1/ Astonishing story by Matt Taibbi of how one of the biggest banks in the world was let off the hook for trafficking with Al Queda, Mexican drug lords and other criminals even though they have had multiple warnings to stop. Noone went to jail, noone was punished for crimes a normal citizen would be in prison for life for. They paid a fine of two weeks profits, and off they went, business as usual.
Did you read anything in the mainstream media about this? Nope.....they are complicit in the coverup.
The corruption is deep folks.......
angster Bankers: Too Big to Jail
Illustration by Victor Juhasz
By MATT TAIBBI
February 14, 2013 8:00 AM ET
The deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-and-terrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks' profit – but they didn't extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses.
People may have outrage fatigue about Wall Street, and more stories about billionaire greedheads getting away with more stealing often cease to amaze. But the HSBC case went miles beyond the usual paper-pushing, keypad-punching sort-of crime, committed by geeks in ties, normally associated with Wall Street. In this case, the bank literally got away with murder – well, aiding and abetting it, anyway.
For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years – people so totally evil, jokes former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, that "they make the guys on Wall Street look good." The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash.
"They violated every goddamn law in the book," says Jack Blum, an attorney and former Senate investigator who headed a major bribery investigation against Lockheed in the 1970s that led to the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "They took every imaginable form of illegal and illicit business."
That nobody from the bank went to jail or paid a dollar in individual fines is nothing new in this era of financial crisis. What is different about this settlement is that the Justice Department, for the first time, admitted why it decided to go soft on this particular kind of criminal. It was worried that anything more than a wrist slap for HSBC might undermine the world economy. "Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer at a press conference to announce the settlement, "HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."
2/ Given the story above of blatant corruption, if there is any hope at all for more oversight by our bought and sold "regulators" of Wall Street, it's Senator Elizabeth Warren. Watch this delicious four minute grilling from Senate Banking Committee, and watch the bastards squirm.
Elizabeth Warren has more balls than anyone in Congress......
Roll on 2016, Clinton/Warren!!!
Wall Street Bankers Surprised That Senator
Elected to Hate Them Hates Them
By Kevin Roose
This video of Senator Elizabeth Warren putting the hurt on a bunch of regulators in her first hearing on the Senate Banking Committee is pretty amusing. I'm a big fan of the clip that starts at about 2:30, when Warren asks Tom Curry, who heads a little regulatory agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, why the OCC hasn't taken more Wall Street banks to trial, rather than settling out of court and getting them to pay a penalty when they break the law, and Curry hems and haws and can't really answer, so he basically goes full Milton from Office Space and then just kind of trails off and sulks.
3/ Bill Maher is getting better and better.....here he devotes his "New Rules" to the Vatican and the resignation of the Popa......
Very funny, very clever and so true......4 minutes.....
As far as Bill Maher's concerned, the best possible outcome of the pope resigning is that Catholics will quit as well. The second best possibility: Hillary Clinton will be the next pope.
Sure, it may be far-fetched, but as Maher explains, a powerful woman at the top could be just what the Catholic Church needs:
"Fact is, that any enterprise that excludes women almost always descends into sexual deviancy... Whether it's the Boy Scouts, the Penn State locker room or on Wall Street, sooner later a bunch of innocent folks get fucked. Show me any culture that's traditionally hostile to women and I will show a culture that is screwed up."
And if Hillary doesn't work out, no problem. Maher's got at least two more PERFECT ideas for papal successors. Watch the clip above and let us know what you think.
4/ Ah Marco Rubio, the Tea Party Senator from Florida. I don't know if you watched his rebuttal to the President but I thought he came across as a total weenie. What an asshole.
Anyway Paul Krugman listened to the substance of his speech and his ideas for the Reublican party, and finds them wanting......because zombie economic ideas have eaten his brain!
The State of the Union address was not, I’m sorry to say, very interesting. True, the president offered many good ideas. But we already know that almost none of those ideas will make it past a hostile House of Representatives.
On the other hand, the G.O.P. reply, delivered by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, was both interesting and revelatory. And I mean that in the worst way. For Mr. Rubio is a rising star, to such an extent that Time magazine put him on its cover, calling him “The Republican Savior.” What we learned Tuesday, however, was that zombie economic ideas have eaten his brain.
