All Entries in the "Crime, Legal Issues" Category

Woman was told by a public defender to plead guilty to a felony that wasn’t even a felonyThe Right to Counsel – A Woman Becomes a Test Case

The Right to Counsel – A Woman Becomes a Test Case

SHE was poor and in trouble. He was the public defender appointed to represent her.

She was Kimberly Hurell-Harring, a nobody in the courts, a nursing home worker and a mother of two who had done something stupid. He was Patrick E. Barber, a lawyer with a silver stubble of a beard, paid by the county and state to help make the criminal justice system as fair to the poor as it is to the rich.

At his urging, she pleaded guilty and went to jail for a felony that turned out not to be a felony at all. “It seemed like he was on the D.A.’s side,” she said later.

Full Story: The Right to Counsel – A Woman Becomes a Test Case – NYTimes.com.

When drug makers’ profits outweigh penalties

Prosecutor Michael Loucks remembers clearly when attorneys for Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, looked across the table and promised it wouldn’t break the law again. ¶ It was January 2004, and the lawyers were negotiating in a conference room on the ninth floor of the federal courthouse in Boston, where Loucks was head of the health-care fraud unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. One of Pfizer’s units had been pushing doctors to prescribe an epilepsy drug called Neurontin for uses the Food and Drug Administration had never approved. ¶ In the agreement the lawyers eventually hammered out, the Pfizer unit, Warner-Lambert, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of marketing a drug for unapproved uses. New York-based Pfizer agreed to pay $430 million in criminal fines and civil penalties, and the company’s lawyers assured Loucks and three other prosecutors that Pfizer and its units would stop promoting drugs for unauthorized purposes. ¶ What Loucks, who was acting U.S. attorney in Boston until November, didn’t know until years later was that Pfizer managers were breaking that pledge not to practice off-label marketing even before the ink was dry on their plea.

On the morning of Sept. 2, 2009, another Pfizer unit, Pharmacia & Upjohn, agreed to plead guilty to the same crime. This time, Pfizer executives had been instructing more than 100 salespeople to promote Bextra — a drug approved only for the relief of arthritis and menstrual discomfort — for treatment of acute pain of all kinds.

For this new felony, Pfizer paid the largest criminal fine in U.S. history: $1.19 billion. On the same day, it paid $1 billion to settle civil cases involving the off-label promotion of Bextra and three other drugs with the United States and 49 states.

Full Story: When drug makers’ profits outweigh penalties – washingtonpost.com.

Boy Scout Sex Abuse Files: Suit Claims Group Kept ‘Perversion Files’ As Part Of Coverup

The Boy Scouts of America has long kept an extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of young boys by Scout leaders over the years.

The “perversion files,” a nickname the Boy Scouts are said to have used for the documents, have rarely been seen by the public, but that could all change in the coming weeks in an Oregon courtroom.

The lawyer for a man who was molested in the 1980s by a Scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scouts sex files and is expected to release some of them at a trial that began Wednesday. The lawyer says the files show how the Boy Scouts have covered up abuse for decades.

Full Story: Boy Scout Sex Abuse Files: Suit Claims Group Kept ‘Perversion Files’ As Part Of Coverup.

Dodd wants criminal probe of Lehman ‘manipulation’

A senior US senator urged Attorney General Eric Holder Friday to create a task force to investigate possible criminal conduct behind the collapse of Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers.

“I am deeply concerned about the facts that have come to light regarding the demise of Lehman Brothers and the accounting manipulation that contributed to it,” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd wrote in a letter to Holder.

“I respectfully ask you to commission a task force to investigate the Lehman situation as well as other companies that may have engaged in similar accounting manipulation with a view to prosecution of employees or agents who contributed to any violations of the law.”

Full Story: Dodd wants criminal probe of Lehman ‘manipulation’ | Raw Story.

Ominously For Ensign, Probe’s Focus Appears To Shift To Possible Quid Pro Quo

Buried under the pile of details that have emerged in the last 48 hours on the John Ensign investigation is one crucial over-arching development: The federal probe into the matter appears to have expanded, and shifted its focus in a way that may could make it an even graver threat to the Nevada senator than before.

In a nutshell: The Justice Department investigation began as an inquiry into whether Ensign flouted a lobbying ban by trying to help Doug Hampton get a lobbying job after Hampton left Ensign's office, and by directing his staff to work with Hampton once he was set up as a lobbyist. But now, it seems, investigators have also moved beyond Hampton, to consider whether the senator illegally tied legislative favors to contributions to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which he chaired.

To be sure, a breach of lobbying rules, as may have occurred here, would be significant. But a direct quid pro quo involving Ensign — who continues to maintain that he has done nothing illegal — would potentially constitute far more serious wrong-doing.

What's the evidence that the Feds have shifted their focus?

Full Story: Ominously For Ensign, Probe’s Focus Appears To Shift To Possible Quid Pro Quo | TPMMuckraker.

California bar now considering disciplinary action against birther lawyer Orly Taitz

The Republican primary race for California’s secretary of state is turning unusual — to put it mildly.

The Orange County registrar has confirmed that Orly Taitz — the de facto leader of the “birther” movement trying to prove President Obama wasn’t born in the United States — has qualified to run for secretary of state. And her main opponent is a man who has only ever voted once.

Taitz’ move appears to be related to her campaign to have Obama disqualified as president. Secretaries of state are responsible for elections.

Taitz, who has filed and so far lost numerous lawsuits challenging Obama’s eligibility for the presidency, told WorldNetDaily that if elected, she will use her office to pursue an investigation of Obama’s citizenship.

Full Story: California sec. of state race: Birther leader vs. man who rarely votes | Raw Story.

Federal Reserve Must Disclose Bank Bailout Records

The Federal Reserve Board must disclose documents identifying financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest U.S. government bailout ever, a federal appeals court said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled today that the Fed must release records of the unprecedented $2 trillion U.S. loan program launched primarily after the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The ruling upholds a decision of a lower-court judge, who in August ordered that the information be released.

The Fed had argued that it could withhold the information under an exemption that allows federal agencies to refuse disclosure of “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential.”

Full Story: Federal Reserve Must Disclose Bank Bailout Records (Update3) – Bloomberg.com.

Baird plans to make Toyota papers public

looking into Toyota being charged criminally

Transport Minister John Baird plans to open up the books on Toyota for all to see.

Baird told the Commons transport committee Thursday he intends to release more than 3,000 pages of detailed Transport Canada documents on the Japanese automaker to the committee within weeks.

“We will make it all available to you as quickly as humanly possible,” said Baird, who earlier this week said Transport Canada was looking into whether Toyota should be charged criminally for its handling of recent defects.

He said it should take about four days to redact private and third-party information in the documents and at least another 20 days to obtain consent from Toyota to release the information.

Full Story: Baird plans to make Toyota papers public – thestar.com.

YouTube Secrets Exposed In Lawsuit

Viacom Inc. and Google Inc.’s YouTube site began airing each other’s dirty laundry Thursday, providing a tantalizing peek at the wheeling and dealing that triggered a bitter battle over the copyright laws governing the Internet.

The previously confidential information came out as part of the evidence in a copyright lawsuit that Viacom filed against YouTube in 2007 for alleged copyright infringement of “The Colbert Report,” “The Daily Show” and other shows.

The sensitive documents were unsealed because Viacom and YouTube are both trying to persuade U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton to decide the case without a trial.

Full Story: Viacom-YouTube Secrets Exposed In Lawsuit.

Brown calls anti-police booby traps in Riverside County ‘urban terrorism’

The California attorney general seeks the public’s help in solving the attacks, so far without injuries, targeting an anti-gang task force and police officers in Hemet.

Describing it as “urban terrorism,” California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown joined with Riverside County officials Thursday in asking the public to help find those who tried at least three times to kill officers assigned to a Hemet-based gang task force.

“It is incredible and even unprecedented for police officers here to be subject to terrorist attack,” Brown said at a Riverside news conference. “We have seen it south of the border, but not here yet.”

The attacks have involved booby traps aimed at either the headquarters of the Hemet-San Jacinto Gang Task Force or officers assigned to the unit, officials said.

Last December a utility line was redirected to flood the offices with gas so any spark would cause an explosion. In February, a modified handgun was hidden by the gate to the office and rigged to fire. When a gang officer opened the gate, the weapon went off, narrowly missing him. And two weeks ago, police said, a “dangerous” device was found near the unmarked car of a task force member.

Full Story: Brown calls anti-police booby traps in Riverside County ‘urban terrorism’ – latimes.com.

OPS: And that’s all he needs to start putting people in jail without due process of any kind

Ore. lawsuit claims Boy Scouts sex abuse coverup

The Boy Scouts of America has long kept an extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of young boys by Scout leaders over the years.

The “perversion files,” a nickname the Boy Scouts are said to have used for the documents, have rarely been seen by the public, but that could all change in the coming weeks in an Oregon courtroom.

The lawyer for a man who was molested in the 1980s by a Scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scouts sex files and is expected to release some of them at a trial that began Wednesday. The lawyer says the files show how the Boy Scouts have covered up abuse for decades.

Full Story: Ore. lawsuit claims Boy Scouts sex abuse coverup – Yahoo! News.

Ashcroft Can Be Held Accountable for Post-9/11 Wrongful Detention

Federal Appellate Court Denies Former Attorney General’s Request for Full Court Review

SEATTLE – March 18 – The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit charging that former Attorney General John Ashcroft is personally responsible for the wrongful detention of an innocent American, Abdullah al-Kidd, can go forward, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled today. The ruling denies Ashcroft’s request that his appeal be heard by the entire court and upheld the court’s September 2009 decision that the federal material witness law cannot be used to detain or investigate suspects where no probable cause exists for criminal charges. The ruling also held that Ashcroft does not have immunity in this case and can be held personally liable for the wrongful detention of al-Kidd.

“In this country, we don’t believe in arresting and imprisoning people who haven’t been charged with any crime,” said ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project Deputy Director Lee Gelernt. “Former Attorney General Ashcroft deliberately distorted the federal material witness law to allow the detention of innocent people. As the primary architect and overseer of this policy that so clearly circumvented the Constitution, he should be held personally liable.”

Prior to 9/11, the federal material witness law was used sparingly – especially with U.S. citizens – to ensure that witnesses would be available to testify in criminal cases. Arrests under the statute took place in rare cases to secure testimony where there was hard evidence that an individual had material information but would not testify voluntarily. After 9/11, Ashcroft retooled the law into an investigative detention statute, allowing the government to arrest and detain individuals for whom the government lacked probable cause to charge with criminal violations.

Full Story: Ashcroft Can Be Held Accountable for Post-9/11 Wrongful Detention | CommonDreams.org.

Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas to Hear Major Monsanto Case

In Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case which could have an enormous effect on the future of the American food industry. This is Monsanto’s third appeal of the case, and if they win a favorable ruling from the high court, a deregulated Monsanto may find itself in position to corner the markets of numerous U.S. crops, and to litigate conventional farmers into oblivion.

Here’s where it gets a bit dicier. Two Supreme Court justices have what appear to be direct  conflicts of interest.

Stephen Breyer
Charles Breyer, the judge who ruled in the original decision of 2007 which is being appealed, is Stephen Breyer’s brother, who apparently views this as a conflict of interest and has recused himself.

Clarence Thomas
From the years 1976 – 1979, Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto. Thomas apparently does not see this as a conflict of interest and has not recused himself.

Fox, meet henhouse.

Full Story: Ex Monsanto Lawyer Clarence Thomas to Hear Major Monsanto Case « COTO Report.

Subpoenas issued in Ensign ’sex and lobbying’ scandal: reports

Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) isn’t off the hook for last year’s scandal-laden affair with his staffer’s wife. In fact, his troubles now look worse than ever.

The Nevada television news station KLAS reported on Thursday that the Department of Justice has enhanced its “criminal” investigation of the events surrounding Ensign’s actions.

The criminal probe stems from a romantic affair Ensign had with the wife of his key staffer and close friend, Doug Hampton, and what Ensign has done to help Hampton financially.

Subpoenas have been issued to at least six Las Vegas businesses. The Justice Department came to Las Vegas to interview several prominent business and political figures in what appears to be a wide-ranging and deadly-serious criminal probe.

The subpoena, which can be read here, seek “any and all records; including emails, phone calls and calendars regarding any interaction the Las Vegas businesses may have had with Ensign, his Chief of Staff John Lopez, Doug Hampton, Hampton’s wife Cindy — the object of the senator’s romantic interest — Ensign’s principal political advisor Mike Slanker, and Slanker’s company November Inc,” according to KLAS’s LasVegasNow.com Web site.

Full Story: Subpoenas issued in Ensign ’sex and lobbying’ scandal: reports | Raw Story.

Illinois Supreme Court rules Provena must pay tax

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled this morning that Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana did not provide enough charity care to qualify for a property tax exemption.

The widely watched ruling, which rejected the Catholic hospital’s appeal of a tax review board decision to take away its tax exempt status in 2003, could set the stage for charity care expectations at hospitals around the country.

The ruling — supported by three judges, supported in part by two and not voted on by two others — means the hospital will have to begin paying property taxes. It has been considered a nonprofit hospital like most hospitals in the U.S. that are exempt from state property taxes

Full Story: Illinois Supreme Court rules Provena must pay tax – Chicago Breaking Business.

Report: Justice Department Subpoenas Nevada Businesses in Connection With Ensign Inquiry

Justice Department investigators have issued subpoenas to Nevada businesses, seeking information related to Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and his former aide Doug Hampton, CBS affiliate KLAS-TV reported Wednesday.

Both the Senate Ethics Committee and the FBI are investigating Ensign’s involvement in procuring lobbying work for Hampton after Ensign ended an affair with Hampton’s wife, Cynthia Hampton. A $96,000 payment that Ensign’s parents made to the Hamptons may also be under review.

The KLAS-TV Web site reports that at least six Las Vegas-area businesses received subpoenas March 8, served by an FBI agent and a prosecutor from DOJ’s Public Integrity Section.

Full Story: Report: Justice Department Subpoenas Nevada Businesses in Connection With Ensign Inquiry – Roll Call.

SEC probes Jim Cramer & TheStreet.com’s finances

TheStreet.com, the financial Web site founded by loudmouth stock picker and TV personality Jim Cramer, is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The publicly traded company attracted the attention of regulators because of accounting woes at a former subsidiary called Promotions.com, TheStreet.com said yesterday.

TheStreet.com revealed the news in an SEC filing explaining why it will be late reporting its annual financial results.

Last summer, TheStreet.com announced there were “issues” related to how it had been recording revenue at Promotions.com, the marketing company it acquired in 2007. An internal probe ensued and resulted in several quarters of delayed earnings results for the parent company, frustrating investors.

Full Story: SEC probes TheStreet.com’s finances – NYPOST.com.

Wachovia pays $160 million to stop drugs probe

Wachovia has agreed to pay US prosecutors 160 million dollars for its failure to stop drug money being laundered to Mexican affiliates, the DEA said Wednesday.

The embattled bank admitted it failed to stop an estimated 110 million dollars from being sent from the US to Mexico by wire transfer that was used to buy cocaine-transporting aircraft.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said Wachovia-run foreign exchange houses in Mexico — or casas de cambio (CDCs) — were involved in the illicit trades between 2004 and 2007.

Full Story: Wachovia pays $160 million to stop drugs probe | Raw Story.

How Get-Rich-Quick Crime Came to Define an Era

Ponzi Nation  -

Every great American boom and bust makes and breaks its share of crooks. The past decade — call it the Ponzi Era — has been no different, except for the gargantuan scale of white-collar crime. A vast wave of financial fraud swelled in the first years of the new century. Then, in 2008, with the subprime mortgage collapse, it crashed on the shore as a full-scale global economic meltdown. As that wave receded, it left hundreds of Ponzi and pyramid schemes, as well as other get-rich-quick rackets that helped fuel our recent economic frenzy, flopping on the beach.

The high-water marks from that crime wave, those places where the corruption reached its zenith, are still visible today, like the 17th floor of 885 Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan, the nerve center of investment firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities — and, as it turned out, a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, the largest in history. Or Stanfordville, a sprawling compound on the Caribbean island of Antigua named for its wealthy owner, a garrulous Texan named Allen Stanford who built it with funds from his own $8 billion Ponzi scheme. Or the bizarrely fortified law office — security cards, surveillance cameras, hidden microphones, a private elevator — of Florida attorney Scott Rothstein, who duped friends and investors out of $1.2 billion.

The more typical marks of the Ponzi Era, though, aren’t as easy to see. Williamston, Michigan, for instance, lacks towering skyscrapers, Italian sports cars, million-dollar mansions, and massive security systems. A quiet town 15 miles from Lansing, the state capital, Williamston is little more than a cross-hatching of a dozen or so streets. A “DOLLAR TIME$” store sits near Williamston’s main intersection — locals affectionally call it the “four corners” — and its main drag is lined with worn brick buildings passed on from one business to the next like fading, hand-me-down jeans. It’s here, far from New York or Antigua, that thanks to two brothers seized by a financial fever dream, the Ponzi Era made its truest, deepest American mark.

Full Story: Tomgram: Andy Kroll, Welcome to America, Sucker | TomDispatch.

Laws for Sale

Former Senator Ernest F. Hollings –

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow unlimited corporate cash to buy political power through unlimited political spending is exactly what we in the Congress tried to prevent in 1971 and 1974 when we limited spending in political campaigns.

Matt Bai’s article in The New York Times entitled, “Laws for Sale” examines the Supreme Court’s decision to allow unlimited corporate cash to buy political power through unlimited political spending. This is exactly what we in the Congress tried to prevent in 1971 and 1974 when we limited spending in political campaigns. Maurice Stans, Richard Nixon’s fundraiser in the 1968 presidential race, was threatening and ingenious. All kinds of cash and money were flowing into the campaign, wihch shocked both Republicans and Democrats. Stans made it appear that public office was up for sale. So in 1971 by a vote of 88-2, we limited spending in federal campaigns. All contributions of $100 or more had to be reported, and even the amount of money a candidate gave his or her own campaign was strictly limited. We included a check-off system for the taxpayers so they could earmark $1.00 of their taxes to a presidential campaign fund. Our concern was that without government funding only the wealthy could afford to run an expensive presidential race.

In 1972, Stans pulled out all the stops to amass a war chest for Nixon’s re-election. Stans advised the South Carolina Textile Manufacturers Association that their “fair share” was $350,000. Ten of them agreed to cough up $35,000 apiece. So, in 1974, by a vote of 60-16, we again limited spending in federal campaigns. Under a formula using voting age population, Senator Thurmond and I were limited to $336,904. This was thirty-five years ago. Fast forward for inflation and the increase in population, and a campaign today in South Carolina would be limited to $3 million or $4 million. This would give the Senator time to do his work rather than fundraise.

Full Story: Laws for Sale | Economy In Crisis.

How the IRS Helps H&R Block Scam Taxpayers

You know tax season is around the corner when you see start seeing the guys in the cheap Statue of Liberty costumes. They begin popping up in mid-February, haunting subway exits and downtown intersections nationwide draped in garish aqua togas, faces lit up in sparkle paint, heads topped by radiant crowns of chipped Styrofoam. They are the hourly sandwich-board street barkers of Liberty Tax Service, carrying not tablets symbolic of ancient Roman wisdom, but paper fliers advertising modern-day tax services.

Echoing the original, these copycat Lady Liberties also beckon the poor. But instead of offering refuge, they offer scams.

Among the products and services provided by Liberty Tax Service are Refund Anticipation Loans (RAL). Together with fellow tax preparation giants H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt, Liberty has become a leading purveyor of RALs: short-term, high-interest, fee-laden loans on imminent tax returns, the majority of which are taken out by the working poor. Over the last two decades, RALs have become a common and increasingly controversial part of the nation’s tax season hustle. In 2008, more than eight million Americans spent nearly a billion dollars paying interest and fees on RALs—often based on misleading or incomplete information—swelling the profits of tax preparers and their partner banks.

Full Story: How the IRS Helps H&R Block Scam Taxpayers | Economy | AlterNet.

Lehman Brothers Autopsy: Repo 105, and Why Auditors Have Some Explaining to Do

If you haven’t already watched it, Marketplace has a great video explaining Repo 105, a shady accounting maneuver through which Lehman Brothers hid its financial troubles for so long before finally filing in 2008 for the largest bankruptcy in U.S history.

As business reporters sniff through Anton Valukas’ 2,200-page “coroner’s report” on Lehman, here’s a look at all the people who’ve denied they knew anything about the “Repo 105” scam.

Full Story: Lehman Brothers Autopsy: Repo 105, and Why Auditors Have Some Explaining to Do – ProPublica.

Evidence of a Financial Coup in America

The devastating Lehman Brothers bankruptcy report

“The ideas of economists… are more powerful than is commonly understood.
Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.” — John Maynard Keynes

How much more evidence of a financial coup and the THEFT of TRILLIONS of DOLLARS do we need before the media and our politicians do something, anything, to restore a rule of law in this nation? What is it going to take?

