Youny & Old, we.re in this together

By Michael (Mick) Webster, General United States Civil defense Assoc. WWW.USCDA.US  

Both young, old, black, brown, white, yellow, red, 99 per centers, tea partiers, students, union- non-union, republican, democrat, independent, no affiliation, government worker, or retired. We are all in this together. Let’s join hands and stand together shoulder to shoulder as members of the United States Civil Defense Assoc. to help others during disasters who are in need.

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released recently.  If all of us “old farts” have all of the money, we should be able to fight for our freedom and liberty. Governor George Wallace during his run for the office of the presidency Said “There is not a dimes worth of difference between the political parties”. Let us try to elect someone who might be near honest and not be after feathering their own nests. That means NEW BLOOD, across the board.

The younger adults yes, our own children like to refer to us as senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs.  Some of us are "Baby Boomers" getting ready to retire.  Others have been retired for some time.  Yes, it’s true, we walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once were.  We have worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and grown old together.  Yes, we are the ones some refer to as being over the hill, and that is probably true.  But before writing us off completely, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration.

In school we studied English, history, math, and science which enabled us to lead America into the technological age and most of the rest of the world.  Most of us remember what outhouses were, many of us with firsthand experience.
We remember the days before television, of telephone party-lines, 25 cent gasoline, Tape recorders, eight track tapes, cassettes, fax machines, internet, computers, cell phones, smart phones, laptops, tablets and milk with sweet cream on the top of the bottle along with ice being delivered to our homes.  It was kept in an ice box. For those of you who don't know what an icebox is, today they are electric and referred to as refrigerators.  A few even remember when cars were started with a crank. We remember dinner with the family, setting on the stoop, just talking and being together. While the youngsters trapped Fire Flies in old mason jars. Yes, we lived those days.

We are probably considered old fashioned and out-dated by many.  But there are a few things you need to remember before completely writing us off.  We survived the Great Depression, won World War II, fought in Korea and Viet Nam. Built the biggest buildings on earth. The worlds largest railroads, and the most modern highway system there is.  We can quote The Pledge of Allegiance, and know where to place our hand while doing so.  We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield.  We fought for the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave." And for the coveted U.S. CONSTITUTION.  We wore different uniforms but carried the same flag.  We know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, America, and America the Beautiful by heart, and you may even see some tears running down our cheeks as we sing.  We have lived what many of you have only read in history books and we feel no obligation to apologize to anyone for America.

Yes, we are old and slow these days but rest assured, we have at least one good fight left in us. We have loved this country, fought for it, and died for it, and now we are going to save it.  It is our country and nobody is going to take it away from us.  We took oaths to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that is an oath we plan to keep.  There are those who want to destroy this land we love but, like our founders, there is no way we are going to remain silent.

We hope the younger ones will wake up and join us in taking back our country, for us, for you, and most importantly for our children’s future and for the future of the greatest nation the world has ever known.

With all our experience and the education we gave you, we didn't have sense enough to see through the lies of our government and instead we drank the 'Kool-Aid.'  Now we're all paying the price and complaining about it.  High cost of education, No jobs, lost mortgages, higher taxes, loss of much of our freedoms and liberty by the government trashing the American CONTITUTION.

We need your help now and together we can win our country back so we can entrust you with the Torch of Liberty.

Well, don't worry young people, we’ll be there for you the Grey-Haired Brigade is here, and together we are going to start to take back our nation.  We may drive a little slower than you would like but we get where we're going, and in 2016 we're going to the polls together by the millions. Vote out all the old and vote in the new.

This land does not belong to the government it belongs to "We the People" We will together reclaim our land and our Constitution.  We trust this time we’ll do a better job of preserving it and passing it along to you and our grandchildren. God bliss you. We love you.

Our Mission Is: Disaster Relief by helping those that need it after a Natural or Man Made Catastrophe. Educate Americans on the importance of preparedness and recovery, including the Restoration of Constitutional government, rule of law, freedom and liberty.

Shocking! The Government Does Not Want You To Know What We Discovered...

