If I absolutely had to pick my favorite, favorite, favoritist Christmas song...
(*PAUSE*)
...it would have to be "Angels We Have Heard On High" - "Gloria in Excelsis Deo!"
So today... let me throw out a few different versions...
First... Traditional
Next... Rock
Next... Jazz
Next... a wee bit o' the ol' country
And last by not least... a very Bill-like version!
Enjoy...!!!
13 comments:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/report-finds-harsh-cia-interrogations-ineffective/2012/12/13/a9da510a-455b-11e2-9648-a2c323a991d6_print.html
After a contentious closed-door vote, the Senate intelligence committee approved a long-awaited report Thursday concluding that harsh interrogation measures used by the CIA did not produce significant intelligence breakthroughs, officials said.
* BULLSHIT.
* OH... THE REPORT OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE VOTE IS ACCURATE, OF COURSE, BUT I'M TALKING THE UNDERLYING REALITY... THE SUBSTANCE. THE FACT IS, THE DEMS CONTROL THE SENATE... AND THUS THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE... AND THUS THE VOTE. AS IS OFTEN NOTED, THE VICTORS WRITE THE HISTORY BOOKS.
The 6,000-page document, which was not released to the public, was adopted by Democrats over the objections of most of the committee’s Republicans.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Officials familiar with the report said it makes a detailed case that subjecting prisoners to “enhanced” interrogation techniques did not help the CIA find Osama bin Laden and often were counterproductive in the broader campaign against al-Qaeda.
* I DON'T BELIEVE IT. (*SHRUG*) THIS IS PURE POLITICS. CAN I PROVE IT? NOPE. BUT WILL ANY OF US EVER BE PRIVY TO THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH? DOUBTFUL.
* THE MINORITY (REPUBLICANS) WILL NO DOUBT PUT OUT THEIR OWN REPORT... BUT, AGAIN, EVEN THERE... I'M GUESSING THAT 90% OF THE FACTS YOU OR I WOULD RELY UPON TO DECIDE FOR OURSELVES ARE "CLASSIFIED" AND THUS BEYOND OUR ABILITY TO FACTOR IN TO OUR DECISION MAKING.
Republicans on the Senate intelligence committee refused to participate in the panel’s three-year investigation...
* WHILE NO DOUBT THE DECK WAS STACKED... (*PAUSE*)... SUCH IS LIFE. I DISAPPROVE OF THE REPUBLICANS REFUSING TO PARTICIPATE.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the committee’s ranking Republican, said in a statement that the report “contains a number of significant errors and omissions about the history and utility of CIA’s detention program.” He also noted that the review was done “without interviewing any of the people involved.”
* AND UNLESS THE DEMS... AND THE WASHINGTON POST... ARE GONNA DISPUTE CHAMBLISS' CHARGE... (*SHRUG*)
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... THESE PEOPLE ARE ALL SCUM.
The 9 to 6 vote indicates that at least one Republican backed the report, although committee officials declined to provide a breakdown.
* AS I WAS SAYING... SCUM.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/atlanta-mayor-lets-council-pay-increase-become-law/nTWSx/
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has allowed a roughly 50% pay increase for City Council members to become law...
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
...but is also committing to sit down with employees next month to start hammering out an agreement on an across-the board pay increase for more than 7,500 rank and file staff.
(*SNORT*) (*RENEWED CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/12/sandy-aid-package-includes-millions-for-smithsonian-space-center-forests/
The Obama administration’s $60-billion emergency aid package for victims of superstorm Sandy is now caught in the crossfire over the “fiscal cliff,” with some critics questioning why millions of dollars are directed to areas far from the epicenter of the storm.