About four months ago, I reached a breaking point and wrote an angry post calling out the media, even Independent online media, for their lack of intensive coverage on the THEFT of TRILLIONS of OUR DOLLARS. I just can’t understand how this has not been the number one story every second of every day?

And now comes the devastating Lehman Brothers bankruptcy report/indictment, which, once again, proves the all-out fraudulent activities that led to the THEFT of TRILLIONS of OUR DOLLARS. Over the past few days, I have skimmed through the over 2000 page report/indictment of Lehman Brothers, Ernst & Young, the Wall Street elite, Federal Reserve and US government. You would think, just maybe, that this report would finally set off major alarm bells within the mainstream media and Washington. Finally, we will get the wall-to-wall coverage this deserves, right? . . . Ah . . . nope! Some coverage, yes, but not nearly enough. It has been only a few days since the report was released and the coverage is already dropping off into the cesspool of “reporting” that masquerades as modern “journalism.”

Full Story: Evidence of a Financial Coup in America.

The Big Short Is a Bit Short in Missing the Reasons for the Crisis

Danny Schecter,  -

The Big Short Is A Bit Short In Missing The Reasons for The Crisis: Michael Lewis’s Delusion Thesis vs Senator Kaufman’s Case for Crime

It’s the number one book in the county. Every day, Michael Lewis’s The Big Short is getting B I G G E R, no doubt because he is so mediagenic, conversational and likes to laugh with the hosts who interview him about his findings.

On Sunday, he laughed with Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes when the two bantered on about how about stupid it all was and why so many smart people drank the Kool Aid. The story he tells has no hard edges really…it’s about “delusion,” Wall Street deluding us all and then each other.

The idea of delusions feeds a psychological and cultural analysis of bankers cut off from the world, focused on their own pocket books and believing their own hype. It is in this sense Shakespearian—the stuff of drama, not calculation. What a web we weave when first we practice to deceive, to quote Sir Walter Scott.

Full Story: The Big Short Is a Bit Short in Missing the Reasons for the Crisis | BuzzFlash.org.

Goldman Is to Greece What Merrill Was to Enron

Did big banks break the law during our recent global debt-fuelled boom? The usual answer is: no – they just took advantage of loopholes and captured regulators. The world’s biggest banks are widely supposed to be too sophisticated to be tripped up by the legal system.

But is this really true? The new Valukas report on Lehman suggests there are grounds for civil action, i.e., people can sue for damages. News reports give no indication of potential criminal charges, but this may change soon. The hiding of Lehman’s true debt levels – through the so-called “Repo 105″ structure – is strikingly reminiscent of how Enron’s balance sheet was disguised through fake asset “sales” (as Senator Kaufman now points out).

And, of course, the people who ended up facing criminal charges and – in some prominent cases – going to jail, included not only Enron executives, but also responsible bankers from Merrill Lynch (see The Smartest Guys in the Room, Chapter 13). Arthur Anderson, Enron’s accountant, was also effectively broken by the scandal. It is a serious crime for professional advisers and financiers to assist in securities fraud.

Full Story: Simon Johnson: Goldman Is to Greece What Merrill Was to Enron.

D.C. home to most cyber-criminals

Here’s a factoid you might not know — D.C. has the most cyber-criminals per capita: 116 for every 100,000 people.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center’s 2009 Internet Crime Report ranks Maryland 19th (29.72 perpetrators per 100,000) and Virginia 28th (24.12 perpetrators per 100,000).

IC3, a joint effort of the National White Collar Crime Center and FBI, says Nevada and Washington hold the No. 2 and No. 3 spots.

Cyber-crimes are so common victims often neglect to report them. But the number of complaints to IC3 jumped more than 22 percent last year to 336,655. The amount of money victims lost more than doubled to nearly $560,000 from $265,000 in 2008.

Full Story: D.C. home to most cyber-criminals – wtop.com.

OPS: Isn’t DC where most of the Rightwing think-tanks are located? Just askin.

U.S. Mortgage Fraud Remains at Epidemic Levels

The FBI will not have the additional necessary assets to investigate much more of this fraud because the Obama administration has requested of Congress only enough additional funds to hire 50 new special agents and 91 professional support staff.

Despite the Wall Street crash and bailout, U.S. mortgage fraud remains at epidemic levels.

The U.S. Treasury Department, under the authority of the Bank Security Act, collects “suspicious activity reports” (SARs), which the financial industry is required to file. In 2000, the Treasury received 3,500 of these reports of fraudulent mortgages. It received 18,000 SARs in 2004, 21,000 in 2006, 46,000 in 2007 and more than 63,000 in 2008.

On May 21, 2009, Robert S. Mueller III, director of the FBI, testified before the House Judiciary Committee that the mortgage industry had filed more than 33,000 SARS in the first 7 months of fiscal year 2009, representing about $22 billion of potential mortgage fraud. When the final numbers for fiscal year 2009 are released, the total will be at least as high as during the pre-crash period.

Full Story: U.S. Mortgage Fraud Remains at Epidemic Levels | Economy In Crisis.

Goldman’s Great Greek Swindle and the American Blowback

Goldman’s epic swindle may topple Greece and even the European Union. Wall Street’s stranglehold on the U.S. is equally dangerous.

You’ve heard this crappy joke before. Financial vampire squid Goldman Sachs games billions on the books for a prestigious client, hiding its lack of real value, while both continue to lucratively trade on false data. Time passes, Goldman retracts its feeding tube, the prestigious client implodes, and the collateral damage escalates. Cue the cruel laugh track.

The client this time? Greece, where Goldman executed a currency swap worth billions, without reporting it of course. The collateral damage? The euro, and perhaps the entire European Union, depending on how the house of cards falls. But to be fair, Goldman couldn’t have done it alone.

“The European Union bureaucrats that are driving the system wanted their own empire,” economist Paul Craig Roberts, one-time assistant U.S. Treasury secretary in the Reagan administration, told AlterNet. “So the European Union was expanded into financially weaker states, which can no longer print money to cover their debts as they all use the euro. What Goldman Sachs did for the Greek government was to help hide the size of the Greek debt, since European Union membership requires maintaining a fairly low deficit-to-GDP ratio.”

Full Story: Goldman’s Great Greek Swindle and the American Blowback | Economy | AlterNet.

Senator Kaufman: GOLDMAN MAY HAVE COMMITTED SECURITIES FRAUD

Senator Kaufman: Fraud Still at the Heart of Wall Street

Last week, Senator Ted Kaufman (D., DE) gave a devastating speech in the Senate on “too big to fail” and all it entails. A long public silence from our political class was broken — and to great effect. Today’s Dodd reform proposals stand in pale comparison to the principles outlined by Senator Kaufman. And yes, DE stands for Delaware — corporate America has finally decided that its largest financial offspring are way out of line and must be reined in.

Now, the Senator has gone one better, putting many private criticisms of the financial sector — the kind you hear whispered with conviction on the Upper East Side and in Midtown — firmly and articulately on the public record in a Senate floor speech to be delivered tomorrow (this is a direct link to speech). He pulls no punches:

“fraud and potential criminal conduct were at the heart of the financial crisis”

He goes after Lehman — with its infamous Repo 105 — as well as the other entities potentially implicated in those transactions, including Ernst and Young (Lehman’s auditors). This is the low hanging fruit — but have you heard even a squeak from the White House or anyone else in the country’s putative leadership on this issue?

Full Story: Simon Johnson: Senator Kaufman: Fraud Still at the Heart of Wall Street.

SENATE BURGLARY: CIA DOMESTIC BLACK-OP TEAM ARRESTED

ALL 4 INVOLVED IN SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY BREAKIN CIA “N-O-C” AGENTS

CIA PROGRAM MAY HAVE TRAINED DOMESTIC “DEATH SQUADS”

Last week’s breakin at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the New Orleans Federal Building was more than it seemed, much more. All of the 4 arrested had been trained by the CIA and, possibly, Israel. One arrested, Stan Dai, is listed as an Operations Officer of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program and a known expert and lecturer on, not only surveillance but explosives training, assassinations and “false flag operations.” If you wanted a plane to crash, an enemy to get sick and die or a building to blow up, Dai would be the man to know how to make it happen. Problem is, his skills were being used as part of a criminal conspiracy inside the United States against members of our own government.

Original reports on the “break-in” were also wrong. One of those arrested was found blocks away with a covert receiver, managing the office bugs. The man in the car is identified as Stan Dai, Operations Officer for the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program:

“one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator’s offices.” The FBI’s affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O’Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.”

Full Story: SENATE BURGLARY: CIA DOMESTIC BLACK-OP TEAM ARRESTED : Veterans Today.

Former bank president arrested, charged with stealing bailout funds

The former president of a small Manhattan community bank on Monday became the first person accused of trying to defraud the federal bailout program.

Prosecutors also contend that Charles Antonucci Sr., stole so he could live a lavish lifestyle that included a Super Bowl junket.

He was arrested Monday.

Antonucci, 59, of Fishkill, was charged with self-dealing, bank bribery, embezzlement and fraud. The criminal complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. If convicted, he could face up to 260 years in federal prison.

Full Story: Former bank president arrested, charged with stealing bailout funds | Raw Story.

Lehman Brothers Scandal Rocks the Fed

By MIKE WHITNEY

Geithner and Bernanke’s Possibly Criminal Roles

After a year-long investigation, court-appointed bank examiner Anton Valukas has produced a deadly 2,200 page report which details the activities that led to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The report is a keg of dynamite. The question now is whether anyone in government has the nerve to light the fuse. Valukas provides powerful evidence that Lehman executives were involved in “balance sheet manipulation” by implementing an arcane accounting procedure called “Repo 105” which masked the bank's true financial condition from investors and regulators.

According to Valukas, Lehman was “Unable to find a United States law firm that would provide it with an opinion letter permitting the true sale accounting treatment” using Repo 105. So, Lehman executives went outside of the country in an effort to enlist the support of a London law firm that would approve the procedure.

It is impossible to overstate the significance of Valugas's findings. The report exposes the opaque but central role of the repo market which provides essential short-term loans for financial institutions. (Lehman used repos to conceal the full extent of its collapse, by dint of the amount of leverage it was using, meaning the pitiful asset anchor tethered to a vast zeppelin of debt) More importantly, it shows the cozy and, very probably criminal relationship between the country's main regulatory bodies and the Wall Street behemoths. The activities of the New York Fed (NYFRB), which at the time was headed by Timothy Geithner, is particularly suspect in this regard. The report should trigger an immediate Congressional investigation, probing the whole affair and most importantly the role of the Fed.

Full Story: CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

Wall Street Collapse A Story Of ‘Mass Delusion’ (VIDEO)

It may be tempting to think Wall Street is full of criminals who got off easy during the financial crisis.

