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talk about NOT being able to negotiate in good faith
The founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program claims that in the late 1990s North Korean officials paid kickbacks to senior Pakistani military figures in exchange for critical weapons technology.
Abdul Qadeer Khan has given a United States-based expert documents that appear to show North Korea's government paid more than $3.5 million to two Pakistani military officials as part of the deal, the expert told The Associated Press Wednesday.
To back up his claim, Khan released what he said was a copy of a North Korean official's 1998 letter to him, written in English, that purports to describe the secret deal.
Khan gave the documents to Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an authority on Pakistan's weapons program. He did so because he has been accused by his government of running a covert nuclear smuggling operation without official knowledge or consent.
"He gave it to me because he regarded it as showing that the story, the perception that he had been a rogue operator was false," Henderson said.
The letter, along with a statement by Khan describing the deal, suggests that at least some top-level Pakistani military officials knew early on about some of Khan's extensive sale of nuclear weapons technology to other countries, including North Korea, Iran and Libya.
If that's true, it could deepen the distrust between the United States and Pakistan, which are struggling to set aside their differences and cooperate in the battle against militant extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The significance of the revelation is in dispute. Henderson said the documents prove Khan's claims that his nuclear arms smuggling network had high-level support from the Pakistani government, but others say the letter bolsters the government's claims it didn't know what Khan was up to.
The Washington Post said it obtained the documents and first reported on them on its website Wednesday after a lengthy effort to authenticate them.
The letter Khan released is dated July 15, 1998, and marked "Secret." It carries the apparent signature of North Korean Workers Party Secretary Jon Byong Ho.
The text says, "Please give the agreed documents, components, etc. to a ... (North Korean Embassy official in Pakistan) to be flown back when our plane returns after delivery of missile components."
The letter never mentions the word "nuclear." But Khan's written description of the events surrounding the letter makes it clear that the Workers Party official was referring to components and plans for Pakistani centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
Highly enriched uranium can be used either to make fuel for nuclear reactors or to form the explosive core of a nuclear weapon.
Jehangir Karamat, a former Pakistani military chief named as the recipient of the $3 million, said the letter was untrue. In an email to the Post from Lahore, Karamat said Khan, as part of his defense against allegations of personal responsibility for illicit nuclear proliferation, had tried "to shift blame on others."
The other official, retired Lt. Gen. Zulfiqar Khan, called the letter "a fabrication."
The Post said the assertions by Khan and the details in the letter could not be independently verified.
But the newspaper quoted one senior U.S. official who said the signature appeared genuine and the contents were "consistent with our knowledge" of the events described. Another intelligence official said the letter contained information known only to a handful of people.
Khan has long denied claims that he was working behind his government's back in his covert nuclear technology sales to foreign governments.
"This is a piece of dramatic evidence that Khan did not act as a single rogue agent, but instead was operating at the instruction of others," Henderson said. "I think the main point of this is that Pakistan used this technology to trade for diplomatic advantage."
David Albright, an authority on nuclear proliferation with the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, disagreed, saying the letter and Khan's narrative are evidence he acted alone.
"It shows that Khan was a rogue agent and that he colluded to provide centrifuge components to North Korea without Pakistani official approval," Albright said.
He said that in Khan's narrative, which has not been released, the scientist claimed he had assured the military that North Korea would not use the centrifuges for its nuclear weapons program, since it already had more advanced technology for that purpose.
Albright said the claim was false, but Pakistani military officials could have found it plausible.
.Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
.Posted in National on Thursday, July 7, 2011 1:00 am Updated: 3:01 am. | Tags:
Read more: http://poststar.com/news/national/article_55119faf-6ac2-5633-b9ba-925407600688.html#ixzz1RQ5SdueaThe founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program claims that in the late 1990s... more-
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VS Attorney Mack Ray Hernandez under pending proceedings for child abuse, exploitation, murder.
Austin, Texas. June 30, 2011
Proceedings against Attorney Mack Ray Hernandez under pending proceedings for child abuse, exploitation, murder and,
Proceedings have began against Mack Ray Hernandez an Austin Texas Attorney for illegal acts he engaged on 2007 including but not limited to aiding kidnapping, child abuse and child exploitation.
Mack Ray Hernandez aka Mark Ray Hernandez, Ray Hernandez, Mack Ray Austin Texas Attorney is been sued including for extortion and barratry.
Proceedings have began…
Mack Ray Hernandez has an extensive history of criminal acts acting by fraud and deception for gains, and abuse against his clients to deprive them of property and assets through long bills but without any type of action.
Mack Ray Hernandez acted in conspiracy with Joe D Milner another Austin Texas attorney whom under the same case has pending proceedings for murder, fraud, child abuse and other matters further described on the lawsuit
.
Follow this case as it exposes the true colors of the “legal” system the modus operandi of unethical attorneys who acts in criminal conspiracy to a level and in violation of criminal organizations at http://hernandezsimpson.comAustin, Texas. June 30, 2011 Proceedings against Attorney Mack Ray Hernandez under... more-
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KOCH Bros. 1 America 0: thanx to SC(R)OTUS
Ownership of Elections
John Nichols
June 27, 2011
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Subscribe Now.The US Supreme Court’s conservative majority continued its project of bartering off American democracy to the highest bidder with a decision Monday that will make it dramatically harder to counter free-spending attack campaigns funded by billionaire donors and corporate spin machines.
Related Content.Taking over the OEO
Horrors! Kagan is Revealed as Nominee Who Respects Champions of Civil Rights, Underdogs
Letters
Separate and Unequal, By Design
Not Since Nixon
About the Author.John Nichols
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated....Also by The Author[ Click for More ] .Policing Fitzwalkerstan: Top Cop Investigates Alleged Assault of High-Court Justice by Ally of Wisconsin's Governor (Conservatives and the American Right, States, Police and Law Enforcement, The Courts, Politics)
A sheriff who has stood up to Governor Walker and defended the rule of law is called in to investigate allegations that a Walker ally attacks a state supreme court justice.
