White Collar Fraud Legislation Passed

Dear [Dredd],

Check out the photo I snapped of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act at yesterday's White House signing ceremony!

It's time to crack down on the financial fraudsters who have wreaked havoc on our economy and America's hard-working families -- and now we have the tools to do it.

Yesterday I joined President Obama at the White House as he signed the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act into law, a bill I wrote to provide federal law enforcers with the resources they need to go after white-collar criminals.

With your help, and thanks to the support of more than 20,000 people who emailed their Senators and Representatives through the LeahyForVermont.com website, Congress passed a strong, bipartisan bill to tackle the scourge of fraud and recover taxpayer money lost due to illegal financial dealings.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act will protect Americans by:

* Increasing resources for federal investigators and prosecutors to go after cases of financial fraud,

* Modernizing fraud and money laundering statutes to deal with the growing wave of fraud,

* Strengthening the False Claims Act to better equip the Justice Department to recover the proceeds of fraud, and

* Establishing a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the root causes of the economic and financial crisis.

Now that President Obama has signed this important bill into law, the LeahyForVermont.com community can chalk up yet another legislative victory for the American people.

Thank you for all that you have done to put the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act on the President's desk -- and on the books.

Sincerely,

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator

Conservative Judiciary vs Obama?

We pointed out that, at this time, the federal judiciary is at its most conservative status since the 1930's.

But it is a moderate judge who is threatening to hold the Obama Administration in contempt of court for failing to comply with court orders.

Unlike Bush II, who never promised open government, Obama promised more open government but is defying a court order concerning openness in a case assigned to the judge by a special panel of judges.

Obama is clearly at odds with his campaign rhetoric to bring more openness to the presidency specifically, and to the government in general.

One wonders if Obama or A.G. Holder have changed their mind about openness; whether it is now on an ad hoc basis; whether the U.S. Attorneys handling the case are Bush II U.S. Attorneys (who were more aware of the case than a newbie would be, and were thus allowed to continue); or whether the Obama Administration has gone all Cheney on us?

Must all U.S. presidents have a bushie perspective of things?

President Of Vice, Cheney

After all, he was the Vice President, which he interprets as President of Vice. He even said that his office was not part of the Bush II administrative offices. Ok, if you say so Mr. President of Vice. I have two questions for you. First, why did you begin torture so very soon after 9/11 to try to make a connection between that event and Iraq? And second, have you heard about the futuristic skyscraper shown in the photos? It is located in down town Beijing, China, and was designed with a non-cube futuristic shape which held exactly to form during a fire a hundred times more intense than the WTC 7 fire. It did not collapse into its own footprint in about 6 seconds even during exposure to a fire a hundred times more severe than the one you say brought down WTC 7 that day. It is still standing as testimony that something does not pass the smell test. The 9/11 Commission, which your office lied to, concluded on information given to it by detainees you were torturing 9 months before that commission was even formed. Are you going to tell us the truth this time?

Oilah Akbar! Oilah Akbar!

The religion of the oil barons is not unlike the radicals who use the Islamic faith as a front to cover their demonic impulses.

Some of the oil barons are going through criminal trials these daze for their uncontrollable terrorist impulses.

That quaint notion of accountability for torture in U.S. jurisdictions will not happen it appears.

That is because those who did the torture call all the shots here and pull strings from the shadows it seems to many.

What we call "light" here evidently comes from the business end of a derrick.

The next post in this series is here.

Signs, What Signs?

For those of us who have driven through Death Valley or other desolate deserts, we know that signs are important.

Signs of how much gasoline we have left, how far it is to the gas station, and the like.

We also know that the billboards are not the ones to watch when things go critical.

There are countless cases of people missing the signs and dying in the desert.

And cases of people freezing to death with people all around them.

There are cases of entire huge empires freezing to death before the world's eyes.

All of these are cases of either missing the signs, ignoring them, or of not being able to separate the billboards from the signs due to delusions of various and sundry sorts.

Your God Wears Combat Boots

It is interesting how words and phrases change meaning as empires and nations change who and what they are!

I once heard the saying "Your mother wears combat boots" as a child, and wondered what it really meant.

I detected that it could be derogatory but was not sure.

One source zeros in on the origin as:

Armys in the field used to have "camp followers" who were , in essence, prostitutes for the soldiers. The first thing they would bargain for was a good pair of boots because following an army involves walking through a lot of muck, as you can imagine!

So the insult evolved among soldiers and is like saying "You son of a whore!"

(AskVille, see also A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, Second Edition, by Eric Partridge & Paul Beale). Ouch! It was derogatory. Many sources come to the same conclusion that it originated about WW I, and was derogatory.

War was considered to be America's greatest enemy by great patriots of old, and thus the derogatory link.

To apply the saying to a deity would simply be another way of saying "My god is better than your god".

The Bush II regime, with Donald Rumsfeld at the Department of Defense, felt that its god wore combat boots and was better than the god of Muslims in Iraq.

Official memos quoted Bible verses in a cafeteria fashion designed to denigrate the Iraqi Muslims and celebrate and exalt Bush II's god, which is standard fare in the "My god is better than your god" world of things.

It was the same ideology, different direction, when hate filled individuals tried to blow up a Jewish worship building but were arrested.

They were in effect saying "my god is better than your god" so we are blowing up your worship building.

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Is There A Shadow Government?

Various internet sites have large membership participation who believe that our government is a sham in several ways:

With 164,119 members generating 6,222,473 posts of substance (minimal contributions are not allowed) that cover 450,816 topics in 158 different discussion forums, you could say "the truth is in here."

And new content, new ideas, new speculation, and new theories are being generating at an astounding pace with 559 members creating 55,503 new posts during the past seven days. Also, in that same time span, we welcomed 559 new members and enjoyed visits from 7,010 registered members as well as 630,900 guests.

