Honor amongst Thieves

If one takes a serious look at the recent history of organizations like Lehman Brothers, Countrywide and most recently, MF Global, you start to wonder if what is defined as criminal behavior in the rest of the United States is the same for folks on Wall Street with straight line connections inside the belt way.

Last I understood theft was defined as “a criminal act in which property belonging to another is taken without that person's consent.” It refers to “all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use.” If this is the case, why hasn’t the Obama Justice Department (to be consistent like the many administrations prior), ever prosecuted anyone know or documented to have run an establishment involved in for what my folk would call plain on stealing?

There are several levels of punishment ascribed to theft, most of which are based on the type and the value of the stolen property: the moist common being imprisonment. Grand theft is generally punishable by imprisonment in state prison. Petty theft is generally punishable by imprisonment in county jail. This is normally applied for thefts in value of $400 or more depending on the state. Embezzlement, which happens when an employee takes personal possession of money or property that was originally intended for their employer, as well as fraud which occurs when someone tricks a victim into voluntarily handing over money or property, are both forms of Grand theft.

In New York, grand theft is defined as larceny and specific statues are on the books(S 155.05). Larceny defined includes when “a person steals property and commits larceny when, with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or to a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds such property from an owner thereof. It also includes “wrongful taking, obtaining or withholding of another`s property,” by trespassory taking, common law larceny by trick, embezzlement, or obtaining property by false pretenses.” If the aforementioned is the law then it should be asked why has no charge or charges ever been brought up against the likes of on Angelo Mozilo, Richard Fuld, or Joe Corzine by the Attorney General of the United States? It is not like there is no evidence or paper trail evident from their “obtaining property by false pretenses.”

Let us examine Angelo Mozilo, the former chairman and chief executive of Countrywide who was accused of insider trading. He was the focus of a Securities and Exchange Commission's fraud case also involving former CFO Eric P. Sieracki and two other executives and former President David Sambol. All were accused of misleading investors in the years 2005 through 2007 when it was acyualy on a path to bankruptcy when it was acquired in 2008 by Bank of America Corp. In 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Mozilo with securities fraud for deliberately misleading investors about the significant credit risks being taken in efforts to build and maintain the company's market share and additionally charged with insider trading for selling his Countrywide stock based on non-public information for nearly $140 million in profits.

As a consequence in 2010 Mozilo paid a record $22.5 million penalty to settle the charges that he misled investors as the subprime mortgage crisis emerged and was also permanently barred from ever again serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company. He also agreed to $45 million in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains to settle the SEC’s disclosure violation and insider trading charges.

The second example deals with what happened to Richard Fuld, who was chief executive of Lehman Brothers when it went bankrupt. One of the strange issues with this that federal banking regulators were aware of all that was happening at Lehman Brothers months prior to its demise. Many believed that Fuld had sold $482 million worth of his Lehman stock between 2000 and 2007. Even a team of researchers at Harvard Law School noted that between 2000 and 2007, Fuld cashed in Lehman shares worth $461 million and received cash bonuses of $61.6 million. The question still remains, why did the Federal Reserve and US Treasury enable this process and still need to bail them out without charging Fuld with any criminal wrong doing? He had to know things his investors didn’t since he was able to cash in on Lehman Brothers stock before it true value was released to the public.

Lastly, there is former democratic Jon Corzine, the former Governor of the state of New Jersey from 2006 to 2010 and a five year member of the U.S. Senate prior to being the governor. Before that he was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and after his life of politics he became them CEO of MF Global.

MF global has filed for bankruptcy over the past several periods due to what can only be described as “theft.” The way the company made money was by trading complex financial instruments called “repurchase agreements.” In the process (after losing a bundle of loot in guess wrong on these investments) the company reportedly “misplaced” over $1.2 billion from 36,000 customer accounts. Not to mention that the company under Corzine’s leadership took funds from customer that remained — to the tune of $700 million — to make up for the shortfall without their permission. Corzine and his folks informed congress that they didn’t know where all that $1.2 billion went (eventually $1.6 billion). In summary, in October 2011, before it entered bankruptcy proceedings, its executives took money from segregated customer accounts to prop up its rapidly collapsing business resulting in $1.6 billion is missing with virtually no chance that the full amount will ever be recovered.

Like Fuld and Mozilo, It’s not clear that the MF Global crooks will ever be prosecuted . It is more likely that he will not face any criminal charges although he committed criminal acts to the tune of 1.6 billion in theft. That is like stealing Cowboy stadium and not going to prison, or a hanger with 1 million U.S. Drones.