John Nichols
21 comments Bernie Sanders to Obama and the Democrats: Stand Up to the Economic and Political 'Schoolyard Bullies' (Barack Obama, Class, Economics, Gap Between Wealth and Poverty, Senate, Taxes, Economy, Politics)
Vermont Senator rallies citizens to defend Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
John Nichols
13 comments .Related Topics.Hospitality US Supreme Court .With a 5-4 vote, the Court has struck down a matching-funds mechanism in Arizona’s Clean Elections Law that allowed candidates who accepted public funding to match the spending of privately funded candidates and independent groups that might attack them. Under the Arizona law—which has long been considered a national model for using public funds to pay for campaigns—candidates who accept public funding are limited in what they can spend.
Candidates who refuse public funding are not so constrained; and nor are independent groups that support privately funded candidates; indeed, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s sweeping Citizens United v. FEC ruling of 2010, which cleared the way for corporations to spend as much as they like to influence election, restrictions to the flow of private money into politics have been all but eliminated.
Faced with the threat of being overwhelmed by private money, no candidate would go the “Clean Elections” route, unless some mechanism was put in place to counter attack ads by privately funded opponents and groups associated with those opponents. The Arizona Clean Elections law provided that mechanism under a formula requiring that for every dollar a privately funded candidate (or group supporting that candidate) spent above established spending limits, a dollar in additional public funding would go to the “Clean Elections” candidate.
The genius of the Arizona law was two-fold. The guarantee of matching funds assured that candidates who accepted “Clean Elections” money would be able to compete on a level playing field and, in so doing, this discouraged privately funded candidates and independent groups backing them from trying to buy elections with overwhelming spending.
On Monday, however, the Supreme Court struck down the “matching funds” provision of Arizona’s “Clean Elections” Act, declaring it to be an unconstitutional restriction on the free-speech rights of privately funded candidates and corporate-funded “independent” groups to shout down publicly funded candidates.
In combination with the Citizens United ruling, Monday’s ruling in the case of McComish v. Bennett creates a circumstance where corporations and their political allies will enjoy virtually unlimited political advantages over candidates who choose to run campaigns thaty rely on small individual donations or public financing.
The court has removed one of the few remaining tools for maintaining a level playing field in politics, on which candidates of differing views might have won or lost elections based on their skills and ideas —as opposed to their relative financial advantages.
In so doing, the Court has tipped the balance even further toward wealthy and corporation-allied candidates in a move that says the only speech right now protected in our politics is the right of those with the deepest pockets to shout down everyone else.
“This decision, based on an upside-down interpretation of the First Amendment, takes away the right of Arizonans not only to ensure a modicum of integrity and fairness in their elections but to promote more political speech. The Court has thus ensured that the wealthiest can continue to pay for outsized political influence and maintain their speech advantages,” says Marge Baker of People for the American Way.
“The Roberts Court has once again twisted the Constitution to benefit the wealthy and powerful while leaving ordinary Americans with a diminished voice,” added Baker. “Like in Citizens United v. FEC, which prohibited legislatures from limiting corporate spending to influence elections, the Court’s majority has strayed from the text and history of the Constitution in order to prevent citizens from maintaining control over our democracy. The Roberts Court would do well to remember that the Constitution was written to protect democracy for all people, not just the rich and powerful. Today it has ruled not only that the wealthy have a right to spend more but that they have a right that everyone else spend less.”
Some reformers saw a measure of hope in the fact that the Court affirmed that public financing of campaigns in constitutional.
For instance, Bert Brandenburg, executive director of Justice at Stake (the campaign to clean up state court elections) suggested that it might still be possible to write public financing laws that worked in some circumstances —particularly judicial contests.
“Today’s ruling is disappointing, but not fatal for America’s courts. State judicial elections are drowning in special-interest spending,” argued Brandenberg. “Properly crafted public financing laws are more critical than ever, so that judges do not have to dial for dollars from major donors who may appear before them in court.”
Ultimately, however, this latest ruling suggests that the Roberts Court is so determined to serve the interests of its corporate masters that it will not stop reimagining the Constitution until it serves only an elite.
If that is the case, then only an amendment to the document will renew an honest intepretation of the free speech protections outlined by the founders.
People for the American Way and other groups are pushing for an amendment. And several groups, including Free Speech for People and Move to Amend, have outlined strategies for doing so.
After the court’s Citizens United ruling came down, Move to Amend urged citizens to go to candidate forums and demand to know: “Do you support the opinion that corporations are persons and therefore have the rights of free speech under the First Amendment?”
Now, after the Court’s McComish ruling, citizens might ask: “And do you support the opinion that those corporations should always and in every instance be allowed to shout down citizens and candidates with whom they disagree?”
Like this blog post? Read it on The Nation’s free iPhone App, NationNow.
John NicholsOwnership of Elections John Nichols June 27, 2011 Share210| | | Recommended... more-
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Rep. Murphy says "Thomas' actions call into question whether he can serve as Justice"
By Ian Millhiser on Jun 24, 2011 at 9:40 am
In an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress, Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT) — the lead sponsor of a bill which would strip Supreme Court justices of their immunity from a code of ethical conduct that applies to other federal judges — suggests that an investigation may be necessary to determine whether Justice Clarence Thomas’ many ethics scandals rise to the level where Thomas is no longer fit to serve on the nation’s highest Court:
QUESTION: Do you think what Thomas has done is as serious as what forced [disgraced former Supreme Court Justice Abe] Fortas off the bench?
