Big Pharma criminality no longer a conspiracy theory–bribery, fraud, price fixing now a matter of public record

GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Pfizer, and Merck–all involved in outrageous scandals . . .

(Source)  Those of us who have long been describing the pharmaceutical industry as a “criminal racket” over the last few years have been wholly vindicated by recent news. Drug and vaccine manufacturer Merck was caught red-handed by two of its own scientists faking vaccine efficacy data by spiking blood samples with animal antibodies.

GlaxoSmithKline has just been fined a whopping $3 billion for bribing doctors, lying to the FDA, hiding clinical trial data and fraudulent marketing. Pfizer, meanwhile has been sued by the nation’s pharmacy retailers for what is alleged as an “overarching anticompetitive scheme” to keep generic cholesterol drugs off the market and thereby boost its own profits.

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Media Disinformation Campaigns–yet another example

The media tells us to not pay attention to Ron Paul.

Why? Supposedly because he’s “not electable”.

Media manipulation?

In February 2012 Mitt Romney held a campaign event at Ford Stadium which didn’t attract enough people to come even close to filling it up (in fact, you could fit Romney’s 1,200 person crowd in the 65,000-seat stadium 54 times over). His campaign scrambled to make the event look as full as possible, but largely failed. Photo via Byron York:

Mitt Romney’s Feb 2012 campaign event at Ford Stadium

In 2000, George W. Bush ran for president saying “I don’t think they ought to be balancing their budget on the backs of the poor.” In 2012, amidst a much worse economy, Romney is running for president saying exactly the opposite. Perhaps that’s why the stadium is empty. (Source: Washington Post)

Meanwhile, a few days later, Ron Paul holds a campaign event:

Ron Paul Michigan State University Auditorium Intro and Crowd – 2-27-12 .wmv

www.youtube.com

Ron Paul’s stadium speech . . .

Ron Paul campaign event Feb 27, 2012

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As always, media’s bogus dis-information campaign is obvious:

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Can you guess which candidate is backed by Wall Street

. . . and, therefore, also by Wall Street’s lapdog, the media?

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Remember: Always trust TV news.

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Vaccines for Kids–taking parents out of the loop

They will be blanketed by poisons everywhere they turn. We will teach them that the poisons are good, with fun images and musical tones. (Source)

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Apparently Vacciboy and Immugirl aren’t old enough to read the following:

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60 Minutes’ on Congressional Insider Trading–outrageous corruption

Well, there’s your problem . . .

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11 Shocking Things You Now Realize to be True–but you never would have believed just three years ago

From (Source: Natural News)

Hmmmm . . . do I like honey?

#1 – Most of the honey you buy in the grocery store contains no actual honey whatsoever

It’s true, the so-called “honey” isn’t even technically honey. Most of it is made of cheap “mystery” sweeteners, illegally imported from China, right under the nose of the FDA.

http://www.naturalnews.com/034123_h…


http://www.naturalnews.com/034102_h…

#2 – The fluoride that’s dripped into municipal water supplies is actually a highly toxic industrial chemical byproduct

This scam is exploding in the faces of all the ignorant dentists and doctors who have been pushing this poison for years. Once again, they were wrong; the “conspiracy theorists” were right.

http://www.naturalnews.com/033753_w…


http://www.naturalnews.com/031547_f…


http://www.naturalnews.com/031602_f…

#3 – Flu vaccines often contain live flu viruses and actually cause the flu as a way to worsen the flu season and scare more people into buying vaccines

It’s also true with MMR vaccines, which cause the measles. Flu vaccines are the greatest medical hoax that has ever been perpetrated on the world:

http://www.naturalnews.com/033998_i…


http://www.naturalnews.com/033816_s…


http://www.naturalnews.com/029641_v…


http://www.naturalnews.com/031043_f…

#4 – Ron Paul is deliberately stripped out of mainstream news reports, online polls and debate coverage in order to “game the system” against him

The power elite don’t really want “fair and open” elections in America, you see. It’s all about rigging the system to make sure a globalist puppet gets elected instead of a Man of the People.

