Puppet MastersS


Dollars

Best of the Web: Another batch of Wall Street villains freed on technicality

General Electric
© Stan Honda/AFP/Getty ImagesGeneral Electric's corporate headquarters.

I love covering trials, which is one reason I've been a little sad since switching over to the Wall Street beat: Few of the bad guys in this world ever even get interviewed by the authorities, much less indicted, so trials are comically rare.

But we did have one last year, a big one, and though it was boring and jargon-laden enough on the surface that at least one juror fought sleep in its opening days, I thought it was fascinating. In a story about the Justice Department's Spring 2012 prosecution of a wide-raging municipal bond bid-rigging case, I called it the "first trial of the modern American mafia":

"Of course, you won't hear about the recent financial corruption case, United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm, called anything like that . . . But this just completed trial in downtown New York . . . allowed federal prosecutors to make public for the first time the astonishing inner workings of the reigning American crime syndicate, which now operates not out of Little Italy and Las Vegas, but out of Wall Street."

Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm were mid-level players who worked for GE Capital. They were involved in a wide-ranging scheme (one that also involved most of America's biggest banks, from Chase to BOA to Wachovia) to skim billions of dollars from America's cities and towns by rigging the auctions banks set up to help towns earn the highest returns on the management of municipal bond issues.

The case was over 10 years in the making and involved offenses that took place long before the 2008 crash. All three defendants were convicted in May 2012, with Goldberg ultimately getting four years and the other two getting three.

Now, they're all free. A New York federal judge last week ordered their convictions overturned in a quiet Thanksgiving-week transaction.

Heart - Black

Cancer patient and ObamaCare critic says he's being audited by IRS

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A cancer patient, who publicly discussed the cancellation of his insurance under ObamaCare, now says he has been informed by the Internal Revenue Service that he is going to be audited.

Bill Elliot appeared on Fox News on November 7th to discuss the cancellation of his insurance. He claims he was told that his cancer was considered "beyond the catastrophic previous condition" and his plan was being canceled because of ObamaCare regulations.

Elliot, who has Stage 4 cancer, informed viewers he wasn't going to pay the $1,500 a month for the new plan being offered, preferring not to burden his family and to "let nature take it's course."

After his story attracted media attention, Elliot says his insurance company decided to let him keep his coverage:

"Well, the update on my health is: I went to the doctor last week and he told me that I was in full remission. So, that's good news; I'm getting better. Thanks to Steve, I wouldn't have found none of this out, 'cause I wouldn't have had health insurance to go back. So, I found out that I'm in full remission and that I've got four months to go - not four months to go, but be checked every four months.


Snakes in Suits

Manipulating the markets: Intelligence gathering plays key role at New York Fed's trading desk

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The Trading Desk at the New York Fed Has Speed Dials to Wall Street Firms and Bloomberg Terminals
On any given business day, you can take a taxi ride into lower Manhattan in the wee hours of the morning and see lights and the glow of Bloomberg trading terminals eerily illuminating the 9th floor of the historic Federal Reserve Bank of New York at 33 Liberty Street.

A securities trader working at 4:30 a.m. in any other trading location in Manhattan might be concerned about personal safety. Not here. Quietly, without Congressional hearings, and lost in the tragedy and turmoil of September 11, the USA Patriot Act in 2001 bestowed private domestic policing powers on the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, including the New York Fed.

On top of its own police force armed with Glock 22s and assault weapons, the building itself is a 22-story fortress with 18 floors above ground and four below. The building, completed in 1924, constitutes the block bounded by Maiden Lane, Nassau, Liberty and Williams Streets. The principal architect, Philip Sawyer, was influenced in his design by the Florentine palaces he observed while studying in Italy. The New York Fed's unique façade of large rectangular blocks of limestone and sandstone ashlar with imposing arched windows and ironwork resembles the Strozzi Palazzo in Florence.