MURPHY: I think our problem is we don’t know the full extent of Justice Thomas’ connections to [leading GOP donor] Harlan Crow, or, frankly, to a further network of right-wing funders. What he’s done is incredibly serious. I think, at the very least, his actions should disqualify him from sitting on any cases in which Crow-affiliated organizations are parties to or have attempted to influence [the Court]. But this is starting to rise to the level where there should start to be some real investigations as to whether Clarence Thomas can continue to serve as a justice on the Supreme Court. (original article link below )
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/06/24/252981/exclusive-murphy-thomas/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m5qO_twuygBy Ian Millhiser on Jun 24, 2011 at 9:40 am In an exclusive interview with... more-
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Florida Gov. Rick Scott Floats Huge Gimme to Banksters
Florida continues to show a rather disconcerting willingness to throw its citizens’ rights under the bus to help the banks. The state created special foreclosure courts to clear up a substantial backlog, which might not have been such a bad idea if they had been properly implemented. However, they were staffed with retired judges, many of whom seemed to put speed over due process. There have been numerous reports of judges refusing to hear motions or evidence presented by borrowers, to the point where the ACLU contested the procedures used as violations of due process.
To some degree, this has become moot since these kangaroo courts are expected to be shuttered (they required an extension of funding to continue). Moreover, new foreclosure filings have slowed in Florida as a result of the robo-signing scandal. The revelation of widespread abuses by banks has led some judges to dismiss cases with dubious documentation; judges are also complaining that banks are seldom coming to hearings on foreclosure cases.
Never fear, with government bought and paid for in America, someone was certain to try a fix. The Florida governor has, in effect, suggested that if banks can’t meet the existing requirements for foreclosure, then the solution obviously is to lower them. From a Daily Business Review article on a speech Florida governor Rick Scott made to the state bar association (hat tip Lisa Epstein):
The governor called on judges and lawyers to look for ways to cut court costs, improve efficiency and clear up the foreclosure backlog “as quickly as possible.” The clogging of the courts by foreclosure cases is discouraging businesses interested in moving to Florida, Scott’s main priority, he said.
“It scares people … and is clearly having an impact on the economy,” he said. “I’m looking for The Bar to come forward with suggestions on how to clear this up. Maybe we should consider nonjudicial foreclosures.”
Scott encouraged judges to carefully review verdicts to look for “meritless” cases.
“If we have a huge verdict that seems ridiculous, that adversely impacts companies who want to come to this state,” he said.
The connection between a foreclosure overhang and companies’ willingness to move to Florida seems pretty strained (and who are these business champing to relocate to Florida, anyhow? The idea that this is a meaningful number of entities in a weak economy sounds like wishful thinking). Scott presumably subscribes to the widely-discredited Mellonite logic that foreclosing rather than trying to do deep principal mods for borrowers that have viable incomes and flooding the market with foreclosure sales would somehow be an economic plus.
And look how he would like to square the circle: by turning Florida from a judicial foreclosure state (where the foreclosure has to be approved by the courts) to a non-judicial foreclosure stat (where the lender merely has to advertise the pending foreclosure and can then foreclose if the owner does not go to court to oppose the action). The good news is I am pretty sure this is easier said than done (lawyers please pipe up).more at link and sourcesFlorida continues to show a rather disconcerting willingness to throw its... more-
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What is the Matter with this??
Home / News / National /
Post office suspends retirement contributions
StoryDiscussionPost office suspends retirement contributions
Associated Press | Posted: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 9:28 am | (0) Comments
Font Size:Default font sizeLarger font size.The financially troubled Postal Service is suspending its employer contribution to the federal employee retirement system.
The agency said Wednesday it was acting to conserve cash as it continues to lose money. It was $8 billion in the red last year because of the combined effects of the recession and the switch of much mail to the Internet. It faces the possibility of running short of money by the end of this fiscal year in September.
The post office pays $115 million every two weeks into the Federal Employee Retirement System. The post office said it will continue to forward employee contributions to the FERS account.Home / News / National / Post office suspends retirement contributions... more-
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Gee, I WOnder if Anyone in DC has read this????
Home / News / National /
Transocean: BP decisions led to Gulf disaster
StoryDiscussionTransocean: BP decisions led to Gulf disaster
Associated Press | Posted: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 9:40 am | (0) Comments
Font Size:Default font sizeLarger font size.An internal investigation by the owner of the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico last year largely blames oil giant BP for the disaster.
The Transocean report released Wednesday said the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill was the result of a succession of well design, construction, and temporary abandonment decisions that compromised the integrity of the well and compounded the risk of its failure. The Swiss firm said many of the decisions were made by well owner BP in the two weeks before the incident.
Transocean said its evidence indicates that BP failed to properly assess, manage and communicate risk. On one key aspect _ the failure of the blowout preventer to keep oil from leaking into the sea _ Transocean seemed to suggest it takes no blame.
BP's own internal report on the disaster blamed a cascade of failures by multiple companies for the disaster. Government investigations also have spread around the blame. The findings by all of the various sides will be argued about for months and perhaps years to come as numerous lawsuits make their way through court. The companies involved in the disaster have sued each other seeking to recoup their losses or expected losses from the disaster.
BP officials did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
In addition to owning the well that blew out, London-based BP was leasing the rig that exploded from Transocean. Eleven rig workers were killed and the government estimates some 206 million gallons of oil spewed from BP's Macondo well a mile beneath the sea before the well was capped three months later. It was the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, staining hundreds of miles of shoreline, hurting fisherman and businesses and prompting new rules for deepwater drilling. BP has already spent or committed tens of billions of dollars to clean up the mess and compensate victims.
The Transocean report was the culmination of work by an internal investigation team comprised of experts from various technical fields and other specialists. Transocean said the loss of evidence with the rig and the unavailability of certain witnesses limited its investigation and analysis in some areas.
Among Transocean's findings:
_ BP did not properly communicate to the drill crew the lack of testing on the cement or the uncertainty surrounding critical tests and procedures used to confirm the integrity of the barriers intended to inhibit the flow of hydrocarbons from the well. A hydrocarbon is a compound consisting of hydrogen and carbon that is found in oil and gas.
_ BP adopted a technically complex nitrogen foam cement program for sealing the well. The resulting cementing job was of minimal quantity, left little margin for error, and was not tested adequately before or after the cementing operation. Further, the integrity of the cement may have been compromised by contamination, instability, and an inadequate number of devices used to center the casing in the wellbore.
_Cement contractor Halliburton and BP did not adequately test the cement slurry used to seal the well.
