All posts in Crony Capitalism

Allen West on the Communist Aligned Congressive Progressive Caucus

Allen West needs to name names.

Keywiki has profiles of more than 40 communist and socialist aligned Congressmembers.

Raul Grijalva, Rosa DeLauroDanny DavisDennis Kucinich and Jerrold Nadler to name but a few.

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JIB JAB FOR COLORADO POLITICS: Eric Weissmann Releases Video Hitting Jared Polis On Insider Trading

by: ColoradoPeakPolitics

With videos as well done as this one, the insider trading allegations could become a defining attribute of the race. The charges are based, in part, on a book by investigative reporter Peter Schweizer.

Schweizer, author of the book “Throw Them All Out,” detailed how Polis was making substantial equity investments in Bridgehealth, a medical tourism company, while supporting the passage of Obamacare. Medical tourism will naturally benefit if the U.S. sees the rationing of care other countries have when healthcare is nationalized.

“Don’t worry Grandma, I know we can’t get you a knee replacement here, but you can get it in India AND see the Taj Mahal!”

Outside the world of Congress, personally financially benefiting from insider information is called “insider trading”…but in Congress there is no such prohibition.

Eric Weissmann realizes this race will be an uphill battle, and since YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google, getting his messaging into that space is critical. If Weissmann continues to use this kind of thoughtful approach to his entire campaign, Jared Polis should be more than a little nervous about his reelection prospects.

 

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FEDS GIVE MILLIONS TO COMPANY UNDER SEC INVESTIGATION

Last Thursday, CBS News reported that Ecotality, a company that makes chargers for electric cars and received millions from the stimulus bill, is under investigation for insider trading:

The company received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission in October of 2010.

The president of Ecotality North America Don Karner was sent an additional subpoena in December of 2011, which specifically asks for any and all documentation surrounding the public announcement of the first Department of Energy grant to the company for $99.8 million on August 5, 2009.

The government also wants all communication regarding the federal grant from at least four Ecotality employees and two board members including the company’s CEO Jonathan Read. Karner was required to supply documents to the SEC by early January.

A company spokesperson told CBS News in an email, “We are cooperating fully with the SEC and have no further disclosures or updates that we are able to provide outside of our public filings.”

Ecotality was awarded $99 million in 2009 and an additional $26 million in October 2011. Since the beginning of the grant period in October 2009 the company reported creating 144 jobs according to Recovery.gov .

That’s right. Despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxpayer dollars, the company has only created 144 jobs in the more than two and a half years since first receiving stimulus funds. Yet, in his 2010 State of the Union address,President Obama praised the company and the head of the company’s subdidary, Don Karner, was First Lady Obama’s guest to the address. At the time of the speech, the company had created fewer than 30 jobs from the funds they had received.  However,  the Obama administration shows further poor judgment in providing the additional $26 million of funding this past October– when the company was under investigation for insider trading for a year.

The CBS story notes also that the company’ s CEO, Jonathan Read, is one of the individuals under SEC investigation. (As a side note, CBS’s story indicates the laziness and incompetence of the old media, as the Heritage Foundation originally reported the first SEC investigation in October 2011).  Read’s son Colin, who also worked for Ecotality as VP of Corporate Development, was the finance director for former Democratic Congressman Harry Mitchell of Arizona in 2006. Additionally, Jonathan Read donated $3,600 and Ecotality board member, Slade Mead, donated $4,200 (the maximum) to Mitchell’s Congressional bid. Mitchell served in Congress until he was swept out in 2010 by Republican David Schweikert. Additionally, theNational Legal and Policy Center notes:

Besides voting for the stimulus bill, Mitchell served on House committees that oversaw Science and Technology, and Transportation and Infrastructure – both key interests for Ecotality. But whether he had any influence in Ecotality’s receipt of $115 million from the Department of Energy via the stimulus is unclear.[Jonathan] Read has not made any political contributions to federal candidates since 2006, according to Center for Responsive Politics.

It is unknown if Mitchell’s closeness to Ecotality’s management was the source of insider trading information. However, it should be noted that the SEC requested correspondence from the days leading up to the initial grant funding which was potentially influenced by committees on which Congressman Mitchell served. Aside from the massive waste of taxpayer dollars on another “green” energy project, this serves to be another lesson both in the relationships of trading favors between Congress and their donors and the Obama administration providing taxpayer dollars to companies who are under investigation for unethical behavior.

