G-20 Police excoriated in report

About two years ago, the city of Toronto was host of a G-20 summit meeting of international leaders.  Police were tasked with protecting the glitterati of the global elite from protesters, malcontents, and violent anarchists bent on confrontation.  As far as most Canadians were concerned the entire event was a fiasco.  More than a billion dollars was spent on law enforcement, the entire city was shutdown at the beginning of the tourist season, hundreds of ordinary citizens, protesters, and journalists were harassed, brutally attacked by law enforcement, and subsequently jailed.

Numerous stories of police malfeasance and unconstitutional actions by the state against lawful citizens were reported in the media.

Over the past month a series of reports on police conduct during the G-20 meeting have been released.  The first report issued by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP (CPC) found that it saw no indication that the RCMP acted "inappropriately" or as "agents provocateurs."  This report however, was only concerned with actions associated directly with the RCMP, Canada's national police force, and not with the nebulous complaints and behavior of the entire security apparatus on display that week.  The report did fault the RCMP in participating in the inappropriate "kettling" of protesters and ordinary citizens.  The process of "kettling" is a means in which police eliminate all egress routes for persons, as is portrayed in the picture above, and then extract detainees on a singular basis.  The sophistication of the mass arrests was also subject to ridicule in a specific instance where the RCMP arrested five persons, "two of whom turned out to be undercover Toronto police officers".

The second report that came out shortly after, by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), was scathing in its denunciation of police misconduct. The report found that the planning for the event was poorly conceptualized and concluded that:

many of the arrests of peaceful demonstrators were illegal — without proper warrants or reasonable grounds — and that the conditions and treatment of prisoners inside a makeshift detention centre were "improper and unnecessary"

The report expounds the fact the some officers deliberately ignored the Charter rights of citizens, used excessive force, and took “unreasonable, unnecessary and unlawful” actions against the same people they took an oath to protect and serve.

During the period of June 25 and June 27, police stop-and-search exercises in downtown Toronto increased exponentially.  The report determined that the police had overstepped their authority.  In an example of the latter, a metro Toronto transit worker was assaulted as he was on his way to work, arrested, and detained for 29 hours.  Mr. Elroy Yau is currently seeking "over $3 million, claiming his charter rights were violated during the G20 summit."

In another incident, which I discussed in my original blog on this topic, two Toronto police sergeants face disciplinary hearings after they were found to have illegally arrested journalists during the G-20 summit and engaged in a homophobic tirade.

In the case of [Ryan] Mitchell, the review found that the officers used excessive force in his arrest. But it couldn't substantiate Mitchell's allegation that during his arrest, an officer said: "I'm going to love shoving this baton up your ass."

The Toronto Star newspaper elaborates on the incident.

It also found [Sgt. Douglas] Rose and another officer, Sgt. Michael Ferry, unlawfully arrested [Lisa] Walter and her colleague, Ryan Mitchell, on the afternoon of the final day of the G20 summit. And that both officers used “unnecessary force” when arresting Mitchell, who said he was tackled to the ground and put into a headlock, his right arm twisted behind his back.

Video footage shot by bystanders contradicts the police officer's statements, where they claim that they arrested Mitchell for breach of the peace and that Mitchell was "struggling quite violently".

In the case of the second journalist, Lisa Walter, the review said there was insufficient evidence to substantiate that excessive force was used against her.  However, it did conclude that arresting officer Sgt. Rose was involved in "discreditable conduct" for using "profane, abusive or insulting language" regarding her sexuality.

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Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair was initially chastised in the editorial pages of Canadian newspapers for failing to accept the results of the OIPRD report.  The Globe and Mail stated that:

Police Chief Bill Blair has not apologized for his own failings and those of the officers under his command... Mr. Blair’s response, a grudging concession that things could have been handled better, is a surprising miscalculation. He needed to show he is in command. His attempt to soft-pedal the findings will not succeed in dampening criticism of police actions, or the calls for heads to roll. On the contrary, it will raise pressure on Mr. Blair and the Toronto Police Service, because it suggests they have learned little over the past two years.

In response to public outrage to the report's findings, Chief Blair took the "unusual step of appointing retired judges and former Crown attorneys to run the hearings, which are usually adjudicated by a fellow officer, to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest."

In the end, none of this had to happen if Prime Minster Harper hadn't prematurely decided to force upon Toronto this unnecessary, ill planned, and useless publicity stunt.  We the public are equally left bewildered towards Minster Tony Clement, who was found in an auditor general's report to be in clear breach of federal policies on accountability in the G-8/G-20 boondoggle.  Why is it that millions -and in this case over a billion dollars- can be found to be used for Ministerial photo-ops, but actual infrastructure spending on subways, new transit lines, highway repairs, and sewer upgrades, all of which the city needs, is disregarded and mocked by the Conservative "law and order" politicians we have today?

Fighting for the liberation of mankind: Egypt 2011

The "Hammer" sentenced to the Slammer!

Tom Delay, former Republican majority leader, was sentenced yesterday to three years imprisonment for his involvement "for illegally plotting to funnel corporate contributions to Texas legislative candidates." The Washington Post has a complete report on the sentence. Additional discussion of Republican party corruption can be found in these previous posts: here, here, and here.

Delay to the very end complained he was an innocent man, who was simply doing what everyone else was doing. Maybe that's the problem Tommy! All you assholes up on the hill are doing everything, but what you're supposed to be doing; which is being public servants engaged in running the government on behalf of the people and not the corporations.

Consider what Texas prosecutors had to say about Delay and Delay's request that he only be subject to probation and community service.

"Conservative values . . . are supposed to include obeying the laws of the state and taking personal responsibility," [Lead prosecutor Gary] Cobb said. If DeLay received only probation, Cobb warned the judge, he would "wear that probation" like Jesus and call himself a martyr.

A colleague, prosecutor Steve Brand, separately claimed at the hearing that probation would not only send the wrong message to other members of Congress, but would signal to working-class citizens that DeLay was treated lightly just because he wore "a suit and a tie." He said that DeLay's repeated claims in a recent memoir that he did nothing improper were "the equivalent of a 'screw you' to the system."