The request...features some surprising items: $23 million for tree plantings to “help reduce flood effects, protect water sources, decrease soil erosion and improve wildlife habitat” in forested areas touched by Sandy; $2 million to repair roof damage at Smithsonian buildings in Washington that pre-dates the storm; $4 million to repair sand berms and dunes at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and $41 million for clean-up and repairs at eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
The FBI is seeking $4 million to replace “vehicles, laboratory and office equipment and furniture,” while Customs and Border Protection wants $2.4 million to replace “destroyed or damaged vehicles, including mobile X-Ray machines.”
The Small Business Administration is seeking a $50 million slice of the pie for its post-storm response efforts, including “Small Business Development Centers and Women’s Business Development Centers.”
(*HEADACHE*)
The relief package also includes a whopping $13 billion request for “mitigation projects” to prepare for future storms.
* FOLKS... ALL OF THIS STUFF SHOULD BE SEPARATELY LEGISLATED AND VOTED UPON! THIS IS DELIBERATELY DECEPTIVE. AGAIN, FOLKS... I KNOW MANY OF YOU RECOIL... BUT I'LL SAY IT AGAIN - VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE SALVATION I SEE. MAKE NO MISTAKE... THESE PEOPLE ARE DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY.
These line items, and dozens more like them, have some Republicans balking at the size of the relief request and calling for more time to review the deal. The $60 billion price tag, they say, represents nearly the entire amount of additional revenue the government would collect next year by raising rates on the top 2 percent of taxpayers, as Democrats desire.
(*SMIRK*)
* CUTE!
They also point out that FEMA still has $5 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund — enough to last until March. Therefore, they see no reason to rush through a bill so large with no hearings or negotiations on the size of the bill or how to pay for it.
* FOLKS... THE DEMS DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO HIDE WHAT THEY'RE DOING ANY MORE!
Democrats defend the entire package...
(*PURSED LIPS*) (*SHAKING MY HEAD*)
“The White House and Governors Cuomo and Christie have documented extensively the severe need resulting from Sandy,” said Rep. Nita Lowey of New York. “Foot-dragging in Congress only delays state and local governments from beginning the rebuilding process and prevents families, homeowners, and small businesses from getting back on their feet.”
* SURPRISE, SURPRISE! GOVERNORS WANT "FREE" MONEY! WOW... WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK IT?! (FOLKS... HAVEN'T I ALWAYS CAUTIONED YOU ABOUT CHRISTIE...???)
Governors of the states that bore the brunt of Sandy’s impact – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy – had pressed the White House for an $80 billion package, but the administration decided a smaller amount was appropriate in light of deficit concerns.
* OH, YEAH... OBAMA THE FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE! (*GUFFAW*) FOLKS... TO REITERATE:
The $60 billion price tag...represents nearly the entire amount of additional revenue the government would collect next year by raising rates on the top 2% of taxpayers, as Democrats desire.
(*SHRUG*)
* FOLKS... THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NOW BORROWS 46-CENTS OF EVERY DOLLAR IT SQUANDERS. WE'RE LITERALLY CREATING "MONEY" VIA PRINTING PRESS. THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THESE PEOPLE IS TO KILL THEM. (NOT A THREAT... SIMPLY MY ANALYSIS.)
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/121312-637067-homeland-security-delayed-sex-criminal-arrest.htm?p=full
In a new low for Obama corruption, AP reports that the Homeland Security Department "several times" protected a Democratic senator's registered sex criminal aide from arrest before November's election.
* WE WENT OVER THIS THE OTHER DAY.
Letting our ambassador and three other U.S. personnel get murdered by Islamist terrorists in Benghazi by refusing assistance; giving firearms to Mexican drug lords, thus leading to the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in the Fast and Furious scandal; ObamaCare unconstitutionally forcing religious institutions to provide abortion drugs — these are just some of the Obama administration's major scandals, neglected by a Pravda-like U.S. mainstream media. But the scandal that broke Wednesday — reported by the Associated Press' Alicia Caldwell — may be impossible for the press to sweep under the Oval Office rug.
* I WOULDN'T BET ON IT.