http://www.naturalnews.com/033528_R…


http://www.prisonplanet.com/realcle…


http://www.prisonplanet.com/cnbc-ca…

Media vs. Ron Paul

#5 – The United States government openly trafficks illegal guns into Mexico as a way to cause gun violence in the USA

It all seemed so very clever until they got caught, and now it just seems flatly criminal. So why can the federal government run illegal guns and nothing happens to them, but if you or I do it, we go to prison for a long, long time?

http://www.naturalnews.com/032934_A…


http://www.naturalnews.com/033802_F…


http://counterthink.com/Fast_and_Fu…

#6 – Prestigious U.S. hospitals are widely engaged in black market organ trafficking and organ transplants

And why not? It’s profitable, and they can claim they’re “saving lives!” Make no mistake: the organ transplant industry is steeped in dark, psychopathic criminal activity.

http://www.naturalnews.com/028994_o…


http://www.naturalnews.com/034060_o…

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CDC Director Arrested for Child Molestation and Bestiality–yep, the evil elite use people like this to manage our “health” care

Let’s all say it, “Who could’ve known?” . . .

(Source: CNN October 11, 2011)

By Dr. Mercola 

Dr. Kimberly Quinlan Lindsey

• A high-ranking CDC official, who played a significant role in the 2009 H1N1 propaganda campaign, has been arrested and charged with two counts of child molestation and one count of bestiality
• As an official in charge of CDC health recommendations for all American children, her actions raise troublesome questions about her level of concern for the health and well-being of children in general
• Other recent stories raising questions about the ethics and integrity of the agency include documentation showing that the CDC has never obtained any input from toxicology experts to assess the health effects of water fluoridation, and the recent fraud indictment of Dr. Thorsen—hired by the CDC to debunk the link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism

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The Secret Covenant–unknown author

(Source)

An illusion it will be, so large, so vast it will escape their perception. Those who will see it will be thought of as insane. We will create separate fronts to prevent them from seeing the connection between us. We will behave as if we are not connected to keep the illusion alive.

Our goal will be accomplished one drop at a time so as to never bring suspicion upon ourselves. This will also prevent them from seeing the changes as they occur.

• We will always stand above the relative field of their experience for we know the secrets of the absolute.
• We will work together always and will remain bound by blood and secrecy. Death will come to he who speaks.
• We will keep their lifespan short and their minds weak while pretending to do the opposite.
• We will use our knowledge of science and technology in subtle ways so they will never see what is happening.
• We will use soft metals, aging accelerators and sedatives in food and water, also in the air.
• They will be blanketed by poisons everywhere they turn.
• The soft metals will cause them to lose their minds.
• We will promise to find a cure from our many fronts, yet we will feed them more poison.

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If Elected Will You Arrest The Bankers?–the non-negotiable issue

US congress today is about as powerful as a student council in high school. Remember high school? Changing the student council, or even forming a new student council “party”, never changed anything. The principal makes all the key decisions. The principal runs things.

The unelected evil banker elite have started making our key decisions today. The unelected evil banker elite think they should run things. They are the problem. Unfortunately, US congress has become as impotent as a high school student council. Here’s the bottom line:

Until politicians and media pundits start talking about true economic regime change–shutting down the FED and arresting the evil banker elite, they are irrelevant. Discussing tiny little adjustments at the margin (changing the student council) is a tactic used by the evil banker elite to weaken and slow down the profound changes that are needed. It is just like high school principals who use the student council to dissipate student anger away from themselves by pretending that the student council actually makes a difference–it doesn’t.

Shut down the FED and arrest the evil elite bankers.

The first question we should ask any candidate for President is this: If elected, will you promise to arrest every banker for whom we have probable cause to believe they committed a crime?

If the Answer is Yes, we will listen. But, if the Answer is No, then we ought not to listen as any candidate who does not listen to us is against us and not for us.

This is a non-negotiable issue. If you will not arrest the people who stole tens of trillions of dollars, how will you put an end to Bailouts, Austerity Cuts and Mindless Tax Increases?

I don’t care if you are a member of my political party, my religion, my race, my gender or my veterans group. I don’t care how photogenic your children are. I don’t care about any other issues you run off at the mouth about.

