It's time for the banksters to lawyer up
By louisehartmann
The New York Times reported on Saturday that the Department of Justice is building several criminal cases against major Wall Street banks related to the ongoing LIBOR rate-rigging scandal. Charges are expected to be brought against at least one bank and its employees by the end of this year. It’s alleged that hundreds of billions – if not trillions – of dollars were manipulated in the global economy by a handful of banks colluding together to boost their own profits while screwing over working people, small businesses, and entire cities.
Meanwhile, across the pond in London, British financial regulators who turned a blind eye to the crimes are testifying in front of Parliament to determine their role in the scandal. That comes on the heels of news that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner caught wind of the rate-rigging scandal as far back as 2008 and notified the Bank of England recommending changes to how the LIBOR rate should be fixed…yet nothing was done either by the Fed or by British regulators.
But just as this investigation into high crimes on Wall Street ramps up, time is running out for other investigations into Wall Street’s fraud. According to federal law, there is a five-year statute of limitations within which the Securities and Exchange Commission can file charges against the banks for their crimes leading up to the 2007 and 2008 financial crisis. That leaves officials at the SEC scrambling to file lawsuits before their time window runs out.
This is a critical moment in history – will “we the people” finally hold Wall Street accountable? Or will the Citizen's United-fueled corruption of our government and legal system give the banksters another free pass?
Comments
#2
Promenent voices on 911:
These quotes are from an article "...written by former Assistant Treasury Secretary and Wall Street Journal editor Paul Craig Roberts for OpEdNews after he attended the Atlanta premiere of 9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out. We applaud him for his unwavering dedication to the truth and his courage to speak out about 9/11."
"...the Bush/Obama Regime, with the complicity of the Department of Justice, federal courts, Congress, presstitute media, law schools, bar associations, and an insouciant public have murdered the Constitution in the name of the "war on terror."
"As in medieval times, American citizens can be thrown into dungeons and never accounted for. No evidence or charges need be presented to a court. No trial is required, and no conviction.
As in tyrannies, US citizens can be executed at the sole discretion of the despot in the Oval Office, who sits there drawing up lists of people to be murdered.
Protesters exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association are attacked by armed police, beaten, tasered, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, and arrested.
Whistleblowers who report the government's crimes are prosecuted despite the statute that protects them."
"According to the US Military Code, US soldiers are required to make war crimes known. However, the law on the books provided no protection to Bradley Manning, and conservative Republicans whom I know are foaming at the mouth for Manning to be executed for letting out the truth."
"...if Washington wants Assange, Washington will be sure every law is broken or bent until they get him."
"...those "we are killing over there" are mainly women, children, village elders, and aid workers. The US troops seem to specialize in soft targets like weddings, funerals, kids' soccer games, farm houses, and schools."
"The crimes against humanity, the dismantling of the US Constitution and the lawlessness both domestic and international that define 21st century amerika are the results of September 11, 2001.
Washington's account of 9/11 is the wildest conspiracy theory known to mankind. The absurdity of Washington's account is as follows:
A few Saudi Arabians without any government's backing or that of any intelligence service outwitted not only the CIA and the FBI but all 16 US intelligence agencies, even the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, together with the intelligence agencies of all of Washington's NATO allies and Israel's Mossad, which has infiltrated every radical Muslim group.
These humble Saudis of no known distinction or powers also simultaneously outwitted the National Security Council, NORAD, the Pentagon, Air Traffic Control, and caused Airport Security to fail four times in one hour on the same morning.
In other words, every part of America's defenses failed at the same moment.
Think about that for a minute. If such a thing had actually happened, the President, Vice President, Congress, and media would have been demanding to know how such universal failure of every aspect of the national security state was possible. An investigation would have started immediately, not over a year later as a result of pressure from 9/11 families who could not be bought off with monetary payments. Such complete and total failure of every aspect of US security would mean that Americans were not safe one single minute during the 40-year stand-off with the Soviet Union. At any moment the Soviets could have utterly destroyed the US and we would never have known what hit us.
In a real investigation, the 9/11 evidence would not have been illegally destroyed, and the investigation would have been conducted by experts, not by government agencies assigned a cover-up and by political hacks. The NIST report is abject nonsense. It explains nothing. It is a fabricated computer simulation of a non-event. The co-chairmen and legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission later wrote books in which they stated that information was withheld from the Commission, the military lied to the Commission, and the Commission "was set up to fail." Yet, these astounding admissions by the leaders of the 9/11 Commission had no impact on Congress, the presstitute media, or the public. All heads were in the sand. Please, whatever you do, don't make us emotional weaklings face the facts.
More than 100 firefighters, police, first responders, and building maintenance personnel report hearing and experiencing scores of explosions in the twin towers, including powerful explosions in the sub-basements prior to the collapse of the towers.
