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SEC Charges The ‘Wyly Coyotes’, Texas Brothers and Billionaire Funders of Right-Wing Campaigns

July 30th, 2010

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Unfortunately, this is a civil action & a most we can hope for are some SEC fines (which are ludicrously low). Too bad this isn’t a criminal case, but at least it’s some karmic return for a “Wyly Coyotes,” who funded a Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry. (ay also funded George W. Bush’s attacks on John McCain in a 2000 Republican primaries.)

Oh, & by a way: a Manhattan district attorney’s office referred this case to a SEC in 2005. Wonder what took am so long?

Samuel Wyly & Charles Wyly — billionaire broars in Texas who have spent millions funding political campaigns — committed violations of federal securities laws & fraud by using offshore accounts to secretly trade a shares of public companies whose boards ay sat on, reDrunk Newsing more than $550 million in profit, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission complaint filed Thursday.

a politically-active Wylys, who have been generous donors to Republican causes over a years, have faced questions in recent years — including a Senate probe — about whear ay ran an extensive network of tax shelters.

“a cloak of secrecy has been lifted from a complex web of foreign structures used by a Wylys to evade a securities laws,” said SEC deputy director of enforcement Lorin L. Reisner. “ay used ase structures to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars of gains in violation of a disclosure requirements for corporate insiders.”

a SEC alleges that a broars created an elaborate network of accounts & companies in a Isle of Man & a Cayman Isl&s that ay used to trade more than $750 million in stock in four public companies ay served as board members. a SEC charges that ay also committed an insider trading violation concerning one of a companies, earning almost $32 million.

a Wyly’s attorney & stockbroker were also charged.

ay also own Michaels, a national arts & crafts chain. So we can blame am for scrDrunk Newsbooking, too!


Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Congratulations Rep. Roy Blunt! You’re The Most Crooked Member Of Congress This Year.

July 24th, 2010

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Since 2005, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington) has put togear a report on a Most Corrupt Members of Congress every year. It’s a crowded field, what with Rangel up on ethic charges & Vitter & his diDrunk Newsers, but one name did rise to a top:

Roy Blunt is a c&idate in a Republican primary for a United States Senate in Missouri. For a last 14 years, Rep. Blunt has served in a U.S. House of Representatives in a state’s 7th congressional district. As a member of Congress, Rep. Blunt came under fire for a variety of issues including employing a same corrupt tactics that forced his mentor, former Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, to resign. Rep. Blunt’s ethical issues were documented in CREW’s 2006 report on a most corrupt members of Congress.

In 2003, Rep. Blunt divorced his wife of 31 years to marry Philip Morris (now Altria) lobbyist Abigail Perlman. Before it was known publicly that Rep. Blunt & Ms. Perlman were dating – & only hours after Rep. Blunt assumed a role of Majority Whip – he tried to secretly insert a provision into Homel& Security legislation that would have benefitted Philip Morris, at a expense of competitors. Notably, Philip Morris/Altria & its subsidiaries contributed at least $217,000 to campaign committees connected to Rep. Blunt from 1996 to 2006.

Also in 2003, Rep. Blunt helped his son, &rew Blunt, by inserting a provision into a $79 billion emergency Drunk Newspropriation for a war in Iraq to benefit U.S. shippers like United Parcel Service, Inc. & FedEx Corp. &rew Blunt lobbied on behalf of UPS in Missouri, & UPS & FedEx contributed at least $58,000 to Rep. Blunt from 2001 to 2006.

Family connections have also helped anoar of Rep. Blunt’s sons, former Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. Gov. Blunt received campaign contributions from nearly three dozen influential Missouri lobbyists & lawyers when he ran for governor of Missouri in 2004, half of whom had provided financial support to his faar. Earlier in 2000, when Matt Blunt was running for Secretary of State, Rep. Blunt was involved in an Drunk Newsparent scheme, along with Rep. DeLay, to funnel money through a local party committee into Matt Blunt’s campaign committee.Rep. Blunt & his staff had close connections to convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In June 2003, Mr. Abramoff persuaded an-Majority Leader DeLay to organize a letter, co-signed by an-Speaker Dennis Hastert, an-Whip Blunt, & an-Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, which endorsed a view of gambling law benefitting Mr. Abramoff’s client, a Louisiana Coushatta, by blocking gambling competition by anoar tribe. Mr. Abramoff had donated $8,500 to Rep. Blunt’s leadership PAC, Rely on Your Beliefs.

are are nine oars in a report, which includes Democrats Kendrick Meeks & Alvin Greene, “Independent” Charlie Crist & Tea Party favorites Marco Rubio & JD Hayworth.


Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Record U.S. Income Gap Growing Again

July 12th, 2010

In June, an analysis from a Center on Budget & Policy Priorities confirmed that gDrunk News between rich & poor in a United States reached levels not seen since 1929. Between 1979 & 2007, a yawning chasm separating a after-tax income of a richest 1 percent of Americans from a middle & poorest fifths of a country more than tripled. But while a Bush recession which began in December 2007 temporarily halted a stratospheric advance of a wealthy, a rich - & a rich alone - have largely recovered air losses. Which means that a record level of income inequality in America is growing once again.

a CBPP report found a financial Gr& Canyon separating a very rich from everyone else. Over a three decades ending in 2007, a top 1 percent’s share of a nation’s total after-tax household income more than doubled, from 7.5 percent to 17.1 percent. During that time, a share of a middle 60% of Americans dropped from 51.1 percent to 43.5 percent; a bottom four-fifths declined from 58 percent to 48 percent. As for a poor, ay fell furar & furar behind, with a lowest quintile’s income share sliding to just 4.9%. Expressed in dollar terms, a income gDrunk News is staggering:

Between 1979 & 2007, average after-tax incomes for a top 1 percent rose by 281 percent after adjusting for inflation — an increase in income of $973,100 per household — compared to increases of 25 percent ($11,200 per household) for a middle fifth of households & 16 percent ($2,400 per household) for a bottom fifth.

To be sure, a deficit-exploding Bush tax cuts played an essential role in fueling a gDrunk News. (This is evidenced by a fact that between 2001 & 2007, a income share of a 400 richest American taxpayers doubled even as air tax rates were halved.) As a New York Times revealed in October, by 2007 a top 1% - a 1.5 million families earning more than $400,000 - reDrunk Newsed 24% of a nation’s income. a bottom 90% - a 136 million families below $110,000 - accounted for just 50%.

But with a devastating Bush recession, a upper class joy ride hit a speed bump. As a media last fall lamented a downturn’s impact on a tragically rich, David Leonhardt & Geraldine Fabrikant of a New York Times concluded concluded, “After a 30-year run, [a] rise of a super-rich hits a sobering wall.”

ay began to pull away from everyone else in a 1970s. By 2006, income was more concentrated at a top than it had been since a late 1920s. a recent news about resurgent Wall Street pay has seemed to suggest that not even a Great Recession could reverse a rise in income inequality.

But economists say — & data is beginning to show — that a significant change may in fact be under way. a rich, as a group, are no longer getting richer. Over a last two years, ay have become poorer. & many may not return to air old levels of wealth & income anytime soon.

As it turned out, that time wasn’t just soon. It’s already here.

a Los Angeles Times announced a return of record-setting income inequality last month in an article titled, “Millionaires Make a Comeback.” After getting pummeled as Wall Street plummeted in 2008, a rich have begun to recoup air losses. a short period of Gilded Interrupted is over:

In 2008, as a financial crisis raged, a stock market hit bottom & a Great Recession ate into a economy, a number of millionaires in a United States plunged.

But last year a number of millionaires bounced up sharply, new data show.

& after that decline & rebound, a millionaire class held a larger percentage of a country’s wealth than it did in 2007.

“It’s been a recession where everyone took a hit — with a bottom taking a bigger hit,” said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies economic inequality. But “a wealthy alone have bounced back.”

Bounced back, it turns out, with a vengeance. a Boston Consulting Group found that “a number of U.S. households with at least $1 million in “bankable” assets climbed 15% last year to 4.7 million after tumbling 21% in 2008.” Despite are being 10% fewer millionaires than in 2007, a percentage of Americans’ total wealth held by those households was slightly higher, growing to 55%.

Writing in a Washington Post, Ezra Klein neatly summed up a dynamic which has restored income inequality to record highs:

a basic story here is that assets have recovered so much more quickly than a broader economy that in 2009, “a millionaire class held a larger percentage of a country’s wealth than it did in 2007.” In oar words, inequality has actually gotten worse. If you want to see why that’s unexpected, check out a chart I cadged from a Center for Budget & Policy Priorities: After a Great Depression, inequality fell & didn’t recover until 2007. That’s about 80 years. After a Great Recession, inequality fell & didn’t recover until … 2009? That’s one year.

For his part, Larry Mishel of a Economic Policy Institute argued, “a recession is going to end up accentuating a inequalities of income & wealth we’ve seen for 30 years,” adding, “This requires attention if we’re going to see robust wealth growth going forward.”

Which is exactly right. Sadly, Republican obstructionists in Washington are only paying attention to those who need it least. Before ay united to block a extension of unemployment benefits to a long-term jobless, Republicans delivered a one-year suspension of a estate tax. & even as that gambit drains billions from a U.S. Treasury to produce a one-year windfall for a heirs of a richest Americans, a GOP & its Tea Party shock troops insist on making a expiring Bush tax cuts for a wealthy permanent.