But bestselling author Michael Lewis cautions against such an easy conclusion.

“I think the story is much more interesting than that,” he said during an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes. “I think it’s a story of mass delusion.”

The former bond trader is releasing a book this week called The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. According to CBS, the result of his 18-month investigation attempts to explain, “how some of Wall Street’s finest minds managed to destroy $1.75 trillion of wealth in the subprime mortgage markets.”

Full Story: Michael Lewis: Wall Street Collapse A Story Of ‘Mass Delusion’ (VIDEO).

OPS:  This guy is just trying to keep the peasants from grabbing their pitchforks and torches.  This is a propaganda campaign to make the people on Wall Street NOT appear to be as evil as they are.

AP Exclusive: Pentagon gun was from Tenn. police

Two guns used in high-profile shootings this year at the Pentagon and a Las Vegas courthouse both came from the same unlikely place: the police and court system of Memphis, Tenn.

Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that both guns were once seized in criminal cases in Memphis. The officials described how the weapons made their separate ways from an evidence vault to gun dealers and to the shooters.

The use of guns that once were in police custody and were later involved in attacks on police officers highlights a little-known divide in gun policy in the United States: Many cities and states destroy guns gathered in criminal probes, but others sell or trade the weapons in order to get other guns or buy equipment such as bulletproof vest

Full Story: AP Exclusive: Pentagon gun was from Tenn. police – Yahoo! News.

Podesta Responds To Roberts’ ‘Troubling’ Comment With Call For Supreme Court To Be Televised

At the State of the Union earlier this year, President Obama denounced the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that invalidated a sixty-three year-old ban on corporate money in federal elections as the members of the court looked on. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities,” said Obama. “They should be decided by the American people.”

At the University of Alabama this week, Chief Justice John Roberts called the scene at the State of the Union “very troubling.” “To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we’re there,” said Roberts. On Fox News Sunday today, Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta said Roberts’ complaint was “a little disingenuous” and suggested that the Supreme Court open its hearings to television cameras:

PODESTA: Well, look, I think it’s a little disingenuous. I don’t think Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts, felt too bad when he was at President Bush’s pep rallies. But I would actually offer him a compromise, which is the Supreme Court stop going to the State of the Union and in exchange they start broadcasting, on C-SPAN or otherwise, their decisions. So that when they issue a decision reversing a hundred years of precedent, let all this corporate money flow into the political system, do it on television so the American people can see it.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Podesta Responds To Roberts’ ‘Troubling’ Comment With Call For Supreme Court To Be Televised.

The video that will put Geithner behind bars

by Mike Whitney

You gotta see this! -  VIDEO

If this doesn’t convince you that the Timothy Geithner knew about the securities shenanigans that were going on at Lehman, than I don’t know what will.

Keep in mind, that Geithner ran Lehman through 3 “stress tests” prior to bankruptcy; all of which Lehman failed, and yet, nothing was done. Anton R. Valukas–the examiner who wrote the 2,200 page investigative-report which was released on Thursday– has provided plenty of information detailing Lehman’s “materially misleading” accounting and “actionable balance sheet manipulation.”

In other words, they cooked the books.

Full Story: The video that will put Geithner behind bars | The Smirking Chimp.

Citibank exposes 600,000 customers’ Social Security numbers

Ralph Remakel received a Citibank letter postmarked Feb. 16 that notified him of a recent Citibank error. It turns out he wasn’t the only one.

In late January, Citibank mailed year-end tax statements to 600,000 Citi customers via the U.S. Postal Service that included the customers’ Social Security numbers … on the outside of the envelope.

Citi called the mistake a “processing error.”

Although the nine-digit numbers were not identified as Social Security numbers (they were printed at the lower edge of the envelope with other numbers and letters and resembled a mail routing number), Citi still reacted to the mistake. EVP and Director of Citibank Client Services Norman White sent customer notification letters to every affected Citi customer during the week of Feb. 15, apologizing for the error.

Full Story: Citibank exposes 600,000 customers’ Social Security numbers – The Problem Solver.

Evidence Big Pharma Owns The U.S. Government

March 12, 2010 CNN

CNN?  This must be a fluke

California sues Toyota for hiding defects

A California prosecutor has filed a civil lawsuit against Toyota, accusing the Japanese carmaker of intentionally hiding deadly defects from consumers.

“We’ll be alleging in court on behalf of the people of Orange County that Toyota knowingly sold cars and trucks with defects that caused Toyotas to accelerate suddenly and uncontrollably,” Orange Country District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told reporters on Friday.

“We intend to prove that Toyota ignored, omitted, obfuscated, and misrepresented the evidence that was amassing for many years regarding serious safety defects in their cars.”

Full Story: California sues Toyota for hiding defects – Yahoo! News.

Largest Private Refinery Discovers Gold-Plated Tungsten Bar

Recently, the German television station ProSieben ran a news story covering W. C. Heraeus in Hanau, Germany, the world’s largest privately owned refinery. In the story, Wilfried Hörner, the head of the gold foundry, shows a 500 gram bar (16.0755 troy ounces) received from an unidentified bank. The bar had the right physical dimensions to be an authentic gold bar, but one of the Heraeus employees suspected something funny. After the bar was cut in half, you can see that the inside is tungsten, with only a coating of gold on the outside.You can watch this news story on You Tube, where it was posted February 28, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKczs-7BFRI.Last fall, Rob Kirby of Kirby Analytics in Toronto reported that China’s central bank had discovered some 400-ounce gold-plated tungsten bars among those it had recently received from bonded warehouses. It was later learned that at least four counterfeit bars were found and that all had come from sources in the United States. As suspicions grow about counterfeit bars among those held in bonded warehouses for delivery against either COMEX or London Bullion Market Association contracts or shares of exchange traded funds, investors could panic. So, you can understand that there has been almost a total blackout on news coverage on this story.

Full Story: Largest Private Refinery Discovers Gold-Plated Tungsten Bar | Coin Update News.

Under New Utah Law, Miscarriage Could Get You Life in Prison

If you’re thinking of getting pregnant in Utah, I’d suggest moving immediately, since a miscarriage could land you in jail for 15 years to life.

A storm of controversy against the original version of the law criminalizing miscarriages led lawmakers to submit a revised version. Unfortunately, all they did was drop the word “reckless,” re-passed the legislation, and had the governor sign into law a bill under which miscarriages caused by “intentional or knowing acts” could get a woman locked away for the rest of her life for murder.

Now, every time a woman in Utah miscarries — which happens in 10-25% of pregnancies — not only does she have to deal with the disappointment of losing a pregnancy she perhaps deeply wanted, she has to worry about getting thrown in prison for 15 years to life. While the new language is slightly narrower, it still leaves the door wide open for women becoming murder suspects and being investigated simply for being among the one in four pregnant women who suffer a miscarriage. And “knowing or intentional acts” isn’t the most precise language: what if you’re a smoker who can’t manage to quit — is that a knowing or intentional act? What if you’re stuck in what you know is an abusive relationship and miscarry after getting beaten up? It’s a slippery slope to legislating total control over a pregnant woman’s body

Full Story: Under New Utah Law, Miscarriage Could Get You Life in Prison | Women’s Rights | Change.org.

Rachel Maddow – Speaker Pelosi & BushCo accountability

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow – Speaker Pelosi & BushCo accountability: still 'unclear'

The entire Pelosi interview can be found here:

Visit: http://firedoglake.com

OPS: Pelosi is saying that they aren’t going to do anything about it.

House votes to impeach federal judge from Louisiana

The House of Representatives voted unanimously Thursday to impeach Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, making him the nation’s 15th federal judge ever impeached.

“Our investigation found that Judge Porteous participated in a pattern of corrupt conduct for years,” said U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Judicial Impeachment.

“Litigants have the right to expect a judge hearing their case will be fair and impartial, and avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Regrettably, no one can have that expectation in Judge Porteous’ courtroom.”
Full Story: House votes to impeach federal judge from Louisiana – CNN.com.

Recession is fueling a boom in insurance fraud

The sour economy is producing a bumper crop of cash-strapped consumers, business owners and shady agents who’re fueling a wave of insurance fraud that’s keeping regulators and law enforcement officials busy from coast to coast.

Whether it’s worthless health plans peddled by fax, staged auto accidents, arson or slip-and-fall accidents at the local mall, insurance fraud of all kinds is booming in the recession and consumers are paying the price in higher premiums.

To keep it in perspective, roughly 48 million insurance claims are made each year in the U.S. and less than one-quarter of 1 percent are referred to the nonprofit National Insurance Crime Bureau for investigation of possible fraud.

Full Story: Recession is fueling a boom in insurance fraud | McClatchy.

Lehman Brothers Hid Borrowing, Examiner Says

It is the Wall Street equivalent of a coroner’s report — a 2,200-page document that lays out, in new and startling detail, how Lehman Brothers used accounting sleight of hand to conceal the bad investments that led to its undoing.

Every member of congress when they are elected, puts their hand on the bible and swears to uphold the constitution of the United States.

Bart Stupak has violated his oath of office and the Conference of Catholic Bishops violated their tax exempt status regarding the Stupak amendment in the healthcare bill and both should be punished appropriately. The question is will anyone have the guts to do it?

Stupak's arrogance in inviting representatives of the Conference of Catholic Bishops to write legislation regarding the abortion amendment, violates the first amendment to the constitution.

Full Story: Lehman Brothers Hid Borrowing, Examiner Says – NYTimes.com.

UN expert slams US for not looking into torture claims

The UN’s independent expert on torture on Wednesday criticised the Obama administration for not investigating allegations of torture made when president George W. Bush was in power.

“This is my criticism of the Obama administration: There is not enough done to remedy what has been done in the past,” Manfred Nowak, UN special rapporteur on torture, told journalists.

“I think it’s a legal question,” he said.

“The US are a part of the UN Convention against Torture, but there are very clear legal obligations — wherever you have indications, complaints about torture, then you have to investigate them independently and effectively.”

Full Story: UN expert slams US for not looking into torture claims | Raw Story.

Meet the Man Behind Utah’s New Law Criminalizing Miscarriages

Rep. Carl Wimmer discusses his Criminal Homicide and Abortion Revisions bill and his long-term plans to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Utah Republican Rep. Carl Wimmer doesn’t hide the fact that he’s working to overturn Roe v. Wade.

As Chair of the Utah Family Action Council Team, Rep. Wimmer’s Web site says the legislation he’s introduced or sponsored over the past few years, including the Unborn Child Pain Prevention Act, which requires doctors to inform pregnant women and girls that their fetus may experience pain during abortions, “chips away at the nation’s abortion laws. We are continually working to pass pro-life legislation which will weaken Roe v. Wade.”