_BP also failed to assess the risk of the temporary abandonment procedure used at Macondo. At the time of the explosion, BP was making sure the well was sealed so it could temporarily abandon the site and perhaps come back at some point in the future to produce oil from the exploratory well. Transocean said BP generated at least five different temporary abandonment plans for the Macondo well between April 12, 2010, and April 20, 2010. After this series of last-minute alterations, BP proceeded with a temporary abandonment plan that created risk and did not have the required government approval.
As for the 300-ton blowout preventer that failed to stop the oil from leaking, Transocean said its investigation determined that the device and its control system were fully operational at the time of the incident and functioned as designed. Its report said minor leaks identified before the incident did not adversely affect the functionality. Transocean blamed the high flow rate of hydrocarbons from the well for preventing the device from sealing on the drill pipe. Transocean, as owner of the rig, was responsible for maintaining the blowout preventer.
The official U.S. government investigation previously blamed the failure of the Cameron-made blowout preventer on a design flaw and a bent piece of pipe. It also suggested that actions taken by the Transocean rig crew during its attempts to control the well around the time of the disaster may have contributed to the piece of drill pipe getting trapped.
At least one outside expert said at the time that the government findings cast serious doubt on the reliability of all the other blowout preventers used by the drilling industry.
BP wasn't satisfied that the official investigation conducted all of the necessary tests to determine the cause of the blowout preventer failure. It got court approval for additional testing, which has been conducted in recent weeks.
___
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What the Palin Emails REALLY Show - A Mother Jones Special Investigation.
In assessing the Palin document dump, you first have to start with this basic point: The state did not release all of her emails. (In fact, becasue Palin had used several personal email accounts to conduct official business, the state was unable to gather a complete set of emails related to her job.) The messages handed out on Friday only cover the first half of her half-term as governor; there are no emails in this release after the end of September 2008. The state will release emails from the time period covering the second half of the 2008 campaign—and Palin's surprise resignation the following July—at some yet-to-be-declared date.
And this document release was highly selective. After over two years of reviewing the records, the state withheld 2,275 pages of material. (The lawyers who vetted the emails first worked for Palin, while she was governor, and then her replacement, Sean Parnell, who had been her lieutenant governor.) The list of the emails held back runs 189 pages. For most of these messages, the state provided no description. But in many instances, the brief description on the list raises questions about the propriety of the decision to keep them secret. Here are a few examples:
• "re meeting with staffer for Vice President Cheney about gas pipeline"
• "re media questions about Todd Palin's work and potential conflict of interests"
• "re idea for responding to personal attacks"
• "re response to parental consent ruling" (Released emails show that Palin had urged her staffers to vote in a radio station poll regarding an Alaska state supreme court decision regarding parental consent.)
• "re draft bullet points about Walt Monegan" (He was the state official Palin had fired during the Troopergate scandal.)
• "re use of inaugural funds"
• "re special counsel investigation" (Troopergate led to a special counsel inquiry.)
There is also an unexplained gap in the emails distributed on Friday. Palin was sworn in as governor on December 4, 2006, and the email collection starts with several emails covering December 4 through December 8. Then there are no emails until December 30. (And there are no emails from these dates listed in the registry of withheld emails.) What happened? "I don't have any information on the missing documents," Linda Perez, administrative director for Gov. Parnell, told the Anchorage Daily News.
The pages that were released are riddled with redactions. (One long exchange with a top aide, under the subject heading "same sex," is almost completely blank.) Given the redactions, withholding, and partial release, there is no way to determine whether the state engaged in legitimate vetting or Palin protection. But there's enough evidence to spark suspicion.
The emails that were made public—which can be found at a searchable database sponsored by Mother Jones, MSNBC.com, and ProPublica—did indeed contain newsworthy nuggets. A sampling:
• A May 3, 2007, email showed that Palin was a fan of John Hagee, a controversial evangelical leader who had called the Catholic Church a "great whore" and the Holocaust "God's will," and who deemed Hurricane Katrina God's retribution for a gay parade that was to be held in New Orleans. In this email, she told her staff that she wanted to be in Juneau on a certain day so she could participate in a religious event Hagee was holding.
• Palin's staff made certain that she did official business via personal email accounts, not state email accounts. In a September, 22, 2007, message, aide Frank Bailey warned Palin: "Governor, all of your emails are coming from your State account (govpalin@alaska.gov) right now, not your yahoo. I'm going to check with Barb on that, and its probably a setting that got accidentally changed on Friday." (In emails sent throughout 2007 and 2008, Palin and her aides discussed whether emails sent through their personal accounts and government-paid Blackberrys could be subpoenaed. Several emails on this matter were withheld.)
Much more at link:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/what-palin-emails-really-showIn assessing the Palin document dump, you first have to start with this basic point:... more-
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Department of Education Raids Stockton Home
This is a very scary story.......The Department of Education can raid your house for not paying your loans.................WE LIVE IN A POLICE STATE!!!!! Most citizens just do not know yet......
http://www.streetgangs.com/features/060911_stockton_raid_doeThis is a very scary story.......The Department of Education can raid your house for... more-
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Reckless Endangerment: Making Debt Owe-nership Easy » TripleCrisis
Gerald Epstein
In search of a new angle on the financial crisis, Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner’s (M&R) new book, Reckless Endangerment, seems to pin a lot of the blame on misguided do-gooders who were trying to make the dream of “home ownership” in America a reality for all. These include Bill Clinton, who they say pushed for making home ownership easy through his “National Partnership in Home Ownership” (p. 1), the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s researchers who did a path-breaking study of discrimination in lending, and even community organizing groups like ACORN. M&R say that ACORN and other housing groups let themselves be taken in and bought off by James A. Johnson, the CEO of Fannie Mae.
To be sure, Johnson, his successor Franklin Raines and other Fannie Mae executives, got very, very rich (Johnson pocketed more than $100 million in pay and Raines made more than $90 million, though he had to give more than $20 million back in a settlement for accounting fraud). While Johnson and Raines were making their fortunes, they were hiding under a protective cloak of pretending to make home ownership easy in America, viciously attacking their enemies while paying off their friends on both sides of the aisle.