Caldwell found that Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta, an 18-year-old Peruvian illegal alien employed as an unpaid intern in one of the offices of Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is a registered sex offender:
"The Homeland Security Department instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after Election Day, a U.S. official involved in the case told the AP."
Sanchez was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Dec. 6, two federal officials told the AP, and he remains in custody.
Local New Jersey officials "notified ICE agents in early October that they suspected Sanchez was an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender and who may be eligible to be deported," AP's Caldwell reported. "ICE agents in New Jersey notified superiors at the Homeland Security Department because they considered it a potentially high profile arrest, and DHS instructed them not to arrest Sanchez until after the November election, one U.S. official told the AP."
According to the AP, "ICE officials complained that the delay was inappropriate, but DHS directed them several times not to act, the official said."
What reason can there be other than saving two powerful Democrats — Menendez and President Obama — from embarrassment as they faced re-election?
* YEP...
Obama is seriously considering Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to replace Eric Holder, the attorney general responsible for Fast and Furious and for ignoring Black Panther voter intimidation in Philadelphia.
A cabinet official who protected a known sex offender for purposes of ensuring the re-election of both a president and a U.S. senator has no business breathing the same air as the top law enforcement official of the U.S., let alone to be appointed to that office.
The Obama campaign proved its willingness to slander its GOP presidential opponent as a felon, and even a murderer, to get the president re-elected. Now, apparently, an Obama cabinet department let a sex criminal roam the streets just to ensure re-election of both the president and a liberal Democratic senator.
It's been said that, unlike Benghazi and Fast and Furious, "nobody died in Watergate." We can now add that nobody was placed at risk of sexual assault, either.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335632/blue-tax-editors
Eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes.
Estimates suggest that eliminating this deduction would raise as much as $900 billion over ten years...
That won’t balance the budget with deficits running that much or more every single year, but it is nothing to turn the national nose up at, either: $900 billion would completely offset the estimated deficit for 2013.
Progressives should welcome eliminating the deduction in that the new tax burden would fall much more heavily upon those earning $200,000 or more.
As Reihan Salam points out, households in the $200,000-and-up range would pay an average of $5,166 more without the deduction, while those in the $30,000-to-$50,000 range would pay only $70 more.
A tax reform that more than clears the $800 billion mark, falls most heavily upon the wealthy, and has the support of many conservatives: You would think that the Democrats would be quick to embrace such a thing.
But...
(*DRUM ROLL*)
...to the great surprise of no one, the party’s house organ has editorialized against it.
(*SMIRK*)
Writes the New York Times:
"The theory behind the deduction was that the amount paid to states in taxes is not really part of an individual’s disposable income, because it is obligatory and, therefore, should not be taxed twice. Over time, the deduction has become the equivalent of a subsidy from the federal government to states that believe in a strong and active government. That may infuriate conservatives in low-tax states like Texas, who hate subsidizing states with different views of government’s role, but it’s actually a good thing for the country."
We note that the Times is here endorsing a regressive subsidy, one that showers benefits on high earners in states that are often themselves higher in income than the national average. We wonder which other regressive policies the paper might endorse in the interests of the nice people in Greenwich and Millburn. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are among the states with the highest taxes to deduct. Apparently it took a blow close to home to get the editors of the New York Times to notice the problem of double taxation...
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
The Times argues that states with income taxes serve their residents better than do states without them, and that the federal government should therefore continue to subsidize the aggrandizement of government at the state and local level. The Times mistakes correlation for causality, as it usually does when it suits the editors’ politics.
Yes, the average person living in Connecticut or Massachusetts remains better off across many metrics (health and education among them) than the average person in Texas or Oklahoma. There are many differences between the New England and Mid-Atlantic states and the deep South and Southwest, and the presence of state income taxes is not the most significant of them. People living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan have above-average incomes and education levels, too, and the city’s income tax has no more to do with that than does the fact that they pay very high rents, drink a great deal of coffee, and read Monocle.