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The Counterfeit Culture–is unsustainable

So, you think everything is just fine?

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Through a devolving web of greed, self-serving power and a departure from fundamental ethics, Western culture has, over the last hundred years, become the counterfeit culture: (Source)

• The Federal Reserve is in the business of counterfeiting money.
• The mainstream media is in the business of counterfeiting news.
• The pharmaceutical industry is in the business of counterfeiting medicine (Biopracy! They are stealing molecules from nature then counterfeiting their own patented variations.)

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The Official Version of 9/11 — as reported by a skeptic

Those of you who have tried exposing the 9/11 attack have certainly noticed that most people demand absurd amounts of evidence that the official story is false.

We need only one suspicious event to justify asking the question, “Is our government and media telling us the truth about the 9/11 attack?“

Don’t be fooled into thinking that we have to answer everybody’s questions about the attack. We don’t have to know what type of aircraft hit the Pentagon, or who purchased the explosives that demolished Building 7.  (Source)

The Official Version of 9/11 – as reported by a skeptic (Source)

Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah…

Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes…And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defense system the slip…

Unphased by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely…Our masterminds even manage to overpower the odd law of physics or two… and the world watches in awe as steel-framed buildings fall symmetrically – through their own mass – at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.

CLICK the picture above to see WTC 7 collapse after NOT being hit by any airplanes–note the penthouse on top falls first. Hmmmmm . . .

Despite all their dastardly cunning, they stupidly give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the fireball undamaged and fall to the ground… only to be discovered by the incredible crime-fighting sleuths at the FBI

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Ever Wonder Why the Real Estate Market Was Crashed?

Answer: To set up the Oligarch Welfare Program following:

A Huge Housing Bargain — but Not for You

Via: The Street:

The largest transfer of wealth from the public to private sector is about to begin. The federal government will be bulk-selling the massive portfolio of foreclosed homes now owned by HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to private investors — vulture funds.

These homes, which are now the property of the U.S. government, the U.S. taxpayer, U.S. citizens collectively, are going to be sold to private investor conglomerates at extraordinarily large discounts to real value.

You and I will not be allowed to participate. These investors will come from the private-equity and hedge-fund community, Goldman Sachs and its derivatives, as well as foreign sovereign wealth funds that can bring a billion dollars or more to each transaction.

In the process, these investors will instantaneously become the largest improved real estate owners and landlords in the world. The U.S. taxpayer will get pennies on the dollar for these homes and then be allowed to rent them back at market rates. (Source)

Here we finally see the hidden motivation and the real purpose of crashing the real estate market: creating an excuse to force people out of their homes, making it easy for lenders to grab their homes. The lenders then are “bailed-out” by the Federal Reserve, who passes the bill on to the tax payers. Once the lenders are bailed out they no longer want to hold actual properties, so they quickly sell all their repossessed homes to giant hedge funds for pennies on the dollar. The lenders know they have to sell quickly before anyone realizes what they did, before anyone files legal actions. Lol! Once the homes are sold off just try and get them back. Can’t be done. Bwahahahaha !!

Crashing the real estate market was necessary to take homes from ordinary people, so they could then transfer them to the wealthy–who will turn around and rent them back to the very people who lost homes.

Voila! Wealth transfer mission $$ accomplished.  

Ahem, why not just give the discount on the homes to the folks who live in them?

Duh. Don’t ask silly questions.

As always, profit before people.

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More and More Evidence of a Bankster Takeover of US Government–none so blind as those who will not see

Yep, our government is now infested by the evil banker elite and their army of sell-outs:

An Updated List of Goldman Sachs Ties to the Obama Government

Key U.S. Government Positions held by Goldman Sachs alumni.