Citigroup to Pay $7 Billion to End Mortgage Deal Probe

July 14, 2014, 1:03 pm ET · by Jason M. Breslow

The nation’s third largest bank will pay $7 billion to settle a federal investigation into whether it misled investors about the quality of mortgage-related securities that it sold in the run-up to the financial crisis.

How Bank of America’s $16.65 Billion Settlement Compares

August 21, 2014, 1:59 pm ET · by Jason M. Breslow

In the five years since the crisis, government authorities have won nearly $83 billion in credit crisis and mortgage-related settlements from the nation’s six largest banks — while the banks have earned more than $320 billion in profits.

O.C. man pleads not guilty to terrorism charges

By Michael Webster: Syndicated Investigative Reporter

 A 21-year-old California man originally charged with lying on a passport application so he could travel to Syria pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court to new charges that allege he also tried to provide support to a terrorist organization.

Adam Dandach entered the plea during a brief hearing in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana less than two weeks after federal prosecutors enhanced their case against him to include trying to help the Islamic State forces in Syria.

Federal authorities allege that Dandach, also known as Fadi Fadi Dandach, was planning to join ISIS, just like  Douglas McAuthur McCain,  who was an American jihadist who was killed in Syria in late August 2014, in an encounter with the Free Syrian Army while fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq. He grew up in Riverside County and lived for a time with his grandfather in Orange County, he appeared in a 2010 video urging Muslims living in the United States and Europe to carry out attacks there, calling it a duty and an obligation. 

Dandach, FBI investigators allege in court documents, declared that he would “assist ISIS with anything ISIS asked him to do.”

And ISIS – an acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – has become synonymous with brutal violence, recently ranging from the beheading of American journalist James Foley to the mass executions of Christens and more than 500 tribesmen in Syria.

Dandach adleddly had intended to board a Delta Airlines flight to Turkey, cross the border into Syria and join ISIS, according to federal agents who detained him July 2 at John Wayne Airport.

His attorney, Pal Lengyel-Leahu, has said Dandach is innocent and will fight the charges in court.

Dandach had already pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges of passport fraud.

Court records indicated Dandach was stopped in July in the Orange County airport while trying to board a flight to Turkey with an expedited replacement passport he got after he said he accidentally threw his old one away

“Mr. Dandach posed a threat to national security by expressing sympathy with, and a willingness to join” Islamic State forces, Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, told reporters. “We’re committed to protecting American resources and personnel by preventing, whenever we can, the expansion of their forces.”

The FBI said Dandach told agents he planned to pledge allegiance and offer to help the Islamic State in Syria and believed the killings of American soldiers were justified.

When told he could face criminal charges for lying to get an expedited passport, Dandach said he was more disappointed about not going to Syria than about getting in trouble with the law, according to court papers.

A June 16 trial date has been set for Dandach, who is a resident of Orange County.

According to reports Dandach grew up “like every American kid” and was a community college student and deeply religious person, his attorney said. He was traveling overseas on his own to help widows and orphans, Lengyel-Leahu said, but he could not specify where Dandach would provide the assistance.

“He’s always said the same thing, he was going over there to help,” Lengyel-Leahu told reporters after the hearing. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

If convicted, Dandach could face up to 15 years in federal prison on the terrorism charge, and up to 25 years on each of the other counts, federal authorities said.

Dozens of Americans in recent years have traveled overseas to serve the cause of terrorist movements. Their numbers are estimated at more than 175, almost all of them young men, according to government officials and people who track terrorist activities in the United States.

“It’s a relatively small number of people who are committed to doing mass-casualty attacks,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

But the risk American jihadis pose to their homeland is hard to quantify because, Levin added, “so much of it depends on the luck of those who are thoroughly committed to an attack.”

Still, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI recently urged all law enforcement agencies to be on the alert for possible attacks coming from radicalized sympathizers of ISIS in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes.

No group has been more successful lately than ISIS in attracting disaffected Westerners from here and Europe – both converts and those raised as Muslims who have gravitated to extremism.