Delay's unethical behavior and institutional corruption serve as a reminder as to the true nature of the system of governance that exists in Washington.  Although his arrest, prosecution, and sentencing are a small victory against the forces of corruption.  The beast still lives on with venal politicians -on both sides of the aisle- doing the bidding of their paymasters, lobbyists flooding the hallways of congress, a revolving door between government officials and businesses, and an electoral system that is hijacked by both parties.

Sarah Palin, accomplice in mass murder!

Is this a reasonable graphic?  Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in an induced coma, didn't think so when asked about the above graphic issued by Palin, which implores Republican supporters to "reload" and keep pursuing their Democratic Party opponents.  In fact, the local Arizonan Republican candidate to oust Ms. Giffords did far more than Caribou Barbie.  He actually had a gun rally, where they said "Remove Gabrielle Giffords from office, shoot a fully automatic M-16." (ref. below)

Again, this type of inflammatory rhetoric isn't coming from fringe elements and outliers, this is coming from Party leaders, and no less than a former Vice-Presidential candidate of the USA herself.

If the above isn't sufficient to validate the depravity of these so-called Christians, consider what another Republican candidate and Tea party-backed congresswoman Michele Bachmann had to say on the subject:

Controversial Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said this weekend that she wants residents of her state "armed and dangerous" over President Barack Obama's plan to reduce global warming "because we need to fight back."

Whether these politicians believe what they are saying or are merely ginning up the facile minded dunces of the gun-totting "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" crowd is irrelevant to me.  They are inciting political violence to achieve political aims.  That and that alone is what the last decade has been all about: the war and struggle against violent extremism and terrorism!

Neither their words nor actions have been misconstrued by anyone to be merely metaphorical.   They themselves clearly defend their stance as a violent defense against Washingtonian corruption and capitulation to liberalism.  The only question left, is when is the Department of Justice going to start applying the laws uniformly and start sending Republicans to enjoy the warm sunshine and if Dick Cheney can be believed, excellent health care, in Guantanamo, Cuba?

Wachovia Bank accused of facilitating Ponzi scheme

In my books, Wachovia is a poster child for banking malfeasance and fraud.  In a previous post, I discussed Wachovia's involvement in laundering drug money from Mexican gangs.  This particular situation forced the bank to forfiet $110 million dollars in profit associated with the money laundering operations and pay another $50 million in fines to the government.

McClatchy press has an article, where one,

George Theodule lured hundreds of people to invest with him, using his heritage, a network of churches and his radio show as bait, the bank through which he operated his massive Ponzi scheme looked the other way, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court this month.

Between 2007 and 2008, Theodule manipulated investors from Florida, Georgia, and New Jersey to deposit money in so-called investment clubs.  The majority of those duped out of their investments were "working-class Haitian Americans who lost everything on the promise they would be guaranteed returns."

The lawsuits are pursued by a Miami based firm on behalf of Mr. Thoedule's clients.  The basis of their lawsuits is that Wachovia should have "determined that the transactions Theodule was conducting were inconsistent with any legitimate business."  The article points out that WaMu, Mr. Thoedule's former bank, discerned that his activities were not proper.

Federal regulations require banks to know the true identities of their customers and their customers' businesses, and banks must have systems in place to counter money laundering, said Kevin Mukri, spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The regulations are extensive...

Banks must verify the source of money coming into accounts, monitor transactions and determine if they are suspicious -- and report them and if necessary close down the accounts.

This isn't a matter of managerial oversight or the incompetence of employees within Wachovia.  This was standard operating procedure for this bank, which has shown on multiple occassions it was more than happy to deal with criminal enterprises as long as they were getting part of the action.

Casino Jack Movie Trailer

Airport Security: protecting the state's right to abuse you

According to news reports from ABC news' Austin, TX affiliate, a middle aged woman was assaulted by TSA employees, dragged out of Austin airport, and arrested by local police for refusing to allow the state to physically examine her breasts.  Unless I'm your physician or a law enforcement official who has probable cause to believe that you are engaged in a criminal act, groping a woman's breasts in public is considered sexual assault.  Under America's authoritarian regime, the state in the name of national security has the right to sexual assault any woman: your wife, mother, sister, or daughter, in the name of protecting the nation from overheated and dangerous tities.

Claire Hirschkind, fourth amendment rights proponent and the perpetrator of this heinous act of civil disobedience, stated to the press that the basis of her actions was that "she [was] a rape victim [sic] who has a pacemaker-type device implanted in her chest." The news report outlines the events:

Hirschkind was hoping to spend Christmas with friends in California, but she never made it past the security checkpoint.

"I can't go through because I have the equivalent of a pacemaker in me," she said.

Hirschkind said because of the device in her body, she was led to a female TSA employee and three Austin police officers. She says she was told she was going to be patted down.

"I turned to the police officer and said, 'I have given no due cause to give up my constitutional rights. You can wand me,'" and they said, 'No, you have to do this,'" she said.

Hirschkind agreed to the pat down, but on one condition.

"I told them, 'No, I'm not going to have my breasts felt,' and she said, 'Yes, you are,'" said Hirschkind.

When Hirschkind refused, she says that "the police actually pushed me to the floor, (and) handcuffed me. I was crying by then. They drug me 25 yards across the floor in front of the whole security."

I have been criticising the absolute uselessness of this entire "fear-mongering" and civil liberties denying exercise for sometime. In an earlier blog ("Will this scanner make my penis look bigger?"), I discussed the limited value to subjecting persons to invasive an qualitatively ineffective screening practices. Civil libertarians and consumer advocates have entered lawsuits and issued numerous complaints about the virtual strip-searching of innocent civilians (examples here, here, and here).  The ACLU has also been warning people, for much of the past year, as to the authoritarian over-reach of airport screening procedures:

what was formerly voluntary is now mandatory... this is the classic way that invasive technologies reach us: the authorities make them as palatable as possible to get the public to swallow them (they’ll say it’s "voluntary," or "applied only in certain cases," and tell you it’s chock-full of privacy protections). Then once they’re accepted, they become more and more intrusive in all the ways the ACLU always warns against.