In case you’re wondering, a zombie idea is a proposition that has been thoroughly refuted by analysis and evidence, and should be dead — but won’t stay dead because it serves a political purpose, appeals to prejudices, or both. The classic zombie idea in U.S. political discourse is the notion that tax cuts for the wealthy pay for themselves, but there are many more. And, as I said, when it comes to economics it appears that Mr. Rubio’s mind is zombie-infested.
Start with the big question: How did we get into the mess we’re in?
The financial crisis of 2008 and its painful aftermath, which we’re still dealing with, were a huge slap in the face for free-market fundamentalists. Circa 2005, the usual suspects — conservative publications, analysts at right-wing think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, and so on — insisted that deregulated financial markets were doing just fine, and dismissed warnings about a housing bubble as liberal whining. Then the nonexistent bubble burst, and the financial system proved dangerously fragile; only huge government bailouts prevented a total collapse.
Instead of learning from this experience, however, many on the right have chosen to rewrite history.
5/ These downhill bikers are a special breed - look at this race in Valparaiso, Chile. We had one biker video in DDD last month that was exciting, but this Is an actual race and incredibly dangerous......3 1/2 minutes of terror, and skill, and cojones......
Boys - a must watch.......
6/ Gail Collins from the Times with one of her funnier columns .....wonderful commentary on the Senate and the recent Carnival Triumph cruise......
Read this brief excerpt.....a classic of political humour......
We seem to be short one secretary of defense.
Well, there’s Leon Panetta, who has already had his farewell ceremony, given his farewell briefing and his farewell address, then flown home to California. But the Pentagon probably still has his cell number in case a war breaks out.
And there’s Chuck Hagel, nominated yet totally-still-not-confirmed by the U.S. Senate. A Senate that is beginning to resemble a bad Carnival cruise. They’re dead in the water, nothing’s working and the chief engineer is Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
People, what do you think happened with Lindsey Graham? Have you noticed that lately he seems to be on television more often than the Geico gecko? How does he manage to get himself interviewed so much? Do you think he lives in a tent outside one of the studios? Graham doesn’t hold any Senate position higher than ranking member of the Armed Services subcommittee on personnel. Yet there he is, on the air all the time, denouncing something.
And what do you think has happened to John McCain? Actually, we’ve had that conversation a number of times before.
When it comes to the Hagel nomination, McCain is supposed to be the Republican point man. If we were on a Carnival cruise, he would be the captain. A captain who got on the P.A. and announced that the ship was going to Mexico. No, Alabama! No, in a circle! Or maybe we’ll just stay dead in the water until a week from Tuesday and see what happens.
7/ SNL had a skit on Fox and Friends that had Ted Nugent as a guest........great satire, but it's quite easy to make fun of the idiots on that show.......5 amusing minutes.....
On this weekend’s broadcast of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live
,” the show took aim at one of its favorite targets: Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
,” the show took aim at one of its favorite targets: Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
The skit kicked off with the three hosts taking on President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address from earlier in the week.
“Well on Tuesday, President Obama gave his State of the Union address, and it was a doozy,” Taran Killam’s Steve Doocy said. from earlier in the week.
“Isn’t this man supposed to be a great speaker?” Vanessa Bayer’s Gretchen Carlson asked. “Then how come only half the people were clapping? I mean this was a full-frontal assault on our values.
One of the funniest bits of the SNL spoof are the corrections Fox has to run from their previous shows......they scroll very quickly so here they are in print.....
Once again, Saturday Night Live had a little fun with Fox & Friends, ending with a fast-moving scroll of a few things the fact-checkers wanted to set straight before going to break: So, rest assured, ”At no time did the passengers on the Carnival Cruise ship become zombies.” Here’s this week’s list:
At no time did our military fight a war against Cobra.
The “T” in BLT does not stand for “terrorism.”
Meteors are not coming to take your guns.
It is not Roe vs. Dwayne Wade.
Zero Dark Thirty is not a diet soda.
The Vatican is not accessible through a wardrobe.
Food stamps are not used to mail food.
Armadillo is not Spanish for “arms dealer.”
Navy Seals are not actual seals with laser beams on their heads.
“That’s not a knife, this is a knife” is not the Australian National Anthem.
At no time did the passengers on the Carnival Cruise ship become zombies.
Beyonce cannot hypnotize animals.