I cannot say why the Obama administration has not or appears to ferment limited if any desire to prosecute thieves of the likes listed above. Maybe it is the fear that prosecuting folks likes Fuld or Corzine will hurt his re-election. This past February, President Barack Obama's re-election campaign identified its top fundraisers including 61 people who each raised at least half a million dollars. Corzine, was a big fund-raiser for the president. In fact, Corzine was in the highest category for Obama fund raisers reporting that he had raised more than $500,000 for the campaign, most of which were collected at a $35,800 per ticket fundraiser that he hosted at his wife’s Fifth Avenue apartment in April 2010.

Richard Fuld is also a long-time Barack Obama along with dozens of other former Lehman Brothers Executives, such as John Rhea - (over $500,000) Co-Head of Lehman Bros. Global Investment Banking, and Mark Gilbert - (over $500,000) Lehman Brothers Senior Executive. I would even bet if some stuff hit the fan involving Goldman Sachs, there would be no investigation let alone criminal charges or penalties levied against their seeing that the executives of Goldman Sachs have contributed more than $691,000 to the Obama campaign.

I don’t ever suspect any criminals will be charged in America who steals billions. It actually reminds me of a saying I have heard over the years. It is either “there is even honor among thieves” or "there is no honor among thieves.” I guess it implies something iniquitous, that even corrupt or bad people sometimes have a sense of honor or integrity, or justice; or that thieves steal and that honor in this case means loyalty, suggesting that it is not good to disrupt the team. I guess in summation, regardless of the theft lying thieving bastards can trust each other and will never turn on their own kind, whether on Wall Street, inside the beltway, or democrat or republican.

NOTE-Correction, Christine Forester -never worked for Lehman Brothers (has been removed).

D.C. Politician to Citizens: Being a Victim is better than for citizens to Own Guns

Redistricting and the Electoral College: Two Reasons Why Obama May Loose in 2012

Around the media world and blogosphere I incessantly see articles suggesting how Barack Obama has assured a victory in the 2012 Presidential election after his decision to go into Pakistan and kill Osama bin Laden. Now I too, wrote a piece some weeks ago asserting six reasons why he had the inside road to winning in 2012. Although I stand by it, it was written before the raid on Osama bin Laden and more importantly, the actual redistricting of the GOP. Redistricting occurs once every ten years which just happens to be now.

Redistricting efforts will be very important in the 2012 Presidential elections since many states have become Republican dominated since the November 2010 elections which saw sweeping changes in legislations across the nation. The census shift that was documented last year will more than likely hurt Obama in 2012 since people have left traditional blue states for Red ones. Texas is one such case where it is expected to pick up three house seats and electoral college votes while Michigan, a traditional democratic state is expected to lose a house seat. In fact, census data indicate that states won by John McCain in 2009 are projected to gain six seats in congress, meaning states Obama won will lose six. New York and Ohio, also traditional democratic states are expected to lose congressional seats as well.

In North Carolina for example, the Republican-controlled state legislature looks to create new districts benefiting its party and are planning to try to re-draw the districts that would shift power to Republicans statewide by increasing GOP voting strength in non-Black regions. The reality is that November's elections put Republicans in control of dozens of state legislatures and governorships, just as states prepare to redraw their congressional and legislative district maps. Republicans now control the governor's offices and both legislative chambers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Maine and Wisconsin. They are governors' in Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and Iowa.

Those that assert his re-election is assured by the raid on the bin Laden compound are missing or lack the foresight to include the aforementioned and the electoral college on the selection of the Presidency. The Electoral College, administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), is a process that began as part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution. It was established to serve as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote. The political parties nominate electors at their State party conventions or by a vote of the party's central committee in each State and often recognize and are dedicated to their political party first.

Although Obama has a good chance of being re-elected, he may just as likely lose due to the census, gains in republican dominated states and the electoral college. So if he doesn’t win and the projections of pundits based on one political/military event that he would, just remember their failure was due to a lack of knowledge of the constitution and middle school civics.

MALCOLM X: We are Living in a Police State

Bye Bye 1st Amendment and Due Process

Imagine that there was no March on Washington led by the late great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or that there was no Montgomery to Selma March or Bus boycott as a direct consequence of the actions of a Rosa Parks, or even no sit in's at Woolworths. All may have never have happened if legislation was existence during that time like the recently passed H.R. 347. Last week on a late Monday evening, the bill described by some as the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 was passed by the US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3.

In simple terms it is another way of further reducing the constitutional First Amendment rights guaranteed to all US citizens. Through this legislation, Congress makes it illegal to trespass on the grounds of the White House and any building or grounds where the president is visiting even if just for a moment or temporarily. According to the legislation, these are considered areas “restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance." Consequently it allows the government to charge anyone who enters a building without permission or with the intent to disrupt a government function via protest or civil disobedience with a federal offense if Secret Service is on the scene.