But in spite of the authors’ desire to highlight the role of Fannie and Freddie, (the so called Government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that helped finance home mortgages and after failing in 2008 have been taken over to the tune of 180 Billion dollars by the tax payers) what comes through clearly from the dozens of interviews and reporting in Reckless Endangerment, the real culprits were not primarily Johnson and his pals, but rather the political establishment. These included the financial regulators, like Alan Greenspan and his subordinates at the Federal Reserve, the credit rating agencies, like Moody’s and S&P and the big bankers at Goldman, Country Wide, Citibank and elsewhere, who were dedicated to only one thing: paving their own road to riches by promoting widespread “debt owe-nership” that would lead to the ruin of millions of middle class and poor Americans.
These bankers, their regulators and the politicians who supported them effectively adopted policies to strip away as much equity from the public’s balance sheets as they could by getting people to take on more and more debt at outrageous prices and with predatory conditions. And what they could not get from home buyers, they took from the tax payers after the system crashed. Real home ownership, in the end, had nothing to do with it. It was nothing more than a cynical ploy. Had the political elite really been concerned about home ownership, would they not have pushed through serious loan modifications following the crisis to keep people in their homes? Would they not have stopped the robo-signers and other fraudsters from taking back homes that they didn’t even really own? Would they not have forced banks they bailed out to take cuts to keep people from losing their homes? If they were truly concerned about widespread home ownership – rather than “debt owe-nership” and asset stripping — would they not have done all of these things?
Indeed, Rosner made this false equity building ploy quite clear in his prescient and important paper published in 2001, “Housing In the New Millennium:A Home Without Equity Is Just a Rental With Debt.” Way ahead of its time and very important in identifying some key, dangerous trends that were to crash the system, this paper became the basis for the main story line of the book, even though it was written a full decade earlier and well before Morgenson and others had uncovered the true depths of the manipulations and corruption inherent in operations of the large banks, the derivatives markets and their regulators, such as the Federal Reserve and the SEC. Indeed, a brilliant example of this reporting by Morgenson was very recently published with Louise Story in June 1st’s New York Times suggesting how widespread deep conflicts of interest pervaded the management and rain-makers at Goldman Sachs, as they designed securities to fail, shorted them to make money, and then sold them to their unsuspecting customers.
As for the narrative that blames Fannie and Freddie for the crisis, Paul Krugman seemed to get it right as Fannie and Freddie were going under in 2008. At that time he pointed out that in the current crisis, Fannie and Freddie were late to the game, playing catch-up and at most contributed toward keeping the bubble going toward the end. This view agrees with astute observers such as Marc Jarsulic, an economist and lawyer on the Senate Banking Committee and Kathleen Engel and Patricia McCoy, two legal experts and law professors who were among the first to break the story on the abusive lending that contributed to the crisis. http://figrd.blogspot.comGerald Epstein In search of a new angle on the financial crisis, Gretchen Morgenson... more-
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Oregon foreclosure filings surge 236% in April | OregonLive.com
Oregon's topsy-turvy foreclosure ride has taken a few more rolls in recent weeks as one large lender filed a flurry of new foreclosure starts, bucking a national trend.
Nationally, newly launched foreclosure actions dropped 14 percent in April, according to Realty Trac Inc.
Not in Oregon, where they've jumped 236 percent, from 1,100 to 3,700, according to another foreclosure data tracker, ForeclosureRadar.com. Realty Trac recorded a similarly high number: 3,200.
The surge in "notices of default" comes from one loan servicer -- Bank of America Corp.'s foreclosure arm, ReconTrust Co.
And it follows a jump in cancelled foreclosures filed by ReconTrust in late February and March. Those followed rulings by federal judges halting out-of-court foreclosures in Oregon, saying lenders failed to follow state recording law.
Bank of America spokesperson Jumana Bauwens said the withdrawals and new filings resulted from a review late last year of its foreclosure process when it halted sales in all 50 states.
"We wanted to provide our customers with every opportunity for home retention as well as ensure all foreclosure filing were completed with our improved process," Bauwens said in an email last week. "As we entered April, we began initiating filings with that improved process. The filings in April may or may not be those held back in February and/or March."
But outside real-estate experts say little changed with the new filings. Federal judges in Oregon have halted foreclosures by ReconTrust and other lenders because documents showing the successive chain of mortgage ownership had not been publicly filed in county recorders' offices, as required by Oregon law.
Phil Querin, a real-estate attorney and critic of the finance industry's handling of foreclosures, say ReconTrust's new foreclosure starts are no different.
"They're doing the same thing they were before," Querin said. "They've not recorded successive assignments."
The bank also might have been running up against a legal deadline that limits postponed foreclosures to six months, he said.
"We don't really know too much because the banks aren't talking," Querin said.
Last month, the rate of new foreclosure starts slowed but remained higher than in February, according to recorders' offices in two Portland-area counties.
In Clackamas County, new foreclosure filings totaled 151 in March, with only 17 from ReconTrust. In April, filings spiked to 560, with 432 filed by ReconTrust. In May, they totaled 305, about half of which were from ReconTrust.
The trend was similar in Washington County, where new foreclosure starts jumped from 208 in March to 656 in April and 308 in May. Nearly 700 in the past two months were filed by ReconTrust, said Rich Hobernicht, director of the Washington County Department of Assessment and Taxation.
What comes next literally is anyone's guess, experts say. An attempt by the finance industry to retroactively change state recording law failed in a House committee last week after a public outcry against the move. Attorneys say it's not clear when Oregon judges will rule definitively on the legality of mortgage recordings, many of which involve the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS.