Sources:

The Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

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Judge Thomas M. Goethals: Just a Good Old Boy, After All

[Moxley Confidential] Why can't the judge presiding over People v. Scott Dekraai muster the courage of TV's Judge Judy?Thursday, Aug 7 2014

Josue Rivas

Good old boy

We don't have to guess about whether Orange County law-enforcement officials violated ethical obligations in major felony cases and, with hopes of covering up those failures, lied under oath or became infected with sudden, convenient memory losses when their rear ends plopped down on the witness stand.

We know brazen cheating happened, partly because, since March, Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Goethals ordered dozens of hours of testimony by sheriff's deputies, police officers and prosecutors. He also acknowledged the ugly truth in an Aug. 4 ruling that ended special evidentiary hearings. "Many of the witnesses who testified during the course of this hearing were credibility-challenged," Goethals wrote in his 12-page opinion tied to the ongoing People v. Scott Dekraai, the 2011 Seal Beach salon shooter. "Others undoubtedly lied."

With those two simple but alarming sentences, the judge did what has proved so difficult—almost impossible, really—for so many members of Orange County's judiciary. He acknowledged law-enforcement corruption, a fitting term given the implications of powerful government agents betraying oaths to tell the truth. He also declared that the "serious" misconduct "merits a significant sanction."

Details

Goethals had set the stage for a historic ruling to confront bad actors living well at the public trough, robbing taxpayers of honest services and believing they could repeatedly lie in open court without consequential, career-damaging rebuke. If government officials can say anything that suits their fancy in pursuit of winning criminal convictions, our court system is a sham or, as Goethals calls it, "a house of cards." Surely, a judge—who has no greater task than to protect the integrity of the criminal-justice system—would at least put Judge Judy-style fear into law-enforcement liars.

But, incredibly, Goethals wasn't up to even TV judge standards. Judge Judy famously barked, "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining." Judge Tommy might as well amend the declaration to "Go ahead, officer, pee on my leg, assure me under oath it's raining and watch me let you get away with it."

Move over, Conan the Barbarian. Goethals is now the executive producer of one of the biggest flops in Southern California legal history. Given the opportunity to send an unmistakable signal that lies won't be tolerated from police and prosecutors, he did nothing.

Well, that's not exactly right. He pretended to do something. Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, Dekraai's legal counsel, argued the appropriate penalty for the government's misconduct was to recuse the Orange County district attorney's office (OCDA) from the case in exchange for the California Attorney General's office and to ban the death penalty as an option in favor of a 400-year-plus sentence without the possibility for parole. The request wasn't unreasonable. The special evidentiary hearings did nothing but bolster Sanders' claims that prosecutors systematically hid exculpatory evidence and operated an illegal jailhouse-informant program, points originally hailed by OCDA officials as a conspiratorial nut fantasy.

Instead of rendering meaningful punishment, however, Goethals chickened out. He banned OCDA from using illegally obtained, surreptitiously recorded statements against Dekraai during upcoming death-penalty hearings, a sanction better described as a tender caress than a wrist slap. Why? Because 104 days earlier, OCDA officials conceded on the record they would not try to introduce those statements.

In response, Sanders was diplomatic, calling the ruling "disappointing." Others in the defense community described themselves as angry. Some of my readers unsurprisingly told me the ruling disgusted them.

The outrage-empty ruling contains additional, unforced errors. Though Goethals declared that cops and prosecutors lied or robbed him of complete answers by feigning memory losses, he protected the offenders by not naming the liars or identifying their lies in his ruling. The lack of specificity has consequences.

For example, Goethals' opinion also slammed "former prosecutors" for lying during the hearings. Intended or not, that identification includes Judge Terri Flynn-Peister. OCDA and OCSD fibbers—when their memories fell suspiciously in place as scapegoats were needed to divert Sanders—asserted Flynn-Peister was the person who ordered evidence hidden while she served as an assistant United States attorney in Santa Ana and helped run a joint federal/state organized-crime task force.

But Goethals also chose to give OCDA, his former employer, the benefit of the doubt as much as possible by ignoring reality.

Two-faced Mexican Mafia hoodlum Fernando Perez, a prized, veteran jailhouse informant placed next to Dekraai's cell to learn defense trial strategies? A coincidence.