Population matters. Texas, for example, has better standardized test scores for black, Hispanic, and white students than does Wisconsin, but it has lower average test scores across the population as a result of its different demographic characteristics. Likewise, residents of north Philadelphia pay the same wage tax as residents of Rittenhouse Square, but their health and education lag as far behind those of Philadelphia’s better-off residents as the living standards of people in the South Bronx do those of the denizens of Fifth Avenue. Suburban New Jersey and urban New Jersey hardly feel like the same country, let alone the same state; the same goes for suburban and urban Maryland, Cleveland and its suburbs, interior and coastal California, etc. “Strong and active government” often is part of the problem.
It is impossible to imagine that anybody who ever has witnessed the sausage-making in Albany, Sacramento, or Trenton would wish to subsidize the process with federal money.
States without income taxes tend to have more economic growth and better employment prospects than do states with high income taxes, though that fact should not be oversimplified, either: Texas’s economic advantages include such things as a liberal regulatory environment and a relatively sane legal climate (and, don’t tell the holier-than-thou libertarians, several very large state-run universities producing a steady supply of skilled workers).
We have 50 different states for a reason: Texas can have its low taxes and economic growth, and Connecticut can have its high taxes and lavishly subsidized abortions. But there is no reason for the federal government to subsidize Connecticut’s high taxes — or Texas’s crony-capitalist “economic development” schemes. The tax code is not here to provide a national carrot and stick. It is here to raise money, which Congress and the New York Times believe the government needs more of... so long as it does not derail any gravy trains in Albany or Sacramento.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324640104578163120400999616.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
* BY GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R-LA)
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists announced its support last month for selling oral contraceptives over the counter without a prescription in the United States. I agree with this opinion, which if embraced by the federal government would take contraception out of the political arena.
* DITTO!
* THE NEXT QUESTION OF COURSE IS... AT WHAT AGE...?
As an unapologetic pro-life Republican, I also believe that every adult (18 years old and over) who wants contraception should be able to purchase it.
* OK. HE BELIEVES AGE 18. (I COULD ACTUALLY LIVE WITH AGE 16... PERHAPS EVEN 15... BUT AGE 18 IS A REASONABLE STARTING POINT FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION.)
But anyone who has a religious objection to contraception should not be forced by government health-care edicts to purchase it for others. And parents who believe, as I do, that their teenage children shouldn't be involved with sex at all do not deserve ridicule.
* AGREED!
Let's ask the question: Why do women have to go see a doctor before they buy birth control? There are two answers. First, because big government says they should, even though requiring a doctor visit to get a drug that research shows is safe helps drive up health-care costs. Second, because big pharmaceutical companies benefit from it. They know that prices would be driven down if the companies had to compete in the marketplace once their contraceptives were sold over the counter.
* LET'S NOT PRETEND THAT BIRTH CONTROL IS RISK FREE; IT'S NOT. (JUST SAYIN'...)
So at present we have an odd situation. Thanks to President Obama and the pro-choice lobby, women can buy the morning-after pill over the counter without a prescription, but women cannot buy oral contraceptives over the counter unless they have a prescription. Contraception is a personal matter—the government shouldn't be in the business of banning it or requiring a woman's employer to keep tabs on her use of it. If an insurance company or those purchasing insurance want to cover birth control, they should be free to do so. If a consumer wants to buy birth control on her own, she should be free to do so.
(*THUMBS UP*)
Over-the-counter contraception would be easier to obtain if not for some unfortunate aspects of President Obama's health-care law. One of the most egregious elements of that law is the hampering of Health Savings Accounts, which have become increasingly popular in recent years because they give Americans choices in how to spend their money on health care. By removing the ability of citizens to use their HSAs to purchase over-the-counter medicine tax-free if they don't have a doctor's prescription, President Obama hurt many middle-class families who counted on using their HSA dollars every flu season to take care of their children. Health Savings Accounts should cover over-the-counter purchases, and those should include contraception.
* AGREED!