“Adele” is a singer. “A Dell” is a computer.
February is a month.
Marco Rubio did not bring pasta back from China.
The Staten Island Ferry will not give you money for teeth.
The real Abraham Lincoln lived longer than 3 hours.
More people died from gun violence last year than from walking into elevator shafts.
The Constitution did not “write itself.”
Bruno Mars is from Earth.
There are no Americans in the Bible.
The tie goes to the runner.
Not all amputees kill their girlfriends.
Zumba is not a secret form of Santeria.
North Korea is not a Cloud City.
A “pin code” and a “pine cone” are two different things.
The kid on Modern Family did not start out in porn.
Joe Biden’s teeth are real and do not pick up radio waves.
Polar bears are rarely “asking for it.”
Kobe beef is not meat from the flesh of Kobe Bryant.
A “period piece” is not a movie that only plays during one week of the month.
Plants are alive, but they cannot watch TV.
A transgender is not a car that can be driven by men and women.
Kate Upton is not dating a glacier.
God does not sneeze electricity.
The similar names of the North Dakota and South Dakota are not a coincidence.
Even black people love Raymond.
Mumford’s daughters are not in foster care.
8/ You may have seen this ad on MSNBC, but based on this story you won't be seeing it again if Exxon's lawyers prevail. It's a spot produced by a coalition of environmental groups, called "Exxon Hates Your Children", a 30 second ad. Watch it, and weep for the planet......
A still from the 'Exxon Hates Your Children' ad, which was ordered off the air just hours before it was supposed to be broadcast on Fox News during the State of the Union. (photo credit: The Other 98%)
Exxon Mobil gave a cease-and-desist order to Comcast, forcing the cable provider to pull an ad about climate change from Fox News' coverage of the State of the Union address in some areas Tuesday night, according to emails provided to The Huffington Post by one of the groups responsible for the ad.
The satirical spot, which is brazenly titled "Exxon Hates Your Children" and urges Congress to eliminate fossil fuel industry subsidies, was produced by progressive advocacy groups Oil Change International, The Other 98% and Environmental Action. Having already aired on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" and "Up With Chris Hayes", the video has also been viewed more than 170,000 times on YouTube.
The ad was scheduled to air Tuesday in Houston, Texas, and Denver, Colo., during Fox's State of the Union coverage. However, a few hours before the event began, a senior vice president of Universal McCann, which handles global media duties for Exxon, fired off an email to Comcast, which provides Fox programming in those areas.
"Please let this serve as an official cease & desist notification that claims made by Oil Change International that their claims in any spot that 'ExxonMobil Hates Your Children' is false and unsubstantiated," the email stated.
9/ Newly elected Texas Senator Ted Cruz is a certified asshole, even by the low bar that applies to Congress. He's anti everything, everything, which is of course what the cretins in the Texas Tea Party want......
Good column from Frank Bruni in the Times......
WHEN a Vesuvius like John McCain tells you that you belch too much smoke and spew too much fire, you know you’ve got a problem.
And Ted Cruz, a Republican freshman in the Senate who has been front and center in his party’s effort to squash Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense, has a problem. He’s an ornery, swaggering piece of work. Just six weeks since his arrival on Capitol Hill, he’s already known for his naysaying, his nit-picking and his itch to upbraid lawmakers who are vastly senior to him, who have sacrificed more than he has and who deserve a measure of respect, or at least an iota of courtesy. Courtesy isn’t Cruz’s métier. Grandstanding and browbeating are.
He sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and during its final meeting on Tuesday about Hagel’s nomination, he made such nefarious and hectoring insinuations about Hagel’s possible corruption by foreign influences that McCain, who’d gleefully raked Hagel over the coals himself, more or less told Cruz to cool it. It was an unforgettable moment, and one that Republicans shouldn’t soon forget, because Cruz, 42, isn’t simply the latest overeager beaver to start gnawing his way through the halls of Congress. He’s a prime illustration of what plagues the Republican Party and holds it back.
A fascinating illustration, too. On the surface, he should be part of the solution: young, Latino, with a hardscrabble family story including his father’s imprisonment in Cuba and escape to the United States. But Republicans who look to him and see any kind of savior overlook much of what drags the party down, which isn’t merely or even principally the genealogy of their candidates. It’s the intransigent social conservatism, the whiff of meanness and the showy eruptions. It’s what Cruz, who rode a wave of Tea Party ardor to victory in Texas in November, distills.
