Visit Counter

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Look who's talking about "coming clean"




IRS Urges Americans: Come Clean Now, Before We Read Panama Papers







What a f-ing joke!

----------------------------------------------------

IRS and Treasury officials have taken part in two global meetings on the Panama Papers to plan how to use the huge trove of leaked documents to catch criminals, U.S. officials revealed to NBC News.

In a statement to NBC News, the IRS acknowledged participating in a "special project meeting" of JITSIC, the Joint International Tax Shelter Information and Collaboration network, with their counterparts from around the world in Paris last week.

The IRS also encouraged any U.S. citizens and companies that may have money in offshore accounts to contact the agency now before any possible illegal activity on their part is identified.

According to media reports, the data about more than 214,000 offshore companies listed by Panamanian law firm contain information on potentially thousands of U.S. citizens and firms that have at least an indirect connection to offshore accounts affiliated with Mossack Fonseca.







Share/Bookmark

Monday, April 18, 2016

Saudis Warn US: Pass 9/11 Lawsuit Bill and We'll Sell American Assets




I addressed this in a previous post but my blood is still boiling.




Where do you suppose the Saudi's got $750 billion to buy our treasury securities?

Hope the day will come when electric cars become truly viable and these ragheads can then choke on their sand and oil. This is a wake-up call people... fracking and the Keystone pipeline are imperative to our nation's security!

Oh, and Barry's response was to release 9 more Gitmo prisoners to the Saudi's. He's set to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. He'll probably give the Saudi foreign minister the Larry Sinclair "special" before he leaves.

------------------------------------------




Saudi Arabia warned the U.S. that it will sell American assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars if Congress passes a bill allowing the kingdom to be held accountable for any role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir said last month that the kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets before they could be frozen by the courts if the bill is passed, The New York Times reported.

The Senate bill establishes that a 1976 law giving foreign nations immunity from U.S. lawsuits should not apply in cases where nations have a role in terrorist attacks that kill Americans on U.S. soil.

The Obama administration has been lobbying against the bipartisan bill, saying it could put Americans at legal risk overseas. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sander and Hillary Clinton have publicly voiced support for the bill ahead of Tuesday's primary election.

Obama is set to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.

Efforts by families of 9/11 victims to hold members of the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks, and charities liable for charges of financial support for terrorism have largely failed because of the 1976 law.

An unnamed source close to the government said al-Jubeir warned against the bill but didn’t specify what action would be taken, The Financial Times reported.

“The mood is bad,” a source said. “There is a sense that after all the co-operation on counter-terrorism, America just wants to get their hands on the money.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier this year that the legislation could "expose the United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and create a terrible precedent," CNN reported.

The Saudi Arabia government hasn’t been formally implicated in the 9/11 attacks, though suspicions persist. 

Some, including Saudi officials, have called for 28 redacted pages of the 9/11 Commission Report to be released, CNN reported. The pages have so far been kept confidential to protect the government’s ability to gather intelligence on terrorist suspects.

Edwin M. Truman, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told The New York Times that al-Jubeir’s warning is likely an empty threat. 

“The only way they could punish us is by punishing themselves,” he said, noting that selling off the assets would be difficult and could cause global economic turmoil.






Share/Bookmark

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Notorious "slaver" Andrew Jackson to be removed from the $20 bill and replaced by a prominent woman






Well... if this keeps up both George W and Thomas J are going the way of the Dodo bird since they both owned slaves. How can you apply the same standards of today with the norm of the 18th and 19th-century?

I'll give you an example:

Bathing attire in the 1800's 


Today



--------------------------------------------------



Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will announce this week that Alexander Hamilton will remain on the $10 bill and Andrew Jackson will be pushed off the $20 note in favor of a woman from American history, CNN said Saturday.

The announcement will come around a year after an online petition called for Jackson to be replaced with a woman, and ten months after Lew announced he wanted to replace Hamilton instead.

But support for the Founding Father to stay picked up steam thanks to the hit Broadway musical 'Hamilton', and now a government source tells CNN that Jackson will get the push instead.