Title insurance attorneys have suggested that lenders might start foreclosing in court, but other real-estate attorneys speculate that lenders don't want to spend that much money and will face a formidable fight from borrowers. (sounds like more Robo-fraud to me...)Oregon's topsy-turvy foreclosure ride has taken a few more rolls in recent weeks... more-
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Warning ,New Homeowner Scam: Mortgage Securitization Audits
New Homeowner Scam: Mortgage Securitization Audits
Yves Smith/NakedCapitalism-
Con artists who prey on people who are already in financial hot water deserve their own circle of hell. The latest sighting comes via April Charney: “mortgage securitization audits” which charge thousands of dollars for dumping public information into binders. From Brian Canupp’s website:
http://canupplaw.com/2011/05/homeowners-now-being-cheated-by-mortgage-auditors/
While millions of Americans are in the middle of the foreclosure storm a cottage industry of companies and individuals providing Mortgage Audits are now attempting to capitalize on the fear and desperation gripping many homeowners….
In the last 6 weeks I have met with three families that had paid up to $2,100.00 for an audit. All three of these “audits” were three ring binders filled with documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission Home page and articles from the newspaper detailing successful mortgage defense decisions. These products are problematic for a number of reasons:
The documents from the SEC are free and available to the public.
The newspaper stories, while informative, cannot be used as precedent to a judge.
The analysis does nothing to breakdown what has happened with your payments after they were received by the Mortgage Company.
The “expert” who is rendering the opinion would never be accepted by a court to testify in an expert capacity.
The analytical process supporting the audit conclusion is flawed and that leads to an impossible opinion.
None of the analysis brought to me by clients have included a review of the money paid by the homeowner.
(More and more scams and unreliable services are popping up nationwide see also the story about Military families in foreclosure yes Foreclosure-gate folks is far from over -figg)New Homeowner Scam: Mortgage Securitization Audits Yves Smith/NakedCapitalism-... more-
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Peter or Paul? The Identity crisis of Copyright Troll John Steele 's anti-piracy law firm partner Mr. Hansmeier
This is a follow-up to the report that detailed how Mr. John Steele, of Steele Hansmeier/ wefightpiracy/ Steele-law, recently mailed out signed pre-settlement letters with dates that are 4-5 years off from being accurate.
The included picture is a combination of two screen captures from the declarations of support for expedited discovery by an employee of Mr. Steele's Media Copyright Group.
The September signature comes from the declaration for the Hard Drive Productions v. Does 1-1000 case which was filed in Illinios(1:10-cv-05606). The September declaration starts out:
I, Paul Hansmeier, declare:
I am a manager of Media Copyright Group LLC.("MCG"). On behalf of its clients......
The May 2011 signature comes from the declaration for the Hard Drive Productions v Does 1-14 case that was filed in Illinios(1:11-cv-02981). The attorney for the plaintiff on that case is listed as Hard Drive Productions PRO Se. The fact that HDP is representing itself in that case makes me wonder if they photocopied the declaration from the other case.
If one reads the full declarations for both cases, one will notice how it is obviously the same author. However a couple of words changed between the two.
The May declaration starts out with:
I, Peter Hansmeier, declare under penalty of perjury as true and correct that:
1. I am a technician at Media Copyright Group LLC.("MCG). On behalf of its clients.....
---There is a very slight chance that Mr. Steele happens to employ both Peter and Paul. However, I can see no logical explanation for why the signatures are nearly identical.
If you look at the P and the H, the curves are exactly the same. The May signature does not include a full name, but rather is nothing more than initials. The May signature is also way above the signature line. It is as though someone tried to forge or photocopy the signature from one declaration to the other. If you look closely, the signature even have the same several small black dots on the perimeter. The dots are in the same location
Hopefully this is all some bizarre coincidence. If it is not, then it looks like someone involved with John Steele's blackmail letter campaign is attempting to defraud the courts. Looks like it is time to update my pending ethics complaint against his firm.....
For anyone who is unaware, Paul Hansmeier is Mr. Steele's partner in his wefightpiracy.com law firm. The issues about his signature are potentially very serious since he may be trying to conceal his relationship with Mr. Steele's firm. Mr. Hansmeier may also be attempting to dodge the conflict of interest charges that may result from him being a lawyer that is producing evidence so his partner can sue people.This is a follow-up to the report that detailed how Mr. John Steele, of Steele... more-
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‘Safe House ‘- All Whistle Blowers can not be not WikiLeaks « Ramani's blog
As one wag put it'you can not rust Murdoch'.
http://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/safe-house-all-whistle-blowers-can-not-be-not-wikileaks/As one wag put it'you can not rust Murdoch'.... more-
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What is NonAggressionism?
The non-aggression principle (also called the non-aggression axiom, or the anti-coercion or zero aggression principle or non-initiation of force) is an ethical stance which asserts that "aggression" is inherently illegitimate. "Aggression" is defined as the "initiation" of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property. In contrast to pacifism, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violent self-defense.
http://peacefreedomprosperity.com/5126/nonaggressionism-and-what-it-means/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxINF2saud4
http://www.upvery.com/attachments/images/201104/20110429083346.jpgThe non-aggression principle (also called the non-aggression axiom, or the... more-
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Welcome : THE GREATEST DEPRESSION
Consumer confidence is, well ... in somewhat of a depression.
Reuters reports today:
The April 20-23 Gallup survey of 1,013 U.S. adults found that only 27 percent said the economy is growing. Twenty-nine percent said the economy is in a depression and 26 percent said it is in a recession, with another 16 percent saying it is "slowing down," Gallup said.
Tyler Durden notes:
That means that more Americans think the country is in a Depression, let alone recession, than growing.
How can so many Americans believe that we're in a depression, when the stock market and commodity prices have been booming? As I noted last week:
Instead of directly helping the American people, the government threw trillions at the giant banks (including foreign banks; and see this) . The big banks have - in turn - used a lot of that money to speculate in commodities, including food and other items which are now driving up the price of consumer necessities [as well as stocks]. Instead of using the money to hire Americans, they're hiring abroad (and getting tax refunds from the government).
But don't rising stock prices help create wealth?
Not really. As I pointed out in January:
A rising stock market doesn't help the average American as much as you might assume.