The simple yet effective motto of our membership is "deny ignorance", which signifies an effort to apply the principals of critical thought and peer review to the provocative topics covered within.

And with a highly professional staff of 70 dedicated people, AboveTopSecret.com is renowned for enabling the discussion of nearly anything while insisting on polite civility and respectful decorum.
The Motto: "Deny Ignorance"

(About Above Top Secret). Popular columnist Maureen Dowd wrote an article one could entitle "Ouch", which is about a shadow government too.

It depicts an imaginary recent lunch between Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Dowd's op-ed illustrates a conversation between Rummy and Dick concerning Obama's actions which have been covered in recent news.

She writes it in a way which makes one think that people are wondering out loud about our government. Wondering who is really running it:

“Well,” Dick says. “He’s got to keep Gitmo open. It’s rich that his own party won’t give him the money to close it. The NIMBY factor works every time — no terrorists in my backyard. He’s got to stop this pansy diplomacy with Muslim nations. He’s got to let Bibi take out those Iranian centrifuges. He’s got to stop his Kodak moments and Commie book club with Hugo Chávez. He’s got to release those C.I.A. memos proving that we were right to rip up the Constitution. And, of course, he’s got to pardon Scooter.”

“Can we get him to do all that, Dick?”

Dick twinkles. “Yes, we can.”

(NYT, Dowd). Clearly the people overwhelmingly voted out the past 8 years of a certain philosophy.

A philosophy which many are wondering whether or not the Obama Administration and the congress want to perpetuate or to reject. Of course they say they want to reject that philosophy.

The Obama rationale for doing what seems to be perpetuating it, is to get health care and some other social program legislation through, which will require right wing republican support, and which can't get through without such support.

Thus, we seem have a Ferengi government, or a shadow government, that is not at all in sync with the American people who clearly wanted the wars stopped and this other madness to end too.

Yesterfreakingday!

The next post in this series is here.

The California Gold Blush

Soon enough Governor Schwarzenegger won't be back.

The question is, will California come back this time?

We have mentioned that some of California's problems are not going to be solved by political ideology because nature is not political.

The current financial crisis there is compounded because the people do not trust the government, even if the government is now telling the truth.

That is one of the consequences reaped when politicians act as if public service is like being a member of the mob.

The State of California is a big deal.

Morning Joe Gets It - Spitzer Principle

Joe Scarborough today tells it like it is and how it needs to be.

Competence in a particular area of expertise must not be drowned out by either political party loyalty, or an application of morality which defeats the use of that competence.

His example was Elliot Spitzer, who was dethroned because of the use of prostitutes while in office, and while using public funds.

He pointed out that Spitzer should not be banned from the empire on any issues where he has a competence which almost no one else has, specifically in the arena of Wall Street nefarious scheming.

Spitzer knows where the bodies are buried, which closets have skeletons in them, and can help us find out what went wrong with our economy.

Thus Joe concludes, his knowledge should not be thrown in the garbage, because it is valuable to the country. That seems so obvious, yet Joe has the sense that we as a country have lost touch with the obvious somehow, and that the obvious is cloaked from us and just beyond our grasp.

The fundamental problem is our grandiose and ill advised notion of office vs. individual. It is as if we are constantly electing a Pope to be president, congress member, or even dog catcher.

We have forgotten that a person's religious morality is simply not a valid measurement of some skills and some abilities we need to use.

The mechanic who works on your car, who can do an incredible job, does not need to be a Cardinal or a Deacon in a local church before you car can be professionally repaired.

Anyone can have what someone else thinks is bad morals and still do a good secular job.

Rocket scientists do not have to be Christian Scientists to land a rover on Mars.

What office holders should be is honest, and they should have the public good in mind. With that type of character their specialized skills can be mined for the public good.

Baptists, Muslims, Republicans, Catholics, Democrats, Jews, Atheists, and the rest of them can do that; or not, regardless of their religious moral convictions, if we will drop the phony patina and let expertise enrich our land.

The Book Of Bowser

Someone leaked Rumsfeld memos that used apocalyptic and other types of verses from the Bible.

The bottom line, it ends up, is that the bushies were conducting a jihad based upon testimony from tortured detainees, all of which ended up being a pipe dream of biblical proportions.

Their whole ideology seems to have been from The Book of Bowser instead of being taken from the Bible, a book which the Muslims also revere.

They were torturing people a few months after 9/11, over a year before the invasion of Iraq, and 9 months before The 9/11 Commission was formed.

One Perspective On Spawning Freedom

Everyone likes to be free to do what they want.

It is natural to be that way, however, there are limitations to the notion that we are free to do whatever we want.

The spectacle or debacle of bringing American democracy to Iraq at the point of a gun, and a similar notion for Afghanistan, are recent examples.

Yes, recent examples that have had the world scratching their heads and muttering under their breath about mad cow disease in America.

As the photo shows, the neoCon ideology of spawning freedom can be applied in an unnatural fashion that is guaranteed not to accomplish the purpose of the pooch.

When we "crap where we eat" (destroy the environment) while we talk about our concern for the ecosystem and health, people see through it.

When we invade and occupy weak nations who have done no inviolable wrong (except to have strategic resources), all the while talking about peace and human rights, we are as obvious to the world as the pooch in the photo is to the photographer.

The pooch that is in "me like, me take" mode could care less about anything other than the ins and outs of his lust and his desire to satiate that lust, and it is quite obvious to everyone except the pooch.

The national cover up of neoCon lust and bankrupt ideology is another spectacle sure to spawn more and more words arranged in a manner that fools only the fools, who are already fooled.

Everyone else in the world sees the obvious shame. They have a curse which they utter when they are very angry at another person: "may the bushies bring democracy to you".