Distinguished scientists, authors of many peer-reviewed scientific papers, report finding unreacted nano-thermite in the dust from the towers, tested it for its explosive and high-heat producing ability, and reported the unequivocal results.
Seventeen hundred architects and engineers have testified in a petition to Congress that the three World Trade Center buildings were not brought down by fire and airplanes and have demanded a real scientific investigation of the cause of the buildings' destruction.
Yet, we are left with the paradox that scientific opinion based on careful examination of the remaining evidence has been designated by the ignorant and unwashed as a "conspiracy theory," while Washington's absurd conspiracy theory stands as the truth of the event.
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth headed by architect Richard Gage has driven the final nail in the coffin of Washington's concocted conspiracy theory with its new film: "9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out."
http://www.ae911truth.org/en/news-section/57-news-releases-by-others/641...
#3
"Scores of top level demolition experts and experts on the design, engineering, and construction of high rise steel structures provide the scientific, architectural, and engineering reasons that the three World Trade Center buildings came down only with the assistance of explosives that were placed and timed to remove the powerful structural support and permit the sudden collapse of the buildings. As the buildings were engineered and constructed according to known and tested principles that absolutely prevent rapid collapse, fire and structural damage that two of the three skyscrapers suffered from airliners could not possibly have caused the sudden disintegration of the three buildings."
"America's descent into a gestapo police state could be arrested, perhaps, if Americans were not so ignorant of science or were capable of even realizing that what they see with their own eyes when they watch videos of the twin towers' destruction is buildings blowing up, not buildings falling down from structural damage. Building 7's destruction is the total and complete picture of controlled demolition."
"At the end of the powerful film, psychologists explain why the majority of a population lacks the mental and emotional strength to confront highly disturbing facts. A government that so thoroughly spies on its population as Washington does obviously knows its population's profile and sees nothing but weakness and fear that can be manipulated.
What fact is more disturbing than the likely fact that 9/11 was a false-flag event designed to provide the neoconservatives with their "new Pearl Harbor" in order to launch Washington's Wars of Hegemony in the Middle East, and from there to Iran and to the nuclear powers: Russia and China, which are being encircled, as Iran has been, with US military bases?
What we are experiencing is a replay of the French Revolution, this time on a world stage. Napoleon, the inheritor of the French Revolution, conquered Europe several times in the effort to expand the New Order in France to all of Europe. The French Revolution was the first claim of a New World Order, but at that time the world was Europe.
Washington's "wars of liberation" are wars of world hegemony and wars of massive profits for the military/security complex. The combination of power and money that are the motives for Washington's concocted wars are hidden motives, wrapped in the flag, patriotic sentiments, and fear of dark-skinned demonized Muslims.
Can Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth -- or any truth -- break through and liberate Americans from the artificial reality created by government liars and a corrupt presstitute media, or are Americans doomed to expire in the Matrix that has been created for them?
Perhaps the hope is that the economy will collapse under the would-be hegemons, and people who will not fight for principles and their liberty will fight for their economic survival."
"Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, has held numerous university appointments and is Contributing Editor to Gerald Celente's Trends Journal. His columns are at www.paulcraigroberts.org ."
#4
"Do you think they will be brought to justice?" NO! They own the government. DC (DOJ included) sold its soul to the highest bidders a long time ago.
#5
Maybe the banksters will evade the statute of limitations but that doesn't stop us from doing something I heard about this weekend: tax each trade on Wall Street. I'd like to see a model based on what the credit card companies use -a monthly fee to be allowed to trade at all, a "swipe fee" -i.e., a small charge on every transaction and a percentage of the total of every transaction.
Of course I'd like to see that last one at the same rates as the credit card companies charge merchants for rewards card swipes (5-7%) but something on the order of a half percent might be enough. For fun add a percentage charge to every transfer of money from the US to the Caymans or Switzerland -call it the "Mitt Bit".
It would not have to be much to have an effect -a small charge for every transaction might dampen a good deal of the automatic trading that accasionally gets into runaway mode when many computer trades for small amounts happen in nanoseconds. A small percentage of the total would bring in enough to pay more regulators and investigators and maybe even provide enough legal fees to put these greedy dolts in Club Fed.
Note to Palindromedary - those are two really long posts dude; your own website might be a more appropriate place for that.
#6
I think there will be charges right in time for the elections.....bank on it.......
#7
This is the price for overlooking concealed fund rip-offs on the individual level. The investigative agencies don't have the experience and background onboard to crack cases because they haven't had any practice. I have even been told so by IRS and the DOJ. It is easier to bust a regular guy at a poker game for tax evasion than to bust a mob.
For decades lawyers have been obscuring , weaving, and tangling. The examiners and investigators do not have the forensic basis to understand the organization they are dealing with, and that's the way it was intended to be. A lot of them spend time as examiners and regulators only to go into banking as Presidents.