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MF GLOBAL EXEC: CORZINE ORDERED $200M TRANSFER OF CUSTOMER FUNDS

(AP) MF Global exec says Corzine ordered $200M transfer
A former MF Global executive appears to contradict testimony from Jon Corzine, saying the former senator and New Jersey governor ordered the transfer of $200 million last fall out of a customer account days before the brokerage firm collapsed, according to an email obtained by congressional investigators.Edith O’Brien, MF Global’s former assistant treasurer, says Corzine ordered the money shifted to one of the firm’s bank accounts overseas on Oct. 28 to cover an overdraft, according to a memo that cited the email.The email noted that the transfer was made “per JC’s direct instructions.”

MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection on Oct. 31. The firm failed because of a disastrous bet on European debt. About $1.6 billion of customers’ money hasn’t been recovered.

A House Financial Services subcommittee released the memo Friday in advance of a hearing Wednesday. O’Brien has been subpoenaed to testify. The Associated Press was unable to reach her for comment.

In December, Corzine told the panel at a hearing: “I did not instruct anyone to lend customer funds to MF Global or any of its affiliates.” Corzine also told the subcommittee he didn’t know about “the use of customer funds on any loan or transfer.”

And Corzine told a Senate panel two days earlier: “I never gave any instruction to anyone at MF Global to misuse customer funds.”

Steven Goldberg, a spokesman for Corzine, reiterated in a statement Friday that Corzine testified that there wasn’t anything he had said that “could reasonably have been interpreted as an instruction to misuse customer funds. He stands by that testimony.”

“He never directed Ms. O’Brien or anyone else regarding which account should be used to cure the overdrafts, and he never directed that customer funds should be used for that purpose,” Goldberg said. “Nor was he informed that customer funds had been used for that purpose. To the contrary, as Mr. Corzine testified, he recalls having received written material indicating that the funds used to cure the overdrafts were appropriate for that purpose.”

Client money is required by law to be held separately from a brokerage firm’s cash in order to protect investors in case a firm fails. If MF Global misused client money, it would violate a fundamental investor protection for people who trade options and futures.

Many lawmakers have heard from farmers, ranchers and small business owners in their states who are missing money that was deposited with the firm. Agricultural businesses use brokerage firms like MF Global to help reduce their risks in an industry vulnerable to swings in oil, corn and other commodity prices.

Corzine, a former New Jersey governor and U.S. senator from the state, led MF Global until early November. He testified before three congressional panels in December. He said he didn’t become aware of the shortfall in customer money until hours before MF Global’s bankruptcy filing.

No one has been charged in the MF Global case. In addition to Congress, federal regulators and a federal grand jury in Chicago are investigating.

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‘DEMOCRATS, SOCIALISTS AND COMMUNISTS…WE ARE ALL TOGETHER’: PIVEN DRAWS CHILLING CONNECTIONS

Democrats, Socialists and Communists...We Are All Together: Frances Fox Piven Draws Chilling Connections

Renown Leftist Activist: Frances Fox Piven.

According to Frances Fox Piven:

  • The Occupy Movement is made up of “All parts of the Left.”
  • That includes proudly: “Democrats, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists.”
  • Must all work together because of the “Huge task of transforming America and the world.” 
  • “We are all together”
At last weekend’s Left Forum 2012, the annual pep-rally for liberal thought, renown leftist professor and activist Frances Fox Piven shown some light onto the makeup of the current America Left.  In this minute  of audio, Piven tells the packed auditorium which worldview philosophies embody their movement:

“There is room for all of us. Religious leftists, people who think peace is the answer, those who think that wholesome food is what we really need, ecologists and old-fashioned Democrats,  Democratic Socialists, Socialists and Communists.” 

Piven goes on to discuss the major undertaking that the leftist movement is working on and why these ideologies must unite:

“We can work together because we have a really huge task before us, transforming America and the World.” 

Both statements were met with applause and agreement from the audience of over one thousand.

The genesis of the Occupy movement was a theme that gripped the Forum this year.  The evicted movement has made some dark predictions over their plans for this spring.  However, Piven’s comments were just one of many revealing facts about the movement to come.  Stay tuned.

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Van Jones: Obama Opponents “Hate Everybody In America”…

You know, because the left is renowned for their patriotism.

“I was there for 6 months. Best 6 months of my life, followed by the worst two weeks. … What I saw there is why I am here today. I saw some of the most beautiful people, some of the most well intentioned people, some of the smartest people ever to serve in our government, be stopped in their tracks, stopped in their tracks, by people who mean us no good. People who claim to be patriots but seem to hate everybody in America.”

HT: Ben Shapiro

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GE Orders All Employees To Drive Chevy Volts…

That’s odd, why would GE pick the Chevy Volt as the company’s new official car?

General Motors and General Electric are two companies that have been in the political crosshairs lately. GM stands accused of “crony capitalism,” while GE is under fire for paying no Federal income taxes in 2010. The two companies share more than that though, with GE placing an order for 12,000 Chevy Volts and other hybrid vehicles.

