DID WATCHING PORN CAUSE THE FINANCIAL CRISIS?

This author was highly critical of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) limp-dicked response to the Bank of America bailout scandal  – here, here, here, and especially HERE - which was finally settled several months ago. 

Federal Judge Jed Rakoff was incensed at the SEC’s handling of that case – and he publicly admonished SEC lawyers and regulators in a series of blistering critiques at their apparently cozy relationship with BoA executives and lawyers in trying to reach a settlement in that matter.  Click on the link above to read the judges comments. 

At least Judge Rakoff demonstrated that he has balls, and he vicariously told the SEC in no uncertain terms that they need to grow some testicles.  I guess they got the message, in light of their recent case filed against Goldman Sachs.

And speaking of SEC testicles . . .

While Bernie Madoff was screwing his investors out of $50 Billion, and Goldman Sachs was screwing the rest of the world out of whatever money remained, SEC lawyers and high-ranking officials were watching porn stars screw one another.

And then we all got screwed – up the A$$!

Responding to the scandal, SEC spokesman John Nester released a statement that said, “each of the offending employees has been disciplined or is in the process of being disciplined.”
 

WAIT A MINUTE!?!

Doesn’t SEC Chairman Mary Shapiro realize that is exactly what these naughty boys want - punishment?  Wonder if she used her bare hand, or a whip?

“Oooh, Mary baby . . . I’m a such bad boy.  Pleezzze, spank me real hard.  Pleeezzze?!?”

What a bunch of jack-offs – both literally and figuratively speaking.

On a final note:  one of the SEC porn-watchers was a female staff accountant .  An chance someone from the SEC can send me her email address and phone number?  :)

P.S.  To Senator Chuck Grassley and all of you other Republicans trying to use this as political fodder for undermining financial reform - this porn scandal happened on former SEC Chairman Christopher Cox’s watch.  He was a Bush Republican appointee, confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate!

Former CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) agent John Kiriakou has just released his new book, “The Reluctant Spy“.

According to reviews, the book reveals the inner-workings of the U.S. intelligence agency, and regales it’s readers with stories from the front lines in the War on Terror.  Kiriakou’s participation in the capture of Abu Zubaydah, one of Al Qaeda’s senior commanders, as well as his prior support of the use of water-boarding as a legitimate means for acquiring intelligence, are just two of the many highlights in the book.

However, the most poignant experience of his career may well be the day he was called into a top-secret meeting while working at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia in the summer of 2002.  During that briefing, he was told that the Bush Administration had already made the decision to go to war with Iraq the following Spring (2003).  His job was to support the decision. 

In other words, it was “A Done Deal”.

Kiriakou was stunned that the question of going to war with Iraq was already pre-determined by the Bush Administration in spite of the fact that Congress and the public were still undecided over the basis for invading another country that posed no serious imminent threat to our national security:

“Here was someone at the CIA, obviously plugged into the plans of the executive branch, telling us that the public debate in Congress, reflected almost daily in the press, meant nothing.”

Approximately seven years later, George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” is anything but.  Those elusive WMD’s are yet to be found.  And brave young American men and women are still fighting and dying over there.

As Paul Harvey would say, “and now you know the rest of the story”.

 ATTICUS FINCH (Gregory Peck) in “TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD”

Hardly!

Why?  Because she advocates the use of fear that rises to the level of McCarthyism, as demonstrated in the recent video released by her political organization, Keep America Safe. 

A significant number of well-respected Conservatives have deeply criticized the video’s characterization of current Justice Department lawyers as Un-American because of their previous legal representation of suspected terrorist detainees.  One of the greatest callings in the American legal system is defending both the unpopular and the guilty. This role is epitomized by the lawyer Atticus Finch in the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird“, rated as the best courtroom movie of all time by the American Film Institute.

Liz Cheney is a lawyer.  If she attended her classes in law school, she should have a basic understanding of the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent, as well as the principles of American Jurisprudence, all of which ensure due process for everyone who is charged with a violation of the laws of the United States, regardless of citizenship.  Her failure to grasp those most fundamental principles of the American justice system only further undermines any semblance of credibility regarding her legal or political opinion. 