So what? Recent headlines say it all:

• Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Fed’s Secret Loans
• Wall Street firms donated $11.2 million to members of debt ‘super committee’
• SEC Destroys 9,000 Fraud Files Involving Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Lehman
• The Real Reason the SEC Has Been Shredding Documents For Decades
• Matt Taibbi: How The SEC Covers Up Wall St. Crimes
• KLEPTOCRACY RULES – William Black With Max Keiser On The Lack Of CRIMINAL Prosecution For Corrupt Bankers
• Police Raid Offices And Seize Documents From Lawyers Suing Banks For Mortgage Fraud
• S&P Board Fires CEO For Telling The Truth, To Be Replaced With COO Of Citibank
• Goldman Sachs VP Changed Name, Now a Top Congressional Staffer
• Goldman VP Peter Haller Changed Name, Now A Top Congressional Staffer To Darrell Issa Working To Ease Dodd-Frank Derivatives Requirements On Goldman Sachs
• Nancy Pelosi Heckled At Town Hall Over Debt Bill: “Sell-Out”
• Pentagon to cut pensions for veterans

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US is Broke–but . . .

The USA Is Broke But Can Afford 737 U.S. Military Bases And 2-1/2 Million Troops Around The World   . . . But we are going to be forced to “sacrifice” the Social Security money we paid into the government, which they looted and refuse to cannot afford to pay back.

The USA Is Broke But Can Afford to Give $10,700 in Foreign Aid for Every Man, Woman, and Child in Israel:

. . . and, in the news on Aug. 8, 2011, just by coincidence:

81 US congressmen to visit Israel in coming weeks.

[Why are we reading about this in the Jerusalem Post and not the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal? . . . Although accepting free trips from lobbyists is illegal for Congress members under US anti-graft and corruption laws, the trips to Israel have been granted a special exception by the Congress. (Source) ]

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The USA Is Broke But Can Afford to Give Another “Tax Holiday” to Big Corporations . . . Can’t ask corporations to pay their share–can we? 60 Minutes Expose On How Corporations Avoid Taxes While Citizens Pay Over $1 Trillion A Year

Big Corporations Don’t Pay Taxes–taxes are for the little people

1)      Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009.  Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

2)      Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3)      Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

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The Video Congress Does NOT Want You To See

A new Rasmussen survey has found that 85 percent of Americans believe that members of Congress “are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people.

Well, There’s Your Problem Right There … Insider Trading Rules Don’t Apply To Congress: They’re  incentivized to lie, cheat and steal.  So – of course – they will continue to lie, cheat and steal. Duh.

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Many have had the sneaking suspicion that our elected “leaders” in Congress are not going to Washington D.C. to represent us…but for their own personal gain. This video may just validate that assessment!Using the net worth data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics we found a disturbing trend. The analysis of the information in this video has not been seen by anyone…not on Fox News…not on CNN…and you have not read about this in the Wall Street Journal…yet. After watching the video click HERE to view “The List”   (Source)

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Spitzer to Eric Holder: Prosecute Goldman or Quit

 

From CNN: Eliot Spitzer challenges U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder to prosecute Goldman Sachs or resign during an interview on AC360.

Click here to watch.

See also: An Updated List of Goldman Sachs Ties to the Obama Government Including Elena Kagan

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Related Articles

• Spitzer to Holder: Prosecute Goldman Sachs or Resign (crooksandliars.com)
• Should Eric Holder Be Fired? (papundits.wordpress.com)
• Eric Holder, Tax Deadbeat (jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com)
• Suggestion to Eric Holder.. (oforchristsakes.wordpress.com)
• Peter King: Eric Holder Should Resign [Video] (observer.com)

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Transocean Hails 2010 as ‘Best Year’ in Safety–execs get ‘safety’ bonuses, despite Gulf spill disaster

Transocean's Deepwater Horizon oil rig

Transocean Ltd., the company that owns the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that caused immeasurable damage to the Gulf, recently gave its top executives “two thirds of their total possible safety bonuses.”

This was despite the explosion of its oil rig that killed 11 people and spilled over 200 million gallons of toxic oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Why did execs get “safety” bonuses?

For achieving the “best year in safety performance in our company’s history.”

Note: Please do not confuse this with the Transocean, Ltd world headquarters building.

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The Scam in Wisconsin–bashing public employees as a smokescreen to hide a fat cat scam to grab State assets

Update 2/27/2011: POLICE:State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you! (understory.ran.org)

A huge upwelling is happening in the heart of humanity and it is an internal thing. It is coming from an unseen place and it can’t be defended against by those seeking to hinder its growth. . . We are awakening and we are seeing that we have a deeply shared common cause. (Source)

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Why is Wisconsin Governor Walker leading such a visible attack on Wisconsin’s public employees?