Ralph Nader wrote to President Obama earlier in 2010, to ask him to consider the potential public health risks entailing the exposure of millions of citizens to ionizing radiation through the employment of not fully tested technology at the nation's airports.  He further elaborates on previous mistakes made by the government in pushing unsound technology:

It was wasteful enough for the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) to install the “puffer” security devices at U.S. airports and then withdraw them because they were found to be “unreliable” at a cost of $30 million to taxpayers. Now, a far larger amount of taxpayer money is being spent on these scanning devices by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which claims it is not obligated to observe the Administrative Procedures Act.

Prior to the American Thanksgiving holiday season, a national debate proceeded on the absurdity of the entire "junk-touching" process.  Even this limited outcropping of sensibility has been revealed to be little more than political posturing and an attempt by right-wing media to publicly embarrass the Obama administration.  Glenn Greenwald explains:

I have no doubt -- none -- that if there were a Republican President in office now, these very same people would not only be defending the TSA in the name of Staying Safe, but maligning critics as Privacy Fetishists, Civil Liberties Extremists, and Friends of The Terrorists... In the other corner, we have the Democrats, who -- in perfect unison -- would be screaming bloody murder about these methods and waving the Flag of Civil Liberties if George W. Bush were still President, as they would smell partisan advantage from doing so. But since it's Barack Obama who is President, they are -- with a few exceptions -- meekly raising concerns, though more often acquiescent to the TSA when they aren't outright supportive.

Of course, all this is to protect you the feeble minded and easily scared public.  In the original ABC article discussing Ms. Hirschkind, fellow passenger Emily Protine says it all, "It's unfortunate that that happened and she didn't get to fly home, but it makes me feel a little safer."  Safer from what?  Another ABC News story discusses the case of Houston businessman Farid Seif who accidentally brought a loaded gun in his carry on luggage and evaded detection.  Despite assurances that airport safety is better than ever, field research tells a completely different story.

Experts say every year since the September 11 attacks, federal agencies have conducted random, covert tests of airport security. A person briefed on the latest tests tells ABC News the failure rate approaches 70 percent at some major airports. Two weeks ago, TSA's new director said every test gun, bomb part or knife got past screeners at some airports.

How is that nearly ten years after Sept-11, people with firearms are walking aboard airplanes in their hand luggage?  Yet we are told that by radiating large segments of innocent people with ionizing radiation and subjecting people to invasive search practices will make us all safer.

Why WikiLeaks matters in this age of Chinese Democracy

In Spain, the WikiLeaks disclosures have dominated the news for three days now. The reporting has been led by the level-headed El País, with its nationwide competitor, Público, lagging only a bit behind. Attention has focused on three separate matters, each pending in the Spanish national security court, the Audiencia Nacional: the investigation into the 2003 death of a Spanish cameraman, José Cuoso, as a result of the mistaken shelling of Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel by a U.S. tank; an investigation into the torture of Spanish subjects held at Guantánamo; and a probe into the use of Spanish bases and airfields for extraordinary renditions flights, including the one which took Khaled El-Masri to Baghdad and then on to Afghanistan in 2003.

- Scott Horton, "The Madrid Cables"

Within the elite political classes and global mainstream media, there is a rising anger and palatable contempt of Wikileaks' periodic information dumps.  The information to date has not been on the scope of the Pentagon Papers. As Fareed Zakeria said in Time magazine, "The Pentagon papers revealed that the U.S. engaged in a systematic campaign to deceive the world and the American people and that its private actions were often the opposite of its stated public policy."  The information clearly has shown governments across the world, be that autocratic or supposedly democratic, to have engaged in deceit, deception, and propaganda to achieve their own statist objectives.  Many in the MSM yawn and say that everything posted has been known.  Perhaps, but the MSM certainly didn't do their job in actively verifying those known suppositions.  Others, like CNN's Wolf Blitzer are filled with rage that anyone would dare to willingly examine the state secrets of the American Empire without first getting the state's tacit approval; like how him and all the other "respectable" laggards of the MSM do.

One commentator has said, "The difference between WikiLeaks and other media organizations is that WikiLeaks is doing its job properly."  Statist leaning politicians and right-wing bloggers on the other hand, are issuing their typical belligerent and illogical fatwas on WikiLeaks.  Despite an obvious understanding of the role of freedom of the press and in the case of America, the first amendment of the US constitution, we have the following verbal flatulence.

• Newt Gingrich, former Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives stated that Juilan Assange of WikiLeaks, "deserves to be hunted and executed" and held as an "enemy combatant."
• Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told NBC's David Gregory Sunday that Assange is a terrorist.
• Caribou Barbie (aka Sarah Palin) suggested that Assange deserved the same treatment as terrorists and insurgents.
• Sen. Lieberman (I-CT) has asked American companies to not assist WikiLeaks disseminate the data.  To date, Amazon.com has pulled WikiLeaks from its servers, PayPal has stopped donations, and a Seattle based company Tableau Software removed data visualizations published by WikiLeaks to Tableau Public.
• Tom Flanagan, a professor at the University of Calgary and former advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, half-jokingly called for Mr. Obama to assassinate Mr. Assange.
• National Review's Jonah Goldberg asked, "Why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?"
• The same politicians who demanded that America illegally invade Iraq and permanently occupy Afghanistan, now claim that that WikiLeaks will have blood on its hands.

When the White House, the Pentagon, or any other agent of the government willingly passes "state secrets" to the press, such as in the lead-up to the Iraq war through the NY Times' Judith Miller or in the outing of CIA WMD investigator Valerie Plame, the same voices are silent.  When official court stenographer for the Bush White House, Bob Woodward, distributes state secrets in his books, in the way that teenage girls spread gossip, the mainstream press is agog with effuse praise.
 
On another level, the entire WikiLeaks criticism is typical of the fundamental contempt that the political and media class has for democracy, transparency, and government accountability. Governments do not want anyone to understand how incompetent and criminal they are in their everyday blunders. The American government has shown an extreme and persistent proclivity to lie to its citizens, to disseminate false information to the press and public, and conceal their criminal actions to further its own statist objectives. They and their paid cultural managers want a population engaged in the trivial and the irrelevant. A public that is aware and actively demanding accountability is an unacceptable situation for those leading the American Empire Project.