One of her former law professors, the esteemed Richard A. Epstein, of the University of Chicago School of Law. said it best:  “There’s something truly bizarre about this.”  Which only begs the question:  Is she a moron, or just pathologically shameless and void of any conscience?  Maybe it runs in the family?

Most importantly, however, is the real reason why Liz Cheney cannot “Keep America Safe”. 

If she relies on the argument that America was much safer from an attack by terrorists during her father’s tenure with the Bush Administration, one need look no further than the Presidential Daily Brief of August 6, 2001, titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”, in order to completely discredit this notion.  Her father publicly admitted in May of 2002 on Fox News that he read the brief, and then attempted in vain to dismiss it’s warnings as inconclusive, while simultanously advocating that the brief not be released for public disclosure.   Interesting . . .

As this author has pointed out in the post titled “Failing to Connect the Dots: The Lights Were Blinking Red“, that evidence is the most damning indictment of Dick Cheney’s part in the collective negligence of the Bush Administration’s failure to prevent the attacks on 9/11.  No wonder he did not want you to read it’s contents.  To compound matters even further was their colossal failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden at the battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in December of 2001.  Simply put, Dick Cheney obviously has no valid standing to criticize the Obama Administration’s policies regarding terrorism and the prosecution of terrorists.

By extension, as well as by her own volition, neither does Liz Cheney. 

Case closed.

Shoe Bomber Richard Reid – Poster Child for Dick Cheney’s Hypocrisy

This morning on NBC’s Meet the Press, Vice President Joe Biden responded to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s attacks on the Obama Administration’s handling of accused Christmas Day terrorist bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.  As Biden accurately stated, Cheney is “”not entitled to rewrite history. He’s not entitled to his own facts“, correctly pointing out that the Bush Administration also prosecuted shoe bomber Richard Reid in a civilian court.  This author just commented this past week on the duplicity with which you and other Republicans are terrorizing the American people over this nonsense, after your Administration tried over 150 terrorists in civilians courts – including one of the 9/11 co-conspirators.

This blog contains a number of entries addressing Cheney’s constant attacks on the current Administration, and why he has absolutely no standing to criticize Obama; particularly because of the hypocrisy pertaining to the decisions and policies of the Bush Administration – specifically, their failure to prevent the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and the subsequent blunder that led to Osama bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora, Afghanistan ninety days later.

Playing armchair psychologist is fraught with dangers of misdiagnosis, as well as the tendency towards over-generalization of certain symptoms as definitive indicators of a specific pathology.  Nevertheless, and admittedly at the risk of the cognitive dissonance in ignoring my own advice to the contrary, I will venture a psychological explanation on why Dick Cheney’s persistent revisionist history reveals the depth of his pathological dissonance.  Which may be why Cheney is rated the most unpopular Vice President in modern history – even surpassing Dan Quayle (say it ain’t so Dick).

“If an action has been completed and cannot be undone, then the after-the-fact dissonance compels us to change our beliefs.”  What most often occurs in the aftermath of undeniable factual evidence of an action that betrays our personal beliefs or opinions is a growing increase in dissonance in direct relationship to “the importance of the subject to us, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, and our inability to rationalize and explain away the conflict.

In other words, when we cannot reconcile our beliefs and opinions with the undeniable existence of facts that contradicts them, we defend our position even more zealously.   Denial of the Holocaust by people like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – who ironically may be Jewish - is a stark  example of this behavior.

It is William Shakespeare’s often misquoted poetic commentary [as in the body of the subject line of this entry] that is the most famous historical observation on this human condition:

“The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.”

Terrorism is about creating fear.

Republicans are now clearly trying to create fear in the minds of the American public about the Obama Administration’s prosecution of terrorists in civilian courts.  They are insinuating several things:  one, that terrorists are “enemy combatants”, and therefore should be tried in military courts; two, that allowing them to be tried in civilian courts will only invite another attack on U.S. soil; third that these defendants are not entitled to any constitutional rights; and finally, that Obama is soft on terrorism.