 

Trailing off: Andrew Jackson is to be replaced on the $20 bill with a woman representing the fight for racial equality, an insider source told CNN. The backs of the $5 and $10 bills will also be changed



Announcement: Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew (pictured) originally wanted to replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, but Jackson's negative history with Native Americans led to public pressure to replace him


Rather than removing Hamilton from the $10 bill, the rear of the note will instead feature a mural depicting women's suffrage.

And Jackson will be ousted in favor of a woman representing the fight for racial equality, the source said. 

But don't expect to be trading in your old notes any time soon - creating a counterfeit-proof bank note requires input from the U.S. Secret Service, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve. 

That means the new $20 note won't be issued until 2030 - at the earliest. 

'The blue security ribbon on the $100 note took over 15 years to develop,' CNN's source said. 'This level of technology is why our counterfeiting remains at less than .01% of currency in circulation.

'We should not expedite the issuance of any currency for political purposes.' 

Really... AJ's been on the $20 bill since 1928 so what the fuck are they changing it for? 
 Political purposes or political correctness? 

Same shit if you ask me.

(I was kind of hoping for Hillary in handcuffs)

As well as the $10 and $20 bills, the $5 bill will also see changes. Abraham Lincoln will remain on the front, but the rear will show a selection of notable historical moments that have taken place at the Lincoln Memorial. 



Contenders: Civil rights fighter Rosa Parks (left) and slave savior Harriet Tubman (right) were both finalists in an unofficial poll on who should replace Jackson.

You didn't really think it was gonna be Betsy Ross did you? 


No names for the $20 bill's new arrival have been given at this stage.

However, the website that hosted the original petition, Womenon20s.org, held a poll in which its users voted for Harriet Tubman, the 19th-century ex-slave who risked her life to smuggle 300 other slaves to freedom, to take Jackson's place.

Another figure who made it to the final round of voting was Rosa Parks, who famously fought for an end to racial segregation. 

Jackson was originally selected for replacement by the petition because of his Indian Removal Act, which forced Native Americans out of their territories, and led to the Trail of Tears. 

US bills have not featured a woman as a central image since the first First Lady, Martha Washington, appeared on the $1 silver certificate from 1891-1896.






Share/Bookmark

Report: Saudis vow to sell US assets if Congress decides gov was involved in 9/11




I could see how they came up with this determination. Not to mention 15 of the 19 highjacking terrorists were Saudi's.



Saudi's 


ISIS

 Not a whole hell of a lot of difference.



Of course, our trusted leader is doing his part.





---------------------------------------------------








Saudi Arabia has reportedly told the Obama administration and congressional leaders that it will sell billions of dollars in U.S. financial assets if Congress passes a bill to make the Saudi government legally responsible for any role in the 9/11 attacks.

The administration has tried to stop Congress from passing the legislation, a bipartisan Senate bill, since Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir last month told Washington lawmakers his country’s position, according to The New York Times.

Al-Jubeir purportedly informed the lawmakers during a trip to Washington that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell as much as $750 billion in Treasury securities and other American financial assets on the world market, fearing the legislation could become law and U.S. courts would then freeze the assets.

The revelations about the Saudis’ ultimatum come several days after reports that President Obama will soon decide whether to declassify 28 pages of sealed documents suspected of showing a Saudi connection to the deadly 9/11 terror attacks.

Former Florida Democratic Sen. Bob Graham told Fox News on Tuesday that the White House told him a decision on whether to declassify the documents would be made within 60 days. 

Graham helped lead a 2002 congressional inquiry into the attacks.

The Bush and Obama administrations have refused to unseal the documents, arguing their release would jeopardize national security.

Critics claim the reluctance is a calculated move to hide Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the al Qaeda terror attack that killed almost 3,000 people on U.S. soil on Sept. 11, 2001.

Obama had come under renewed pressure to release the documents ahead of a scheduled trip next week to Saudi Arabia for a summit of Persian Gulf leaders. 

Economists are purportedly skeptical about the Saudis making good on their vow to sell the assets, considering such a move would be difficult to execute and could severely hurt that country’s economy, which depends on the U.S. dollar.

The separate 9/11 Commission essentially found no evidence that the Saudi Arabia government supported the attacks.