Potential exculpatory evidence—17,000 pages!—not turned over to Sanders for years? Accidental failures, despite prosecutors acknowledging in writing their discovery games were intentional based on a belief the defense had no damn business seeing the information.

Falsified law-enforcement declarations and dubious oral arguments? Not intentional moves to mask cheating, but rather, according to the judge, "the product of woefully inadequate legal training, along with a lack of professional energy and strategic imagination."

See? Prosecutors stumbled absentmindedly into unethical moves that in all instances just happened to aid their pursuit of putting Dekraai on Death Row. What tremendous luck.

No worries, though. Goethals is willing to hurl these words at OCDA: "The events associated with the current hearing do not constitute the district attorney's finest hour. Nonetheless, after an exhaustive evaluation of the totality of this record, the court finds that the district attorney's well-documented failures in this case, although disappointing, even disheartening to any interested member of this community, were negligent rather than malicious."

Alleged SoCal Narcotics Trafficking Creates The Most Valuable George Foreman Grill Ever

By R. Scott Moxley 

Lean, Mean, Fat-Reducing and Cash-Loaded Machine?

Inside a Federal Express warehouse at Los Angeles International Airport last October, a security employee became suspicious of a George Foreman Grill package shipped overnight from a Bismark, North Dakota P.O. box with an intended destination at a Newport Beach residence.

Several factors attracted attention to the package, including that the cost of delivery far exceed the what should have been the approximate weight of the grill, curious handwritten labeling and a cash payment.

Arriving Department of Homeland Security agents opened the box and found $30,000 vacuum-sealed in bundled, mylar packaging stuffed around the grill, and on the way to the Newport Beach home of Randy Gagnier and his wife Amy, who own a Costa Mesa business, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report.

The Gagniers already had been under intense law enforcement surveillance before the Federal Express delivery, in part, because their Nissan pickup truck crossed the U.S.-Mexico border at least 12 times during 2013 and 2014.

More precisely, agents claim in court filings that they observed the couple loading and unloading Duffle bags from vehicles, and meeting at a Hyatt hotel bar in Newport Beach to discuss pot smuggling with Jeran Thomson, a North Dakota resident.

According to court records, raids on the Gagnier's home recovered $405,000 from a master bedroom closet as well as 544 pounds of marijuana on the flatbed of a truck used by Ka Seiuli, one of the couple's alleged trafficking partners.

This month, asset-forfeiture lawyers at the Department of Justice filed a request inside Orange County's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse to give the $435,000 to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

Though no hearing has been scheduled, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney will decide if the cash bundles are the proceeds of illegal narcotics trafficking, a determination that would mean federal officials can assume permanent control of the money.

There is no indication in the court files that the Gagniers or their alleged partners are in custody.

According to law enforcement records, Randy Gagnier's criminal history includes a 1991 federal conviction for a conspiracy to distribute 50 kilograms of marijuana, a case that resulted in a 65-month prison sentence.

Parishioners Marched from Trabuco Canyon to San Juan Capistrano for Missing Woman

The marchers are trying to raise awareness about the search for missing Erica Alonso.

Parishioners from several Orange County churches have marched from Trabuco Canyon to San Juan Capistrano yesterday morning to raise attention about Erica Alonso. The young woman disappeared after arriving home from a Valentine’s Day date at the Sutra OC Nightclub in Costa Mesa. The march is starting at the corner of El Toro Road at Portola Parkway, then they headed east on Santa Margarita Parkway, south on Marguerite Parkway.

Moorlach vs. Wagner: Idealist, pragmatist face off for state Senate

BY MARTIN WISCKOL / STAFF WRITER

The biggest difference between Don Wagner and John Moorlach, the top candidates in Tuesday’s special election for state Senate, can’t be found in the campaign mailers and automated phone calls besieging voters in recent weeks.

Despite back-and-forth attacks regarding unions, public pensions and immigration, the veteran conservatives have virtually identical positions on those – and most other – issues.

But Moorlach, a former county supervisor and treasurer, and Wagner, an assemblyman, approach their work in the political arena in ways that offer voters a distinct choice.

“Moorlach is more of an idealist,” said Fred Smoller, a Chapman University political scientist. “He doesn’t do the political calculations – he does what he believes. He certainly will be more independent. He goes after big, important issues even if he loses.