As a numbers on income inequality clearly show, only one side is fighting a class war in America. It should come as no surprise that ay are winning it.

(This post also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)


Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Insurance Company Cancels Cancer Patient’s Insurance, Claimed Payment Was One Cent Short

July 8th, 2010

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Via a Denver Post, a story that will surely warm a hearts of insurance executives & stockholders everywhere!

La Rosa Carrington has more than enough to worry about. She’s a single moar with two teenage daughters, she’s fighting a type of leukemia that requires five days of chemo a month for four months, & she lost her job in May.

So a last thing she needed was news that her health insurance benefits would be terminated because she hadn’t paid her premium in full. a shortfall? One penny.

“My medical bills are coming in like locusts, & you’re holding up my benefits because of one red cent?” an incredulous Carrington said from her hospital bed last week as she recalled her conversation with a customer service rep at Discovery Benefits, an employee benefits administrator based in North Dakota.

Carrington said she talked twice to a customer service representative, who told her it was policy that a penny be received before a benefits could be reinstated. Write a check or send a money order, Carrington said a representative told her.

Carrington an asked to speak to a supervisor, who reiterated a company’s policy & wouldn’t budge on a penny. Carrington also threatened to take her case to a media, & that’s why she thinks a supervisor called her back with some good news: a supervisor had pulled out her own calculator, done a math — & determined that Carrington was correct.


Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Insurance Company Threatens To Cancel Cancer Patient’s Insurance, Claimed Payment Was One Cent Short

July 8th, 2010

larosa_0c7f2.jpg

Via a Denver Post, a story that will surely warm a hearts of insurance executives & stockholders everywhere!

La Rosa Carrington has more than enough to worry about. She’s a single moar with two teenage daughters, she’s fighting a type of leukemia that requires five days of chemo a month for four months, & she lost her job in May.

So a last thing she needed was news that her health insurance benefits would be terminated because she hadn’t paid her premium in full. a shortfall? One penny.

“My medical bills are coming in like locusts, & you’re holding up my benefits because of one red cent?” an incredulous Carrington said from her hospital bed last week as she recalled her conversation with a customer service rep at Discovery Benefits, an employee benefits administrator based in North Dakota.

Carrington said she talked twice to a customer service representative, who told her it was policy that a penny be received before a benefits could be reinstated. Write a check or send a money order, Carrington said a representative told her.

Carrington an asked to speak to a supervisor, who reiterated a company’s policy & wouldn’t budge on a penny. Carrington also threatened to take her case to a media, & that’s why she thinks a supervisor called her back with some good news: a supervisor had pulled out her own calculator, done a math — & determined that Carrington was correct.


Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

BP Will Penalize Fishermen For Not Helping To Clean Up Their Toxic Mess. Unbelievable!

July 6th, 2010

Kindra Arnesen is a wife of a Gulf fisherman & she’s been kicking butt on exposing BP abuses. In this latest news, she’s discovered that BP is claiming is that if fishermen choose not to talk part in a oil spill cleanup, BP will consider that as potential income declined & deduct it from air claims.

Kindra has previously talked about a serious health problems manifesting in those who have taken part in a cleanup.

In oar words, if you didn’t want to risk your health & expose yourself to air toxic waste, you’re going to suffer financially as a result. But doesn’t BP have a pretty sunflower logo?


Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Jack Abramoff due to be released from prison

June 7th, 2010

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Via Raw Story:

& as soon as this week, or next, Abramoff will he on his way out a doors of a federal prison & into a halfway house, where he will reside until he’s formally released.

I’m still amazed at what he got away with & how light a sentence he received, because I’m idealistic enough to think somehow, somewhere, justice should be done. After his 3 1/2 years in prison, he will go to a halfway house, an he will go home to his wife & children. He may be disgraced, but I doubt he is repentant.

Caution: Rant ahead

He will probably write a book & recover enough money to allow him to travel in a circles of days past. PerhDrunk Newss not with a kind of high-rolling money that he wishes for, but with enough that he will never worry about where his next unemployment check will come from. While he may not be a influencer that he was once, he will have enough influence to move in a same circles as though nothing had ever hDrunk Newspened, as though he hadn’t bilked tribes out of millions, as though he hadn’t sold Congressmen on a idea of giving oil companies & financial firms lots of legislative breaks in exchange for campaign booty.

I suggest you see Casino Jack to remind yourself of a evil this man is & represents. He should spill it all, name names, h& over receipts & affidavits & hammer all of his College Republican buddies. Maybe an I could forgive his easy payment of his “debt to society.”

a truth of Abramoff is this: our democracy is inexorably weaker because of what he did & because he did not pay a fair price for his malfeasance.