There is also the comfort of knowing that if this fortress is safe enough for one of the world's largest stashes of gold, it's likely safe enough for groggy traders. The triple-tiered gold vault rests on a bedrock foundation deep below the building, which not only supports the gold but a 90-ton vault door and 140-ton door frame. The building was built around the gold vault after it was installed.

Chess

Democrats start to distance themselves from Obama

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© AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, FilePresident Obama speaks during a Democratic Party fundraiser in San Francisco on Monday.
A month after emerging from a government shutdown at the top of their game, many Democrats in Congress newly worried about the party's re-election prospects are for the first time distancing themselves from President Obama after the disastrous rollout of his health care overhaul.

At issue, several Obama allies said, is a loss of trust in the president after only 106,000 people - instead of an anticipated half million - were able to buy insurance coverage the first month of the new "Obamacare" websites. In addition, some 4.2 million Americans received notices from insurers that policies Obama had promised they could keep were being canceled.

"Folks are now, I think in talking to members, more cautious with regard to dealing with the president," said Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and one of the first leaders in his state to endorse Obama's presidential candidacy six year ago.

Cummings, the White House's biggest defender in a Republican-controlled committee whose agenda is waging war against the administration over the attack in Benghazi, the IRS scandal, a gun-tracking operation and now health care, said he still thinks Obama is operating with integrity. But he noted that not all his Democratic colleagues agree.

"They want to make sure that everything possible is being done to, number one, be transparent, (two) fix this website situation and, three, to restore trust," Cummings said.

Eye 1

Big Brother is watching: NYPD to businesses: Turn security cameras toward streets

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© Gary Baumgarten/1010 WINSIn a program dubbed ‘Grid Search,’ police have asked businesses to turn their security cameras toward the streets to fight crime in Harlem.
Harlem Precinct Commander Says Effort Will Help Fight Rising Crime

The NYPD wants business owners to help solve crime in one Harlem precinct by turning their security cameras to the street.

As 1010 WINS' Gary Baumgarten reported Saturday, police believe crime has spun out of control in the 32nd Precinct, which is bounded by St. Nicholas and Bradhurst avenues on the west, 127th Street on the south, and the Harlem River on the north and east.

With that in mind, the Precinct Cmdr. Rodney Harrison has asked local businesses to help the NYPD by turning their security cameras outward in an attempt to capture crime and assist police in capturing criminals. The program has been dubbed "Grid Search."

Star of David

Israeli terrorists strike again: Lebanese Hezbollah leader assassinated by 'previously unknown Sunni terror group' (Mossad)

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© Mohamed Azakir/ReutersThe funeral of the senior Hezbollah commander Hassan Howlo al-Laqqis.
Shia militia blames Israel for killing Hassan Howlo al-Laqqis, but responsibility is claimed by previously unknown Sunni group

A senior Hezbollah commander has been shot dead outside his south Beirut apartment in the biggest blow to the secretive Shia militia since its then military commander was assassinated by a car bomb in the city six years ago.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the killing, saying it had twice before tried and failed to target Hassan Howlo al-Laqqis, who is understood to have been the group's overall logistics and procurement chief.

But a previously unknown Sunni group claimed responsibility for the brazen attack on Hezbollah's home turf, underlining the Shia militia's deepening entanglement in a regional sectarian conflict.

Before Laqqis's funeral in Hezbollah's Beeka valley heartland, a statement from the militant group said Israel "should bear full responsibility and all the consequences of this heinous crime and its repeated targeting of dear resistance leaders and cadres".

Comment: Through this assassination of a Lebanese leader, Israel also exposed its direct role in spreading terrorism throughout Syria.


War Whore

UK government to slash funding for vital public services, but there's plenty of money for the wars

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Meanwhile the UK govt facilitates major arms deals to countries on its own list of human rights abusers
The chancellor, George Osborne, and the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, have written to their cabinet colleagues to tell them the government will reduce central departmental spending by over a £1bn a year over the next three years (2013-14 to 2015-16).

To lock in this lower level of spending, budget reductions of 1.1% will also be made across departments' resource budgets over the next two financial years, 2014-15 and 2015-16, delivering savings of more than £1bn each year.