How can we even know if the SEC is ruthlessly pursuing their investigations? They are the ones who lost G.H.W. Bush's Zapata filings in the sixties. From good ole Drew Pearson:
"In 1981, Securities and Exchange Commission filings for Zapata Oil for 1960-66 were discovered to have been 'inadvertently destroyed'."
Five years is not enough time for investigators to untangle what they knew nothing about, what was going on under their noses, Geithner's nose and the nose of The Bank of England. That is a ridiculous Statute of Limitations, put into place by lawyers, and it was lawyers who were hired by the banks to plan a back door for when needed.
Who's laughing but the lawyers? MO Money for MO lawyers.
I will post the bank connections to the Kryder Estate in my blog. According to Indiana State Probate Law, there is NO STATUTE for fraud against property of an Estate, property that was concealed while in the custody of lawyers. At least, when I opened the estate in 1995, that's how it stood.
We shouldn't have to become detectives like I have, working for years to get away from lawyers what grandparents and great-grandparents fought the Depression banks for, to give to their rightful heirs. All this is nothing new to me.
#8
Uncle Geo...yeah, agreed...they are pretty long..and I suppose most people won't even bother to read them. But I sure had a kick out of posting them. I know...I need to get a life...but I had one and it got me around the world many times...now I just prefer to stay home and waste what is left of my life posting long posts... At least I no longer have to put up with the TSA dudes....but I'm sure, one day, they will come to me...as they may come to everyone else that doesn't bow their heads in obeisance.
If I wanted to "go somewhere" really quickly at no cost..I can do so through Google Maps or Google Earth. Funny how you can actually walk down streets and do a 360 panoramic view of everything. You can even check out certain addresses...like "businesses", see their street addresses, see their "store" fronts.
#9
We should use this latest disclosure to demand a worldwide debt jubilee since we now know all loans are based on lies. Debts are not sacred and must be renegotiated as they have been throughout history. We can’t afford to let the system crash into chaos if we don’t demand a jubilee. This is a perfect opportunity to do what must be done.
Here's David Graeber talking about his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years.
http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/479/id/371140/wed-9-14-11-debt-society
There's all sorts of other great stuff on this site too. Very radical.
#10
Does this mean that Secretary Geithner knew about LIBOR rate rigging as early as 2008 yet failed to make that knowledge public?
#11
When the Left, Middle, Right, Uninvolved and Unaligned finally realize that we all feel the same pain -- and are all being eqully screwed -- then we shall all rise up en mass, and demand what has been taken from US. Only then can they not corrupt the system to their ends.
#12
Chris Hedges wrote a good piece at Truthdig called The Battle at Blair Mountain. About 1920-21 something like 15,000 coal miners got sick and tired of what was happening to them and their families (sounded a lot like what is happening today) and they rebelled with an armed insurrection. Things like this helped FDR change things for better. FDR would never have had the teeth to get these policies passed if it had not been for people like the brave miners at Blair Mountain and the growing numbers of strikes everywhere. The ruling elite can hold the line only as long as they can keep us pinned down. But when we break loose....en masse...we scare them enough that they reverse their selfish and piggish ways.
"All the gains, often paid for with the lives of working men and women, have now been reversed. We are back where we started. We must organize, resist and build movements. We must embrace radical politics and remain perpetually alienated from power or become a subjugated herd. I do not call for an emulation of this violence. But I do call for direct and sustained confrontation with all formal mechanisms of power, including the Democratic Party. The corporate state, for its part, should also remember the lesson from Blair Mountain. There are limits to how far a people can be pushed. And if violence continues to be the preferred mechanism for control, if the state refuses to institute rational economic and political reforms to address the growing misery that corporations inflict on the citizens, it will, as at Blair Mountain, engender a violent response."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_battle_of_blair_mountain_20120716/
#13
If Sec. Geithner did a heads up to the Bank of England in 2008, why is it that the D.O.J. is just now trying to charge the banks involved in the fore mentioned crimes? Could it be this is just another delayed prosecution so the banksters involved will walk away and Obama can say, “We tried to prosecute the guilty parties, but time ran out, but we are continuing to investigate the situation?” Sounds like the same old sorry excuse from Washington. I doubt anyone actually believes the President or the Congress will actually do anything to the wealthier Americans involved, but let a middle class tax payer screw up on his or her tax returns and the hounds of hell from the I.R.S. will be on it pronto!
