Archive for category Government
Senator Shelby: Now Can You & Allah Bama Stop Giving Aid and Assistance to the Enemy?
Posted by Lance Haley in Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, National Security, Politics, Senate, War in Afghanistan, War on Terror, White House on March 9th, 2010
![Senator Richard Shelby and Saddam Hussein [holding hands]](http://screwedus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Senator-Richard-Shelby-and-Saddam-Hussein-holding-hands.jpg "Senator Richard Shelby and Saddam Hussein [holding hands]")
SENATOR RICHARD SHELBY HOLDING HANDS WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN [circa 1990]
Dear Senator Shelby:
As noted in this author’s previous post, you were playing politics with the lives of young American soldiers in order to get your way over the issue of awarding Northrop Grumman a contract to build a refueling tanker plane in your home state of Allah Bama.
Now Northrop Grumman has withdrawn it’s bid to build the planes, and will not file a formal protest because, in the words of Northrop’s chief executive, Wesley G. Bush, “service men and women have been forced to wait too long for new tankers.”
Senator Shelby: Service men and women have also been forced to wait too long for Senate confirmation of Obama’s appointee who is designated to become top Department of Defense point-man for readiness and managing deployments to Afghanistan, all because of you.
They are still waiting . . .
P.S. The picture in the caption was taken in 1990 during a Congressional junket to Iraq by Senator Shelby and Senator Arlen Spector. The authenticity of this trip can be confirmed right here on Senator Spector’s website.
Teabaggers Are Tards!
Posted by Lance Haley in Anti-government sentiment, Conservatives, Cultural Issues, Glenn Beck, Government, Politics, Populists, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, United States on March 5th, 2010
TEABAGGER ANTI-STIMULUS PROTEST AT WHITEHOUSE ON 2-27-09
OK.
Let’s analyze this Tard logic.
1) Teabaggers (members of the American Tea Party) are so incensed that Rachael Maddow calls them by that name – sarcastically referencing the sexually-perverted act - that they have filed 1,239 Indecency complaints with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)against MSNBC (subsidiary cable network of parent company NBC), the broadcaster of The Rachael Maddow Show.
2) The Teabaggers were the first ones to reference the term for political purposes in their February 27, 2009 anti-stimulus protest in front of the Whitehouse (see 2/27/09 post on web containing the picture above).
3) So now their politically-correct sensitivity is insulted?
Including the Teabaggers Chief Tard, Sarah Palin?
Hail to the Chief.
Harry Markopolos’ $50 Billion Dollar Failure
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Congress, Crime & Punishment, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, Politics, Sarah Palin, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on March 2nd, 2010
![dumb and dumber [2]](http://screwedus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dumb-and-dumber-23.jpg "dumb and dumber [2]")
S.E.C. LAWYERS’ GRADUATION CLASSES: 1999-2008
If you hired a security guard to watch your house, and it kept getting burglarized – even after someone told him countless times who the thief was – would you let him keep his job?
Stupid question, you say? Really?
So why do we keep the same morons on our government payroll to watch the financial markets? Now that is a good question. And there really is a simple answer. The foxes make sure to instruct their under-lords to have those dumb sharecropper farmers whom they pay beggars wages to for working their land, to keep that same old deaf and blind dog guarding the chicken coop. This metaphor should not be lost on anyone.
Bernie Madoff may be a household word – and one of Time magazines 2009 Top 100 people who affected the world. But Harry Markopolus is just another quiet hero in a global financial market run by pimps and whores. Markopolus has a new book coming out today called, “No One Would Listen“. The book chronicles the story of how Markopolus doggedly pursued a fraud case against Bernie Madoff from 1999 through 2008 by trying to get the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawyers to investigate Madoff’s House of Cards. All to no avail.
WTF you might ask? At least that’s what I have been saying since this story first broke in early 2009 when Markopolus testified before Congress (you can read his testimony right here), and then was interviewed by CBS’s 60 Minutes.
This is beyond a comedy of errors. This is Dumb and Dumber, The Three Stooges, and Beevis and Butthead all working in concert to unwittingly thwart one another while the criminals continued to steal from us with unbridled impunity. Now is that not a terrifying image? Meet your S.E.C., America. Wall Street owns these guys.