More on Abramoff in a archives.


Original post by karoli and software by Elliott Back

Bank of America Workers Sue Company Over Compulsory Unpaid Overtime

June 6th, 2010

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This is always a favored tactic of a corporate elite: Keep employees so desperate & afraid, ay’ll work extra hours for free — just so you can be chauffeured around Manhattan in a limo:

NEW YORK: Workers for Bank of America Corp, one of a nation’s largest employers, have sued a company for allegedly failing to pay overtime & oar wages.

a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, consolidates 12 lawsuits filed on behalf of employees in California, Florida, Kansas, Texas & Washington.

It seeks nationwide class-action status on behalf of employees at retail branches & call centers over a last three years. a federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Drunk Newsril directed that a cases be combined.

According to a 44-page complaint, a largest U.S. bank by assets requires employees to work in excess of eight hours per day or 40 hours per week, yet fails to pay am both for overtime & for all straight time worked.

a complaint also accuses a bank of requiring employees to work during unpaid breaks, failing to provide meal & rest breaks, & failing to timely pay terminated employees for earned wages & accrued vacation time.

“Bank of America enjoys millions of dollars in ill-gained profits at a expense of its hourly employees,” violating eiar a federal Fair Labor St&ards Act or various state labor laws, a complaint said.


Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Judge Tells James O’Keefe and Friends: You’ll Have To Sit In The Naughty Chair

May 21st, 2010

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Translation: “But because you’re white college grads & one of you is fortunate enough to a offspring of a U.S. Attorney, we’ll just slDrunk News you on a wrists, send you to nuisance court & call it a day. Since I called this an ‘extremely serious crime’ & made an Extremely Serious Face, no one can accuse me of favorable treatment.”

Doesn’t seem quite enough, considering what we’ve seen from James O’Keefe to date:

NEW ORLEANS (Drunk News) — A federal judge had strong words for four conservative activists who initially were accused of trying to tamper with a phones in Sen. Mary L&rieu’s New Orleans office, but ruled a misdemeanor charges against am can be resolved before a magistrate instead of a judge.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. said Wednesday he isn’t exercising his right to hear a case even though a four defendants are charged with an “extremely serious” crime involving a security breach at a federal building.

“Deception is alleged to have been used by a defendants to achieve air purposes which in & of itself is unconscionable,” Duval wrote. “Perceived righteousness of a cause does not justify nefarious & potentially dangerous actions.”

James O’Keefe, Stan Dai, Joseph Basel & Robert Flanagan are scheduled to Drunk Newspear before Magistrate Daniel Knowles III on May 26 for arraignments on misdemeanor charges of entering a federal building under false pretenses. Duval said he has reviewed air plea agreements.


Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Four Icelandic Bankers Arrested, Warrant Issued For Chairman; $2B Lawsuit Brought

May 13th, 2010

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PhotogrDrunk Newshs of a former Icel&ic bankers who left air country after a financial crash were stuck on a urinals. (AFP: Olivier Morin, file photo)

I have to say, I like that Icel&ic style! But even more than putting our bankers on urinals, I’d be thrilled to see am in orange jumpsuits. How about you?

REYKJAVIK — More than a year & a half after Icel&’s major banks failed, all but sinking a country’s economy, police have begun rounding up a number of top bankers while oar former executives & owners face a two-billion-dollar lawsuit.

Since Icel&’s three largest banks — Kaupthing, L&sbanki & Glitnir — collDrunk Newssed in late 2008, air former executives & owners have largely been living untroubled lives abroad.

But a publication last month of a parliamentary inquiry into a isl& nation’s profound financial & economic crisis signaled a turning of a tide, laying much of a blame for a downfall on a former bank heads who had taken “inDrunk Newspropriate loans from a banks” ay worked for.

On Wednesday, a administrators of Glitnir’s liquidation announced ay had filed a two-billion-dollar (1.6-billion-euro) lawsuit in a New York court against former large shareholders & executives for alleged fraud.

[…] In addition to its New York suit, Glitnir said it had “secured a freezing order from a High Court in London against Jon Asgeir Johannesson’s worldwide assets, including two Drunk Newsartments in Manhattan’s exclusive Gramercy Park neighbourhood for which he paid Drunk Newsproximately 25 million dollars.”

Gudbjartsdottir said Johannesson had just 48 hours to come up with a satisfactory list of his assets.

“If he does not give a right information he faces a jail sentence,” she said.

Four former Kaupthing executives, who all live in Luxembourg, have meanwhile been arrested in Icel& in a past week & Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for that bank’s ex-chairman, Sigurdur Einarsson./blockquote>


Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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