News of the reduction comes before Osborne delivers the government's autumn statement on Thursday.

In addition to existing underspends, departments are expected to identify further efficiency savings and to continue exercising strong financial discipline across all areas of their budgets.

Health, schools, aid, local government, HMRC and the security services will be exempt from these reductions.

Bad Guys

A slap on the wrist: EU fines 8 major banks record 1.7bn euro for rigging rates

European Union Competition Commissioner
© Reuters / Yves HermanEuropean Union Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia addresses a news conference at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels December 4, 2013.
The European Commission has slapped record fines of 1.7 billion euro on eight major banks for manipulating lending rates that play a key role in the global economy. The penalties will add to already escalating costs for leading global lenders.

The EU fines marks the latest to be levied on banks and financial institutions for making profits or masking their problems by fraudulently rigging the rates that reflect the cost of lending money to each other.

The banks fined are Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, JPMorgan, Barclays, Societe Generale, UBS and RP Martin, the EC said in a statement.

The borrowing rates involved - the London interbank offered rate (Libor), the Tokyo and the euro area equivalents - are used to set price of trillions of dollars of financial products, ranging from mortgages to derivatives.

"What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other," said Joaquín Almunia, European Commission Vice-President in charge of competition policy.

"Today's decision sends a clear message that the Commission is determined to fight and sanction these cartels in the financial sector," Almunia said in the EC statement. "Healthy competition and transparency are crucial for financial markets to work properly, at the service of the real economy rather than the interests of a few."


Comment: No it does not send a clear message that such behavior will not be tolerated. Instead it sends the message that financial terrorism pays, as the benefits to the banks have been in the tens of billions!

Where are the hefty fines and lifelong prison sentences to the pathological deviants in charge of these banks? Some have resigned with a diamond studded golden handshake. Others have moved on to other lucrative positions within the criminal network, but none have suffered ANY hardship.


Ambulance

Best of the Web: Obama agent foresees 'health-care apocalypse'

Dan Bongino
© WNDDan Bongino
President 'doesn't seem to be limited at all by the constraints of our system'

Because President Obama and his staff seem to care more about "good intentions" and political posturing than sound policy and have little respect for the constraints of executive power, the Obamacare disaster is about to get much worse for Americans, a former Secret Service agent who once protected Obama believes.

Dan Bongino, who resigned from the elite Presidential Protective Division in 2011 and now is running for Congress, told WND in an interview that Obama doesn't seem to understand the level of outrage among the populace toward his health care law.

"It's obvious right now to just about all of America that this thing has been an abysmal failure," he said of Obamacare. But Obama "cares more about political successes than he does policy successes."

Bongino, author of the newly released book Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All, learned first-hand how Obamacare is affecting the nation when he lost his own health insurance plan and was faced with a premium spike along with worse coverage, as WND reported.

"For as bad as you think this is, we haven't even seen the health-care apocalypse coming once the employer mandate kicks in and that website actually works, and people start to see the pricing for real," he said.

Magic Wand

Best of the Web: Welcome to the Memory Hole: Disappearing Edward Snowden

1984 graphic
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What if Edward Snowden was made to disappear? No, I'm not suggesting some future CIA rendition effort or a who-killed-Snowden conspiracy theory of a disappearance, but a more ominous kind.

What if everything a whistleblower had ever exposed could simply be made to go away? What if every National Security Agency (NSA) document Snowden released, every interview he gave, every documented trace of a national security state careening out of control could be made to disappear in real-time? What if the very posting of such revelations could be turned into a fruitless, record-less endeavor?

Am I suggesting the plot for a novel by some twenty-first century George Orwell? Hardly. As we edge toward a fully digital world, such things may soon be possible, not in science fiction but in our world -- and at the push of a button. In fact, the earliest prototypes of a new kind of "disappearance" are already being tested. We are closer to a shocking, dystopian reality that might once have been the stuff of futuristic novels than we imagine. Welcome to the memory hole.