Rep. Wimmer’s latest piece of legislation, the Criminal Homicide and Abortion Revisions, which charges women and girls with murder for having miscarriages caused by an “intentional or knowing act,” was signed into law this week by Utah Governor Gary Herbert. The original bill would have also included “reckless” behavior, but Rep. Wimmer removed that word to guarantee the governor’s signature.

Full Story: Meet the Man Behind Utah’s New Law Criminalizing Miscarriages | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

Chase Refunds $6,200 To Complaining Customer

Ernest Nitzberg says he immediately felt cheated when he received a statement from Chase in January that showed he owed $6,200 on a debit card — a card he said he’d signed up for but had not yet received. When Chase refused to refund his money, he sought publicity for his gripe by submitting a blog entry to HuffPost.

“Someone at Chase or a friend of someone at Chase — there’s no other way to explain it — had gotten hold of my never-received debit card and all my personal information including my PIN number and went on a spree, racking up $6200 in cash advances and credit card charges,” wrote Nitzberg, a 78-year-old resident of the Bronx. “Fourteen transactions were made on the same day that included three trips to an ATM to remove cash and 11 to such places as Juicy Couture, Shalom Dresses, Toys R Us [3x] and to be a bit more upscale, Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue.”

Nitzberg and Chase viewed each other with mutual suspicion.

Full Story: Chase Refunds $6,200 To Complaining Customer.

Over 1000 architects and engineers have signed petition to reinvestigate 9-11 destruction

“At some level of government, at some point in time, there was an agreement not to tell the people the truth about what happened.”
- John Farmer, Senior Counsel to the 9-11 Commission in his book The Ground Truth (Page 4)

Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth founder, Richard Gage, AIA,   began the conference quoting Mark Twain who said, “If you don’t read the newspapers you’re uninformed. If you do read them you’re misinformed.” Gage said he hoped the assembled press would help to rectify that situation. “Today I’m quite pleased to announce that now we have more than one thousand architects and engineers signed on to the A&E911Truth petition demanding of Congress a new and truly independent, unimpeachable investigation into the destruction of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9-11,” Gage said to a cheering audience.

Full Story: Over 1000 architects and engineers have signed petition to reinvestigate 9-11 destruction.

NYPD’s quotas mean innocent people being arrested: officer

A New York City police officer is alleging that his department has arrest quotas that result in innocent people being arrested.

Officer Adil Polanco told WABC channel 7 in New York that his precinct — the 41st in the Bronx — has a “20 and one” monthly quota, meaning each officer is expected to issue at least 20 summonses per month, and carry out at least 1 arrest.

If the officer doesn’t meet the quota, the result can be denial of overtime pay, shift changes and denial of days off, Polanco said.

Full Story: NYPD’s quotas mean innocent people being arrested: officer | Raw Story.

Robert Mustard Jr., Dallas Shooter, Yelled ‘You’ve Taken All My Money’ Before Trying To Kill His Financial Adviser

Robert Mustard, Jr., the man accused of shooting two men at a Dallas office building on Monday morning, was apparently trying to get his revenge on a financial advisory firm that he believed had lost all his money.

According to the Fort Worth News, when Mustard approached his financial adviser, Richard Smith, 66, and his son, Chris, 39, in their office yesterday, he accused them of taking “all my money,” before opening fire with a 45-caliber weapon.

When police arrived, Mustard was still in the office, authoritiessaid.

Police shot at — but missed — Mustard, a disbarred lawyer, who then barricaded himself in an office and shot himself in the head.

Full Story: Robert Mustard Jr., Dallas Shooter, Yelled ‘You’ve Taken All My Money’ Before Trying To Kill His Financial Adviser.

Verizon Bills Dead, Says ‘Death Certificate’ Not Enough To Cancel Service

Don’t die without sharing your PIN numbers.

That seems to be the lesson learned from Verizon’s recent botched handling of a deceased man’s account.

Bill Young of Calvin, W.Va died in June 2009, but Verizon Wireless continued to bill him until February 2010.

Young’s daughter, Cynthia Lacy produced a death certificate for the company to certify her father’s passing, but was told by a Verizon representative that without her father’s PIN (personal identification number), she was not allowed access to the account, reports the St. Petersburg Times.

Full Story: Verizon Bills Dead Man Bill Young, Says ‘Death Certificate’ Not Enough To Cancel Service.

Controversial Utah Law Charges Women and Girls With Murder for Miscarriages

Critics are worried the law will open up a Pandora’s box of unintended legal consequences

On Monday afternoon, a controversial Utah bill that charges pregnant women and girls with murder for having miscarriages caused by “intentional or knowing” acts, was signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert.

Contrary to media reports last week, the “Criminal Homicide and Abortion Amendments” or HB12, which previously also applied to miscarriages caused by “reckless” acts, was never “withdrawn” by its sponsor, Republican Representative Carl Wimmer (who is crafting similar “model legislation” for other states). After the governor expressed concern over “possible unintended consequences,” of the legislation as written, Rep. Wimmer swiftly introduced a new version, titled “Criminal Homicide and Abortion Revisions” (HB462), which omitted the word “reckless.” Gov. Herbert signed the new bill and vetoed the old one.

In a letter to legislative leaders on Monday, the governor wrote: ”I appreciate the willingness of Representative Wimmer to reevaluate the impact of potential unintended consequences arising from the inclusion of ‘reckless’ behavior in HB12. HB 462 is more consistent with the true intent of the legislation and addresses those situations in which the termination of a pregnancy is intentional and is not conducted at a physician’s direction.”

Full Story: Controversial Utah Law Charges Women and Girls With Murder for Miscarriages | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

Goldman Sachs sued by big pension fund over pay

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) was sued on Monday by a large union pension fund that accused the Wall Street investment bank of overpaying its executives.

The International Brotherhood of Electric Workers fund filed the lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court, seeking to recover money for the company on behalf of other shareholders.

It seeks to stop Goldman from allocating roughly 47 percent of 2009 net revenue as compensation, saying such allocations “vastly overcompensate management and constitute corporate waste.”

The lawsuit also wants Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein and others in management, rather than shareholders, to be responsible for charitable contributions that Goldman is making as a an apology for its activities.

Full Story: Goldman Sachs sued by big pension fund over pay | Reuters.

Supreme Court Puts High-Emotion Funeral Protest Case on Docket

Few recent confrontations have stirred as much emotion and debate as the spate of funeral protests conducted at funerals for U.S. soldiers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, the Supreme Court agreed to take up one of the cases stemming from those protests, a hot-button First Amendment dispute that will be argued in the fall.

Members of the Topeka, Kan., Westboro Baptist Church, seeking to spread the word that God is punishing America for its acceptance of homosexuality, have shown up at funerals with anti-gay and anti-war protest signs carrying messages such as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and “God Hates You.” The protests have triggered lawsuits and legislation nationwide, posing a dilemma for those seeking to stifle the protests without suppressing First Amendment rights.

Full Story: Supreme Court Puts High-Emotion Funeral Protest Case on Docket – The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.

DOJ TO REQUIRE ES&S TO SELL OFF ASSETS FROM DIEBOLD MERGER CITING ANTI-TRUST CONCERNS

The Department of Justice’s Anti-trust division has determined that the purchase of Premier Election Solutions, Diebold Inc.’s recently renamed e-voting division, by Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) has resulted in a voting machine monopoly. The DoJ and nine states who have joined in a lawsuit, are suing to require ES&S to divest of the assets gained in the bargain-basement priced purchase of Diebold’s e-voting outfit last September.

The merger with their second largest competitor Diebold/Premier, had given ES&S, a private corporation which had already controlled some 50% of U.S. elections their electronic voting systems, a full 70% control of the votes cast in this country. The acquisition had been opposed by election integrity organizations, Hart Intercivic (a much smaller Austin-based competitor), the New York Times editorial board, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee and was being investigated by 14 different states along with the DoJ’s anti-trust division.

A settlement has been struck, pending approval by a federal judge, between the DOJ, nine states and ES&S requiring that the private company find a DoJ-approved purchaser of the Diebold/Premier assets. Prior to the $5 million sale to ES&S, Diebold had been searching for a buyer for a number of years, even as they faced investigations by the SEC and the DoJ, share-holder class action suits, and a number of legal battles with states and country jurisdictions around the country after voting systems were found to have failed or in violation of federal and state standards. Diebold purchased the election division from Global Election Systems in 2002 for the price of $25 million.

Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : DOJ TO REQUIRE ES&S TO SELL OFF ASSETS FROM DIEBOLD MERGER CITING ANTI-TRUST CONCERNS.

Tyler Texas man gets 35 years for 4.6 ounces of Marijuana

It is well known in Texas that our Law Enforcement Officers are the best in the nation when it comes to that moment in time when the feet need to hit the ground. When you call 911, you can bet that Texas Law Enforcement Officers will respond quickly and deal with the situation at hand decisively.

Once the Law Enforcement Officers deal with the criminal element, they pass them off to the Texas Criminal Justice System. They are well known for their “tough on crime” campaign toting all of the old paradigms left over from the Reagan administration.

This bring us to the story about a Tyler Texas man named Henry Walter Wooten, 54 years old. Henry isn't the brightest toker in the world. He was caught by law enforcement within 1000 feet of Ebenezer Day Care Center in Tyler with baggies of weed in his pockets toking on a joint. On Thursday, March 4th, Henry received 35 years in a state correctional facility.

Trey Cloud, DPS forensic chemist, testified that the weight of the marijuana seized from Wooten when he was arrested was 4.6 ounces, and the packaging alone weighed 1.06 ounces. He also testified that the drug seized from Wooten was indeed marijuana.

Full Story: Tyler Texas man gets 35 years for 4.6 ounces of Marijuana | Dallas / Ft. Worth NORML.

Washington awards firms that broke Iran sanctions over $100 billion

Washington has awarded more than 107 billion dollars in payments to foreign and US companies doing business in Iran despite US sanctions, The New York Times has reported.

That sum included nearly 15 billion dollars paid to companies that defied US sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves, said the paper.

The Times compiled the figures from an analysis of government and business records.

Both President Barack Obama and former president George W. Bush had sent mixed messages to the corporate world when it comes to doing business in Iran, said the report.

Their administrations had rewarded companies whose commercial interests conflicted with US security goals, it added.

Full Story: Washington awards firms that broke Iran sanctions over $100 billion | Raw Story.

Senators, Terrorists and Trials

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.

Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The first thought, of course, is that Senator Graham and his colleagues who have signed on to his bill are secretly terrorist sympathizers. That would explain the inexplicable. They have let it be known that they want terrorists tried in military commissions where the procedures are less clear than in civilian courts and where the history of convictions is far more favorable for the terrorists. To date there have been 3 terrorists tried in the military tribunals and of the three, two are now free men and one is a permanent resident in a federal prison. By contrast, as we learn from New York University’s Terrorism Trial Report Card: “In 2001/2002, 8% of defendants labeled as terrorists in the media were charged [in civilian courts] under terrorism statutes, and of those 38% were convicted of terrorism. In 2006/2007, those numbers increased to 47% charged and 84% convicted. The overall conviction rate for prosecutions involving terrorism charges now stands at 89%.” In her introduction to the Report Card, Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security and editor in chief of the Report Card, observes about civilian courts that: “An increasing percentage of convictions involve the more serious charges, and a growing percentage of those accused of terrorism are convicted.”

The report card observes that “Federal prosecution has demonstrably become a powerful tool in many hundreds of cases, not only for incapacitating terrorists but also for intelligence gathering. Much of the government’s knowledge of terrorist groups has come from testimony and evidence produced in grand jury investigations. . . and in the resulting trials.”

Full Story: Senators, Terrorists and Trials | CommonDreams.org.

Consumer Groups Urge Regulation of Nonbank Financial Institutions – NYTimes.com

While much of the Congressional debate over consumer financial protection has focused on banks, lawmakers have been grappling behind the scenes over whether and how to regulate payday lenders, debt collectors, check-cashing outlets, title and installment lenders and even pawnbrokers.

Many of these companies primarily take aim at lower-income customers, and consumer advocates say the companies are far less regulated than banks.

Oversight of such companies has been left largely to the states. The Federal Trade Commission has brought fewer than 25 lawsuits in the last five years against mortgage originators, payday lenders and debt collectors, officials said. It has only 70 staff members to cover about 10,000 such companies nationwide, and does not have the authority to conduct compliance exams, as bank regulators do.

Full Story: Consumer Groups Urge Regulation of Nonbank Financial Institutions – NYTimes.com.

Ill. judge won’t toss torture suit naming Rumsfeld

A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.

U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen’s ruling did not say the two contractors had proven any of their claims. But it did say they had alleged enough specific mistreatment to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened.

Andersen said his decision “represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting.”

Full Story: The Daily Journal.

Caving To Right-Wing Pressure, White House Reportedly Moving KSM Trial To Military Commission

Soon after Attorney General Eric Holder announced that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other conspirators would be put on civilian trial in New York, the right-wing partisans launched a fearmongering campaign attacking the decision and the Obama administration for appearing weak. Dick Cheney called the move “a huge mistake” that would result in “a show trial,” while one GOP congressman said decision “may” mean that Holder and Obama have a “disdain” for America.

After the right-wing flare-up, New York congressional Democrats and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg started to balk at the idea as well. Now, the Washington Post reports today that Obama’s advisers are caving to the pressure and “are nearing a recommendation” that KSM “be prosecuted in a military tribunal” instead of civilian court. However, the move does not appear to be based on any legal reasoning, but merely a political quid pro quo:

If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.

Full Story: Think Progress » Caving To Right-Wing Pressure, White House Reportedly Moving KSM Trial To Military Commission.

OPS: Is there anything that the Democrats and this President won’t cave on?

Fears for innocent led to judge calling executions unconstitutional

Maverick jurist grants pretrial motion in Houston murder case

A Houston judge on Thursday granted a pretrial motion declaring the death penalty unconstitutional, saying he believes innocent people have been executed.

“Based on the moratorium (on the death penalty) in Illinois, the Innocence Project and more than 200 people being exonerated nationwide, it can only be concluded that innocent people have been executed,” state District Judge Kevin Fine said. “It's safe to assume we execute innocent people.”

Fine said trial level judges are gatekeepers of society's standard for decency and fairness.

“Are you willing to have your brother, your father, your mother be the sacrificial lamb, to be the innocent person executed so that we can have a death penalty so that we can execute those who are deserving of the death penalty?” he said. “I don't think society's mindset is that way now.”

Full Story: Fears for innocent led to judge calling executions unconstitutional | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Considering Stepping Down

Update: RadarOnline.com has obtained new information that Justice Roberts will NOT resign. The justice will be staying on the bench.

John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, is seriously considering stepping down from the nation’s highest court for personal reasons, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

COURT PAPERS: Bristol’s Motion For Child Support

Roberts, known for his conservative judicial philosophy, has served on the Supreme Court since 2005, having been nominated by President George W. Bush after the death of former Chief William Rehnquist.

Full Story: EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Considering Stepping Down | RadarOnline.com.

US lawmakers challenge US Army decisions on KBR

Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday questioned the Army’s continued use of KBR Inc (KBR.N) for logistics work in Iraq in the face of confirmed reports of poor past performance.

Representative Edolphus Towns, who heads the House Oversight Committee, wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates to question the Army’s decision to award KBR a new contract valued at up to $2.8 billion despite a wide array of problems.

Towns, citing problems with KBR’s maintenance of electrical systems at bases where U.S. troops were fatally electrocuted and “numerous allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse,” asked Gates to provide the committee with a wide array of documents about the KBR contract by March 17.

Full Story: US lawmakers challenge US Army decisions on KBR | Reuters.

OPS:  ‘Poor Performance’ ?  Interesting euphemism for (at best) negligent homicide

Is a voting machine merger too big to stand?

The largest voting machine company in the country bought its biggest competitor six months ago without advance fanfare. Now the Justice Department is investigating whether to unwind the merger that put a privately held Nebraska company in control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation’s precincts.

The largest voting machine company in the country bought its biggest competitor six months ago without advance fanfare. Now the Justice Department is investigating whether to unwind the merger that put a privately held Nebraska company in control of the voting machines in nearly 70 percent of the nation’s precincts.

With midterm elections looming and a battle for control of Congress under way, a coalition of election officials from several states and voter advocate groups is pressing the Justice Department to unscramble the combination of two companies. Critics say the merger could cause foul-ups at the polls on Election Day, and some even characterize it as a national security risk.

The emergence of one megaplayer in the electronic voting machine industry may be an unintended consequence of reforms enacted after the presidential election debacle in Florida a decade ago. Few companies can afford to get into the business due to the expense of developing the electronic voting safeguards that reformers insisted on.

Full Story: Business & Technology | Is a voting machine merger too big to stand? | Seattle Times Newspaper.

OPS:  Haven’t the Democrats learned a damn thing?

California man gets eight years for stealing cheese

Robert Ferguson was sentenced under the ‘three strikes’ law, as critics again plea for reform of state’s overcrowded prisons

A California man has been sentenced to up to eight years in prison for stealing a $3.99 (£2.60) bag of shredded cheese in a case critics say shows the need for reform of the state’s criminal justice system and the overcrowded state of its prisons.

Robert Ferguson, who prosecutors say has a nearly 30-year record of convictions for burglary and other offences, avoided a life sentence under the state’s controversial “three strikes” law after a psychological evaluation deemed him bipolar and unable to control his impulses to steal, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Prosecutor Clinton Parish said Ferguson had spent 22 of the past 27 years behind bars but had failed to show he could obey the law. A judge sentenced him to seven years and eight months in prison, but he could be eligible for parole in three years.

Full Story: California man gets eight years for stealing cheese | World news | guardian.co.uk.

John Edwards INDICTED? Grand Jury Set To Indict Edwards, National Enquirer Reports

A federal grand jury is about to indict John Edwards, sources tell the National Enquirer. The grand jury has been investigating the former presidential candidate since April 2009 for possible misuse of campaign funds — Edwards had mistress Rielle Hunter on his payroll — and indictment is now imminent. The Enquirer talked to one friend who revealed that John was “terrified”:

“While he believes he’s done nothing illegal in trying to hide his extramarital affair with Rielle and their daughter, he thinks the Feds are going to make an example of him.”

It hasn’t been a great winter for the former presidential candidate. On the one hand, there has been Andrew Young, former Edwards aide and admitted accomplice in concealing the affair, stepping forward with a tell-all memoir of campaign trail debauchery and details of an Edwards-Hunter sex tape. On the other, recently-separated-from wife Elizabeth has threatened to sue Young for “alienation of affection,” while friends told the Enquirer that Edwards beat her in a marriage-ending fight.

Full Story: John Edwards INDICTED? Grand Jury Set To Indict Edwards, National Enquirer Reports.

Post-Katrina Shootings by Police Get Federal Attention

Federal agents have broadened their investigation of the New Orleans Police Department and are now looking into three post-Katrina police shootings detailed in a news series published by ProPublica, The Times-Picayune and the PBS series “Frontline” in December.

Assistant Superintendent Marlon Defillo of the NOPD confirmed that the FBI has subpoenaed documents relating to the shootings—which included police investigative reports, as well as other related files—in the past two months.

Separately, two independent experts who reviewed the newly available autopsy report of Matthew McDonald, one of those shot, said it raised fresh questions about the shooting and its circumstances. One expert said the man, a 41-year-old drifter from Connecticut, may have been hit by the single round that killed him as he lay prone on the ground. The other expert criticized efforts to gather evidence, calling the New Orleans coroner’s forensic work in the case “incomplete at best.”

Full Story: Post-Katrina Shootings by Police Get Federal Attention – ProPublica.

NY D.A. Clears Brooklyn ACORN: ‘No Criminality’

NY Daily News law enforcement source: ‘They edited the tape to meet their agenda’…

Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : NY D.A. Clears Brooklyn ACORN: ‘No Criminality’.

New Evidence Surfaces in New Orleans Killings

Early one morning in June 2006, when this city was only half full and in many areas still desolate from the flooding after Hurricane Katrina, five men were shot to death in an S.U.V. in the Central City neighborhood.

The killings sent the city into an uproar, galvanizing politicians, who spoke of “Hurricane Crime,” and adding urgency to the city’s request for hundreds of Louisiana National Guard soldiers to return and patrol the streets.

The criminal case that followed was just as incendiary in many ways, and it ended this past August with a death penalty verdict, the first in a dozen years in a New Orleans murder case, against a 23-year-old man named Michael Anderson. It was a trophy verdict for the district attorney’s office, a sign that law and order had triumphed in one of the city’s most heinous and high-profile crimes.

Full Story: New Evidence Surfaces in New Orleans Killings – NYTimes.com.

OPS: Anyone want to bet that the DOJ kills this quick?

Jay DeVaughn, Denver Man, Arrested For Mailing White Powder To Congressmen

An employee of a Denver-area community college is accused of sending threatening letters with white powder to members of Congress, the Argentine embassy in Washington, and Argentine consulates in Los Angeles and New York.

Jay DeVaughn of Denver was advised Monday that he faces a charge of mailing threatening communications.

