Dec 16 2011
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Dec 16 2011
Listen to Nick Medvecky live on WWL Radio Friday, December 16th at 6pm ET!
Listen live by clicking the link icon below:
Continuing my ongoing series discussing the current Protests with Veterans of the 60’s movement, I am happy to bring a local Detroit man to the conversation.
Meet Nick Medvecky.
Nick will bring a whole new layer to the discussion – for he was himself framed and imprisoned on a false drug charge with a sentence of 25 years. His real crime, was messing with the wrong FBI informant. The real focus, years and years of COINTELPRO interest in him.
Not only is his tale a cautionary tale for activists, with the degree he earned while under arrest, and his experience as a journalist and photographer, he now is using his voice to explain what our Prison Industrial System truly is.
His blog, American Tribune chronicles those experiences.
The call in number is 646-929-1264 to join the conversation!
Tip: In order to comment in the show’s companion chat, you must create a BTR account, its free and only takes seconds. Chat is monitored during the show, so make yourself heard.
Miss the show? The podcasts are available at the link above, or at the Wild Wild Left
Join Wild Wild Left Radio every Friday at 6pm ET, with Hostess and Producer Diane Gee to guide you through Current Events taken from a Wildly Left Prospective….
WWL Radio: Bringing you controversial, cutting edge, revolutionary, “out there where the buses don’t run” LEFT perspective since January of 2009!
Dec 16 2011
I was reading about the latest, major scandal in the global financial world, when it suddenly occured to me that I’m a muggle.
Who are the wizards? Why the major banks, of course.
Allow me to explain below.
Dec 16 2011
The corporate-owned media are all over the too-long-in-coming demise of right-wing extremist and liar Christopher Hitchens, whose cheerleading for the invasion and occupation of Iraq contributed nothing of value whatsoever to society. And since we’re being forced to read and watch utter drivel instead of noting another reduction in the number of U.S. soldiers occupying Iraq (though we’re still maintaining the super-sized fortress embassy as well as thousands of mercenaries), I thought I’d kick you all while you’re down and embed the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Wail, and gnash your teeth. Moohoohaha!
Dec 16 2011
Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
I don’t know if you woke up as horribly depressed today as I did, but I spent a long time looking for a single nugget of good news; that someone, somewhere still believed in Justice and The Rule of Law.
JP Morgan Hit by Ripple Effects of Rakoff Decisions Nixing SEC No Admission Settlements
Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Alison Frankel at Reuters highlights a new New York appellate court decision where JP Morgan is being hoist on the Rakoff petard. Bear Stearns, which is now owned by JP Morgan, entered into a $250 million settlement in 2006 over allegations that it cheated customers by engaging in impermissible market timing. The agreement contained standard SEC “without admitting wrongdoing or denying” language. The payment broke down into $160 million of disgorgement and $90 million of penalties.
What may surprise many readers is that the $160 million disgorgment was covered by insurance, or at least JP Morgan thought it was.
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The insurers said no dice, and JP Morgan took them to court to try to force them to pay. The lower court decided in favor of JP Morgan, but the appeals court reversed.
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Putting on a public policy, rather than a legal hat, insurance that has the effect of letting companies and boards buy their way out of the economic consequences of bad conduct is a terrible idea. Even though it is widely accepted that no one would become a director of a public company ex directors and officers insurance, the consequences are detrimental. Why should, for instance, the directors of Lehman not be sued into penury? If we didn’t have D&O insurance, companies would have to pay directors a prince’s ransom to do the job, and a director would have to work really really hard at oversight. That would mean he could probably only sit on one board (ending the board as high level social club phenomenon, another plus) and would do a vastly better job. You’d also see an end to directors who serve as mere decoration (nice enough people, say college presidents or heads of heavyweight not for profits) but add bupkis in terms of monitoring management.Now I’ll admit we have not seen all the implications of the Rakoff decision, but this first one seems entirely salutary. I suspect on balance, the effect will be to give companies fewer “get out of jail free” cards, which is something that everyone but the SEC and public company executive should welcome.
Dec 16 2011
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
December 16 is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 15 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1773, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships moored in Boston Harbor and dump 342 chests of tea into the water.
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea coming into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.
The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented.
The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions, closed Boston’s commerce until the British East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea. Colonists in turn responded to the Coercive Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress, which petitioned the British monarch for repeal of the acts and coordinated colonial resistance to them. The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775.
Dec 16 2011
 Muse in the Morning |
Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.
| To give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity.
–Bodhidharma |
 Impression 5 |
Dec 16 2011
So, rather than prosecuting actual war criminals, the president is letting Congress use an outdated, illicit authorization for giant fucking war crimes devised by mass murderers, crafted by torturers and based on lies to justify taking away the Bill of Rights from us regular law-abiding citizens. I guess the so-called “evil-doers” and “terrorists” abroad won’t be hating us for our freedoms anymore, after Obama rolls back 800 years of law. This fascist defensive over-reaction is predictable from a president who himself is guilty of heinous war crimes in multiple countries, not to mention his abetting all-time record-breaking, imagination boggling financial crimes here at home. No wonder this murdering thief, this constitutional scholar in name only is afraid of the law. He rightly fears justice. No wonder his guilty mind led him to pre-emptively brand us potential enemies of the state.
