Category: Corruption

Aleynikov Wants Deferred Prosecution

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Sergey Aleynikov is the programmer alleged to have taken Goldman Sachs’ high speed trading computer code, and his lawyers are asking prosecutors for a delayed prosecution, which basically means that if he keeps his nose clean, he gets a dismissal in a few years.

It sounds to me like he is going to get it, based on the refusal of Goldman Sachs to turn over his personnel file.

I’m wondering if this was a case where GS was worried about his competing with them in this market in his new job, and decided that filing a dodgy complaint with the FBI would shut him down, and then realized that if they turned over personnel records, that they would out themselves for some sort of crime.

Background here (or it will be when “the Google” fixes the blogger search function).

I’m Shocked, Shocked To Find That Gambling Is Going On In Here!

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(Cue Captain Renault)

So, Tom Ridge tells us now that Bush and His Evil Minions™ manipulated terror alerts for political gain.

But he vehemently denied any such effort while he was in office, and delayed his resignation as head of DHS until after the election.

He knew that it was wrong, but he kept his mouth shut, and now he writes a book, and it’s supposed to make everything hunky dory….It does not.

Mr. Ridge, as I stated only yesterday, I do not take the term “treason” lightly, but it appears to me that your complicity in this affair, when you knew that it was happening, and you know that it was wrong, and you knew that it was damaging to the country, comes awfully close to that term.

Another Milestone In the Annals of Stupid and Corrupt

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Just when I think that Bush and His Evil Minions™ have left me so jaded that they can no longer shock me with their corruption and incompetence, I discover that not only did the CIA have assassination teams, but they outsourced these teams to Blackwater, USA (now Xe):

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

This is not surprising. Blackwater’s mercenary division, Blackwater Security Consulting (BSC), was founded in 2002 with the obvious goal of cashing in on the paranoia bonanza post 911, and used that, along with the reputation earned by Eric Prince’s father as a reliable supporter of extreme right wing causes, to generate revenues.

Notwithstanding the caveat in the article:

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

I think that it’s more likely than not that there was a real intent by the CIA to hire outside contractors as hit-men.

If CIA paramilitary forces needed training, they could get that from any number of military organizations.

After all, as has been discovered in Iraq, Mercenaries are:

  • Not subject to US law.
  • Indemnified from the local law.
  • Not required to use the same reporting standards as government agents on either finance or notification.

So, the most incompetent and brutal of the mercenaries were chosen, probably on the basis of political payback for contributions and a shared Christo-Fascist world view, and the intent was to just turn them loose to kill people without the slightest indication of meaningful supervision.

Great googly moogly.

We need a special prosecutor now.

Giving Blowjobs to Corpses for Cheeseburgers Since 2005*

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Time Magazine notes that Tom Daschle, failed nominee for head of HHS, and regular talking head on the Sunday shows regarding healthcare, is also extremely well paid by the health insurance industry.

The problem with corruption in Washington is not campaign donations, though they are a bit of an issue, it is the fact that anyone who is in Congress knows that if he sucks up to corporate interests, he can get a 7 figure a year gig lobbying or giving strategy advice when they leave office.

*Yep, it’s another of Matt Taibbi’s bon mots.

A Claude Rains Moment

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I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!

The New York Times is reporting that all though the bailout process, Hank Paulson was consulting daily, and in some cases hourly, with Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, despite ethics requirements, and promises to Congress during his confirmation hearing, that would mandate that he keep the firm at arm’s length.

What’s more, he did not have similar conversations with any of the other investment firms.

It should be noted that many of these conversations were during the initial resolution of the AIG crisis, where the decision to honor what were clearly fraudulent credit default swap (CDS) contracts kept Goldman, and the rest of the Wall Street solvent, and out of government hands, protecting their high paying jobs.

Seriously, whether or not you want to go after Bush and His Evil Minions™ for things like torture, which we should, this is garden variety corruption, and not criminalizing policy, and should be pursued to the fullest extent of the law.

H/T The Big Picture.