The Community College of Aurora says the 41-year-old is on unpaid leave.

Full Story: Jay DeVaughn, Denver Man, Arrested For Mailing White Powder To Congressmen.

Senate Torture Probe Uncovers Missing Emails

The Justice Department investigation into whether the authors of the George W. Bush-era “torture memos” were guilty of professional misconduct did not have full access to the emails used by those lawyers and by other key figures in the investigation, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former counsel to the Vice President David Addington.

The missing emails came to light during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday. Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, described the vanishing emails as “suspicious”.

He urged the sole witness before the committee, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, to investigate further to determine who deleted the emails and whether they could be recovered.

The email issue recalled the 2006 investigation into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys during the administration of President George W. Bush, and whether the White House pressured the Justice Department to cover up the details of the firings.

Full Story: U.S.: Senate Torture Probe Uncovers Missing Emails – IPS ipsnews.net.

The Case against Greenspan and Bernanke

Mike Whitney -

Is there enough evidence to indict Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan on charges that they aided and abetted the banks and other financial institutions in the sale of fraudulent loans to investors?

That depends on whether there is sufficient proof to show whether the two men KNEW that the nation’s lenders were engaged in large-scale predatory lending and chose to do nothing. As we’ll see, both Greenspan and Bernanke were warned repeatedly about the mortgage/derivatives scam by credible professionals and industry regulators, but failed to act.

Here’s a definition of “aided and abetted” from the ‘Lectric Law Library:

“The guilt of a person in a criminal case may be proved without evidence that he personally did every act involved in the commission of the crime charged. …if the acts or conduct of an agent, employee or other associate of the person are willfully directed or authorized by the person, or if the person aids and abets another person by willfully joining together with that person in the commission of a crime, then the law holds the person responsible for the conduct of that other person just as though the person had engaged in such conduct himself.

Full Story: The Case against Greenspan and Bernanke | The Smirking Chimp.

Sony, LG, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba accused of price fixing

U.S. Department of Justice has filed subpoenas against Samsung

A home electronics retail store has filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., LG Electronics Inc., Hitachi Ltd. and several subsidiaries, accusing the electronics manufacturers of colluding to fix prices in the U.S. optical disc drive (ODD) market.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, also claims the disc drive manufacturers used trade organization forums to meet and discuss agreements to keep prices of CD, DVD and Blu-ray drives in products like the Sony PlayStation 3 and PCs artificially high.

“When the price of ODD began to dip, the Defendants entered into an illegal agreement to prevent competitors from entering into the market and to keep prices at a supracompetitive level,” the lawsuit states.

Full Story: Sony, LG, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba accused of price fixing.

Toyota accused of ‘withholding documents’

A top US lawmaker has attacked Toyota for allegedly withholding documents it was legally required to hand over in lawsuits by people injured in accidents in the Japanese auto giant’s vehicles.

Toyota immediately denied the charge from Democratic Representative Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, that its actions betrayed “a systematic disregard for the law.”

On Friday, Towns cited documents obtained from a former Toyota in-house lawyer, Dimitrios Biller, as giving “evidence” of improper behavior including “routine violation of court discovery orders in litigation.”

Full Story: Toyota accused of ‘withholding documents’ – Yahoo! News.

Leahy Calls For Justice Department Investigation Into Missing John Yoo Emails

A long-awaited Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) report released last week found that lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee “had committed professional misconduct in writing legal opinions that authorized torture.” The OPR report revealed that many of Yoo’s emails had vanished:

[W]e were told that most of Yoo’s records had been deleted and were not recoverable. [Former Deputy AAG] Philbin’s email records from July 2002 through August 5, 2002 — the time period in which the Bybee Memo was completed and the Classified Bybee Memo (discussed below) was created — had also been deleted and were reportedly not recoverable.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) “called on Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the destruction of emails” and reported that “he destruction of these emails represents a blatant violation of the Federal Records Act (FRA) and may break criminal laws.”

Full Story: Think Progress » Leahy Calls For Justice Department Investigation Into Missing John Yoo Emails.

7th Circuit judges may testify in retrial over Web threats

Federal prosecutors are beefing up their case against Web radio talk show host Harold “Hal” Turner, charged with encouraging listeners to murder three federal appellate judges. In Turner’s retrial, which starts next week in Brooklyn, N.Y., prosecutors plan to call those judges to the stand.

Last week the prosecutors, who work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, overcame objections from Turner’s lawyer, Michael Orozco, and won permission to have the three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago provide testimony, according to documents filed in the case. The targets of Turner’s vitriol were Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook, Judge Richard Posner and Judge William Bauer, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago.

Turner was indicted last June after he posted Internet messages that said the judges “deserve to be killed” for their June 2 ruling allowing a Chicago handgun ban to stand. (The same ban is now being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court.) In a June 3 post, Turner provided the names, work addresses, phone numbers and photos of Easterbrook, Posner and Bauer. He called them “traitors” and said “their blood will replenish the tree of liberty.”

Full Story: 7th Circuit judges may testify in retrial over Web threats.

Mary Landrieu phone tampering case gets drawn out a bit

The U.S. attorney’s office in New Orleans has another month to decide what, if any, charges to bring against the four men arrested at the end of January in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office, including conservative activist James O’Keefe.

Louis Moore, the magistrate judge for the federal district court in New Orleans, agreed Wednesday to motions on behalf of the four to extend the time by which the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District must seek a felony indictment, press misdemeanor charges or drop the case.

Moore said the extension, which was unopposed by prosecutors, would offer the parties “additional time to conduct informal discussions and discovery and avoid or lessen additional proceedings,” suggesting the possibility of a plea deal that would likely spare the four from facing felony charges.

Full Story: Mary Landrieu phone tampering case gets drawn out a bit | – Louisiana Politics | State Legislature News – NOLA.com.

OPS:  Deja vu all over again. The Brown shirts keep getting away with it

Blackwater used shell company to defraud US government | Raw Story

Jeremy Scahill:

Blackwater set up a shell company to “defraud the government” by leading it to believe it wasn’t contracting with the notorious security contractor, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill says.

“In Afghanistan, they set up this shell company, Paravant, in collaboration with mammoth war giant Raytheon, which held the prime contract” for training Afghan security forces, Scahill told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

“And they set up this contract to try to hide the fact that the Pentagon was once again hiring Blackwater, this firm that’s been under investigation by practically every federal entity in the United States,” Scahill continued. “It’s a shell company that was used to essentially defraud the government by convincing the Army that Blackwater was not getting the contract, but this company Paravant.”

Full Story: Scahill: Blackwater used shell company to defraud US government | Raw Story.

Documents Reveal Anthem Blue Cross Manipulated Data to Justify Massive Rate Hike

Internal documents show one of the country’s largest for-profit health insurers, in an effort to maintain profits, manipulated data to justify a rate increase on individual premiums in California this year by as much as 39 percent.

At a closely watched Congressional hearing Wednesday, Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, blasted WellPoint Inc. executives for publicly stating that the country’s economic turmoil and rising health care costs was the reason its Anthem Blue Cross subsidiary intended to move forward with a massive rate increase in California when the company’s own documents say otherwise.

Waxman said the company “may have manipulated its actuarial assumptions to keep its medical loss ratio (MLR), a key measure reviewed by California regulators, ‘flat.’”

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Documents Reveal Anthem Blue Cross Manipulated Data to Justify Massive Rate Hike.

Supreme Court puts expiration date on ‘right to remain silent’ – latimes.com

The justices rule that a suspect who invokes that protection can be questioned again after 14 days

Reporting from Washington – A crime suspect who invokes his “right to remain silent” under the famous Miranda decision can be questioned again after 14 days, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. And if he freely agrees to talk then, his incriminatory statements can be used against him.

In a 9-0 decision in a Maryland child-abuse case, the high court overturned a rule set in 1981 that barred the police from questioning a suspect once he had asked to remain silent and to speak with a lawyer.

Known as the “Edwards rule,” it was intended to prevent investigators from “badgering” a suspect who was held in jail after he had invoked his Miranda rights. In some cases, police had awakened a suspect in the middle of the night and asked him again to waive his rights and to admit to a crime.

Full Story: Supreme Court puts expiration date on ‘right to remain silent’ – latimes.com.

Bribes Let Tomato Vendor Sell Tainted Food

Robert Watson, a top ingredient buyer for Kraft Foods, needed $20,000 to pay his taxes. So he called a broker for a California tomato processor that for years had been paying him bribes to get its products into Kraft’s plants.

The check would soon be in the mail, the broker promised. “We’ll have to deduct it out of your commissions as we move forward,” he said, using a euphemism for bribes.

Days later, federal agents descended on Kraft’s offices near Chicago and confronted Mr. Watson. He admitted his role in a bribery scheme that has laid bare a startling vein of corruption in the food industry. And because the scheme also involved millions of pounds of tomato products with high levels of mold or other defects, the case has raised serious questions about how well food manufacturers safeguard the quality of their ingredients.

Full Story: Bribes Let Tomato Vendor Sell Tainted Food | Business | TheLedger.com.

Bank Of America Sued For Unwanted ‘Privacy Assist’ Service

A California man is suing Bank of America over monthly charges for a credit monitoring service he says he never wanted, didn’t sign up for, and couldn’t get rid of even after complaining to the bank. Now, in a class action lawsuit filed in federal court, he wants his money back.

Steven Chavez first noticed charges of $17.99 for the service, called “Privacy Assist,” on his bank account around September 2009. According to the lawsuit, when he called Bank of America to complain a week later, he was told that Privacy Assist was not affiliated with the bank. Complaining to Privacy Assist directly didn’t work, either; he continued to see the fees and also received letters warning of “suspicious activity” on his account. Indeed.

Even worse, the suit alleges, the automatic withdrawals for the service “drained his account and caused him to incur several overdraft fees from Bank of America.”

Full Story: Bank Of America Sued For Unwanted ‘Privacy Assist’ Service.

‘Tort Reform’ Means Less Accountability For The Medical Profession

What the association left out, however, was an earlier statement by the Congressional Budget Office putting that amount in context: Limiting malpractice payouts “would reduce total national health care spending by about 0.5 percent……The CBO has also concluded that “so-called defensive medicine may be motivated less by liability concerns than by the income it generates for physicians

President Obama is widely expected to toss Republicans a bone at Thursday’s health care summit, by publicly embracing what’s known as “tort reform.”

By tort reform, Republicans and medical professionals mean caps on non-economic punitive damages in lawsuits where patients or their survivors have proven in court that they were the victims of gross medical malpractice.