For example, Robert Shiller noted in 2001:
We have examined the wealth effect with a cross-sectional time-series data sets that are more comprehensive than any applied to the wealth effect before and with a number of different econometric specifications. The statistical results are variable depending on econometric specification, and so any conclusion must be tentative. Nevertheless, the evidence of a stock market wealth effect is weak; the common presumption that there is strong evidence for the wealth effect is not supported in our results. However, we do find strong evidence that variations in housing market wealth have important effects upon consumption. This evidence arises consistently using panels of U.S. states and individual countries and is robust to differences in model specification. The housing market appears to be more important than the stock market in influencing consumption in developed countries.
I pointed out in March:
Even Alan Greenspan recently called the recovery "extremely unbalanced," driven largely by high earners benefiting from recovering stock markets and large corporations.
***
As economics professor and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes today in an outstanding piece:
Some cheerleaders say rising stock prices make consumers feel wealthier and therefore readier to spend. But to the extent most Americans have any assets at all their net worth is mostly in their homes, and those homes are still worth less than they were in 2007. The "wealth effect" is relevant mainly to the richest 10 percent of Americans, most of whose net worth is in stocks and bonds.
I noted in May:
As of 2007, the bottom 50% of the U.S. population owned only one-half of one percent of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds in the U.S. On the other hand, the top 1% owned owned 50.9%.
***
(Of course, the divergence between the wealthiest and the rest has only increased since 2007.)
And last month Professor G. William Domhoff updated his "Who Rules America" study, showing that the richest 10% own 98.5% of all financial securities, and that:
The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.
Indeed, most stocks are held for only a couple of moments - and aren't held by mom and pop investors.
How Bad?How bad are things for the little guy?
Well, as I noted in January, the housing slump is worse than during the Great Depression.
As CNN Money points out today:
Wal-Mart's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.
"We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure," Duke said at an event in New York. "There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact."
Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.
Lately, they're "running out of money" at a faster clip, he said.
"Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year," Duke said. "This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.
And - in case you still think that the 29% of Americans who think we're in a depression are unduly pessimistic - take a look at what I wrote last December:
The following experts have - at some point during the last 2 years - said that the economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression:
* Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
* Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan (and see this and this)
* Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker
* Economics scholar and former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin
* The head of the Bank of England Mervyn King
* Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
* Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman
* Former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead
* Economics professors Barry Eichengreen and and Kevin H. O'Rourke (updated here)
* Investment advisor, risk expert and "Black Swan" author Nassim Nicholas Taleb
* Well-known PhD economist Marc Faber
* Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker
* Former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae Edward J. Pinto
* Billionaire investor George Soros
* Senior British minister Ed Balls
***
States and Cities In Worst Shape Since the Great Depression
States and cities are in dire financial straits, and many may default in 2011.
California is issuing IOUs for only the second time since the Great Depression.
Things haven't been this bad for state and local governments since the 30s.
Loan Loss Rate Higher than During the Great Depression
In October 2009, I reported:
In May, analyst Mike Mayo predicted that the bank loan loss rate would be higher than during the Great Depression.
In a new report, Moody's has just confirmed (as summarized by Zero Hedge):
The most recent rate of bank charge offs, which hit $45 billion in the past quarter, and have now reached a total of $116 billion, is at 3.4%, which is substantially higher than the 2.25% hit in 1932, before peaking at at 3.4% rate by 1934.
And see this.
Here's a chart summarizing the findings:(The chart some pie charts for those that dig those line graphs
video at site links sources and more depressing finding's to rock the holes in your socks its been confirmed we are depressing -figg)Consumer confidence is, well ... in somewhat of a depression. Reuters reports today:... more-
- figgdimension
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Obama Admits 9/11 Plot Inside Job
Obama Admits 9/11 Plot Inside Job-
- NJ2D
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CDC vaccine scientist who downplayed links to autism indicted by DOJ in alleged fraud scheme
(NaturalNews) CDC researcher Poul Thorsen, who famously headed up the "Denmark Study" that many claim disproved any link between autism and vaccines, has been indicted in Atlanta by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud, money laundering and defrauding research institutions of grant money.
Poul Thorson is a scientist who formerly worked for the CDC, and over the last several years, he oversaw millions of dollars in grant money that was used to conduct research to "prove" that vaccines have no link to autism. Dr. Thorson's research papers include the famous "Danish Study" entitled Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism: negative ecological evidence from Danish population-based data.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032216_Thorsen_fraud.html#ixzz1KqdWeEeq(NaturalNews) CDC researcher Poul Thorsen, who famously headed up the "Denmark... more-
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Manufacturing Poor People - Increase in the number of poor people outstrips population growth Worldwide
Even as the overall population of the world continues to increase, the increase in the number of poor people outstrips that growth. How is this possible? Are the poor simply breeding like rabbits, increasing their numbers geometrically in a suicidal, lemming-like production line of poverty-stricken people? Or are they getting some outside aid in their catastrophic endeavor?
In just the past 50 years, the Rich People of the "First", or Western World have invested heavily, through their banks, industries and other corporations, in the poorest regions of the "Third" World in Africa, Asia and Latin America, home to the majority of the world's poor. Transnational corporations are attracted by the richness of these people's natural resources, the richness of profits off cheap labor, the near total lack of environmental and worker safety regulations and the non-existent benefits for said labor.
U.S. transnationals were given a push toward this pregnant profit source, this attractive and waiting richness, by the U.S. government, which subsidizes (read gives taxpayers' money to) corporations in the form of tax breaks on foreign investment and even helping them to pay their relocation expenses at the expense of not only the taxpayers, but those taxpayers whose jobs are outsourced by this support for global U.S. economic dominance.
Local businesses in the "Third" World are destroyed as U.S. transnationals penetrate and overwhelm their markets like species imported to get rid of pests which turn out to be even bigger pests themselves. Taxpayer-subsidized cartels of transnationals dump their cheap, surplus goods in these countries at below their own cost to undersell local producers, thus forcing them out of business and allowing the U.S. corporations to take over the market. (This is also Wal-Mart's favorite technique for killing the competition in local markets right here in America.)