It's time to put purchasing power back in the hands of consumers—not employers, not pharmaceutical companies, and not bureaucrats in Washington. The great thing about America is that power doesn't come from government, but from people. It's time to reclaim that power. It's time to stop government from dividing people or insulting deeply held religious beliefs, and return the country to the path that has always made it great—one where Americans respect and value their fellow citizens, no matter their creed.
The latest opinion from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is a common-sense call for reform that could yield a result everyone can embrace: the end of birth-control politics.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/at-the-ivies-asians-are-the-new-jews/
* BY CHARLES MURRAY
It has been documented for some time that Asian applicants to the Ivies face a stiff test-score penalty in the admissions process — Asians have to get higher SAT scores than members of other races to have an equal chance of admission.
But [if] it’s one thing to have a higher bar for Asians, [isn't] it’s still worse to have an Asian quota?
* SERVES 'EM RIGHT FOR VOTING DEMOCRAT! (KIDDING! JUST KIDDING...!!!)
Ron Unz took the evidence of discrimination against Asians to a new level in a long article in the current issue of American Conservative, “The Myth of American Meritocracy.”
* FRIGGIN' HUGE ARTICLE! IT CAN BE FOUND AT: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/
As Steve Sailer has noted, Unz’s findings have received astonishingly little coverage. “Astonishingly,” because Unz has documented what looks very much like a tacitly common policy on the part of the Ivies to cap Asian admissions at about 16% of undergraduates, give or take a few percentage points, no matter what the quality of Asian applicants might be.
From 1980 through the early 1990s, Asian enrollment increased at all the Ivy League colleges.
(It subsequently continued to rise at the schools with the lowest Asian enrollment, Dartmouth and Princeton. Elsewhere, Asian enrollment hit its peak in 1993 for Columbia and Harvard, 1995 for Cornell, 1996 for Brown and Yale, and 2001 for Penn.)
Asian representation at all eight of the Ivies has converged on a narrow range. In the most recent five years, the average percentage of Asians in the eight Ivies has been 15.7%, and the difference between the highest and lowest percentage of Asians in the eight Ivies has averaged just 3.7 percentage points.
(Call it the 16±2% solution.)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* OOPS! MAKE THAT A THREE-PARTER... (Part 2 of 3)
We can be sure that the reason for the convergence on the 16±2% solution does not reflect a plateau in Asian applications. America’s Asian population has more than doubled since 1993!
In The Power of Privilege, Joseph Soares documented that Asians are about twice as likely to apply to elite schools as students from other races. It is certain that the Ivies have seen skyrocketing Asian applications over the last twenty years. Not only that, they have been swamped with more and more superbly qualified Asian applicants.
National Merit Scholarship (NMS) semifinalists represent about the top half of one percent of a given state’s scores on the PSAT, the short version of the SAT. In 2010 in Texas, Asians were 3.8% of the population but more than a quarter of all NMS semifinalists; in New York, Asians were 7.3% of the population and more than a third of NMS semifinalists; in California, Asians were 11% of the high school students and more than 60% of NMS semifinalists. Nationwide...25–30% of NMS semifinalists in 2010 were Asians, far higher than their enrollment in the Ivies.
In the U.S. Math Olympiad, Asians have grown from 10% of the winners during the 1980s to 58% in the 2000s.
In the computing Olympiad, Asians have grown from 20% of the winners in the 1990′s to 50% in 2009–2010 and 75% in 2011–2012.
Among the Science Talent Search finalists, Asians were 22% of the total in the 1980′s, 29% in the 1990′s, 36% in the 2000′s, and 64% in the last two years.
CalTech is acknowledged to have the most strictly meritocratic admissions criteria in the country. During the same period from the mid 1990′s when the Ivies converged on the 16±2% solution, Asians at Caltech rose from 28% to 39% of the student body.