A memo leaked to Green Car Reports lays out GE’s plans for their new fleet of Volts, and as expected, it has some people crying foul.

The memo, sent to employees of GE Healthcare Americas team explains that all sedan, crossover, and minivan purchases in 2012 will be replaced by the Chevy Volt. Only field engineers are excepted from having to drive a company Volt.

GE will offer estimates for installation Level 2 Charging Stations, though all-gas use will be allowed when there is no electric option. Any employees who opt out of the Volt program will not be compensated for their expenses. Those who do choose to drive the Volt will be reimbursed for public charging and home charging costs, in addition to gas uses.

While some people are probably put off by having to drive a Volt, GE claims to have crunched the numbers and believes that in the long term, this will save the multi-national company big bucks. More than that though, GE is positioning itself as a big player in the EV charging market. Getting employees into Volts also means getting charging stations into homes.

Keep reading…

HT: Doug Ross

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DID THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ‘BUY’ VOTES TO PASS UNPOPULAR LEGISLATION?

The White House has allegedly been using “administrative earmarks” to “buy” votes from Democrats in Congress, according to a new report from The Heritage Foundation.

“An examination of ‘administrative earmarks’ around the time of congressional votes on key pieces of President Obama’s agenda suggests the White House used its power to fund local projects as a means to ‘buy’ votes for major legislative efforts,” writes the Heritage Foundation’s Lachlan Markay.

How do “administrative earmarks” work? Simply put, it’s when the federal government shifts funds from its discretionary budget to specific projects. However, this is less “transparent than legislative earmarking,” since, according to the Congressional Research Service, “[t]here is no source that defines and comprehensively identifies Administrative earmarks.”

Did the Obama Administration Buy Votes to Pass Unpopular Legislation?See, Nancy? One day, this will all be yours . . .

And, according to the Heritage Foundation, the Obama administration has been doubling down on the practice.

“[An] analysis of grants from agencies during the early years of the Obama administration shows that the districts of moderate Democrats, whose support was so crucial for Obama during the 111th Congress, received large sums right around the passage of three key pieces of legislation,” Lachlan Markay writes.

Care to guess which three pieces of legislation required a little “encouragement” via federal grants? If you guessed “Obamacare,” Dodd-Frank, and the cap-and-trade bill, you’re a winner.

“During the run-up to votes in the House of Representatives for each of those pieces of legislation, the rate of administrative earmarking spiked,” Heritage reports.

Below is a chart that clearly identifies the exponential rise in the number of grants requested by 12 federal agencies, as documented at Grants.gov.

Did the Obama Administration Buy Votes to Pass Unpopular Legislation?

Image Courtesy: Heritage Foundation

Notice the correlation?

“Even more troubling,” Markay writes, “during the same time periods, significant grant money went to the districts of numerous Democratic representatives who looked to face tough battles for re-election.”

Keep reading…

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LIGHTBULB. ENDGAME. HERE IT IS . . .

POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT
Okay, okay. Yeah, I can be a little slow at the switch sometimes, but NOW I think I get it. MF Global. The CME. The big banks. The Fed. The Federal regulatory bodies. Okay. It’s all tied together. Behold the endgame, courtesy of Reuters:“Clearing houses: the next casualty of the crisis?”Last two sentences:

 Ultimately what began as regulatory push to force transparency in over the counter markets may end up being a more fundamental reform of the clearing house sector itself.“In an ideal world there would be a single global, not for profit, CCP backed by all central banks,” said Orchard.

Sorry. I wasn’t thinking on a large enough scale. I tend not to – I’m a micro economist and small business owner with no aspirations (past, present or future) to ginormousness. I don’t think in these terms – but there it is.

The point of MF Global and all of the subsequent activity, which looked positively suicidal, was to bring ALL FINANCIAL MARKETS on the planet under the control of a single clearing EXCHANGE owned by the a single global banking entity comprised of the central banks, i.e. the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

And who populates, owns and runs the central banks? The big banks. Goldman. JPM. UBS. I thought the banksters only wanted to take over the FCMs and brokerage houses. It didn’t occur to me that they not only wanted to be the only game in town for execution and clearing, but they also want to be the EXCHANGE ITSELF. They want to run, own and control absolutely EVERYTHING.

Just theorizing here now, but it seems to me that the best way to bring such a scheme to fruition would be to plant one of your boys in a major FCM, have him raid the customer seg funds, go out of your way (change rules and laws on the fly, abolish all precedents, file fraudulent BKs) to make sure the customers hang and are profoundly damaged, then use the contrived “crisis” to gin up a call for massive centralization.