Bashing public employee unions is a smokescreen to hide yet another fat cat scam to grab State assets.

Smokescreen

Right now everyone thinks this is about unions and collective bargaining and the rights of the worker.  BUT, what Wisconsin Governor Walker really wants is for Democrats to just “compromise” and pass his budget law “as is”–a budget law that authorizes selling off of Wisconsin’s state-owned power plants for pennies on the dollar in closed unsolicitated bids for which there will be no oversight.

It’s Enron-style cronyism all over again.

Here’s how the scam is set up:

1) Koch Brothers get their puppet Governor Walker in power
2) Governor Walker gins up a crisis
3) Democrats and Progressives take the bait and counter-protest on collective bargaining
4) Governor Walker will compromise on collective bargaining if the rest of the budget is passed as is
5) Bill passes, with trojan horse give-a-way to the Koch Brothers nested in
6) Koch Brothers will buy Wisconsin state-owned power plants for pennies on the dollar in closed unsolicitated bids for which there will be no oversight
7) Koch Brothers get the best vertical monopoly in a generation (Source)

Koch Brothers

Every point in the above list is carefully documented in Patience John’s article, “The Koch Brothers’ End Game in Wisconsin“.

Here’s the actual language in Governor Walker’s pending budget law. Read it for yourself. It will authorize him to sell off Wisconsin’s state-owned power utilities for pennies on the dollar, in closed unsolicitated bids, for which there will be no oversight:

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Global Change–will be live

What we are dealing with here, is nothing short than the transformation of the world as we know it. It is going to sweep the Arab world and from there it will sweep outward in all directions.

Look upon the world at this time and marvel. You can see the plans hatch and fail in real time. You can see the wave, as it rises up from the plains and sweeps around the world into the hearts of every living thing, causing them to vibrate and cry out the truth concerning themselves. (Source)

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This video shows 24 different countries that began 2011 with protests. The video shows the country location and news about the protest/riot. 2011 protests are increasing in quantity and support. Countries shown are Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Honduras, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America, Venezuela and Yemen.

McCain Calls Middle East Pro-Democracy Movement A ‘Virus’

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The Story of Your Enslavement–how ’ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen free?

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5200 Pentagon Employees PURCHASED Child Pornography

The Pentagon’s investigation of defense and intelligence employees who downloaded child pornography is being criticized in Congress after the Department of Defense acknowledged that its investigators failed to check thoroughly whether its employees were on a list of suspected porn viewers.

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Comments:

• . . . our taxes fund their child porn.
• . . . government diddled while America burned.
• . . . because the government is populated by criminals.
• . . . the ruling class is exempt from the laws that would ruin any of us.

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5200 employees is an absolutely staggering number. How many Pentagon employees are even left after that? . . . To raise that number of criminals to 5200 people is to create the most fatal indictment of any government or military system in the history of human life on Earth. (Source)

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Bankruptcy for Cities and States–a tool to legally grab the public’s assets

Bwahahahaha hahahaha

2011: The Year Cities Go Bust?

Strange Bedfellows: The right, which usually sees the government as the villain, now wants states to have the right to declare bankruptcy and default on their payments to bondholders.  Of course their goal is not the losses to the bondholdrs (who will turn out to mostly be pension funds – the middle class), but to enable “restructuring contracts” and thus force government workers, police, firemen, etc. to accept vastly lower wages and benefits.  But the big prize is letting/forcing states to privatize everything.  Roads, water systems, parks…  Look at it this way, if Grover Norquist is for it, it cannot be good for the great majority of us. (Source)

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Trust What Obama DOES, Not What He SAYS–cont’d

What Obama said in 2008 (to get elected):

As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama promised to end the Bush tax cuts for the top earners, arguing that it’s necessary to cut the federal deficit and has a minimal stimulative effect on the economy. (Source)

What Obama did December, 2010:

December 06, 2010: President Obama has agreed to extend tax cuts for the rich in a deal with a total cost estimated by the NY Times at $900 billion over the next two years. (Source1, Source2)

What Obama says now:

I will fight to end tax cuts for rich in 2012. (Source)

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Do parasites, like this, infest our economy?