These constitutional law geniuses include half-term Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), former Vice President Dick Cheney (Chief Republican Hypocrite – Washington, D.C.), and Chief Conservative spokesman Rush Limbaugh (former drug addict, and college drop-out).

Amazing how incensed these Conservatives are about this “recent” decision to take accused terrorists to trial in civilian courts, particularly after the Bush Administration tried over ONE HUNDRED FIFTY terrorists in the same federal courts, including such high-profile cases as 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid. 

Just in case any of you other hypocrites out there have also conveniently forgotten, Reid was going to blow up a plane on an international flight bound for the U.S.

“D’oh“!

P.S.  Since yesterday, when this was posted, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) has proposed cutting off federal funding for terrorists trials in civil court.  Add his name to the rapidly growing list of Homer Simpson constitutional law geniuses and conservative hypocrites.

Do you think that maybe America shall reap what what she has sown? 

This is not some biblical or religious condemnation nor commentary.   It is obvious that the country is at a watershed moment in it’s history, and it does not bode well for the future.  A speech given by a Senior FBI Special Agent in Charge John Gillies in Boca Raton, Florida noted that the seeds of widespread corruption in this society were sown by failures in personal ethics and integrity, and he further insinuates that greed is the driving force.

Agent Gilles said that cheating and corruption in it’s multitude of forms, whether by law enforcement and public officials, wealthy tax cheaters, sports stars like Tiger Woods, or business “fraudsters”, only undermines the moral fabric of our society, and is “the number one criminal threat” in the United States.

It is reasonable to argue that this social paradigm shift has occurred in an atmosphere of unrelenting hubris that this country has displayed in attempting to force the rest of the world to kneel to it’s whims and philosophies – particularly the notion that the United States is the standard-bearer of economic and moral values that all other nations and societies should emulate.  

Nonetheless, some will continue to blame the lack of conservative values and the influence of liberalism as the root cause of this condition.  If that is the case, then can anyone provide a logical explanation for the dominance of Conservatism from 2001 through 2008, and the concomitant rise in these problems?  Special Agent Gilles noted that there was a 25% rise in corruption and fraud during the past five years – and that the scale of these crimes was unprecedented.  Remember:  Bush and the Conservatives had virtual control of the political structure throughout that period, and had gutted the regulatory and legal systems of the means to uncover these crimes.  

Just food for thought.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh think of themselves as the consummate Americans.  So do members of Americans For Prosperity.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  They all cheered when the U.S. lost the 2016 Olympic bid on Friday  (I won’t even dignify Beck’s and Limbaugh’s pathetic declaration of joy with relevant links from this site – it’s shameful and degrading). 

Would they have cheered against their country for losing an Olympic bid when Bush was President?  None of them obviously realize the bid was placed by the U.S. government when Bush was in office.  Anyone who would have cheered for such an outcome back then would have been labeled a traitor, a subversive, a Communist, Un-American. 

They may wrap themselves in the American flag while they spin this whole agenda of “Wishing failure on Obama” as isolated and differentiated from wishing failure on the United States.

That dog just won’t hunt.

“This will not be quick, nor easy. But we must never forget: This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. … This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

                                                - President Obama

Remember this picture of “W” standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 12, 2001 talking with a bullhorn in his hand – telling the world that the men that “knocked down these towers” would be made to answer for this unforgivable act, and hunted down and brought to justice no matter what it takes? (Gives a whole new meaning to the word “Bullhorn“).

Now, in September of 2009, there seems to be a sudden interest by Conservative pundits and Republican politicians regarding the American war strategy in Afghanistan.   Some are even questioning Obama’s decision to take his time in assessing the request by the Pentagon for more troops in order to make sure that this strategy will produce the desired results.

Really?  

Where the Hell have you all been since December 2001, when Osama bin Laden escaped in the battle of Tora Bora at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan as a result of the previous Administration’s and then Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff decision not to send in Special Forces to finish the job when the lead CIA operative Gary Berntsen radioed the Pentagon that he had Bin Laden located?  Berntsen has become a leading critic of the failure of the Bush Administration and the Pentagon to send the necessary forces into Tora Bora in order to kill Osama bin Laden.

House Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Senate Leader Mitch McConnell . . . six years after those towers were brought to the ground, and you are just now speaking up???

First, let’s acknowledge how irresponsible it is to accuse any particular group for U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman’s death.

However, the peculiar circumstances surrounding him being hanged from a tree – which law enforcement investigators in Kentucky have preliminarily ruled as a homicide – beg the question, why would anyone scrawl the word “FED” across his chest, and what would be their motive?

One could easily infer that it is possibly fear of government intrusion - see the video at the bottom of an article published today.  

Are Glenn Beck and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) really that distressed over government invasion into our privacy?

Well, recall back in 2005 when the story broke regarding the fact that the National Security Agency (NSA), operating under the directives of the Bush Administration, had wiretapped millions of American citizens’ private phone conversations under the guise of  investigating possible links to terrorism.  This led to an investigation by Congress into the extent of the wiretaps, whether they were legal, and whether they were being properly targeted in order to protect national security as asserted by the Bush Administration.  

In order to assure the American public that the wiretaps were not directed at innocent citizens, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in a White House press briefing, stated that these intercepts were only authorized when the government “has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda.” and that one party to the conversation is “outside of the United States” [emphasis added].

When General Michael Hayden, former head of the NSA and then-acting Director of the CIA, was eventually called to testify before the Senate regarding allegations of unwarranted government intrusion into the lives of innocent American citizens, he unconditionally denied that the government was listening to private conversations that were not reasonably related to terrorist activity.  General Hayden stated, “[w]e are narrowly focused and drilled on protecting the nation against al Qaeda and those organizations who are affiliated with it,”

FACT:  some of the conversations were between American couples (even servicemen and their spouses/girlfriends) engaging in the most intimate communications that had nothing to do with national security.  That this is a gross invasion of privacy, and the most egregious form of governmental intrusion is beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Former NSA employee Adrienne Kinne, who was awarded an NSA Joint Service Achievement Medal in 2003, along with one of her fellow NSA peers, came forward in 2008 and pointedly criticized the NSA’s continued targeting of obviously innocent American citizens.  She proudly stated that sometimes the intercepts did result in information that may have interrupted potential terror attacks in Iraq, and therefore saved American lives. 

Yet, Kinne noted the problem was all of the wasted time and resources spent focusing on these innocent Americans, when it could have been directed towards finding the proverbial “needle in the haystack”.   As Ms. Kinne so poignantly stated, “[b]y casting the net so wide and continuing to collect on Americans . . .  it’s almost like they’re making the haystack bigger and it’s harder to find that piece of information that might actually be useful to somebody,” she said. “You’re actually hurting our ability to effectively protect our national security.”

So Glenn Beck and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. . . where was the outrage regarding government intrusion back then?

If there is any credence to the notion of political justice, we will actually see something akin to the picture above in due time.

The House Judiciary Committee’s investigation into Karl Rove’s role in the improper firing of nine former U.S. Attorneys for political reasons during the Bush Presidency has gained serious traction. 

Yesterday, the Committee released hundreds of pages of previously confidential material from Bush Whitehouse officials containing transcripts, documents and emails outlining events that led to the firing of former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.  Rove has denied he did anything wrong, and political supporters of the Bush Administration will likely respond to the allegations by saying, “so what?”

However, this is an important step in revealing the level of deceit and political manipulation that Karl Rove and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales engaged in during their tenure in order to keep Republicans in power.  Most people do not really understand just how criminal this behavior was if, in fact, confirmed through this investigation and a subsequent prosecution. 

Much like Watergate during the Nixon Administration, it would demonstrate the extent of the political corruption that occurred inside of the Bush Whitehouse, and vindicate critics of that Administration who were calling for hearings into the issue.

Let’s just say, it’s not looking too good for Karl Rove – his continued denials are starting to unravel as the evidence mounts. 

Maybe karmic justice actually works in reality once in while.  We will see . . .