I would like to make a comment concerning the postings from Palindromedary. I read all the comments you posted from Roberts blog and his home page. It was interesting and scary. The scariest part of the info from the Terror Theories is that intelligent people actually believe what Dr. Roberts wrote. I won’t carry on about what I read or the comments the readers of his blog posted, but the responses were so varied that it was mind boggling at all the different theories of world domination to Christ returning! Everyone has the right to believe and say what they truly believe, but the Idea that everything from the 911 attack to financial tactics by the U.S. for the control of China and Russia has been a secret attempt by a conglomeration of entities is a little far-fetched. Could it possibly be that old fashioned hate by religious fanatics against the U.S. and greed for wealth and power are the basic reasons why the events Dr. Roberts stated happened? It usually turns out that the simplest reasons for a situation created by humans is the truth. Sorry if my reasoning is too simple for the great minds who came up with these theories of World Domination.
#14
I agree with your theory of violence begetting violence. If the everyday American is pushed hard enough and long enough, they will push back. The political riots during 1968 G.O.P. convention were a direct response to the violence dealt out by the Chicago Police, under Mayor Daly. Not to forget the riots over poverty and inequality that we witnessed during the latter part of the 20th. Century that occurred in our major cities. If the wealthiest in our country believe the rest of us will put up with austerity cuts to fund their tax cuts, they had better be ready to pay for it in more ways than they have presently conceived. I agree with your theory of violence begetting violence. If the everyday American is pushed hard enough and long enough, they will push back. The political riots in 1968 G.O.P. convention was a direct response to the violence dealt out by the Chicago Police, under Mayor Daly. Not to forget the riots over poverty and inequality that we witnessed during the latter part of the 20th. Century in our major cities. If the wealthiest in our country believe the rest of us will put up with austerity cuts to fund their tax cuts, they had better be ready to pay for it in more ways than they think!
#15
Let us hope THIS scandle demonstrates to the know nothings of this country that finance is the grease for the machine that runs our economy. Workers are the drivers. I put oil in my engine. I don't hug the pistons and let the quart of oil drive me to work.
#16
When I graduated from Business College in 1971, the tax rate for earners $200,000 was 70 percent. The economy still practiced Keynesian Economics. We could predict economic happenings. Glass-Siegel ruled our banking system. I’ve witnessed changes that are mind boggling in the 41 years since. Based on the happenings since President Reagan, our economics and legal system are “wacky doodle”. Justice? I think that justice has lost it’s meaning. To pay a penalty fine in today’s terms of Justice, it just becomes the “cost of business”.
#17
I blame Mel Brooks for this financial meltdown. The whole mortgage-backed securities and credit-default swaps scam that took down the economy was outlined for the banksters in "The Producers." The sociopaths that were, in their words, "masters of the universe" learned you can make more money counting on failure than betting on success.
I hope we can be like Great Britain in the 19th century and tack to port without sinking the ship. The alternative is a repeat of 1861-65, 1917-1921, or 1939-1945. This squabling pales in light of having passed the tipping point on climate change.
We have gone through the looking glass: up is down, bad is good, fact is fiction.
Hugs and Kisses
PS"Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night."
#18
Come on! Doesn't anyone wonder how this mass financial terrorism goes on without any of the Treasury Officers, DOJ, Attorney Generals, and intelligence officials knowing it?
It didn't start in 2008- now it is way beyond our heads to get a grip. We have been suffering periodic mass bank failures since 1985. We've been in wars or preparing for them since 1914.
The idea is World Depression, and taking down the United States is paramount.
#19
It could be Our Cubic Zirconia Jubilee.
#20
I agree in a way unfortunatly, because most politicians are owned by banksters. Also I'm sure banksters own some others in other relations to government. So until money stops influencing our politics I'm afraid we can't do much of anything I think everybody's focus should be on www.movetoamend.org !!!
#21
No worries. I think you hit the nail with people might not read it. I'm passionate about this stuff too and it's a constant struggle to be concise, edit and proofread.
#22
Democratic convention
#23
Keeps the old Synapses and Dendrites and Axons and....whatever from getting rusty. Just hope my Telomeres stay in good shape and apoptosis goes as it should.
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They'll just stage yet another 911 and people will, again, hide under their beds (or "just go shopping") from the bad old "terrorists". The financial problems we have today started a long time ago..way before 911....and some men in power...realized that unless they did something really radical...like stage "terrorist" hijackings and a dramatic collapse of the WTC towers and crash into the Pentagon...ie: a new pearl harbor....to drive us, scared of the bogey man "terrorists", then they would have had fewer teeth and smoke-and-mirrors to get away with their long-term stealing from the American people. But, it is highly probable that the 911 false flag was a multi-country plot..involving powerful entities from Israel and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It's time we look behind the curtains to see who is pulling the strings, and why..and then prosecute them.
Don't let Presidents, even, or especially, Obama, get away with saying that these traitors from the Bush Administration are "in the past" and "we need to concentrate on looking forward"...while they don't use the same policies when it comes to whistle-blowers of government wrong-doing. They are not saying that we should forget about Wikileaks...that it is "in the past" or "that we need to concentrate on looking forward". That's because these gangsters are trying to get away with their really terrible traitorous deeds.