Starting in 1999, Markopolus made several attempts to give the most fundamental proof of Madoff’s fraud to numerous investigators at the S.E.C. - all of which was either willfully or woefully ignored (Markopolus calls them “idiots” – that is too kind, don’t you think, Sarah Palin? I would have called them retards). By 2007, he was fed up with their wanton stupidity, and decided to document it by submitting a nineteen (19) page memorandum to the S.E.C. outlining the basis for his claim. That too, was ignored.
View the complete 60 Minutes interview with Markopolos - or just watch the real BOMBSHELL from minute 7:25 to 8:18 of the interview. That brief one minute segment is incomprehensible. And you wonder why so many investors were “Madoffed” by Bernie?
So after all this, has anything changed?
Hell no!
Harry Markopolus is still trying to settle his first big whistle-blower case, he has spent years living in fear, and yet he remains undeterred in his dogged pursuit of financial racketeers and corporate fraudsters. Of course, his new book should help keep his wife and young boys fed until payday comes. Ironically, Markopolus refers to himself as a “$50 Billion dollar failure”- because he could not get the S.E.C. to listen. One might conclude that he is being flippant, since he all but beat them over the head with his evidence. However, he is serious about characterizing this as his “failure” - he honestly takes it very personally that all these people were hurt by Madoff’s fraud in the face of the S.E.C.’s utter incompetence.
You just have to love this man. After all this, the crooks and the “police” shirk responsibility, and the hero feels guilty? And you wonder why it seems the world has started spinning in the other direction?
Meanwhile, back at the S.E.C., they are still re-disorganizing the deck chairs on the U.S.S. Financial Titanic, and there should be smooth sailing on the calm seas of Neo-Capitalism all the way back to port. No need to worry. They have their securities regulation minions fast asleep on night watch while the next massive financial iceberg awaits in the darkness. And brace yourself, because this next one’s really going to be a doozy folks.
In the meantime, bring them some Dom Perignon, the exquisite pate’, and that rare Russian escargot they just had imported, all paid for with your financial bailouts. And don’t forget to put that on a silver platter.
Oh, they almost forgot to mention it. You can ignore the water rising on the Italian marble dining room floor. That’s just from the watered-down financial regulation reform we are about to get from Wall Street’s wholly-owned public subsidiary, Congress. They have the S.E.C working on that minor leak down in the hull right now.
One Final Note: please do not bother counting the number of lifeboats. Those seats have all been reserved.
Enjoy the cruise. 
P.S. They saved several seats in the lifeboats for the S.E.C. lawyers. You didn’t really think the Financial Terrorists were going to row those things themselves, did you?
Michael Smerconish Leaves Republican Party After 30 Years of Unwavering Allegiance
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, Budget & Deficit, Campaigns, Centrists, Conservatives, Logic & Reasoning, Media & Communication, Middle Class, Moderates, Politics, United States on February 27th, 2010
WOW!
If you do not know who Michael Smerconish is, you are not alone.
Smerconish is well known in political circles as a Conservative columnist and radio talk show host in Philadelphia, PA. He frequently makes guest appearances on some of the cable news shows, and his insight into Pennsylvania politics was of great interest during the 2008 Presidential primaries, as well as the general election. There is no other media personality in Pennsylvania that has a better finger on the pulse of that state’s politics. Although I was skeptical of his politics when I first saw him in 2008, he won me over as time went on, and I took great interest in what he had to say regarding the political landscape of a state that was very diverse in it’s political leanings.
That is why his announced “resignation” from the Republican Party this past week is very shocking, and should not be lightly dismissed by party leaders, nor Conservative pundits. Particularly the manner in which his decision was made – while standing in line at the drivers license bureau, when prompted by a bureaucrat as to whether he would like to declare an affiliation with either political party.
Such a seemingly spontaneous act was obviously not a decision that was either taken lightly, or consciously contemplated. After all, he had publicly and openly sworn allegiance to the Republican party and it’s principles for the last 30 years. And in the course of 30 seconds, while standing in line at the drivers license bureau, all of that changed. If you want to understand why, read his statement.
That is why it is so consequential. His leaving is evidence of a quiet tsunami of voters who are likely not even aware of their subconscious preparations to abandon their parties, and demand a return to political and economic sanity in a country that has apparently gone quite mad. They feel alienated and abandoned – by both of the parties and the political system.
Most importantly for both parties is this: My politics and Mr. Smerconish’s diverge on a number of issues, none of which are relevant to the subject at hand. Nonetheless, we now both consider ourselves independent voters. What I divine from his public statement of why he is abandoning his party is that he is a man of reason and logic. A person who can clearly see that things are not always so clear cut. A man who is certain of the uncertainty of the future of this country. A citizen who refuses to participate in a process that will bring about the destruction of this great nation. But most importantly, an American who is willing to put his country ahead of his own personal political beliefs, without sacrificing the principles that underlie those beliefs.