If Caltech is too narrowly science-oriented for you, consider the comparison between Stanford, which uses the same “holistic” admissions procedures as the Ivies (“holistic” means considering the whole applicant, not merely academic achievement) and Berkeley, the most elite of California’s public universities, which is required by law to have a transparent set of criteria for admission. Stanford’s Asian enrollment averaged 23% from 1995–2011. Berkeley’s Asian enrollment averaged 41% during the same period—almost double Stanford’s.
(*SMIRK*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
The Ivies would have us believe that their holistic admissions policies limit Asian admissions because Asian applicants tend to be one-dimensional, obsessed with academics to the exclusion of all those wonderful other personal experiences that the Ivies value so highly. I submit that this is nonsense. An abundance of Asian applicants have punched all the right extracurricular and community-service tickets to go along with their sensational academic credentials, and there’s no reason to think that Asian young people are, on average, any less compassionate, charming, industrious, or otherwise of good character than applicants of other races.
(*NOD*)
I propose this challenge to any Ivy League school that denies it has a de facto quota for Asian admissions. Let a third party — any number of highly respected research organizations could handle this task — randomly select a large sample of applications from which the 2012 entering class was selected. Delete all material identifying race or ethnicity. Then, applying the criteria and the weighting system that the university claims to be using, have expert judges make simulated admissions decisions. Let’s see what percentage of Asians get in under race-blind conditions. I’m betting 25% at least, with 30–40% as more probable.
(*WIDENING GRIN*)
None of the Ivies will take me up on it, of course.
I don’t have a problem with the need for a student body with diverse strengths and personality types. Harvard is a better place because it does not select a class consisting exclusively of applicants with perfect SAT scores. But a candid statement of the rationale that has led to the 16±2% solution can’t stop there. It needs to say that apart from the need for a variety of strengths and personality types, the Ivies have decided that they just don’t want too many epicanthic folds in their student bodies.
[T]here’s no getting past the naked fact that students from an ethnic minority are now being turned down because they have the wrong ethnicity.
It is exactly the same thing that Ivy League admissions officers did to Jewish applicants in the 1920s, when it was decided that too many Jews were getting into their schools.
They too had a rationale for putting a quota on Jews that they too believed was justified. What I don’t understand is this: Why do we all accept that what the Ivies did to limit Jewish enrollment was racist and un-American, while what they’re doing to limit Asian enrollment is not even considered newsworthy?
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/111041/too-big-jail-our-banking-systems-latest-disgrace#
Descriptions of breathtaking misconduct involving the facilitation of massive drug trafficking and transactions with rogue terror-sponsoring nations? Check.
(A $1.9 billion "settlement" agreed to by HSBC? Check.)
Broad boasts about the "historic" nature of the settlement that will certainly end the type of criminal misconduct alleged? Check.
Mea culpas from the offending institution with promises that it has really learned its lesson this time and will never ever engage in dastardly conduct again? Yep, that too.
[B]ut there was something vitally important missing from yesterday's press conference:
(*DRUM ROLL*)
[A]ctual criminal charges for obvious criminal conduct[!]
* LET'S CHANT IT, FOLKS... O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
* YEP... THAT'S RIGHT... ERIC HOLDER REPORTS TO - SERVES AT THE PLEASURE OF - PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA. SO DOES TREASURY SECRETARY TIM "THE TAX CHEAT" GEITHNER. (SO DO HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON AND SUSAN RICE... BUT THAT'S A DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH...)
Some perspective: HSBC sent more than $800 million in bulk cash from Mexico to the United States, a good chunk of which apparently represented proceeds from some of the most notorious Colombian drug cartels.
(As someone who tried the first narcotics money laundering case involving extradition from Colombia, let me assure you that this is a lot of money, the discovery of which usually generates vigorous prosecutions and lengthy prison sentences.)
* THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE IS NEIL BAROFSKY.
And it wasn’t HSBC’s only dirty business: There were also hundreds of millions of more dollars of illegally disguised transactions with rogue nations such as Iran and Sudan.
Why no criminal charges?