“Wagner is a better politician. He networks. He is more pragmatic. He would rather win on less critical issues than fight the good fight with no real accomplishment.”

Wagner, 54, and Moorlach, 59, are joined by two other candidates vying to represent Senate District 37, which reaches from Anaheim Hills to Laguna Beach. The seat was vacated by Republican Mimi Walters after she was elected to Congress in November.

Garnering less attention is first-time candidate Naz Namazi, an Irvine Republican and aide to GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher – though Rohrabacher has endorsed Wagner. The sole Democrat running is registered nurse Louise Stew-ardson, a write-in hopeful from Huntington Beach facing Republicans’ daunting 13-point edge in voter registration.

Neither Namazi, 47, nor Stewardson, 60, are expected to be strong challengers. But they could draw enough votes to keep the leading candidates from winning more than 50 percent. Without that majority, the top two finishers advance to a May 19 runoff.

‘Chicken Little’

Moorlach’s independent streak landed him in the public spotlight in 1994, when the accountant and candidate for county treasurer trumpeted his belief that the county was on the brink of bankruptcy. He was ridiculed, called Chicken Little. Then came the bankruptcy, his appointment as treasurer, and a vanity plate for his Impala SS that read “SKYFELL.”

Moorlach went on to serve on the Board of Supervisors from 2006 to 2014, when he stepped down because of term limits. While on the board, he attracted headlines for efforts to roll back public employee union pensions. He was largely unsuccessful, but became a leading champion of the cause.

Those efforts have earned him the enmity of public employee unions in the county and across the state. Those unions have spent more than $100,000 in independent expenditures to defeat him.

Republican Assemblyman Matthew Harper, whose district is nestled within Senate District 37, concurs with Smoller’s assessment of the two candidates, noting Moorlach’s idealism and Wagner’s superior efforts at helping the GOP in local races. Wagner’s district reaches from Anaheim to Mission Viejo.

“Wagner’s also very much a team player up here in Sacramento,” said Harper, who had not decided who he was voting for when interviewed last week.

Wagner’s ability to build bridges with Sacramento Democrats as well as Republicans and his willingness to labor over low-profile issues has resulted in successful bills that don’t get much press but are important to those affected. One such effort by the Irvine attorney helped ease the mandated dissolution of Lake Forest’s redevelopment district. Another helps victims of real estate title scams regain clear possession of their property.

Moorlach, who lives in Costa Mesa, didn’t dispute the characterizations of Harper and Smoller.

“I’m not the one who goes out all the time and schmoozes,” he said. “I’d rather go home and spend time with my family.”

Union taint

Moorlach’s relatively prominent local profile allowed him to start the race as the better known candidate. But Wagner’s ambitious networking and early entry into the contest have helped him gain a huge edge in fundraising and endorsements.

As of the most recent filing period, he’d raised $371,000 to Moorlach’s $118,000 and Namazi’s $11,000. Stewardson did not report raising money. Wagner’s endorsements include the county sheriff and district attorney, three local members of Congress and 23 state legislators.

Of Moorlach’s former colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, three are backing Wagner and one is supporting Moorlach.

Public employee unions’ support of Wagner has left him vulnerable to attacks that he’s a union candidate – a political pejorative in the predominantly GOP district.

But the union spending is more aimed at defeating Moorlach than helping Wagner, who shares Moorlach’s support of a proposed statewide ballot measure that would allow local governments to negotiate reduced pension benefits for unions.

The two also share an advocacy for smaller government and lower taxes, and both oppose the state’s high-speed rail project.

Wagner generally agrees with the characterizations of Smoller and Harper, but he disagrees that he doesn’t tackle big issues. He points to bills seeking tort and regulatory reform he’s sponsored.

“What ends up happening is they die,” he said. “But they help keep the issue alive.”

Harper says he’ll be satisfied with either man in office.

“Both would represent Orange County well,” he said.

An outrageous Settlement of HSBC bank shows the Drug War is a Joke

Op/Ed

Assistant US Attorney General Lanny Breuer Ramin Talaie/Getty Images

If you've ever been arrested on a drug charge, if you've ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem of marijuana in your pocket or "drug paraphernalia" in your gym bag, Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer has a message for you: Bite me.

Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who's ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.

The banks' laundering transactions were so brazen that the NSA probably could have spotted them from space. Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC's Mexican branches and "deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows."

This bears repeating: in order to more efficiently move as much illegal money as possible into the "legitimate" banking institution HSBC, drug dealers specifically designed boxes to fit through the bank's teller windows. Tony Montana's henchmen marching dufflebags of cash into the fictional "American City Bank" in Miami was actually more subtle than what the cartels were doing when they washed their cash through one of Britain's most storied financial institutions.

Though this was not stated explicitly, the government's rationale in not pursuing criminal prosecutions against the bank was apparently rooted in concerns that putting executives from a "systemically important institution" in jail for drug laundering would threaten the stability of the financial system. The New York Times put it this way:

Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the reasoning here is beyond flawed. When you decide not to prosecute bankers for billion-dollar crimes connected to drug-dealing and terrorism (some of HSBC's Saudi and Bangladeshi clients had terrorist ties, according to a Senate investigation), it doesn't protect the banking system, it does exactly the opposite. It terrifies investors and depositors everywhere, leaving them with the clear impression that even the most "reputable" banks may in fact be captured institutions whose senior executives are in the employ of (this can't be repeated often enough) murderers and terrorists. Even more shocking, the Justice Department's response to learning about all of this was to do exactly the same thing that the HSBC executives did in the first place to get themselves in trouble – they took money to look the other way.

And not only did they sell out to drug dealers, they sold out cheap. You'll hear bragging this week by the Obama administration that they wrested a record penalty from HSBC, but it's a joke. Some of the penalties involved will literally make you laugh out loud. This is from Breuer's announcement:

As a result of the government's investigation, HSBC has . . . "clawed back" deferred compensation bonuses given to some of its most senior U.S. anti-money laundering and compliance officers, and agreed to partially defer bonus compensation for its most senior officials during the five-year period of the deferred prosecution agreement.

Wow. So the executives who spent a decade laundering billions of dollars will have to partially defer their bonuses during the five-year deferred prosecution agreement? Are you fucking kidding me? That's the punishment? The government's negotiators couldn't hold firm on forcing HSBC officials to completely wait to receive their ill-gotten bonuses? They had to settle on making them "partially" wait? Every honest prosecutor in America has to be puking his guts out at such bargaining tactics. What was the Justice Department's opening offer – asking executives to restrict their Caribbean vacation time to nine weeks a year?

So you might ask, what's the appropriate financial penalty for a bank in HSBC's position? Exactly how much money should one extract from a firm that has been shamelessly profiting from business with criminals for years and years? Remember, we're talking about a company that has admitted to a smorgasbord of serious banking crimes. If you're the prosecutor, you've got this bank by the balls. So how much money should you take?

How about all of it? How about every last dollar the bank has made since it started its illegal activity? How about you dive into every bank account of every single executive involved in this mess and take every last bonus dollar they've ever earned? Then take their houses, their cars, the paintings they bought at Sotheby's auctions, the clothes in their closets, the loose change in the jars on their kitchen counters, every last freaking thing. Take it all and don't think twice. And then throw them in jail.

Sound harsh? It does, doesn't it? The only problem is, that's exactly what the government does just about every day to ordinary people involved in ordinary drug cases.

It'd be interesting, for instance, to ask the residents of Tenaha, Texas what they think about the HSBC settlement. That's the town where local police routinely pulled over (mostly black) motorists and, whenever they found cash, offered motorists a choice: They could either allow police to seize the money, or face drug and money laundering charges.

Or we could ask Anthony Smelley, the Indiana resident who won $50,000 in a car accident settlement and was carrying about $17K of that in cash in his car when he got pulled over. Cops searched his car and had drug dogs sniff around: The dogs alerted twice. No drugs were found, but police took the money anyway. Even after Smelley produced documentation proving where he got the money from, Putnam County officials tried to keep the money on the grounds that he could have used the cash to buy drugs in the future.

