Thu 9 Jun, 2011
Thu 7 Apr, 2011
During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo.
The authorities uncovered billions of dollars in wire transfers, traveller’s cheques and cash shipments through Mexican exchanges into Wachovia accounts. Wachovia was put under immediate investigation for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering programme. Of special significance was that the period concerned began in 2004, which coincided with the first escalation of violence along the US-Mexico border that ignited the current drugs war
Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court.In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year’s “deferred prosecution” has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine.
More shocking, and more important, the bank was sanctioned for failing to apply the proper anti-laundering strictures to the transfer of $378.4bn — a sum equivalent to one-third of Mexico’s gross national product — into dollar accounts from so-called casas de cambio (CDCs) in Mexico, currency exchange houses with which the bank did business.
[...]
“For the time period of 1 May 2004 through 31 May 2007, Wachovia processed at least $$373.6bn in CDCs, $4.7bn in bulk cash” – a total of more than $378.3bn, a sum that dwarfs the budgets debated by US state and UK local authorities to provide services to citizens.
So, if I sell an ounce of coke I’ll get ten to twenty years in pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison. If I launder $365 billion dollars worth of drug money then I’d only have to pay $50 million dollar fine. And I’d pay the fine with the $54 billion dollar government bailout.
Goddammit, why can’t I run a fucking bank? I’m educated, I’m white, I can pretend to be doing God’s work. What do those assholes have that I don’t? Oh, that’s right. I’m not well connected.
Tags: Drug Money, Goddamn I Wish I Was Rich, Nobody Goes To Jail, WachoviaComments (2)
Mon 28 Mar, 2011
Que standardize test fraud in three….two…..one….GO!
Tags: Rick Scott Is A Crook, Standardized Test Scores, Stupid Fucking KidsComments (2)
Fri 25 Mar, 2011
Someone pinch me because I must be dreaming:
CNN has exclusively learned that Rep. Michele Bachmann will form a presidential exploratory committee. The Minnesota Republican plans to file papers for the committee in early June, with an announcement likely around that same time.
But a source close to the congresswoman said that Bachmann could form the exploratory committee even earlier than June so that she could participate in early Republican presidential debates.
“She’s been telling everyone early summer,” the source told CNN regarding Bachmann’s planned June filing and announcement. But the source said that nothing is static.
“If you [debate sponsors] come to us and say, ‘To be in our debates, you have to have an exploratory committee,’ then we’ll say, ‘Okay, fine…I’ll go file the forms.’”
Three GOP presidential primary debates are planned before and during early June: The first one on May 2 at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California and another on May 5 in South Carolina. CNN plans a GOP presidential primary debate in New Hampshire in early June.
I cannot wait until the 2012 Presidential election. Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Herman Cain, Fred Karger, Buddy Roemer, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, and the “Rent Is Too Damn High” guy are all running for the Republican nomination.
Can you imagine the crazy shit that’ll go down during the Republican primary? Who will praise Jebus more? Who will say they are against abortion the most? Who will blame the gays for ruining the plant the most? Who will talk about the Left Wing media the most? Who will praise Israel the most? Will Newt Gingrich get caught in another affair? Will Donald Trump have to declare his 723 bankruptcy? Will Mike Huckabee’s son torture another dog? Will Mitt Romney leave the Mormon Church?
This is like I woke up early on Christmas to find Jesus and Santa butt fucking each other while Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman make out.
Fuck, I’ve got the strangest boner going on right now.
Tags: 2012 Presidential Elections, It's Going To Be A Fight Among The Retards, Republican NomineesComments (5)
Wed 23 Mar, 2011
Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of “trophy” photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.
Senior officials at Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.
[...]
In one incident in May last year, the article says, during a patrol, the team apprehended a mullah who was standing by the road and took him into a ditch where they made him kneel down.
The group’s leader, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, then allegedly threw a grenade at the man while an order was given for him to be shot.
Afterwards, Gibbs is described cutting off one of the man’s little fingers and removing a tooth.
[...]
In a statement, the army said it apologised for the distress caused by photographs “depicting actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States”.
Holy fucking shit. These assholes tossed a grenade at an unarmed man, shot him in the head, cut off a finger, ripped out a tooth and the only thing the army can say is “Sorry”?
Why aren’t these assholes being held at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia? Why aren’t they being held as a “maximum custody detainee” and held under a “Prevention of Injury” assignment? Why aren’t they being held in a 6 x 12 foot cell with no windows, a bed with no sheets and no pillow?
Oh that’s right, these guys only killed brown people for sport. They didn’t allegedly pass classified information to Wikileaks that embarrassed the government.
Tags: Afghanistan, Hey It's Okay These Were Brown People, Torture, War on TerrorComments (2)
Mon 21 Mar, 2011
Fri 18 Mar, 2011
If you aren’t watching Community then I hope you choke on an elephant’s foreskin.
I wish I got emails like this. [Matt Taibbi]
Goddammit Texas. [Firedoglake]
I wonder if Peter King’s going to hold hearings on this. [Crooks and Liars]
I knew it was all about the oil. [Empire Burlesque]
Fuck Wall Street in their goddamn mouths. [Zero Hedge]
Tags: That's why I'm going to watch Community all weekend, We're going to invade another countryComments (0)