* ONE MORE TIME, FOLKS... O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! (HEY... REMEMBER... THE BUCK STOPS AT THE PRESIDENT'S DESK! AT LEAST IT USED TO...)
Why instead only some remedial measures and a "historical" fine that can be measured in weeks - not years - of earnings?
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
It certainly wasn’t for lack of evidence[!]
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING...
No, instead the government determined that HSBC is not only "too big to fail," but also "too big to jail."
* NOT "THE GOVERNMENT." ERIC HOLDER. ULTIMATELY BARACK OBAMA.
In some aspects, DOJ's surrender is understandable.
* NO. NOT IT'S NOT. (AND AGAIN... IT'S NOT "DOJ's" SURRENDER - THIS WAS HOLDER'S CALL... AND ULTIMATELY... OBAMA's.)
Notwithstanding regulatory "reform" efforts in the U.S. and the UK, the largest banks are in many ways even more systemically dangerous today than when we bailed them out in 2008. This indirect acknowledgment that we have failed to fix the too-big-to-fail problem has potentially dire consequences.
* I TOLD YOU SO! MANY OF US TOLD YOU SO! DODD-FRANKS WAS A FRAUD THAT MADE THINGS WORSE INSTEAD OF BETTER... THAT ACTUALLY INSTITUTIONALIZED "CAN'T FAIL!"
One of the reasons why we have a criminal justice system, of course, is to deter criminal behavior. If you know that you will be punished for putting your hand in the cash register at your local supermarket (or illegally stripping out information from a monetary transaction that identifies the source nation as Iran), you are less likely to do so. But if the government offered a blanket waiver from criminal accountability for a certain group - let's say all left-handed people over six feet tall or a handful of banks deemed so large and so significant that their indictment could destroy the global financial system - we would expect that those exempted would no longer be deterred from committing criminal acts.
* ONCE AGAIN... WE LIVE IN A NATION WHERE CHARLIE RANGEL WAS AT ONE POINT CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS AND TO THIS DAY REMAINS A MEMBER OF CONGRESS... WE LIVE IN A NATION WHERE TIM "THE TAX CHEAT" GEITHNER IS TREASURY SECRETARY...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
[I]n recent years the largest banks have demonstrated an unbridled zeal for pushing the boundaries of the law as part of their relentless pursuit of profits.
* RECENT YEARS... RECENT YEARS... HMM... (ANYWAY... BACK TO THE COLUMN...)
DOJ's actions with regards to HSBC are beyond unfair: They are downright terrifying for weakening the general deterrence for megabanks, both foreign and domestic, which could rationally interpret yesterday's actions as a license to steal.
The enduring presumption of bailouts in our banking system already drives the largest banks to take on too much risk with too little disclosure and too much leverage, a toxic cocktail that will inevitably lead to another financial crisis.
Yesterday's action now spikes the punch with a new toxin, confirmation that criminal penalties are off the table, leaving a worst-case scenario of a fine totaling far less than even a single quarter's earnings.
* WHICH INNOCENT SHAREHOLDERS... AND STAKEHOLDERS... END UP BEARING WHILE THOSE RESPONSIBLE... DON'T GO TO JAIL AND DON'T SHOULDER PERSONAL FINANCIAL INJURY.
Given the potential profits of criminal behavior and the unlikelihood of personal consequences for the executives directing it, the message is clear: Crime pays.
This will inevitably lead to more reckless risk-taking that will further undermine systemic stability and lead to an even greater financial meltdown down the road.
There is, of course, a solution for our emerging two-tier system of justice. The largest banks need to be broken up...
* AND CRIMINALS NEED TO BE TREATED AS SUCH.
* FIRST READ THIS...
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/237581/the-working-class-epidemic-of-demoralization
* THEN READ THIS...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-new-castle-pa-trying-to-break-free-of-poverty/2012/12/08/f41f20ec-3985-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_print.html
* YOU'RE WELCOME.
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