We are living in an age of Chinese Democracy, where the our imperious leaders tell us we are free to do as we are ordered.  The government continues to classify more and more of its activities behind the shield of state secrets, while maximizing its surveillance of innocent people through both legal and illegal means. This is why WikiLeaks matters. The lies that lead to the invasion of Vietnam, the falsehoods that attempted to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the evasion of responsibility surrounding the regulatory framework that lead to the Great Recession, the concealment of war crimes committed by US soldiers and CIA functionaries, the erosion of civil liberties and freedom... etc. are all reasons why whistle-blowers like WikiLeaks matter to functioning democracies.

Republican Corruption Tales...

In the past two weeks, two particular incidents have occurred that crystallizes the level of corruption and nepotism within the ranks of America's conservative party and big business interests.

The first involves the man who came to represent Republican corruption across America during the 2006 election; former Texas congressman and majority house leader Tom Delay. In 2005, Delay known on the Hill as "the hammer" for his harsh lobbying and legislative practices, was indicated for money-laundering and evading Texas anti-corruption laws. Two weeks ago, a jury in Austin, Texas, after 19-hours of deliberations found him guilty.

The NY Times reports on the case:

The verdict ends the latest chapter in a long legal battle that forced Mr. DeLay to step down. The trial also opened a window on the world of campaign financing, as jurors heard testimony about large contributions flowing to Mr. DeLay from corporations seeking to influence him, and about junkets to luxury resorts where the congressman would rub shoulders with lobbyists in return for donations.

Delay was initially charged for violating Texas campaign finance laws, but prosecutors realizing it would be impossible to convict him under these terms decided to prosecute him under a 1903 law, in which Texas prohibited corporations from giving money to candidates directly or indirectly. The details surrounding Mr. Delay participating in a transfer of money from private donors to his PAC to Texas candidates have never been in question.  What the jury determined though is that Delay actively engaged in flouting state laws to subvert democracy and manipulate state elections in favor of Republican candidates.

***

The second case involves another No.2 man amongst the conservative machine.  Charges of international corruption have been made against the man most responsible for the invasion of Iraq, the institution of torture as American foreign policy, and extending a regulatory framework that led to the greatest economic collapse in American history since the Great Depression; former Vice President Richard "go fuck yourself" Cheney!

Prior to becoming Dubya's VP, Cheney was Chairman of the Texas based energy services company Haliburton.  According to reports in the press, Cheney will be "indicted in a Nigerian bribery case as part of an investigation into an alleged $180 million bribery scandal."  The charges stem from the systemic bribery amongst Nigerian custom officials on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell Plc., one of the world's largest oil and gas company's.  The charges have furthermore, lead Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for him.

The likelihood of Dick Cheney being extradited to Nigeria or a foreign court is zero.  However, the fact remains that the world of tomorrow will be a very different place than it currently is and all the imperial might will not protect all of the members of the Bush junta into perpetuity for the domestic and international crimes they have committed.  Just as Henry Kissinger is unable to visit numerous countries for his involvement in multiple cases of state terrorism and criminality, so will these people be forced to limit their visits to states who have an independent judiciary that does not take matters such as, crimes against humanity lightly.

Glaxo Guilty of Selling Tainted and Defective Drugs

GlaxoSmithKline, a British pharmaceutical company, has been forced to pay $750 million (USD) "to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company for years knowingly sold contaminated baby ointment and an ineffective antidepressant."

The case was initiated by a former employee and whistle-blower who sought penalties against the company.  The NY Times elaborates on the nature of the crimes at their Puerto Rico facility:

This was GlaxoSmithKline’s premier manufacturing facility, producing $5.5 billion of product each year. But Ms. Eckard [the whistle-blower] soon discovered that quality control was a mess: the water system was contaminated; the air system allowed for cross-contamination between products; the warehouse was so overcrowded that rented vans were used for storage; the plant could not ensure the sterility of intravenous drugs for cancer; and pills of differing strengths were sometimes mixed in the same bottles.

Instead of heeding FDA warnings about QA/QC inadequacies of the facility and their own internal people's advice, GlaxoSmithKline either ignored and/or dismissed concerns.  Ms. Eckard, who was initially sent to lead "a team of 100 quality experts to fix problems," was stonewalled by management and then dismissed once she began to demand that products be recalled.  She will now earn for her part in the whistle-blower case, "$96 million from the federal government, and she will collect additional millions from states."

The circumstances surrounding this particular case are unlike previous situations. 

Nearly all previous cases against the industry involved illegal marketing. This is the first successful case ever to assert that a drug maker knowingly sold contaminated products.

Whereas in the past, big-pharma was tagged for deceptive marketing and off-label sales tactics, GSK engaged in the willful and knowing dissemination of tainted, ineffectual, and potentially dangerous drugs to the public. This failure of both GSK and the American government to regulate the company is another indictment of the laissez-faire deregulatory approach that highlighted the conservative dogma prevalent in the Bush years.  Furthermore, it decimates any specious arguments that importation of Canadian drugs are a threat to consumers.

Given that the profit sources for big-pharma are waning and that numerous lawsuits have been asserted against big-pharma for misleading patients and "defrauding federal and state governments" the entire health care bills pushed through by both the Bush and Obama administrations reeks of corruption.  These companies are clearly unable to actually provide quality drugs that benefit people. So instead of ramping up their R&D base to find new drugs, they fire scientists and engage in legislative trickery to extend the patent life of their already questionable drug performers and push onto the market products that are ineffective and potentially lethal.  These people are just evil.  Sick and dying people shouldn't have to worry about whether their doctor is in collusion with the drug company to push a useless product upon them.  Patients shouldn't have to worry if FDA "approved" medication is actually effective or instead going to make them more sick or even kill them.