Well, do they?

Arguing with the forces that appear to be, legitimizes them. They are illegitimate and have no real basis for existence as they are. They are parasitical entities. They are ticks. (Source)

PhD economist Michael Hudson says that the financial “parasites” are “sucking as much money out” as they can before “jumping ship”. . . The problem with parasites is not merely that they siphon off the food and nourishment of their host, crippling its reproductive power, but that they take over the host’s brain as well. The parasite tricks the host into thinking that it is feeding itself. (Source)

Sacculina Carcini parasite

Saculina Carcini is an extraordinary creature, a barnacle that degenerates practically into a plant. It starts life as a free-swimming larva that invades a crab then changes into a microscopic slug, which plunges into the crab’s underside and sprouts “roots” that draw in nutrients from the crab’s blood.

The crab’s immune system cannot fight off Sacculina. but continues living with the parasite filling its entire body and begins to change into a new sort of creature. One that exists to serve the parasite. Externally it appears the same, but internally it is merely a puppet controlled by the intruder. (Source)

See any parallels?

But one cannot defend the actions of Team Obama on taking office. Law, policy and politics all pointed in one direction: turn the systemically dangerous banks over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Insure the depositors, replace the management, fire the lobbyists, audit the books, prosecute the frauds, and restructure and downsize the institutions. The financial system would have been cleaned up. And the big bankers would have been beaten as a political force.

Team Obama did none of these things. Instead they announced “stress tests,” plainly designed so as to obscure the banks’ true condition. They pressured the Federal Accounting Standards Board to permit the banks to ignore the market value of their toxic assets. Management stayed in place. They prosecuted no one. The Fed cut the cost of funds to zero. The President justified all this by repeating, many times, that the goal of policy was “to get credit flowing again.”

The banks threw a party. Reported profits soared, as did bonuses. With free funds, the banks could make money with no risk, by lending back to the Treasury. (Source)

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See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil–”corruption, American-style”

Economic collapse just happens–no one is at fault. Don’t listen if you hear otherwise.

There was no wrong doing at all in the current economic crash, nor in the subsequent $X trillion dollar giveaways bailouts:

Did you know that in the aftermath of the Savings and Loan (Thrifts) scandal there were more than a thousand felony convictions of financial elites?  The cost of the wrongdoing associated with the rip-off and closure of nearly 800 Thrifts cost taxpayers more than $160 billion.  The current sub-prime/mortgage-backed security scandal is 40 times bigger according to Economics professor William Black.

Who could have known?

Can you guess how many indictments there have been on financial elites who created this enormous mess?  Zero, none, nada, zip.  Yes, not one single prosecution or conviction has been started or achieved.

That is simply outrageous considering the width and breadth of the many crimes committed. (Source)

Where are the fact finding commissions, the grand juries?

Trust us . . .

Where is any accountability at all?

Relax, ok? . . . Now, repeat after me: there was NO wrong doing--at all. None. No one is at fault.

“The banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. They frankly own the place.” — U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Democratic Party Whip, April 30, 2009 (Source)

People have an incentive sometimes to behave badly, because they can make more money if they can cheat. If our economic system is going to work then we have to make sure that what they gain when they cheat is offset by a system of penalties. . . . We cannot solve the economic crisis unless we throw the criminals who committed fraud in jail. (Source)

Nobel prize winning economist George Akerlof has demonstrated that failure to punish white collar criminals – and instead bailing them out- creates incentives for more economic crimes and further destruction of the economy in the future. See this, this and this. (Source)

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America Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime

One of the things that’s most troubling to people is there seems to be very little relationship between who drove this crisis, the big financial institutions, the CEOs, regulators who didn’t do their job, and the people who are paying the price, which are millions of people who have lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost their life savings. (Source)

Where are the police when you need them?