However, the commission’s narrowly worded finding of having “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization” has skeptic suggesting that lesser officials government operatives or were involved.






Share/Bookmark

Saturday, April 16, 2016

And this is from the Huff Post!!!




Release of Clinton's Wall Street Speeches Could End Her Candidacy for President


Isn't this just like a Clinton? 


She says, "We're all in this together" to the Wall Street crowd in a $225,000 one hour speech... and then turns right around and condemns the "unregulated Wall Street fat cats" to her idiot constituency she knows will vote for her no matter what promising to put an end to their larceny. 


The Clinton Mantra:

I'll tell you whatever you what to hear...for a vote or a check.

----------------------------------------------------







Seth Abramson

The reason you and I will never see the transcripts of Hillary Clinton's speeches to Wall Street — and the reason she's established a nonsensical condition for their release, that being an agreement by members of another party, involved in a separate primary, to do the same — is that if she were ever to release those transcripts, it could end her candidacy for president.


Please don't take my word for it, though.


Nor even that of the many neutral observers in the media who are deeply troubled by Clinton's lack of transparency as to these well-compensated closed-door events — a lack of transparency that has actually been a hallmark of her career in politics.


Nor do we even need to take Clinton's word for it — as we could certainly argue that her insistence that none of these transcripts ever be seen by the public is itself a confession that her words would cause significant trauma to her presidential bid. 


In fact, it appears they'd cause enough trauma that Clinton would rather publicly stonewall — to the point of being conspicuously, uncomfortably evasive — in public debate after public debate, to endure damning editorial after damning editorial, and to leave thousands and thousands of voters further doubting her honesty and integrity, all to ensure that no one outside Goldman Sachs, and certainly no voter who wasn't privy to those closed-door speeches, ever hears a word of what she said in them.


Nor should we do here what Senator Sanders kindly declined to do at the Democratic debate last night, which is mention any of the proof — voluminous as it is, as Sanders conceded in a post-debate interview that cited Elizabeth Warren's criticisms of Clinton — that during the housing crisis Clinton acted precisely like a politician who'd been bought off by Wall Street. 


As Politico has noted, "During 2007 and 2008, when the housing market collapsed and while [Clinton] was also running for president, the Democrats controlled the Senate. Of the 140 bills Clinton introduced during that period, five [3.5%] were related to housing finance or foreclosures, according to congressional records, including one aimed at making it easier for homeowners facing foreclosure to get their loans modified. Only one of the five secured any co-sponsors — New York Senator Charles Schumer signed onto a bill that would have helped veterans refinance their mortgages."


Two years. One legitimate bill. And even then, only one co-sponsor — a same-state Senator.


When a Congressional bill gets no co-sponsors, either it's an unserious bill or it's a bill whose sponsor did nothing to push it. Neither possibility is in Clinton's favor.


The real experts on this topic are the friends and acquaintances of Hillary's who, for whatever reason, have chosen to be candid about what they believe is in those speeches. And it's only that candor that helps explain the longest-running mystery of the Democratic primary — a mystery that's been ongoing for over seventy days — which is this: why would anyone pay $225,000 for an hour-long speech by a private citizen who (at the time) claimed to have no interest in returning to politics?


Mr. Sanders has implied that there are only two possible answers: (a) the money wasn't for the speeches themselves, but for the influence major institutional players on Wall Street thought that money could buy them if and when Clinton ran for President; or (b) the speeches laid out a defense of Wall Street greed so passionate and total that hearing it uttered by a person of power and influence was worth every penny.


Per Clinton surrogates and attendees at these speeches, the answer appears to be both (a) and (b).


Here's a compilation of what those close to Clinton and/or the institutions that paid her obscene sums to chat with them are saying about those never-to-be-released speeches:


1. Former Nebraska Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey (Clinton surrogate)


"Making the transcripts of the Goldman speeches public would have been devastating....[and] when the GOP gets done telling the Clinton Global Initiative fund-raising and expense story, Bernie supporters will wonder why he didn't do the same....[As for] the email story, it's not about emails. It is about [Hillary] wanting to avoid the reach of citizens using the Freedom of Information Act to find out what their government is doing, and then not telling the truth about why she did."