Is this all America is about? Lying, cheating, and using the government to swindle dying people out of their life savings. While congress subsidizes big-pharma, agriculture corporations, the military-industrial state, and bails out the banking industry for the umpteenth time, what are you getting? Maybe you can find it in your bonus that comes in the form of less take home pay, less benefits, less social mobility, more hours working, or more of your taxes going to maintain the lifestyles of corporate lobbyists and the "masters of the universe"-crowd.

Wake up people!

Take the red pill people, and fucking wake up!

***

This blog has previously dissected and listed other areas of fraud and corruption by big-pharma:

• Novartis fined $422 Million
• Big-Pharma, perennial fraud-mongers
• Pfizer on eminant domain and corporate welfare (NY Times)
• The corruption of university bio-medical research (NY Times)

Foreclosure Fraud: Case Example from Florida

Despite protestations from Wall Street bankers and their crooked henchmen in congress, massive criminal fraud has been exposed in the ongoing housing foreclosure fiasco.  Major mortgage dealers, such as GMAC, Bank of America, and Ally Financial Inc. have stopped foreclosure proceedings across the country out of concern of their standing in the situation. As has been apparent for more than a year, much of the fine details surrounding exact ownership of individual homes is either incomplete or missing, given the widespread securitization process.  In order to evade actual laws, the banks simply used third party intermediaries to generate missing documentation and bogus signatures out of thin air.  To us layman that's called fraud.

In the following egregious case, Bank of America foreclosed on a Florida man's home in which the bank didn't even have a mortgage for!  As usual, the bank disregarded the customer's complaints for months until the local press became involved.  Once confronted with their incompetence and potential criminality, they then issued their standard "our mistake" line of bullshit.

If Americans don't demand that every person, banker, and entity involved in this massive fraud scheme are sent to jail and banned from ever working in the industry, then the country is no more a nation of laws than any other third world shit-hole bereft of a transparent system of government and independent judiciary.
 

Lauderdale man's home sold out from under him in foreclosure mistake
September 23, 2010
By Harriet Johnson Brackey, Sun Sentinel
 
When Jason Grodensky bought his modest Fort Lauderdale home in December, he paid cash. But seven months later, he was surprised to learn that Bank of America had foreclosed on the house, even though Grodensky did not have a mortgage.

Grodensky knew nothing about the foreclosure until July, when he learned that the title to his home had been transferred to a government-backed lender. "I feel like I'm hanging in the wind and I'm scared to death," said Grodensky. "How did some attorney put through a foreclosure illegally?"

Bank of America has acknowledged the error and will correct it at its own expense, said spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens.

Grodensky's story and other tales of foreclosure mistakes started popping up recently across South Florida. This week, GMAC Mortgage, one of the nation's largest mortgage servicers and a major mortgage lender, told real estate agents to stop evicting residents and suspend sales of properties that had been taken from homeowners in foreclosure. The company said it might have to "correct" some of its foreclosures, but was not halting those in process.

In Florida courts, which have been swamped with foreclosure cases for several years, mistakes "happen all the time," said foreclosure defense attorney Matt Weidner in St. Petersburg. "It's just not getting reported."

And the legal efforts required to resolve a foreclosure mistake are complicated. "Unwrapping it is like unwrapping Fort Knox," said Carol Asbury, a Fort Lauderdale foreclosure attorney. "It's very difficult."

The process is under increasing scrutiny, as Florida's court system struggles with the mountain of cases that have resulted from the housing crisis.

Grodensky said he spent months trying to figure out what happened but said his questions to Bank of America and to the law firm Florida Default Law Group that handled the foreclosure have not been answered. Florida Default Law Group could not be reached for comment, despite several attempts by phone and e-mail. Grodensky said he has filed a claim with his title insurance company, but that, too, has not resulted in any action.

It wasn't until last week, when Grodensky brought his problem to the attention of the Sun Sentinel, that it began to be resolved.

"It looks like it was a mistake in communication between us and the attorneys handling the foreclosure," said Bauwens.

Afghan Civilian Killings Amongst the Worst Yet

The NY Times has another article on the morass that has unfolded in Afghanistan, involving "a drug-addled Army unit"  that killed Afghan civilians for sport and posed "for pictures with victims and [took] body parts as trophies."

The article outlines the various prosecutions that have arisen from combat related conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade.

Some cases gained a measure of notoriety, including a rape and multiple killing in Iraq in 2006 that resulted in lengthy sentences for several soldiers. The Marine Corps, too, has dealt with high-profile cases, like the killing by Marines in 2005 of 24 Iraqis in Haditha — though prosecution efforts in that case largely collapsed.

But a case being heard before a military court at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle could surpass all that have come before in the two wars.

The case has received little coverage in the broader American press.  Human rights organizations and legal authorities publicly recognize that bringing forward successful prosecution of criminal acts committed by soldiers in conflict zones is difficult due to the often spartan evidence and limited cooperation from civilian populations.

“The large majority of civilian harm in both Iraq and Afghanistan takes place during legitimate military operations,” said Sarah Holewinksi, executive director of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict. “But because of very poor record keeping on the part of all the warring parties, we really don’t know who has been harmed, how many have been harmed and how they have been harmed.”

In this particular case though, video and photographic evidence created by the perpetrators and their own statements to military investigators strongly support the prosecution's claims. If convicted, it is certain that none of these men will ever see freedom again.

***

Previous blog entries that I've made on this subject are here, here, and here.

Natural Born Killers, Afghan War Vets

Newspapers across the globe are starting to elaborate on the outrageous criminal actions of the newest batch of natural born killers that the US military has produced.  Gruesome details of drug induced homicide, random killings, and the dismembering of Afghan civilians are coming to light.

The Boston Globe has a short summary in its editorial commentary:

SIX YEARS after the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, the Army has another heinous atrocity on its hands in Afghanistan. It has charged five soldiers from the 5th Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division with killing three innocent Afghan civilians earlier this year. Moreover, the Army has to answer for the fact that a member of the soldiers’ platoon contacted his father in the United States about his concerns after the first killing and the father did all he could to alert the Army to what had happened — to no avail. The Army must proceed with court hearings, but it should also investigate why the father’s initial warning did not set off an inquiry that could have kept the second and third killings from occurring.