10/ I guarantee you will watch this one minute video twice......it's an awareness test that I failed, and you will too....
11/ Interesting slideshow of "14 Foods You Should Never Eat".....most of them won't surprise you, but a couple will.....
They set up the article as ...The Problem....and The Solution....
Well done, quite logical and pretty scary what garbage unaware people eat every day......not you though....eh?
Disgusted By Food?
What's the one food you refuse to eat? Peas, tofu, liver and onions? Whatever it is, it's probably because you don't like the way it tastes, not necessarily because it contains ingredients suspected of causing cancer or because it was picked by farmers wearing Hazmat suits. Yet, there are still a lot of those foods on store shelves, and food-industry insiders, who know what goes on behind the scenes, refuse to eat them. We polled some of those insiders—people who know the business and work daily to evict pesticides, genetically modified organisms, animal cruelty, social injustice, and unhealthy foods from the food supply—to find out what they know about the dark side of "convenience" foods and what they will eat. Take note so you, too, can avoid the worst of what grocery stores have to offer
12/ Great little mini-film from Calvin Harris and Florence - set in a strip club with Florence as the singing act ddressed as a man, it's pretty violent as well......the song is "Sweet Nothings".....
Not the most uplifting music video, but what the hell they can't all be Taylor Swift.......
13/ Something appropriate for the raging debate we are having about guns - a virtual pistol shooting at a target......see what you score. I managed a 28 in 12 seconds.......
It's in Russian, but it's pretty obvious how it works......
14/ An excellent two part column from Lauren Ritchie in the Orlando Sentinel about the Lake County School Board and their efforts to try to stop a gay/straight club for students at a middle school in Leesburg. Here we are in 2013, the whole country is moving towards legalising same sex marriage and whether you are gay or not is completely irrelevant to anyone under 40........but not here in Lake County, where for social issues we are still on the 1950's.
The school board includes old white male Bill Mathias, who made national news in January calling for every teacher to be armed in the classroom and old white male Todd Howard who, if you read his quote, seems like a sneaky homophobe......guess how they are going to vote.
The School Board votes tomorrow - they called a special meeting just for this issue, no let's make that this non-isssue.
Todays video - a public safety message about ladder accidents
Todays British rectum stretcher joke
| |
Todays ladies joke
Women's ass size study:
There is a new study about women and how they feel about their asses, the results were pretty interesting.
30% of women think their ass is too fat, 10% of women think their ass is too skinny, the remaining 60% say they don't care, they love him, he is a good man, and wouldn't trade him for the world... ..............................
Todays African joke
Primitive Self-Expression In AfricaSome of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground with clubs and uttering spine-chilling cries.Anthropologists call this a form of primitive self-expression.In America, they call it golf.
Todays nursing joke
A male patient is lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen
mask over his mouth and nose. A young student nurse appears and
gives him a partial sponge bath.
"Nurse,"' he mumbles from behind the mask, "are my testicles black?"
Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, "I don't know, Sir. I'm only
here to wash your upper body and feet."
He struggles to ask again, "Nurse, please check for me. Are my
testicles black?"
Concerned that he might elevate his blood pressure and heart rate
from worrying about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment
and pulls back the covers.
mask over his mouth and nose. A young student nurse appears and
gives him a partial sponge bath.
"Nurse,"' he mumbles from behind the mask, "are my testicles black?"
Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, "I don't know, Sir. I'm only
here to wash your upper body and feet."
He struggles to ask again, "Nurse, please check for me. Are my
testicles black?"
Concerned that he might elevate his blood pressure and heart rate
from worrying about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment
and pulls back the covers.
She raises his gown, holds his manhood in one hand and his testicles
gently in the other.
She looks very closely and says, "There's nothing wrong with them,
Sir. They look fine."
The man slowly pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her, and says
very slowly, "Thank you very much. That was wonderful. Now listen
very, very closely:
Are - my - test - results - back?"
gently in the other.
She looks very closely and says, "There's nothing wrong with them,
Sir. They look fine."
The man slowly pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her, and says
very slowly, "Thank you very much. That was wonderful. Now listen
very, very closely:
Are - my - test - results - back?"
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