Ezra Klein Dead Pool

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This is at least the 2nd time in as many months that Ezra Klein has called the Washington Post Editorial Page, and by extension it’s execrable editor Fred Hiatt for printing clearly dishonest garbage in a guest OP/ED.

In this case, it was Danielle Allen, who put forward the “death panel” dishonesty.

I figure that if honest evaluation of the accuracy and truthfulness of the Washington Post editorial pages becomes a regular feature of his blogging, Mr. Kline will soon be looking for a new job.

In would be nice if they instituted even the mildest fact checking in their editorial page, though this would necessarily make Charles Krauthammer’s articles read like this:

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The Chinese Have It Right

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Mark Ames is on it.

China, it seems, has put a number of millionaire investment types to death, while in the US, AIG gets another $242 million in bonuses:

China has executed two people for defrauding hundreds of investors out of millions of yuan in beauty parlour, cosmetics and property scams, crimes which the government described as a serious blow to social stability.

The two executed fraudsters, Du Yimin and Si Chaxian, “seriously damaged the country’s financial regulatory order and social stability”, the supreme people’s court ruled.

I don’t support the death penalty, but throwing these guys in a very dark hole for the rest of their lives, and ensuring that every dollar they have is forfeit, would be a very good thing.

Goldman Says Curbing Speculators May Disrupt Markets

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Well, isn’t that special, Goldman Sachs thinks that we as a society owe them the right to rape us:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the bank that makes the most money from commodities, fixed-income and currency trading, said attempts to curb speculation may be “disruptive” to energy markets.

“The role that is played by non-traditional participants such as index investors and other financial participants often has been mischaracterized,” Don Casturo, a Goldman Sachs managing director, said today at a Commodity Futures Trading Commission hearing in Washington.

Somehow, I think that your being hung from a lamp post when the revolution comes would be more disruptive.

Unfortunately, it appears that Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner and Lawrence “Never Right in the Real World” Summers largely agree.

Something Smells Very Fishy Here

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Remember that guy who allegedly stole Goldman Sach’s proprietary high speed trading software? You know, the stuff that ran on their co-located servers in the exchanges, and so as to engage in front-running the entire market?

Well, it looks like there is a no jail time deal for Sergey Aleynikov in the offing about this.

Goldman Sachs has apparently folded like a bunch of overcooked broccoli, after the defense got a ruling saying that said that they were to be given access to all relevant personnel records.

So, Goldman Sachs, that great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,* the folks who think, probably correctly, that they own the United States of America, acted like a prison bitch when confronted with the possibility of his reviewing his own personnel file???

Something is very wrong here.

What on earth are they hiding?

FWIW, any tips received will be kept in strictest confidence.

*Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.

U.S. Attorney Update

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Letter to Karl Rovecomplaining that US Attorney David Iglesias was “missing in action” during the 2002 and 2004 elections (see pic below), and Harriet Miers fingers Karl Rove calling for his dismissal for explicitly political reasons:

The House panel focused most of its attention on Iglesias, a rising star in New Mexico who came to displease his political patrons. Miers told investigators that Rove called her in September 2006, “agitated” about the slow pace of public corruption cases against Democrats and weak efforts to pursue voter-fraud cases in the state. In the call, Miers said, Rove described Iglesias as a “serious problem” and said he wanted “something done” about it. Miers testified that she called then-Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty to pass along the concerns.

But when you see clear evidence of corruption and a deliberate attempt to undermine the role of the Department of Justice as a non-political enforcer of laws, what do we get from Obama and Holder? Crickets.

We need a special prosecutor. Because until people are prosecuted for crap like this, it will continue.

The Casablanca Moment on the US Attorney Firings

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I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!

The House Judiciary Committee has released documents relating to the US Attorney firings, and they indicate that Bush and His Evil Minions™ were hip deep in the process, and that it they were pushing this for electoral advantage. (also here)

They specifically went after prosecutors who they felt did not pursue bogus politically motivated charges.

So, when is Barack Obama going to look into the matter of Don Siegelman?