I have already discussed this matter in two previous blog entries (here and here), in which I made comparisons to similar conduct by the Americans in Iraq and Vietnam, as well as previous atrocities committed by the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan.

The NY Times has an excerpt of a conversation, from a military interview of one of the main defendant's in the case, Specialist Jeremy N. Morlock:

“[Sgt. Calvin Gibbs] kind of placed me and Winfield off over here so we had a clean line of sight for this guy and, you know, he pulled out one of his grenades, an American grenade, popped it, throws the grenade, and tells me and Winfield: ‘All right, wax this guy. Kill this guy, kill this guy,’ ” Specialist Morlock said in the video.

Referring to the Afghan, the investigator asked: “Did you see him present any weapons? Was he aggressive toward you at all?”

Specialist Morlock replied: “No, not at all. Nothing. He wasn’t a threat.”

It's pretty obvious why only a few outlets within America have sought to present this story until this point.  The recklessness and complete lack of ethics in which these soldiers have acted is not an aberration; rather, it is a symptom of the rot and moral degeneracy that the Af-Pak/Iraq wars have instilled in America's newest recruits to active combat.  Does anyone actually believe that this whole war is somehow ever going to end well for either the people in Afghanistan or America?  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, said today that "America was never going to leave Afghanistan."  If that is true, the intentional and unintentional murder of Afghan civilians by US troops will never end either.

Penalizing Competence in the US Military

Tom Ricks has posted a couple of articles on Lt. Col Michael Mori.  According to Mori, the Pentagon was unhappy with his defense of an Australian enemy combatant at Guantanamo in 2003 and thus delayed his promotion for three years.

During the trial period, Mori said that the tribunal system was fundamentally flawed and that the government did not want to give his client a fair trial.  Marine Corps Times quotes Mori as stating to an interviewer, “I think his case has become political and … the first military commissions can’t be acquittals. They couldn’t afford that.” 

Today, he is now suing the Navy for what he claims is capricious treatment toward him for zealously executing his duty.

A followup commentary by a former JAG in Ricks' blog underlies the absolute nonsense that the military is the best setting for evaluating the criminality of foreign combatants.

I don't know anything about Mori's case, but I do know that if you want a long and successful career as an Army lawyer, you'd better remember "you are an Army officer first, and a defense counsel second." In other words, don't rock the boat. In fact, I would never advise a JAG to accept a defense counsel post if they hoped for a long career. Too much institutional bias against the necessary work that they are forced to do on behalf of their accused.

US Troops Harvesting Afghan Body Parts for Souvenirs

According to international newspapers US Army soldiers have been charged in the premeditated murder of Afghan civilians, the beating of one or more fellow soldiers, wrongfully taking and/or possessing photographs of dead bodies, and "keeping trophy body parts from Afghan corpses, including a skull and fingers!"

The soldiers, all from the same company in the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, are charged with a total of 76 crimes.

McClatchy Press elaborates on what they describe as "one of the most serious war crimes cases to emerge from the nine-year war in Afghanistan."

The accused soldiers are with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Wash., Some 3,700 soldiers in the brigade were deployed throughout southern Afghanistan, involved both in combat and in wide-ranging efforts to open schools, train Afghan forces, improve agriculture and take other measures to win the support of civilians.

Vietnam Redux?

This behaviour was also found in the Vietnam war.  The Toledo Blade, in 2003, ran a comprehensive series of reports about Tiger Force, a task force of the United States Army, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade (Separate), 101st Airborne Division.  Investigations conducted by journalist Michael Sallah into the actions of this group during 1967, resulted in the disclosure that members of the task force had engaged in "the routine practice of intentionally killing unarmed Vietnamese villagers including men, women, children, and elderly people" and collecting body parts, which they used in necklaces and personal talismans.  The Blade journalists won the Pulitzer Prize for their reporting.

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Is this what happens when soldiers know that torture and the liquidation of whole swaths of brown skinned people is acceptable?  Where is the outrage from the American population?  Where are the so-called moral leaders of America in proclaiming that this type of activity is not acceptable anywhere, anytime, period? From the very beginnings of the Afghan-Iraqi conflicts, more than just bad-apples have been observed.  Constant, predictable, and enduring levels of violence perpetrated by US forces on foreign populations has occurred: CIA contractors murdering detainees; torture at Guantanamo and black sites across the planet; the shocking and disturbing events at Abu Ghraib; the rape and murder of Iraqi women and children by US troops; helicopter gunships and automated drones liquidating unarmed civilians at weddings and villages in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

What type of victory can be salvaged in this moral wasteland?

Interesting People: Joumana Haddad

The title of the Guardian newspaper's (UK) article is Joumana Haddad: 'I live in a country that hates me.'

Ms. Joumana Haddad is a citizen of Lebanon, where she is an author, poet, editor of a local newspaper, and according to the article, a subversive element.   Assailants have taunted her with the threat of having acid being thrown in her face and murder, all for publishing and openly discussing matters of sexuality.  She edits the the cultural section of a newspaper that "contains serious reportage about polygamy, virginity and forced marriage, but also erotic stories and personal testimony."  Her most recent work, a book called I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of An Angry Arab Woman, contains in her words, a "vivid assertion of individuality, free speech, free choice and dignity against religious bigotry, prejudice and the herd instinct both within and outside the Arab world, and within and outside Islam."

The article expands on her upbringing, beliefs, and personal philosophy.  She describes the Islamists as:

"These backward-looking obscurantists" – Arab defenders of chastity – "are thieves. They are desecrators. They are murderers. And, on top of everything, they are stupid. And this is perhaps the cruelest blow."

It also describes her state of being:

She also knows, however, that she is damaged, rudderless in a profound way, and that one of the results is that she is attracted to transgression for transgression's sake. Her achievement is to tether that instinct to her cause and to enact her beliefs; her recklessness in doing so is brave and immensely admirable, but also makes one slightly worried for her. Behind the laughter and defiance lurks a sense of what her unconventional path might have cost.

Unlike the typical puffery that is found in most biographical articles, this one is introspective and multi-dimensional.  Ms. Haddad's experiences, life struggles, and philosophy provide insights into the difficulties faced in challenging established cultural norms in modern Middle East countries.