In the case of Big Agriculture they also take over/expropriate the best pieces of land, monocrop them with products for export, and douse them with oil-based, chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides, destroying the soil. Think Dust Bowl. This leaves less land for use for those run-out-of-business farmers and their families to produce the food to feed the local population, who, along with the displaced farmers, are forced to go to work - for next to nothing - on those monocropped plantations to grow food that will be shipped out of the country or to work in American sub-contracted sweat shop factories. This also forces them to buy what food they can afford from these same Big Ag corporations. This is exactly the same scenario as in the U.S., since the bulk of the U.S. population consists of dependent consumers, unable to feed themselves, who must go to a supermarket to feed off the tit of Big Ag.
Robbing local people of self-sufficiency creates a perfect profit-making mechanism based on a labor market flooded with desperate people who can be herded into a neat, ready-to-use package, labor in a box, in slums and shanty towns which they will leave to slave for token, poverty wages - if they can find work - which are most often in violation of their own countries' minimum wage laws. This is thanks to the overarching authority of Western-created "Free" Trade Agreements enforced by the World Trade Organization in its private, unaccountable courts.
Since the U.S. is one of the few pariah nations which refuses to sign the international convention for the abolishment of child labor and forced labor, Wal-Mart, Disney and J.C. Penny were able to pay eleven cents - 11 cents - an hour in Haiti in 2007. This allows these transnational corporations, not only in the "Third" World, but here in America, to have workers as young as 12 - twelve - sustain high rates of fatalities and injuries while working for less than the minimum wage. Talk about your right to work!
The savings these transnationals - and their shareholders - are able to rack up by exploiting and further impoverishing the people of the "Third" World do not translate into lower prices for the consumers, e.g. people, of the "First", or Western World. Oh no, my pretty! Transnationals don't outsource to save their customers money. They do it to increase their profits and their payouts to shareholders.......
Continue reading at:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24525Even as the overall population of the world continues to increase, the increase in the... more-
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Public Service Announcement Paid for by Your Neighborhood Bankster « Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge
Iowa AG slams report on campaign contributions
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller dismissed a recent report on his 2010 campaign contributions from those involved in the banking industry, calling it “false and misleading at its core.”
The National Institute on Money in State Politics released a report this week, detailing which banking attorneys contributed to Miller’s campaign. But in an interview with HousingWire Friday, Miller said all but one of the attorneys listed as campaign contributors in the report are not involved in the case. Only Meyer Koplow, a partner at the New York firm Wachtell, Lipton Rosen & Katz, who gave Miller $5,000 in 2010 is involved. He represents Bank of America (BAC: 12.31 +0.33%). However, at the time of the contribution and at the time of the election, Koplow was not involved in the case.
The rest of the attorneys, Miler said, “were not involved in the case, not involved in the negotiations.”
You can check out this bankster sponsored report in it’s entirety here…
Mr. Miller, it has NOTHING to do with being involved in the case or the negotiations.
What it does have to do with is, did you or did you not;
* Have half of the money you raised in 2010—$338,223 of $785,103—donated after the October 13 announcement that he would be coordinating the 50-state attorneys general investigation?
* Received $170,300 from lawyers outside of Iowa, which is two-thirds of all the money he raised from them during the entire two-year election cycle?
* Raised $785,000 in 2010, more than double the $327,196 he raised for his 2006 and 2002 campaigns combined?
* Have out-of-state lawyers and lobbyists give you $261,445 in 2010, which is 88 times more than they gave over the previous decade?
* Have out-of-state lawyers who suddenly took a strong interest in your reelection last fall that are among the most prominent litigators and partners from some of the largest and most famous corporate and class action firms in the country, which is not surprising given the numerous high-stakes court cases filed in the wake of the financial collapse of 2008 that could be impacted by the pending settlement?
TABLE 2: Major Out-of-State Contributions from Lawyers
Firm Total from Firm Total from Firm’s Employees Grand Total
Boies, Schiller & Flexner 0 $63,450 $63,450
Kirby McInerney $25,000 0 $25,000
Simpson Thacher & Bartlet 0 $12,500 $12,500
Williams & Connolly 0 $10,500 $10,500
Kaplan, Fox & Kilsheimer $11,000 0 $11,000
Hanly, Conroy, Bierstein, Sheridan, Fisher & Hayes $10,000 0 $10,000
Total $46,000 $86,450 $132,450
“Total from Firm” are donations made directly by the law firm. “Total from Firm’s Employees” are the sum of personal contributions made by employees of each firm.
Didn’t you also received $50,000 from the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA), a political organization that supports Democratic candidates across the country who run for attorney general. OpenSecrets.org lists DAGA’s top 2010 contributors, summarized below?
Notable contributions made to DAGA by lawyers and law firms include:
1. $125,000 from the consumer protection firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, which is suing Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and many other financial institutions over their mortgage practices36
2. $115,000 from Labaton Sucharow, a firm that is bringing multiple suits related to subprime mortgages37
3. $77,500 from Kaplan, Fox & Kilsheimer, another national consumer firm with pending subprime mortgage litigation38
Also among DAGA’s top contributors were the same financial firms being sued by the above firms:
1. Bank of America contributed $80,029
2. JPMorgan Chase contributed $75,000
3. Citigroup Global Markets, a subsidiary arm of Citigroup, contributed $65,000
So, I say to you this. Does it really matter if they are directly “involved in the case or the negotiations.” That is a play on words and you know it because the case negotiations and it’s outcome directly effects your “contributors.”
If I am wrong, SHOW us differently, like when you said “We will put people in jail” last year.
What ever happened to that?
Oh yea, the money…
(Republican funded and run think tanks are everywhere pumping disinformation and fascism not democracy we must fight for our freedom NOW! we are peasants awaiting them to crush us out time is short and we have much to do...)-figgdimension see link for sources and more
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4closureFraud.orgIowa AG slams report on campaign contributions Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller... more-
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