That Michael Smerconish and I can find agreement on what the most important issue is that the majority of voters believe this country must immediately address speaks volumes.
Quite simply . . . STOP THE MADNESS!
Federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff: A Lonely Soldier in the War Against Wall Street’s Financial Terrorists?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Banking, Business and Money, Capitalism, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Legal & Justice, U.S. District Courts, Wall Street, financial industry on February 26th, 2010
THE ONE MAN WITH BIG ENOUGH BALLS TO TAKE ON WALL STREET
Calling the Security and Exchange Commission’s legal settlement with Bank of America (BoA) “half-baked justice at best“, U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff reluctantly signed-off on the agreement between the two parties on Monday, writing in his order that “[t]his court, while shaking its head, grants the S.E.C.’s motion and approves the proposed consent judgment.”
Judge Rakoff is a true American Maverick, and a champion for American public shareholders.
I am not talking about some half-baked Sarah “Pretender” Palin maverick. This man is the real deal – and you can take that to the bank. Just don’t deposit it with Bank of America. Because when it comes to the truth, BoA – like the rest of the Wall Street Financial Terrorists – has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it simply cannot be trusted.
On several occasions this author has commented, here and here regarding the ongoing feud between that limp-dicked, impotent icon of American investor protection - the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) - and Judge Rakoff, over this settlement of Bank of America’s failure to disclose critical information in it’s SEC stock disclosure filings regarding the Merrill Lynch merger.
BoA shareholders were entitled to know the scale of Merrill Lynch’s liabilities, as well as the size of the bonuses that were to be paid to Merrill’s top executives, before approving the merger. However, none of that was disclosed in the filing, and BoA is blaming it’s former top legal counsel for it’s ostensibly innocent error in judgment.
During one of those previous court hearings, the Judge voiced his utter contempt for claims by both BoA and the SEC that none of the BoA executives were culpable for the material non-disclosure. He was further incensed over the irony that it would be BoA’s shareholders who would ultimately be the ones who were financially punished because the bank would have to pay the fines out of it’s profits, thus further diminishing the value of the shareholders stock. The judge lamented this fact, having preferred that BoA’s top executives pay the fines. Nonetheless, he begrudgingly approved the settlement.
Judge Rakoff is also currently presiding over a pending civil matter against J.P. Morgan Chase. In the order he issued on January 28, 2010 in that case, the Judge wrote that “JP Morgan thereby violated, at a minimum, the covenant of good faith and fair dealing” when it obviously attempted to structure a deal with one client in an effort to position itself so as to benefit another client in the same industry – a clear conflict of interest. The judge noted that “such an end run, if not a down right sham , is not permissable . . .”, insinuating J.P. Morgan committed fraud.
Felix Salmon, a well respected business writer and blogger, wrote a good analysis of Morgan’s corrupt business dealings in the matter titled How J.P. Morgan treats its clients: scandalously and in bad faith. As another writer so eloquently put it, “[w]e have entered a period of grotesque decadence in the financial and business dealings of those who brought us the great financial calamities.”
In the final irony in the BoA case, both the S.E.C. and Bank of America expressed just how pleased they were with the settlement. I’ll bet they were. Now the question becomes, when will the S.E.C. lawyers who worked on this case retire from “government service”, and take jobs with BoA or one of the other of the Wall Street Terrorist Organizations ? Anyone want to take a bet that this doesn’t happen?
I welcome any and all takers. And I will be laughing all the way to the bank when I win that bet. Just hope you were smart enough to hedge that wager Goldman Sachs-style by betting that I won’t be depositing my winnings in BoA. Because I won’t. Judge Rakoff would be disgusted with me, and rightfully so.
Thank Goodness We Have At Least One Man With Balls On Our Side!
Now the rest of you government weenies and politicians - grow some freakin’ testicles.
Why the Sudden Republican Bipartisanship on One Healthcare Reform Issue? Hypocrisy Maybe?
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Campaigns, Economics, House of Representatives on February 26th, 2010
DECIDE TO BE HEALTHY . . . BUT AT WHAT COST?