Yes that is correct, any person protected by the Secret Service is covered under the bill meaning it will be a federal offense to even accidently disrupts an event attended by a person thus abrogating the right to assemble and peacefully protest as stated in the constitution. We all know that they not only protect past Presidents and current candidates, they also protect foreign dignitaries, many of which are mass murderers, supporters of state sponsored terrorist and human rights violators. To protest the former South African regime that practiced apartheid or even the current Syrian President Haffad al- Assad would be a federal offence punishable by a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, for a violation. In simple terms the federal government could consider a demonstration against any foreign president on American soil as a violation of federal law, if perceived to be “disruptive.”

I was under the assumption that Brandenburg V. Ohio concluded that the state cannot prohibit inflammatory speech unless it incites or produces “imminent lawlessness.” Brandenburg, a leader in the Ku Klux Klan, made a speech at a Klan rally and was later convicted under an Ohio criminal syndicalism law. The Court's Per Curiam opinion held that the Ohio law violated Brandenburg's right to free speech. The Court used a two-pronged test to evaluate speech acts: (1) speech can be prohibited if it is "directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action" and (2) it is "likely to incite or produce such action."

We as a people are slowly losing all of our constitutional guarantees. It may even be considered against the law to even assert such. We have already seen the president approve the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, essentially suspending habeas corpus from American citizens and now what is an obvious assault on the freedom to assemble via this “Trespass Bill”. In many places it is even illegal to film police making arrest on your own property. To top it off, US Attorney General Eric Holder made a speech at Northwestern University last week in which he gave the current administrations legal justification for assassination of U.S citizens. When asked about it while addressing a hearing on the FBIs budget held by House lawmakers, FBI Director Robert Mueller said he would have to check with the Department of Justice whether Attorney General Eric Holder's "three criteria" for the targeted killing of Americans also applied to Americans inside the U.S.

This albeit as former CIA Officer Philip Giraldi wrote, “The Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution guarantee a citizen due process and a public trial, as well as the right to confront his accuser. The Obama administration is arguing that these American turncoats do not have constitutional rights because they are not physically in the United States and are actively engaged in planning terrorist acts that the government has the right to disrupt by killing them preemptively.”

Giraldi also notes that the assignation of dissident “citizens without due process is not a unique practice. Libyans, Iranians, and Soviets all did it in the 1980s and 1990s” but suggest it is out of the ordinary for a self-purported “liberal democracy.”

So if any of you all have any bright ideas about expressing your constitutional right wile in Chicago this spring for the 2012 G8 and NATO summits, be forewarned. These fools or idiots have absolved the first amendment and have curtailed due process. Although it is written, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” this is not the case anymore.

What Dubois and Woodson had to say about interracial hatred?

“If you can control a man’s thinking, you don’t have to worry about his actions. If you can determine what a man thinks you do not have worry about what he will do. If you can make a man believe that he is inferior, you don’t have to compel him to seek an inferior status, he will do so without being told and if you can make a man believe that he is justly an outcast, you don’t have to order him to the back door, he will go to the back door on his own and if there is no back door, the very nature of the man will demand that you build one.”

The above statement was written by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Born of slaves in Virginia he was self-taught and eventually obtained his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in History from Harvard, becoming the second African-American to receive this degree. Although he is the person who established Africa American history as a monthly celebration, he is best known for his ground breaking tractate: The Mis-Education of the Negro.

The book spoke of the American educational system, with special reference to its paralyzing impact on African Americans. Mis-education from his perspective was a tragedy, that relegated blacks to a brain-washed acceptance of the inferior role assigned to him whites. The book proffers a harsh critique on both criticizes the system, that eventually ends up with people and mis-educating others and even learning and spreading hate in terms of race by the miseducated.

W. E. B. Dubois would experience this and continue these sentiments in his book The Souls of Black Folk. Dubois saw race prejudice in the United States as a way for blacks to be “tolerated but they are not educated” For both this frequently ended up as becoming a deep-seated insecurity leading to, intra-racial strife between African Americans.

I wonder how these two great giants of pedagogy would describe Africa Americans today. Would they see how young African Americas, lacking a knowledge and understanding of their history are indoctrinated, lacking self-confidence, self-respect, and self-knowledge?

I think they would and would define the high levels of such as being factors why self-hate is increasing among our ranks daily. It is not hard to hypothesize such seeing that still today men and women speak of good hair and bad hair and often describe good looks and attractiveness with lighter over darker skin. Yes this too is racial hatred, because the sad reality is that many of us still look at ourselves through the eyes of people that hate us.