Any fairytale notions of the United States being a democratic republic built on the rule of law have been utterly dispelled. . . . United States government has been taken over by a financial terrorism network.  (Source)

See also:

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MSNBC reports: “Bayer knowingly sold contaminated medicine”

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Bayer knowingly sold contaminated medicine.

This is the level of protection you can expect from the FDA, the Congress, and the White House. Another story that came and went and never stuck.

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See also:

• GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, will pay $750 million to settle a U.S. whistleblower lawsuit over the sale of defective drugs
• 60 Minutes Exposes the Maker of the #1 Most Fatal Drug of 2009
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science

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Wall Street to get $144 Billion in Bonuses–that’s 8% of the total US M1 money supply, or more than $1000 from every US household

Just like in 2009, investment banks will once again in 2010 get more than $1000 from every US household . . .

WSJ is reporting that bonuses on Wall Street this year are expected to be around $144 billion–that’s more than $1000 from every US household.

How big is that relative to the overall economy?

ZeroHedge cranked out the numbers and it is 8% of the total money supply (as measured by M1). (Source)

Got that?

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How To Steal an Election–or program a “secure” voting machine to play Pac Man

Voting in an election is very important as it will influence the future governance of your state and country. It therefore has to be carried out under scrutiny with none of the votes being tampered with. Ballot papers in a locked box are quite easy to keep secure, but how about voting digitally on a machine whose sole purpose it to allow for secure votes to be placed? (Source)

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It’s easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That’s because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America’s voting machines, Freeman writes. (Source)

Freeman lists below how Americans protect their vices more than they guard their rights, according to data he presented at an October meeting of the American Statistical Association in Philadelphia. (Source)

GRAPHIC: The Washington Post - March 16, 2006

How secure are our electronic voting machines?

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Researchers J. Alex Halderman and Ariel J. Feldman, from the University of Michigan and Princeton University, purchased a Sequoia AVC Edge, a touchscreen voting machine that was originally going to be used for the Williamsburg, Virginia primaries. It has apparently also been used in a jurisdiction with 9 million voters. Importantly, the tamper seals on the machine were still intact.

They tested the Sequoia touchscreen voting machine to see if it was possible to tamper with the machine without breaking the seals. They decided to try and install a working game of Pac-Man while leaving the machine free of tampering evidence. (Source)

Researchers Halderman, University of Michigan, and Feldman, Princeton University, demonstrated how easy it was to re-program a standard Sequoia voting machine to play Pac Man--without breaking any "tamper-evident" seals.

They did it! They were able to reprogram the voting machine without breaking any seals–as the video above shows.

Heck, it's so simple even student get in on the fun!

Electronic voting machines are notoriously buggy and hackable. Even the manufacturers of DRE (direct recording electronic) voting talliers have admitted so much. Some states have even gone as far as to ban the touchscreen devices. (Source)

Questions:

1. Why is security on our voting machines so lax?
2. Why aren’t voting machines at least required to meet the security standards of Las Vegas slot machines?

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Buy a Congressman for $1.4 million, or a Senator for $10 million–or all members of Congress for a mere $1.6 B

US Government -- now on sale!

Corporations can now buy their own congressman or senator “donate” any amount of money to any election, as decided recently by the US Supreme Court “Citizens United” ruling.

Why would corporations make donations to politicians? Duh, to influence outcomes . . .

A study from University of Michigan Professors Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura found that the financial institutions who has the strongest political “ties” received the largest bail outs. Read the study here or here . . .

See also:  Hey Voters, We Defy You – bwahahahahah

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How much does it cost to buy ensure your operative gets elected as a congressman or senator?

According to federal election data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics and OpenSecrets.org. (Source)

Average spent by House race winners, 2008:
$1.4 million

• Average raised by challengers, 2010: $166,000
• Average raised by incumbents, 2010: $1 million

Average spent by Senate race winners, 2008:
$8.5 million

• Average raised by challengers, 2010: $519,000
• Average raised by incumbents, 2010: $9.4 million

. . . in other words, it costs about $1.4 M to get your operative elected to the House, or $10 M to the Senate.