On Wednesday the House Republicans finally joined the Democrats in a rare accomplishment of voting together on a bill that would repeal a sixty-five (65) year old law allowing insurance companies to have virtual monopolies (oligopolies) over health care insurance. Known as the McCarran-Ferguson Act of (1945), the former anti-trust legislation was designed to give states the power to determine which insurance companies could operate in their states, and investigate collusion by those companies to fix prices and prevent competition.
The reasoning behind repealing the former law was that proponents of the bill believe it allowed a few companies in each state to work in concert to control health insurance, given that the health insurance industry is now dominated by a handful of major players due to consolidation through mergers. Those that opposed the bill – including insurance industry companies and their industry associations – claim that the regulatory agencies in the various states that have oversight of insurance companies already limit the amount of premium increases the companies can charge customers. Of course “limit” is a relative term – particularly when the recent health insurance premiums increases demanded by insurance companies in the various states are projected to rise at alarming rates.
The problem with that argument – that state insurance commissions can adequately regulate the insurance industry – is that there is overwhelming evidence that state insurance regulatory commissions are a revolving door for insurance industry insiders. Want to guess who’s side they are on? It’s like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop.
Thus, it makes sense that Republicans went along with the repeal of the previous legislation given that recent spate of news regarding substantial increases in health care premiums. Republican leaders said that this was a just a political-motivated ploy by the Democrats in a memo circulated to their members just before the vote took place. The exact language from the memo was ”[for] political calculations, rather than substantive reasons.” So why did they then turn right around and vote for it if it was a “politically-motivated ploy”? Will Senate Republicans do the same thing?
Republicans cannot have it both ways. Maybe their vote is politically-motivated to ensure that they are re-elected in the November 2010 mid-term elections (yes, the one coming up this Fall)?
What a bunch of hypocrites!
Were Dick Cheney’s Chest Pains and Terrorist Najibullah Zazi’s Guilty Plea in NY Federal District Court Earlier Today Just a Coincidence?
Posted by Lance Haley in Conservatives, Crime & Punishment, Dick Cheney, Government, Legal & Justice, National Security, Politics, U.S. Attorney's Office, U.S. District Courts, War on Terror, al Qaida on February 22nd, 2010
It would take a really big washrag to wipe that huge grin off my face right now.
Click here and here – then read ScrewedUS.com Memo to Dick Cheney.
Don’t you just love life’s little ironies?
Thank Goodness Obama Healthcare Reform is Dead? Caveat Emptor . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, 2012 Election, Bailouts, Banking, Budget, Budget & Deficit, Budget Deficit, Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Conservatives, Economics, Financial Crisis, Financial Terrorists, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Medicare, Sarah Palin, Show Them the $$$, Wall Street, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich, economy, financial industry on February 12th, 2010
This is the face of the future for Republican Health Care and Social Security Reform – memorize it!
Now remember all of those terrifying Town Hall meetings in the Summer of 2009, where all you heard about on a daily basis were “Death Panels” and Medicare cuts, and Big Brother’s government bureaucrats making decisions about both the quality and quantity of health care you were going to receive?
You have nothing to worry about. Obama’s Health Care Reform is likely all but dead, and many of you will try to vote the Republicans back into power in this Fall’s mid-term elections so that they can protect you from Obama’s scary Socialist Big Government. Hip, Hip, Hooray (or is that Horror?) for their brand of Capitalism and individual freedom.
Except for one thing. The Republicans do not intend to protect you from anything (remember, that’s the point of shrinking government support). Including going broke in your retirement years from either rising health care costs, or diminishing retirement income. Think I am kidding? This is not hyperbole!
Ignore what follows at your own peril . . .
At the 2009 CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) - this is the Superbowl of Conservative power-brokers, with Glenn Beck as their 2010 Keynote Speaker - Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed that Medicare be completely dismantled, and replaced by a system of vouchers for seniors to purchase health insurance in the private sector.
Make no mistake about it: this will be the platform for the Republicans’ answer on how to reform health care once they are back in power. Do you doubt that? Well, Fox News reported that Ryan has been annointed as “the leader of future of the conservative movement.” That’s code for Republican Presidential nominee. He is their visionary, and here is his vision for American retirees’ Medicare and social security safety nets.
According to The Economist magazine, and an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Ryan’s “daring plan” will stimulate both the health insurance industry, as well as the health care industry, while slowing the growth of government health care spending; which is great if you are a Republican rising star like Ryan, who receives almost 40% of his political campaign contributions from health-related industries and their beneficiaries.