Escape From Toronto

This past week the city of Toronto, Canada's largest city, was the inauspicious site of the most recent G-20 meeting.  The purpose of this global gathering is to create a forum between the largest economic players to facilitate cooperation and consultation on matters pertaining to the international financial system.  There is no negotiated or established basis for the existence of this group within the scope of the international frameworks established after the Second World War.  In fact, its value given its record on managing global risk and producing long-term solutions since the crash of 2008, which has lead to this present depression, is dismal.

Approximately 19,000 law enforcement officers and an overall budget of $1-Billion dollars was utilized to transform, what has been described as one of the most cosmopolitan and livable cities in the world, into an open prison for its inhabitants.  An exclusive economic territory, called the Red Zone, was carved out of downtown Toronto and handed over to the aristocracy of the respective G-20 countries.  Previous G-20 meetings held in Washington DC, London, and Pittsburgh required a tenth of the cost and police manpower.

Over the weekend, despite the awesome display of manpower, weaponry, and tactical support, the para-military force that was occupying the city let a small group of hooligans destroy shop-fronts across Yonge St., Queen St., and other downtown thoroughfares.  As many as five police cruisers were either destroyed and/or incinerated by these same "black-block" anarchist groups.

Street vandals and hooligan masses are a constant fact in every major North American city having sporting franchises. As Linda McQuaig of the Toronto Star points out, the city of Montreal regularly contains and manages these lawless entities without spending billions or even millions, when the Canadiens (hockey team) are engaged in playoff matches. To secure the downtown area, police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up mobs, and arrested more than 900 persons.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said that police conduct during the meeting was "at times, disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive." The response to pockets of criminal activity was also "unprecedented, disproportionate and, at times, unconstitutional," the rights group said in a report. The abuses "exceeded the threshold of a few isolated incidents" and "they demand accountability," it said, joined by several rights groups including Amnesty International in calling for an inquiry into police conduct.

Steve Paikin, veteran journalist, described being threatened with arrest and then escorted out of the public melee by security forces. He live-tweeted that he witnessed an independent journalist working on behalf of The Guardian UK, that was assaulted, punched in both the stomach and back, then hauled away by police. The CBC states, the journalist "was arrested for breach of the peace and taken to the detention centre in the city's east end at midnight where he stayed until his release 18 hours later with no charges." Threats of sexual violence were allegedly made against at least two female journalists who were also assaulted and jailed by police forces.

Why did any of this need to occur? Why were the police forces unable to respond to a handful of hooligans, but felt it necessary to use excessive and clearly illegal measures against Canadian citizens, journalists, and even innocent by-standers that posed no immediate threat to anyone? It is my belief that this entire fiasco was managed from the beginning in order to justify the the exorbitant costs of this useless public relations event. The extraordinary level of force was furthermore meant as a warning to all people everywhere, that the state will not accept any sort of opposition to its economic policies, which operate at the behest of the mighty financial and corporate institutions that are at the center of global power.

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Additional links:

NYTimes "Police in Toronto Criticized for Treatment of Protesters, Many Peaceful"

Interview with Steve Paikin on what he observed

Torture me Slowly: Bush's Medical Experimentation Program

With each turn and further examination of the Bush Administration's institutional program of torture, the history becomes more surreal and terrifying.  According to a report issued by Physicians for Human Rights, the Bush Administration engaged in human experimentation with detainees across the globe in order to empirically assess the degree to which they could inflict pain on their prisoners without killing them.

Health professionals engaged in research on detainees, in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other international and domestic prohibitions against human subject research and experimentation. This research included monitoring the effects of abusive treatment, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation, in order to assess how far "enhanced interrogation techniques" could go and still be within the legal parameters and to guide the future application of the techniques.

James Risen, who exposed the existence of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program in 2006, has written another article in the NY Times outlining the findings of the PHR report.

The data collected by medical professionals from the interrogations of detainees allowed the C.I.A. to judge the emotional and physical impact of the techniques, helping the agency to “calibrate the level of pain experienced by detainees during interrogation, ostensibly to keep it from crossing the administration’s legal threshold of what it claimed constituted torture,” the report said. That meant that the medical professionals crossed the line from treating the detainees as patients to treating them as research subjects, the report asserted.

This is not a triviality.  Medical physicians and psychologists, as the report, the Times article, and numerous others have pointed out, are prohibited by national and international codes in conducting human experimentation without informed consent.  There are no persons undecided as to if the Nazi's, the Imperial Japanese, or the Khmer Rouge were not criminal when they engaged in these heinous actions.  However, these practices also remind us of America's own dark history of eugenics, experimentation on black citizens and prisoners throughout the 20th century, and military/CIA studies on large scale groups, which has all been well chronicled.  It is therefore no surprise when these sadists rear their ugly heads and perversely claim that torture (or "wink" something like it) is a necessity required to protect Americans from foreign enemies.  What has been done is inexcusible; it is a war crime.

The authors provide evidence about the government's meticulous studies:

The report cites agency guidelines for health professionals involved in interrogations requiring that they document each time a detainee was waterboarded, how long each waterboarding session lasted, how much water was applied, exactly how the water was applied and expelled, whether the detainees’ breathing passages were filled, and how each detainee looked between treatments.

Andrew Sullivan asks, "where was the experimentation taking place? How many doctors and psychologists were involved? Was there a separate facility, as at Bagram, for experimenting with torture? Did these experiments ever go wrong?"

Whereas, Glenn Greenwald asks what is President Obama doing to investigate, prosecute, and prevent this from occurring again?  The horrible answer is obvious; nothing.  Obama has decided that the country and more importantly the American Empire cannot afford to be hijacked by squabbles over petty matters like constitutional law or war crimes committed by the executive.  Rather, the nation must boldly ignore the slight inconveniences of the previous Bush administration and get on with the business of voting for the next American Idol.

Noam Chomsky Prevented from Entering Israel

According to news sources, this past Sunday Professor Noam Chomsky, MIT linguist and America's leading political dissident, was barred entry to the state of Israel.  The rational for his visit to Israel was to present a series of lectures at Bir Zeit University, a Palestinian university located in the occupied West Bank. 