L’Affaire Madoff About to Get Interesting

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Bernie Madoff’s former CFO, Frank DiPascali, has pled guilty to 10 counts regarding the Ponzi scheme. (see also here)

What makes this interesting is that he is “cooperating with authorities.”

Madoff simply pled guilty, and asked for nothing, and has refused to talk to prosecutors, which implies that he’s protecting someone, most likely his family, but DiPascali appears to be ready to dish dirt, which likely means that his wife Ruth, or his children who worked with him in the business, are going to have some interesting days ahead.

How is Hank Paulson Like Bernie Madoff?

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Well, Eric Falkenstein has the following take on Bernie Madoff:

Clearly, he understood phone calls are best. People who meticulously avoid email should not be trusted, because it is simply too calculating, as if they know they are regularly committing crimes. A phone conversation can always be disavowed, you just say you were talking about last weekend’s bar mitzvah.

And Felix Salmon, who has one of the sharpest minds in finance, notes a parallel with Hank Paulson in his exchange with Representative Jackie Speier:

Jackie Speier (D-Calif): Do you use email?

Hank Paulson: Do I use email? No, I don’t use it, personally.

JS: You don’t use it personally, or professionally?

HP: Yeah, I just don’t. So I’ve never used it for any business communications. Just never use it.

JS: So while you were secretary of the Treasury you never used email?

HP: No.

JS: How did you communicate with people?

HP: Telephone.

This does not prove that he is a dishonest person, though being a former head of Goldman Sachs certainly implies it, and as someone born in 1946, I understand how this might be a generational thing, but as someone who worked in finance, the value, and risks, of having a clear and incontrovertible copy of his discussions had to be clear to him.

If I were a betting man, I’d go with the fact that he knew that he broke the law regularly, and wanted deniability.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?!?!? Journalism on CNN!?!?!?!?

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CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez interviews medical tea-bagger* in chief Rick Scott, currently director of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, and went Mr. Sanchez actually did his homework:

  • He notes that Scott was fired as CEO of Columbia HCA for the largest case of Medicare fraud uncovered ever , with fines and restitution in excess of $1.7 billion.
  • He called Scott a “poster child for everything that is wrong with the greed that has hurt our healthcare system”.
  • Calls out Scott on his argument that that “everyone was doing it,” which argues for a public option.
  • Did his homework: When Scott claimed that the fines paid were after his tenure at Columbia HCA, Sanchez notes that the fines were for when Scott ran the firm.
  • Noted his history of shutting down hospitals in the area.

When TV media folks do their homework this way, they are either Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, or Journalists.

Somehow, it appears that CNN allowed a journalist to infiltrate their network. My congratulations to Rick Sanchez.

H/T Talking Points Memo.

*I mean that in the political sense, not the sexual act sense, and no offense toward people who engage in the sex act is intended.

This is a Sloppy Blowjob

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It appears that the mortgage industry has rolled out an industry “self regulation” group to forestall meaningful regulation by the government, and the New York Times presents it as the biggest move towards honesty since the birth of Jesus:

The Fair Mortgage Collaborative, a consortium of lenders, brokers and mortgage technology providers, made its debut in June with financial backing from the Ford Foundation, among other groups. Its purpose, the organizers say, is to make only those loans in a borrower’s best interest and to identify and certify the lenders that adhere to certain strict standards.

Because self regulation has worked so f%$#ing well in the past.

Bob Tedeschi, there is some semen on the corner of your mouth.

A Little Bit of Local Corruption

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Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon is going on trial November 9 for theft and perjury.

I will have to say that this case, which is about the disposition of Best Buy gift cards, and failure to disclose gifts, is really kind of embarrassing.

In New Jersey, you have wide spread corruption involving envelopes of cash and the sale of human organs, and the best that Baltimore can manage is …… purloined gift cards????

I mean really, this is kind of lame…..I understand that corruption is evil, and needs to be weeded out, but this is just lame.

Also, I understand the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing, but she has been repeatedly reprimanded by the ethics commission repeatedly, over a period of years for doing things like employing relatives, so I am disinclined to believe defense counsel.