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Wow! For a mere $1.6 B anyone can effectively buy themselves an entire US Congress. How? Back your own operatives, “donate” $1.6 B to get most of them elected, and RULE! Of course, your operatives would have to be trained to say that your donations don’t influence them in any way–right after they pass a multi-billion dollar bailout for you. Right?

• Do the math: $1.6 B = (100 senators x $10 M) + (435 congressmen x $1.4 M)
• Put it in perspective: $1.6 B is less than 10% of the $16.2 B bonuses awarded to Goldman Sachs’ employees in 2009
• Investment: Goldman Sachs is the 3rd largest contributor to House and Senate campaigns–and to the Obama Administration
• Rise to power: Goldman Sachs successfully lobbied  the Obama Administration and Congress to get 48 Goldman Sachs operatives appointed to key financial administration positions
• Payouts: In 2009 alone Goldman has taken more than $20 billion in taxpayer cash through bailouts, payments and backstops; in addition to $16.2 B paid out as 2009 bonuses, Goldman Sachs paid out $5 billion more in bonuses in the first three months of 2010 [Without Governments bailouts Goldman's bonuses would have been zip, zero, ziltch.]
• It’s systemic: The nation’s six largest banks set aside $140 billion for executive compensation in 2009–which works out to over $1000 from every household in America, just for Wall Street’s 2009 bonuses!

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Congressional incumbent reelection rate, 2008: 94%

Dollar contributions are the best predictor of US Federal election outcomes.

“The banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. They frankly own the place.” — U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, Democratic Party Whip, April 30, 2009 (Source)

We’re back to the late 19th century when the lackeys of robber barons literally deposited sacks of cash on the desks of friendly legislators. . . . We’re losing our democracy to a different system. It’s called plutocracy. (Source)

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The Meaning of “Austerity” — and its antidote in Iceland

Off-loading of fiscal responsibility: The most impressive facet of today’s financial landscape is how much of their bad debts the financial sector was able to quickly transform into government debt to be paid through austerity measures imposed on the taxpayers.   After bailing out the banks, governments are destitute and will try to force the public to live on bread and water so the treasury can continue to feed the wealthy. (Source)

The ultimate consequence is going to be that not only will your wages, pensions, health care and other services fade and slowly vanish, what’s left of your wealth will increasingly be confiscated and handed to a bunch of rich gamblers with political clout. (Source)

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Warren Buffett famously said, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Unless, maybe, the middle class of USA and Europe learn from the people of Iceland.

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Federal Courts Rule Against Us–Again and Again

To serve and protect the profit interests of the corporate elite . . .

As if the US Supreme Court ruling a month ago that corporations can give unlimited bribes donations to politicians weren’t enough, the US Supreme Court just ruled that new GM (genetically modified) crops don’t have to pass any safety testing before being released:

Mmmmmmm, good!

Cart / Horse: The Roberts Supreme Court has ruled that Monsanto can continue to sell its genetically modified seeds while it conducts safety tests. If the GM products turn out to ruin agriculture around the world, cause birth defects and contaminate the bio-sphere, then further testing could be undertaken by the survivors. (Source)

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Want a couple more examples? Try these:

Excuse Me? A federal judge (and investor in drilling companies), U.S. District Judge Martin L. C. Feldman, has ruled that the administration’s moratorium on deep water drilling was “arbitrary” and that the government had not provided evidence that there was any danger from continued drilling.    (Source)

Get Out Of Jail Free: In Skilling v. United States (on June 24,2010) the US Supreme Court “narrowed” the statute regarding “honest services” to apply only to activity such as bribery and kickbacks, and says the former head of Enron, Jeff Skilling did not violate the statute. (Source) In 2006 Skilling was convicted of multiple federal felony charges relating to Enron’s financial collapse, and is currently serving a 24-year, 4-month prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Englewood, Colorado.

The most important lesson to be learned from the 9-0 Supreme Court decision in the Skilling/”honest services” case has nothing to do with the Court telling our corporate masters that boardroom theft and managerial looting of companies is acceptable, but rather that if you are among the privileged class in the US, there is no such thing as settled law. The law is malleable and can be changed to serve the rich and powerful. (Source)

Connect the dots! Win a prize.

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