The situation has brought strong criticisms of the state by Israeli legal experts and equal condemnation of Prof. Chomsky from right-wing politicians within Israel.  Boaz Okun, a commentator in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, describes it as, "a foolish act...[that] may mark the end of Israel as a law-abiding and freedom-loving state, or at least place a large question mark over this notion.” Carlos Strenger said in today's Haaretz newspaper,

Nobody in his right mind can claim that Chomsky represents a security threat to Israel. He’s 81 years old. He is not a specialist on armed insurrection, and he has never called for violence against Israel...

If anything, barring Chomsky gives ammunition to those who say that Israel is infringing on academic freedom in the Palestinian Authority, and that a boycott against its universities is therefore justified.

If Israel feels it can defend its actions morally and politically, it should not fear thinkers who criticize it. But Israel is beginning to tamper with free speech, and this is a truly worrying development.

If Israel feels it cannot survive free speech, then it is one step closer to flirting with totalitarianism. In fact, during his questioning, when Chomsky was asked whether he was ever denied entry into a country he said, yes: into Czechoslovakia in 1968, after the Russian invasion, when he wanted to visit his friend Dubcek. This puts Israel into very poor company indeed.

Given that Professor Chomsky is of Jewish heritage and had previously lived in an Israeli Kibbutz, during the 1950's, the entire event leaves an impression usually associated with ham-fisted authoritarian regimes. Due to Prof. Chomsky's international notoriety and known criticisms of Israel, which have not changed since his last visit to Israel in 1997, the office of Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu is backtracking and claiming the whole incident was a mistake by an over-zealous customs officer and all are free to visit Israel.  However, the facts seem to dispute this statement.  According to today's NY Times and other international dailies, the following persons who have at one time or another been vocal of Israeli policies, have been barred:

• Richard Falk, an American Jew and United Nations investigator of human rights in the Palestinian areas
• Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish American scholar who is a critic of Israel and its policies
• Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin, who is known as a critic of the Israeli-led blockade of Gaza
• Singer Yusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) was banned from a Peace Concert to be held in Israel
• Numerous non-violent peace activist groups and Palestinian Relief Agencies

Capital G Award: Big Pharma, Agents for Fraud

Fraud is one of big-Pharma’s most profitable endeavours. Just consider Pfizer Inc., which is the world’s largest pharmaceutical company with approximately $50 Billion in annual revenue. This past September (2009), BusinessWeek reported that Pfizer, “plead guilty to one felony count to settle federal criminal and civil charges that it illegally promoted its Bextra painkiller and other drugs.” The admission of guilt comes with the largest criminal fine ever imposed in US history; $2.3 Billion. Pfizer will pay a criminal fine of $1.195 Billion, $1 Billion to resolve civil claims, and will enter a corporate integrity agreement with US HHS, which will monitor the company’s future marketing activities.

The same BusinessWeek article summarizes the underlying rational for the 2009 fines:

The settlement stems from a four-year investigation instigated by six whistleblowers, who between them will receive $102 million from the federal fines. The complaint charged that Pfizer sent doctors on all-expense-paid trips to resorts, gave out free massages, and paid kickbacks to doctors, all to get them to prescribe its drugs for off-label uses. Although it is legal for physicians to write such prescriptions, and a common practice, companies are barred from actually promoting their drugs for purposes other than those that have won Food & Drug Administration approval.

Pfizer however, has proven itself to be a recalcitrant corporate criminal, with no less than four additional settlements since 2002 resulting in $513 million in fines.

This past March, Pfizer was found guilty by an eight person jury for “engaged in a racketeering conspiracy over a 10-year period” Evidence provided during the trial found that Pfizer’s own studies showed that the drug in question, Neurontin, was completely ineffective and had no more effect than a placebo; a fact which Pfizer never disclosed to either doctors or patients. The jury described the activities conducted by Pfizer as pure fraud, a violation of RICO statutes, and California’s Unfair Competition Law. Under RICO, the initial damages found by the jury -$47.36 million- were tripled; i.e. $142.1 million in total.

Lawyers for the plaintiff, Kaiser-Permanente of California, described the verdict as a “triumph for evidence-based medicine over marketing-based medicine.”

Pfizer isn’t alone it is morbid fascination with bilking the sick and pushing useless products onto desperate people. Since May 2004, Pfizer, Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and four other drug companies have paid a total of $7 Billion in fines and penalties. Six of the companies admitted in court that they marketed medicines for unapproved uses.

Eli Lilly, an American based pharmaceutical company with annual revenue of $20 Billion was charged and fined by the US government $1.42 Billion, for bribing doctors to prescribe a schizophrenia drug, Zyprexa, to elderly patients suffering from dementia, despite clinical trial data, which indicating a death rate of 31 people out of 1,184 participants (double the placebo rate). Bloomberg News describes that, “Lilly already had a criminal conviction for misbranding a drug when it broke the law again in promoting schizophrenia drug Zyprexa for off-label uses starting in 1999.”

In September 2007, New York-based Bristol-Myers paid $515 million -without admitting or denying wrongdoing- to federal and state governments in a civil lawsuit brought by the Justice Department.

Impact of Fines

The deterrence factor of imposing these fines, even those in the Billon dollar range, is in question. For example, Zyprexa provided Lilly with $36 Billion in revenue from 2000 to 2008. A fine of a Billion dollars does not offset the profits to be made from off-label marketing. Bloomberg further elaborates:

The $2.3 Billion in fines and penalties Pfizer paid for marketing Bextra and three other drugs cited in the Sept. 2 plea agreement for off-label uses amount to just 14 percent of its $16.8 Billion in revenue from selling those medicines from 2001 to 2008.

The total of $2.75 Billion Pfizer has paid in off-label penalties since 2004 is a little more than 1 percent of the company’s revenue of $245 Billion from 2004 to 2008.

Lon Schneider, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, states that Big-Pharma won’t stop pursuing this strategy of fraud and deceit. He argues that, “They’re drivers that knowingly speed. If stopped, they pay the fine, and then they do it again.”