2. Goldman Sachs Employee #1 (present at one of the speeches)


"[The speech] was pretty glowing about [Goldman Sachs]. It's so far from what she sounds like as a candidate now. It was like a 'rah-rah' speech. She sounded more like a Goldman Sachs managing director." 


3. Goldman Sachs Employee #2 (present at one of the speeches)


"In this environment, [what she said to us at Goldman Sachs] could be made to look really bad." 


4. Goldman Sachs Executive or Client #1 (present at one of the speeches)


"Mrs. Clinton didn't single out bankers or any other group for causing the 2008 financial crisis. Instead, she effectively said, 'We're all in this together, we've got to find our way out of it together.'" 

She ought to know. Her husband was the primary reason we got into it.




5. Paraphrase of Several Attendees' Accounts From The Wall Street Journal


"She didn't often talk about the financial crisis, but when she did, she almost always struck an amicable tone. In some cases, she thanked the audience for what they had done for the country. One attendee said the warmth with which Mrs. Clinton greeted guests bordered on 'gushy.' She spoke sympathetically about the financial industry."


6. Goldman Sachs Employee #3 (present at one of the speeches)


"It was like, 'Here's someone who doesn't want to vilify us but wants to get business back in the game. Like, maybe here's someone who can lead us out of the wilderness.'"


7. Paraphrase of Several Attendees' Accounts From Politico


"Clinton offered a message that the collected plutocrats found reassuring, declaring that the banker-bashing so popular within both political parties was unproductive and indeed foolish. Striking a soothing note on the global financial crisis, she told the audience, 'We all got into this mess together, and we're all going to have to work together to get out of it.'"


Did we, though, "All get into the mess together"? 


Would middle-class voters considering voting for Hillary Clinton in New York on Tuesday take kindly to the idea that the Great Recession was equally their own and Goldman Sachs' fault? How would that play in the Bronx?


Lest anyone suspect that Clinton doesn't release the transcripts because she's not permitted to do so under a non-disclosure agreement, think again: Buzzfeed has confirmed that Clinton owns the rights to the transcripts, and notes, moreover, that according to industry insiders even if there were speeches to which Clinton did not hold the rights, no institution on Wall Street would allow themselves to be caught trying to block their release. 


And Politico and The Wall Street Journal have reported exactly the same information about Clinton's ability to release these speech transcripts unilaterally.


The problem with the quotes above is not merely their content — which suggests a presidential candidate not only "gushingly" fond of Wall Street speculators but unwilling to admonish them even to the smallest degree — but also that they reveal Clinton to have been dishonest about that content with American voters.


Last night in Brooklyn Mrs. Clinton said, "I did stand up to the banks. I did make it clear that their behavior would not be excused."


Yet not a single attendee at any of Mrs. Clinton's quarter-of-a-million-dollar speeches can recall her doing anything of the sort.


Release of the transcripts would therefore, it appears, have three immediate — and possibly fatal — consequences for Clinton's presidential campaign:
It would reveal that Clinton lied about the content of the speeches at a time when she suspected she would never have to release them, nor that their content would ever be known to voters. 
It would reveal that the massive campaign and super-PAC contributions Clinton has received from Wall Street did indeed, as Sanders has alleged, influence her ability to get tough on Wall Street malfeasance either in Congress or behind closed doors. 
It would reveal that Clinton's policy positions on — for instance — breaking up "too-big-to-fail" banks are almost certainly insincere, as they have been trotted out merely for the purposes of a presidential campaign.


In a nation whose economy nearly collapsed just a few years ago because of precisely the people and institutions Clinton is now "gushy" toward, it's not hard to imagine the three revelations above being enough to cost Clinton the primary in New York and thereafter, at a minimum, the votes in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and California. 


Coupled with the many states remaining that Senator Sanders is expected to win, this could leave Clinton in a situation in which she loses 22 of the final 25 states — enough of a collapse for unpledged super-delegates to abandon her in large numbers at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.


Certainly, it's hard to understand how any super-delegate could cast a ballot for Clinton in Philadelphia without knowing, first, what the candidate actually believes about protecting America from another greed-driven Great Recession — or worse.




Share/Bookmark