Proponents have long dominated the framing of the issue with their arguments that tort reform will lead to lower health care costs and will free doctors from practicing defensive medicine. But that narrative is flawed. And it completely neglects how punitive damages essentially the only way that patients have of holding medical professionals and organizations accountable when they kill, maim or injure people through their negligence, ignorance or even malice.

Full Story: ‘Tort Reform’ Means Less Accountability For The Medical Profession.

FBI raid 3 Toyota suppliers

THE US offices of three Toyota suppliers were raided by the FBI in what one company said was an antitrust investigation, officials said on Wednesday.

News of the raid came as Toyota president Akio Toyoda was being grilled by US lawmakers about auto defects which have led to accidents, deaths and the recall of some 8.5 million vehicles worldwide.

Warrants were served late Tuesday on the Detroit-area offices of three Japanese parts suppliers: Denso International America, Yazaki North America and Tokai Rika, also known as Tram, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

Full Story: FBI raid 3 Toyota suppliers.

Police supervisor pleads guilty in Danziger Bridge probe; plea deal blows case wide open

Police supervisor pleads guilty in Danziger Bridge probe; plea deal blows case wide open

Retired New Orleans police Lt. Michael Lohman has pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Danziger Bridge shootings, which left two people dead and four others injured after police fired on a group of civilians trapped in the submerged city days after Hurricane Katrina.

Two men — Ronald Madison, 40, who was mentally challenged, and James Brissette, 19 — were killed. The survivors included a husband and wife, their two teenage children and a nephew.

Lohman, who helped orchestrate an elaborate cover-up of the crime, supervised the investigation and was at the scene on Sept. 4, 2005, according to an 11-page bill of information unsealed today.

Full Story: Police supervisor pleads guilty in Danziger Bridge probe; plea deal blows case wide open | – NOLA.com.

U.S.: Gov’t Sued Over Cell Phone Tracking

If you are a U.S. resident who owns a cell phone, you should care about the outcome of a court case that “could well decide whether the government can use your cell phone to track you – even if it hasn’t shown probable cause to believe it will turn up evidence of a crime.”

That was the warning issued to the public by several major civil liberties organisations as they appeared in federal court in Philadelphia to argue for more privacy protections in the use of cell phones as tracking devices by law enforcement agents.

The case is at the heart of the constitutional crisis now being played out in the U.S. federal court. Civil liberties groups are asking the court to require that the government show probable cause before it can track your whereabouts.

Full Story: U.S.: Gov’t Sued Over Cell Phone Tracking.

US court urged to define ‘material support’ for terrorism

The US Supreme Court was urged Tuesday to help pin down the definition of “providing material support to terrorism,” a charge widely used in the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In a case brought by both the government and a rights group, the Humanitarian Law Project, the nine justices were called upon to define what kind of support can be included in such a broad allegation.

The justices however appeared to be just as divided as the lawyers for both sides.

An appeals court has already ruled that providing “personnel” could be used to bring such charges, whereas “training” and “services” were considered too vague. On a fourth term included in the charge of providing “expert advice or assistance,” the appeals court returned a split decision.

Full Story: US court urged to define ‘material support’ for terrorism – Yahoo! News.

Italian court convicts 3 Google executives of privacy violations

Receive suspended six-month sentence for allowing video of autistic boy being abused to be posted online

Three Google executives were convicted of privacy violations Wednesday in Italy because bullies posted a video online of an autistic boy being abused — a case closely watched due to its implications for Internet freedom.

In the first such criminal trial of its kind, Judge Oscar Magi sentenced the three to a six-month suspended sentence and absolved them of defamation charges. A fourth defendant, charged only with defamation, was acquitted.

Google called the decision “astonishing” and said it would appeal.

Full Story: Italian court convicts 3 Google executives of privacy violations – The Globe and Mail.

CIA briefed 68 lawmakers on interrogation program

CIA officials briefed at least 68 U.S. lawmakers between 2001 and 2007 on enhanced interrogation methods like simulated drowning that were being considered or used against captured al Qaeda members, according to declassified documents released on Tuesday.

The once-secret CIA papers, obtained in a lawsuit by the conservative legal foundation Judicial Watch, shed new light on which lawmakers knew the details of the controversial interrogation program and when.

Human rights groups have argued the harsh interrogation methods were forms of torture and violated U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions on treatment of war prisoners. President Barack Obama banned the techniques shortly after taking office in January 2009.

The declassified memos show the program began after the capture of al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian who was the group’s operations director, in the city of Faisalabad in central Pakistan in March 2002.

Full Story: CIA briefed 68 lawmakers on interrogation program | Reuters.

That answers why there will NEVER be an investigation

Pfizer’s Ghostiwritten Journal Articles

But one look at the US National Library of Medicine database shows the bogus, ghostwritten papers Wyeth (now Pfizer) planted in medical journals in a ghostwriting scandal that reached Congress last year, still stand unretracted.

“Is there an association between hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer?” asks an unretracted article in the Journal of Women’s Health, 1998 Dec;7(10):1231-46–a question a fourth grader could answer.

The “author” William T. Creasman, MD, neither wrote or initiated the article but was suggested by Jeff Solomon of Wyeth, according to documents posted on the University of California, San Francisco’s Drug Industry Document Archive (Dida) http://dida.library.ucsf.edu.
Full Story: Scoop: Pfizer’s Ghostiwritten Journal Articles.

Docs: Toyota Surges Related to [Software]

CBS News Exclusive: Internal Document Shows Software Redesigned in 2005;  Company Denies Fix Was for Unintended Acceleration

A federal grand jury in New York has subpoenaed documents related to the sudden acceleration problems on some of Toyota’s cars.

Toyota’s president will testify before Congress Wednesday. He’ll likely be asked about an internal company memo that shows the car manufacturer saved $100 million in 2007 by persuading government regulators to narrow their investigation. The regulators agreed to just a limited recall.

Congress already has thousands of pages of Toyota documents to sift through, but CBS News obtained one internal document that could be devastating to Toyota’s claims that electronics aren’t at issue.

Full Story: Docs: Toyota Surges Related to Electronics – CBS News.

OPS:  2005 is apparently BS. US authorities knew about Toyota acceleration problem in 2003

School Laptop Spying Case Goes to Court

A suburban Philadelphia school district has agreed to preserve webcam evidence on student laptops as a lawsuit alleges that officials spied on students at home. (Feb. 22)

Hartmann: Why Isn’t Cheney In Jail ?

CPAC Washington Thom Hartmann streaming live segment on war criminal Cheney whilst Cheney & Liz Cheney are right behind him @ CPAC.

New Evidence of Toyota Acceleration Problems May Help Imprisoned Minnesota Toyota Camry Owner

Jury Did Not Believe Driver Who Claimed He Could Not Stop Car That Killed Three

Emerging evidence of flaws in Toyotas could help free a Minnesota man who was convicted of vehicular homicide despite his claims the brakes did not work as his Camry suddenly accelerated and slammed into another car, killing three members of one family.

“There is a terrible wrong here, and there is an innocent man in prison,” said Brent Schafer, the lawyer for 32-year of Koua Fong Lee, a Hmong refugee from Laos serving an eight-year sentence in a Minnesota state prison.

The county prosecutor, Susan Gaertner, said she welcomed an inspection of the Toyota “to see if there is any possibility that this particular car had mechanical difficulties that would lead to sudden acceleration syndrome.”

Full Story: New Evidence of Toyota Acceleration Problems May Help Imprisoned Minnesota Toyota Camry Owner – ABC News.

At Inquiries Start, Lawmakers’ Ties to Toyota Are Questioned

As Congress prepares to open hearings on Tuesday into Toyota’s rash of safety problems, government watchdog groups are questioning whether the deep financial and personal connections between lawmakers and the carmaker could taint the inquiries.

Toyota, as both a major employer in the United States and a major lobbying force in Washington, has staked out a position in the capital unlike almost any other foreign corporation, with close ties to a number of the lawmakers who will lead inquiries into the safety defects that have led to the recall of more than eight million vehicles.

Federal disclosure records show that Toyota, with 31 lobbyists in Washington last year, has spent nearly $25 million on federal regulatory and legislative lobbying matters in the last five years, far more than any other foreign automaker. That amount is certain to grow this year, with Toyota in full damage-control mode in the face of myriad federal investigations.

Full Story: At Inquiries Start, Lawmakers’ Ties to Toyota Are Questioned – NYTimes.com.

Cities Shortening Yellow Traffic Lights for Deadly Profit

Some cities have been shortening yellow lights to nab drivers with a ticket. But studies show that they’re raking in the bucks at the expense of public safety.

Reeling through a 21st century addicted to technology and surveillance, citizens may be too overwhelmed to complain of increasing cameras popping up atop red lights at intersections across the nation, most of which are designed to catch them breaking traffic laws. That is, until they’re caught in those intersections as the yellow lights unexpectedly change, and cars in front and back of them hit the brakes or punch the gas to avoid tickets. And when they find out those cameras and lights are being gamed, sometimes lethally, in the pursuit of quick profit? Then they get mad, and maybe even, for being used as motorized money pits.

“With all of the stories we hear on a daily basis, there is little doubt that the desire for ticket revenue trumps safety concerns,” Gary Biller, executive director of the National Motorists Association told AlterNet. “A quick current example is California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who a few weeks ago proposed state budget including a proposal to add speed sensors to 500 existing red-light cameras. The reason? Safety wasn’t mentioned, but an expected additional annual revenue of $338 million was.”

Full Story: Cities Shortening Yellow Traffic Lights for Deadly Profit | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

Anthem Blue Cross: State Regulator Finds More Than 700 Violations

California’s insurance regulator said Monday his office has found more than 700 violations by the state’s largest for-profit health insurer, including late payment of claims, giving misleading information to consumers and failing to cooperate with regulators.

Anthem Blue Cross faces a maximum $10,000 penalty for each violation, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said. His office said the violations occurred between 2006 and 2009.

Kristin Binns, a spokeswoman for the insurer, said the company takes the allegations seriously, though she noted they represent a fraction of the company’s millions of claims.

Full Story: Anthem Blue Cross: State Regulator Finds More Than 700 Violations.

Feds Open Criminal Probe into Toyota

Federal Grand Jury Subpoenas Documents related to Japanese Automaker’s Safety Issues

Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Toyota’s safety problems, the company acknowledged Monday as it prepared to answer questions on Capitol Hill about its widespread vehicle recalls.

The Japanese automaker said it received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in New York seeking documents related to unintended acceleration in its vehicles and the braking system of its Prius hybrid.

Toyota also said it received a subpoena and a voluntary document request from the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is seeking documents related to unintended acceleration as well as to its disclosure policies and practices, Toyota said.

Full Story: Feds Open Criminal Probe into Toyota – CBS News.