What’s not so great for retirees is that the CBO analysis shows why this is so great for the government and those industries: the dollar value of those vouchers you are going to get under Ryan’s plan will not rise as quickly as the projected costs of health care. Which means retirees will have higher out-of-pocket expenses as time goes on. And you can be certain that if those costs are going up, your private health insurance will also be going up at an equally rising rate – after all, they have to make a profit. That’s Capitalism. Right?
Another great thing about this plan – but not so great for retirees – is that the cost to the government will continue to grow more slowly because, as the CBO projections show, people will use less health care when they have to increasingly pay more and more out of their own pockets. Remember last summer when Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers scared you about the government rationing health care? Now you can do it to yourself!
In essence, Ryan’s Republican plan would make the government go broke more slowly than American retirees will, while temporarily keeping this growing health care crisis at bay another decade or two, and increase the profits of health-related industries along the way, forcing you to resort to receiving less and less health care as you grow older.
Don’t believe me? Do the math. It’s really that simple.
And Remember: Under the Republican Healthcare Reform Plan you will NOT even have Medicare supplemental insurance to fall back on. You wanted government out of your life . . . you got it!
So be happy you are not going to get Health Care Reform from Obama. I don’t mean to alarm you – especially after the Republicans scared you sufficiently enough to ensure health care reform would not get passed. After all, now they are free to begin selling you their notion of a “free market” alternative. Caveat emptor (”buyer beware”).
And recall the proverbial admonishment: “Be careful what you wish for . . . you just might get it.”
Happy retirement, America.
P.S. Ryan’s “free market plan” also calls for Social Security to be completely dismantled, and privatized. Surely the impact of that policy is not lost on anyone after the global financial markets collapsed for the second time in a decade – losing almost 40% of their value in both downturns, with average investment returns for the past ten (10) years of about 1%. What if your social security safety net was invested there? Hint: it’s not a “free market” proposal - the government will limit your choices on how you can invest your social security retirement. Are you really so naive as to think Wall Street won’t have their greedy fingers in that enormous financial pie? They own Washington, D.C.!
Allah Bama is Holding America Hostage For a Whole Side of Pork – Isn’t That Against Their Religion?
Posted by Lance Haley in Budget, Budget Deficit, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Politics, Show Them the $$$, economy on February 11th, 2010
Allah Bama’s Monument to Pork Barrel Spending
Are Republicans really serious about pork-barrel spending? What about national security? How about the War in Afghanistan that they have been paying so much lip service to since 9/11 – as in 2001?
One has to wonder as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of the party stands silent, and defenseless (or so they act), as fellow Republican Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) just hung a whole side of pork around the necks of his own party members. Believe it or not, Shelby contends it’s all done in the name of critical national security, when it’s really for the sake his home state – Allah Bama.
Since when did building tanker refueling planes constitute a critical national security issue when compared to personally holding up the appointment of seventy – count them, 70 – presidential nominees to various government positions. What is most glaring is that one of these appointees is designated to become the top Department of Defense point-man for managing deployments to Afghanistan.
Is Senator Shelby providing comfort and support to the terrorists? After all, isn’t that the standard moniker Republicans try to hang around the Democrats’ necks everytime they delay anything regarding national security?
Let’s see? Building refueling tankers in the next five years or ensuring proper deployment of soldiers to Afghanistan in the next five months? The choice is not exactly rocket science. Anyone want to argue this one with young American soldiers’ lives on the line?
Go ahead . . . make my day.
Even Conservative writers and bloggers have weighed-in against Shelby’s political grandstanding, pointing out that there is no legitimate basis for holding up the business of the whole Senate confirmation process over pork-barrel spending. Daniel Larison of The American Conservative magazine said it best:
With this kind of irrational thinking, Shelby could probably even make a case for the critical national security aspect of his $819,000 Catfish Genome Project down there in the bayou that was awarded in 2009. You know, they have to serve those tanker refueling plane pilots something while they are up in the air for those long overseas flights to Afghanistan.
Wunder if dat der Vulcan feller is feedin’ dem catfish pork rinds?
OK, President Obama, “Where’s The Beef”?
Posted by Lance Haley in Bailouts, Business and Money, Capitalism, Economics, Financial Crisis, Government, How and Why We Get Screwed, Wall Street, economy on February 6th, 2010
You are making all of this noise about refocusing TARP (bailout) funds towards small business.
President Obama, this blog noted that you said the same thing 100 days ago . . . read it right here.
So Where’s The Beef?