New 2013 Proposed Budget Grows and Increase Prison Funding

We are all aware of the massive debt that has been accrued over the past six executive administrations. Likewise that a lot of it is either wasted for stuff I can’t figure out like $750,000 on a new soccer field for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay or giving one Alaska Airlines $500,000 "to paint a Chinook salmon" on the side of a Boeing 737 or given away massive loot to countries like Israel that don’t have or serve our best political interest as a nation.

As Africa Americans we expect this since historically no one I Washington seemed to care about us unless we were rioting or making folk loss money via protest. However, I am concerned about the recent budget (rather for show or actual) by President Obama. We all know about the racial disparity regarding incarceration and that disproportionately impact African Americans, especially males and how most of the crimes are economic in nature and are based on a small amount of cocaine and/or marijuana.

Even republican led stats like Georgia are trying to respond to this issue. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal is trying to reduce state corrections spending by softening sentencing laws. Last year the state’s GOP-led House of Representatives introduced legislation that calls for special courts to steer drug users into rehab, which Deal says is cheaper than a jail sentence. Georgia has the nation’s highest rate of correctional control with, one in 13 residents is locked up or on probation or parole and it spends 7 percent of its $15.9 billion budget on prisons.

Although many states are following Georgia’s led, the Obama administration is not and instead is increasing the funding of federal prisons. According to an analysis by the Federal Times. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is seeking a 4.2 percent increase, one of the largest of any federal agency, which would bring its total budget to more than $6.9 billion. According to Obama's new budget, four new federal prisons will open including in Mississippi and West Virginia.

Since less than 10 percent of Federal prisoners are locked up for violent crimes according to the Sentencing Project, more than half are drug offenders (federal prosecutions for drug offenses more than doubled between 1984 and 2005). Not to mention these funds will also be allocated to private prison which now holds around 20 percent of all federal prisoners.

Over the years, the federal prison population grew more than eight times. Between 1980 to 2010 the federal inmate population grew from 25,000 to more than 210,000 based on data from the Association of State Correctional Administrators.

Although while on the campaign Trail in fund-raiser in Harlem, NY, Nov. 29, 2007 Obama said, “I don’t want to wake up four years from now and discover that we still have more young black men in prison than in college,” it seems the President policy for increasing prison funding, will more likely insure more young black males are incarcerated than less. Sounds like chain gangs are backn in style and here to stay under the Obama budget as all budgets before his.

Why Obama Needs To Let Israel Fight For Themselves

“As President of the united States, I don’t bluff.” These were the words of President Obama, sounding as bellicose as the neocons of the prior administration and prior. I guess to take a lyric from a song from Sesame Street and replacing lulu with Be Be, “Be Be’s back in town. Not to mention I’m sure it was to impress Mr. Netanyahu, Israel and the AIPAC Zionist lobbyist who vote he will definitely need for a second term.

The statement from my perspective was disappointing and demonstrates the president, as Bush, do not understand history nor evince the capacity to learn from it as if re-election is the paramount of all things. As it stands we have sanctions already in place against Iran and an oil embargo, why do we need to purport military action as our only form of redress? Who are we to ask another nation on behalf of Israel to not pursue nuclear ambitions? Israel has nuclear weapons and we as a nation are the only one to us them on another nations, thus it seems logical that one would expect Israel to use them before Iran or even the United States.

Israel is not and never has been honest in its announcement it affirms the necessity of Palestinian self-determination. Even at the end of the Reagan years when the PLO accepted UN resolutions 242 and 338 – recognizing Israel’s right to exist within the 1967 borders. But still, Israel continues on its unilateral imperialistic religious intolerance and militaristic attacks against the good faith of Palestine and the diplomatic process.

The present administration, the way I see it may get the nation in a quandary if it continues to play “Charles Atlas” for it is not Israel who is having sand kicked in its face. They continue to build settlements and close Palestinian schools in the name of self-preservation and Zionism before truthful dialogue. All US Presidents in the recent decades have confronted this. Just review the relationship between Yitzhak Shamir and George Bush – it was Bush who pointed out in concert with James Baker the obstacle with expansion and new settlements in the occupied terror to peace.

The Palestinians only had about 20 percent of their homeland left after 1948 and live in less area given the settlements are connected by a maze of roadblocks and military checkpoints. For more than forty years Israel has ruled the West Bank in such a manner that has created a system of Zionistic apartheid. In 2008, they waged war against the Palestinian people again, from the way I see it, to shift attention from them dealing with the real issue. Although not simple, the fact remains that Israel interest and US interest do not intersect let alone coincide. They ignore the reality of any solution that will require a Palestinian state and capital in East Jerusalem with folks who meanwhile take over the West bank giving praise to the beliefs of a psychopathic killer Baruch Goldstein.