Seriously, that happened. It happens all the time, and even Lanny Breuer's own Justice Deparment gets into the act. In 2010 alone, U.S. Attorneys' offices deposited nearly $1.8 billion into government accounts as a result of forfeiture cases, most of them drug cases. You can see the Justice Department's own statistics right here: If you get pulled over in America with cash and the government even thinks it's drug money, that cash is going to be buying your local sheriff or police chief a new Ford Expedition tomorrow afternoon.

And that's just the icing on the cake. The real prize you get for interacting with a law enforcement officer, if you happen to be connected in any way with drugs, is a preposterous, outsized criminal penalty. Right here in New York, one out of every seven cases that ends up in court is a marijuana case.

Just the other day, while Breuer was announcing his slap on the wrist for the world's most prolific drug-launderers, I was in arraignment court in Brooklyn watching how they deal with actual people. A public defender explained the absurdity of drug arrests in this city. New York actually has fairly liberal laws about pot – police aren't supposed to bust you if you possess the drug in private. So how do police work around that to make 50,377 pot-related arrests in a single year, just in this city? Tthat was 2010; the 2009 number was 46,492.)

"What they do is, they stop you on the street and tell you to empty your pockets," the public defender explained. "Then the instant a pipe or a seed is out of the pocket – boom, it's 'public use.' And you get arrested."

People spend nights in jail, or worse. In New York, even if they let you off with a misdemeanor and time served, you have to pay $200 and have your DNA extracted – a process that you have to pay for (it costs 50 bucks). But even beyond that, you won't have search very far for stories of draconian, idiotic sentences for nonviolent drug crimes.

Just ask Cameron Douglas, the son of Michael Douglas, who got five years in jail for simple possession. His jailers kept him in solitary for 23 hours a day for 11 months and denied him visits with family and friends. Although your typical non-violent drug inmate isn't the white child of a celebrity, he's usually a minority user who gets far stiffer sentences than rich white kids would for committing the same crimes – we all remember the crack-versus-coke controversy in which federal and state sentencing guidelines left (predominantly minority) crack users serving sentences up to 100 times harsher than those meted out to the predominantly white users of powdered coke.

The institutional bias in the crack sentencing guidelines was a racist outrage, but this HSBC settlement blows even that away. By eschewing criminal prosecutions of major drug launderers on the grounds (the patently absurd grounds, incidentally) that their prosecution might imperil the world financial system, the government has now formalized the double standard.

They're now saying that if you're not an important cog in the global financial system, you can't get away with anything, not even simple possession. You will be jailed and whatever cash they find on you they'll seize on the spot, and convert into new cruisers or toys for your local SWAT team, which will be deployed to kick in the doors of houses where more such inessential economic cogs as you live. If you don't have a systemically important job, in other words, the government's position is that your assets may be used to finance your own political disenfranchisement.

On the other hand, if you are an important person, and you work for a big international bank, you won't be prosecuted even if you launder nine billion dollars. Even if you actively collude with the people at the very top of the international narcotics trade, your punishment will be far smaller than that of the person at the very bottom of the world drug pyramid. You will be treated with more deference and sympathy than a junkie passing out on a subway car in Manhattan (using two seats of a subway car is a common prosecutable offense in this city). An international drug trafficker is a criminal and usually a murderer; the drug addict walking the street is one of his victims. But thanks to Breuer, we're now in the business, officially, of jailing the victims and enabling the criminals.

This is the disgrace to end all disgraces. It doesn't even make any sense. There is no reason why the Justice Department couldn't have snatched up everybody at HSBC involved with the trafficking, prosecuted them criminally, and worked with banking regulators to make sure that the bank survived the transition to new management. As it is, HSBC has had to replace virtually all of its senior management. The guilty parties were apparently not so important to the stability of the world economy that they all had to be left at their desks.

So there is absolutely no reason they couldn't all face criminal penalties. That they are not being prosecuted is cowardice and pure corruption, nothing else. And by approving this settlement, Breuer removed the government's moral authority to prosecute anyone for any other drug offense. Not that most people didn't already know that the drug war is a joke, but this makes it official.

The source: Rollingstone Magazine

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz3UWiSoTPC 
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