Noose Tightens

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Will a king prosecute a king?

Charge the Political Criminals By Timothy V. Gatto

War Crimes

Torture

Government Without Law By Ralph Nader

Dandelion Salad

By Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
Dec. 26, 2008

Over thirty years ago, a book came out titled “How the Government Breaks the Law”, by Jethro K. Lieberman.” Even then it was old news and the examples cited seemed small compared to today’s chronic law-breakers in the White House and at many federal departments and agencies. Many recent books have been written on the expansive outlaw behavior of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Less attention has been devoted to the explosion of unauthorized actions by the Executive in recent years. What should be the most frequent question by reporters to government officials — namely, “By what authority are you acting?” – is the rarest of inquiries.

A two part series on Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. in the Washington Post by David Cho in late November brought this point out in a stunningly frank admission by the Corporate bailout czar himself.

Facing the Economic Crisis by Stanley Aronowitz

Dandelion Salad

Posted with permission from www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/

by Stanley Aronowitz
Socialist Project | The Bullet
December 26, 2008

The main news these days is the global economic crisis, an event ascribed by economists and most pundits alike to a “financial” meltdown caused by the irresponsibility of mainly, but not exclusively, U.S. lending institutions and consumers in offering – and accepting – “sub-prime” mortgages. The variable mortgages, initiated during the credit driven bubble of the 1990s, and welcomed by the Clinton Administration but accelerated in the first six years of the new century, require home buyers to put no money down. Interest rates, which begin at 5%-9% are fated to rise within a few years, after which they could double, triple or more. In September 2008 we began to hear of massive foreclosures in almost all sections of the country as the first round of ballooning rates took effect, and the projections for 2008 and 2009 were for 2 million homes, six percent of the U.S. total to go into serious default. New home construction came to a screeching halt and commercial building suffered only slightly less pain.

Israel Defense Forces get green light to strike Hamas

compiled by Cem Ertür
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
26 December 2008

1) IDF gets green light to strike Hamas after rocket barrage

2) Preparing for a possible confrontation with Hizbullah

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http://www.jpost.com/

excerpts from: IDF gets green light to strike Hamas after rocket barrage

by Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post, 24 December 2008

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday night that he had ordered the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] to prepare itself to deliver a “response” to the rocket attacks… Defense officials said the IDF now had approval for a number of operations that would likely include heavy air strikes against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets, as well as pinpoint ground operations against terrorist infrastructure.

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http://www.jpost.com/

excerpts from: Preparing for a possible confrontation with Hizbullah

by Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post, 11 December 2008

To prepare for another possible war with Hizbullah, the IDF has also drawn up operational plans that it believes will succeed in ending the battle – with a clear and decisive victory – in four or five days, not like last time.
…
In general terms, the plan consists of two stages. The first: to strike hard at Hizbullah infrastructure from the air, and to hope that this is devastating enough to force Hizbullah to end the war…. The second: to conduct a massive ground attack, probably up to the Litani River, the area where most of Hizbullah’s short-range Katyusha rockets are believed to be deployed.
…
“In the last war, we made a distinction between Hizbullah targets and Lebanese national targets,” a senior IDF general told the Post. “Now that Hizbullah is in the government – with veto power in the cabinet – there is no longer a reason to make this distinction, since a Hizbullah attack against Israel is essentially a Lebanese attack against Israel.” … “No village will be immune,” explained the senior general. “We will give them about a 12-hour warning, and then strike back.”

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Israel-Palestine-Gaza-Occupation

“Class is a dirty word” – Michael Parenti interviewed by Jason Miller

Image by Gareth Harper via Flickr

Michael Parenti interviewed by Jason Miller
Featured Writers
Dandelion Salad
Dec. 26, 2008

“Class is a dirty word in that it gets close to the truth about who governs and for whose benefit.” – Michael Parenti

In the land of those who think they’re free and the home of savage capitalism, class is indeed a dirty word. Remember, we’re a nation of Joe the Plumbers. If we just work hard enough and fend off those socialist vampires who want to suck us dry by redistributing our hard-earned wealth, we can all be financial successes. And if you’re a faux-progressive presidential candidate—like Obama, you’re doomed to political perdition unless you sign a blood oath disavowing your ties to socialism.

Guns, Butter, and Obama By Conn Hallinan

Dandelion Salad

By Conn Hallinan
December 24 / 25, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse”

Over the next several months there will be a battle for hearts and minds, but not in Iraq or Afghanistan. The war will be here at home, waged mostly in the halls of Congress, where grim lobbyists for one of the top 15 economies in the world are digging in to preserve their stake in the massive U.S. military budget. With the country in deep recession and resources dwindling for the new administration’s programs on health care, education, and the environment, the outcome of this battle may well end up defining the next four years.

But coming to grips with the issue, as one military analyst noted, is likely to resemble the worst of World War I trench warfare. “It will be like the British Army at the Somme,” Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information (CDI) told the Boston Globe, “you will just get mowed down by the defense industry.”