Then here at home, if it aint the ADL it is AIPAC who would rather take the position of Be Be Netanyahu than a sitting President of the United States of America. This is treason to me and maybe they should replace the “A” with an “I” and go to Israel. Last I looked they were not fighting two wars or shoulder to shoulder with US service personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Obama should forget even trying to convince this group of non-Americans and Israel of anything. Their interest as I have stated are not US interest. Moreover the stuff we do to try and show them support are not doing any good for America. Even our Joints Chief of Staff has gone on record as saying the manner in which the state of Israel deals with Palestinians motivates the Muslim world to ferment anti-US sentiment.

Obama, you need to be hard on Israel. Wee not their sugar daddy. We say we have their back regardless but as an African American man, I know guilt by association. I know that I am not going to jail for a rapist or a murderer even if my friend. We need to take the same position. We need to tell them not to start a war straight up or hit them with sanctions, cut off all streams of our funding to them and better yet, tell them no more tanks or jets. We cannot trust Israel as history has demonstrated inordinate times.

If Israel goes ahead with airstrikes, Iran will hit us also (another reason supporting their position is not in US interest). And If I were the President, no secret the US would come before them and if they did send jets to strike Iran, I would shoot them down via a no fly zone.

A lot of US don’t read and would not remember how they tried to bait us into a war before. In 1967, the USS Liberty was attacked by unmarked Israeli jets and ships and resulted in the deaths of more than 30 US service men, but this was covered up by Lyndon B. Johnson. I would not be surprised if the tried to do the same again and blame Iran.

Please Mr. President, do not fall into the trap of doing Israel’s dirty work for them. In the end, it will be our economy and the blood of our young men and women who pay for their insolence. Military spending is already draining our economy and fighting for a Jewish state, when we in policy deplore Islamic states, is undemocratic in principal if it ignores the Christians and Muslims who occupy that same nation state also.

Empowered by Super Fly Forty Years later

I was going on ten years of age when the movie SuperFly was released. It was the talk of nearly everyone I came in contact with. My first experience came with the album cover and soundtrack, the pictures and the music and although I would not be able to see it for another six years, when my family secured our first VCR, namely because back then parents would not take children to such foul language movies as many in our community do today, it has left a lasting impression on me.

Superfly was released in 1972. The movie is about Youngblood Priest a stylish and successful cocaine dealer who smart enough to know that there's no real future in dealing coke, and decides with his partner to purchase 30 kilograms of Coke to sell in four months and get out of the drug game for good with a million in cash (big paper in those days. Priest was played by Ron O'Neal

Ron O’Neal, who we lost to a battle with cancer in 2004, and which I wrote about on these very pages then, out did himself. His role, along with the movie showed me that my world and what I saw in Memphis occurred in another place – New York. Everything from the Eldorado’s and Cadillac’s to the way they dressed was what a ten year-old would see while walking down the streets of Memphis.

O’Neal’s first big break came in a Broadway production of Lonne Elder III's “Ceremonies In Dark Old Men”. In 1970, he appeared in Charles Gordone's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “No Place to Be Somebody”. His performance earned him an Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Clarence Derwent Award and the National Theater Award.

The cinematography was ground breaking at the time, with the chase scenes on the street of new York, on the Bronx River Parkway and the camera angles. But such was to be expected seeing it was directed by the legendary and historic Gordon Parks, Jr. The writing also was exceptional, being written by Phillip Fenty, the father of Adrian Fenty, former Mayor of D.C.

The movie was a box-office smash and even with that, one of the few movies in which its soundtrack made more money. The soundtrack was produced and written by another American legend – guitarist, singer and songwriter Curtist Mayfield. It was his third album and considered by many in concert with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” as one of the most socially conscious collection of messages in the form of song for positive, pro-active Black consciousness. “No Thing on Me”, “Pusherman,” “Superfly” and “Little Child Runnin' Wild” were all popular along with most of the singles released from the album. My personal favorite was “Think.”

I could never figure out why years later such a film would be described as “black exploitation,” seeing it provide opportunities for artist the likes it would be hard to find comparison too currently. Strange is it that the folks who say such consider “Boys in the Hood” and “Menace to Society” as being great and something to be proud of. I would disagree and place “Superfly” above both. It was not exploitive but rater empowering.

CNN: Ad tells Obama to 'go to hell'