This is what these rat-bastards do. They create crises and then before it is all over, they have the sheeple BEGGING THE OLIGARCHS to take over and enslave them in the name of “rescue”, “protection”, “security” and “salvation”. Am I the only person who has ever read the history of the Soviet Union?

No wonder Corzine is brazenly shopping for office space in Lower Manhattan. This mess isn’t wrapping up – they’re just getting started. Corzine was first to bat and got on base just as he was supposed to. We’re still at the top of the inning with a man on base and no outs. Oh, and the umps are all on the take and the strike zone is about the size of a saucer.

————————————————–

On a similar note, here is a URL for a Wall Street Journal piece titled, “MF Global Probe Focuses on Back Office”.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203735304577164670090033702.html

In one of the first interviews I did on MF Global – maybe Andrea Shea King on 11/21/2011? – I was asked if it was possible that a low-level staffer was responsible for any of this. I said at that time that NO, this was NOT the doing of some $40k per year treasury clerk in Chicago, but that I suspected that eventually Corzine et al would attempt to pin this on some poor back office grunt.

It looks like that process is starting. And this is EXACTLY how Marxist-Fascist oligarchs operate. They view the working grunts in society as nothing more than economic units with one purpose and one purpose only. They use the lower class and the lower-middle class (the proletariat) in order to achieve power. They gin up class warfare and government dependency among these people. But they really DESPISE them. They claim to be their champion, but as soon as the proletariat is no longer needed, they are liquidated and exterminated like the vermin that the oligarchs consider them to be.

Here is what they are going to eventually try to do. They are going to find the person who actually, physically keypunched the wire transfers from the customer seg funds to the proprietary trading accounts at JP Morgan.

Let me describe that person to you. That person is probably something like a single mother with a high school diploma or GED who rides the Orange Line into the Loop every morning from the Southside. Her entire job is to sit at a desk in a cubicle with a computer terminal which logs in to the Fed wire transfer system. She is handed pieces of paper or emails all day that are set up in a template that request wire transfers. The template contains the source MF Global account number and the wiring instructions of the destination and the dollar amount. She has absolutely no fathom which accounts are which. She is just a data-entry clerk. Her job is menial and repetitive, but she is happy to have it because it is steady, relatively secure (or so she thought) and has health insurance benefits for her kids. Needless to say, this person has ZERO motive to carry out one of the largest financial crimes in history. None. This person doesn’t even understand WHAT all of these accounts trade or why they exist at all. All this person understands is how to do their very specific job, which is to send wire transfers. To the contrary, this person is probably keen to keep their job in the midst of this economic depression and not make any clerical mistakes, and enter the data into their terminal quickly and accurately.

In that last week of October, this menial back office wire clerk was handed or emailed wire transfer requests that looked exactly like all of the other transfer requests she had handled that day and every other day. She entered the account numbers and the money was sent out of the customer seg accounts to JP Morgan – and we know it was JPM and that JPM knew exactly what was going on because they specifically sent a letter to MFG requesting confirmation that the source accounts were NOT customer seg funds. Uh, talk about the most obvious CYA maneuver in the history of the world. Give me a break.

These Marxist-Fascist jackals are probably now planning, as we speak, to frame and send up the river some poor, innocent back office person. And that is the real point I want to drive home. These people are psychopaths and view other human beings as utterly disposable pawns in their game. Think about that. Think about Corzine and the rest sitting around a table with a bunch of attorneys calmly discussing sending an innocent person or people to prison as scapegoats for their crimes. Think about the strategy of repeatedly stating that “Tonya Jefferson” (or whoever) is the person who physically sent the wires, and thus is responsible. Think of how black and evil a heart a person would have to have to do such a thing.

Watch this carefully. IF this plays out and they try to destroy and imprison a back office staffer or staffers who OBVIOUSLY had no material part in this . . . well, let’s just say that wars have been fought over less. MUCH less.

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British Baffoons attack Andrew Breitbart

George Soros funded and NBC operatives MSNBC and CNN import British buffoons who “have no skin in the game, of American Politics” to wage war against conservatives and the American democratic Republic.

CNN PRIME TIME ANCHOR TO BREITBART: ‘YOU ARE NOTORIOUSLY EVIL’

In the midst of an otherwise straight-forward appearance on CNN, Andrew Breitbart was bizarrely addressed by host Piers Morgan as being “notoriously evil about almost everybody.” After Breitbart responded that Morgan didn’t really know him and that they had spent “maybe eight seconds together” in the past, Morgan responded “it was a long eight seconds.”

Breitbart Responds To Piers Morgan Incident

BREITBART LOOKS ‘LESS EVIL’ ON PIERS MORGAN

Andrew Breitbart appeared on the CNN show to talk about the conservative reaction to Newt’s victory in South Carolina.

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