Naked Capitalism has the article Bill Black: HSBC Violates its Sweetheart Deal and Loretta Lynch Praises It.

There can be no more incriminating indictment of the Nation’s leading federal prosecutors than the fact that even the sycophantic DealBook admits that on Holder and Lynch’s watch a “pattern” of recurrent frauds by our most elite CEOs has emerged – and those frauds commonly involve profiting from the banks aiding the funding of mass murderers. The administration has managed to turn into reality all those bad novels they sell in airport book stores that describe networks of criminal elite bankers financing terrorists, drug gangs, and venal and brutal kleptocrats with impunity from the laws.

What is it going to take to make progressive Senators wake up to the fact that Loretta Lynch is an awful choice to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General?  The Republicans are dong us a favor by not allowing a vote on her nomination.  Of course, it would be a big favor if it weren’t for the fact that Holder stays in office as long as Lynch is not confirmed.

I would expect that at least Elizabeth Warren would be sounding the alarm bells.  She seems strangely silent about an issue that is in her area of expertise.

Politicus USA has the article Liberals Bernie Sanders And Al Franken Stand With Obama In Support Of Iran Nuclear Deal.

President Obama laid out the options for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program during his statement today:

For the fact is, we only have three options for addressing Iran’s nuclear program. First, we can reach a robust and verifiable deal — like this one — and peacefully prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The second option is we can bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, thereby starting another war in the Middle East, and setting back Iran’s program by a few years — in other words, setting it back by a fraction of the time that this deal will set it back. Meanwhile, we’d ensure that Iran would race ahead to try and build a bomb.

Third, we could pull out of negotiations, try to get other countries to go along and continue sanctions that are currently in place or add additional ones, and hope for the best — knowing that every time we have done so, Iran has not capitulated but instead has advanced its program.

For some numbers to back up what the President said in the last paragraph above, see my previous post Netanyahu enters never-never land.

For those of you that think that working out a deal with Iran is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, I suggest you do a little research into the backgrounds of these two “liberals” who are supporting the President. You may be shocked.

WND has the article Mayor takes stand against Muslim Shariah courts.

The media frenzy was touched off by reports that an Islamic tribunal was being set up in the Dallas, Texas, area. A group of imams from surrounding mosques would sit on what they call a “mediation panel,” as defacto judges, and mediate disputes between Muslims who voluntarily submit to its edicts. They denied this was a Shariah court, saying the panel would mete out nonbinding decisions in business disputes, divorces and other family matters “in full accordance with the law.”

Normally, I wouldn’t even bother with a story from a source like this, but this stuff is seeping into the real world.  It is time for me to speak up.

Their are other religions in this country that have similar setups. People who don’t know about them live their lives happily in their ignorance. Ignorance is not bliss anymore when people start to think that only Islam has such practices.

A quick Google search gives one example, Jewish Divorce 101.

The entire get procedure is performed in front of a beth din (rabbinical court consisting of three rabbis). Though technically only the presence of the husband, wife, and two witnesses is required to effect the divorce, practically, the get process is so complex that it cannot be done correctly unless done in the presence of experts in the field. In fact, rabbinic law automatically invalidates any get which was not written and transmitted in front of experts.

I am certainly no expert on Judaism, so it isn’t hard to believe that I don’t know the details for other religions in this country.  However, if any of you want to look up quasi-judicial processes in Christian religions practiced in this country, it shouldn’t come as a shock if you find similar things.  I won’t name any names myself.

It’s time we all rebelled against media frenzies.

Naked Capitalism has the article Ilargi: Warren Buffett is Everything That’s Wrong With America.

The introduction to the article emphasizes some points that interest me lately.

Yves here. I’m sure readers can add to this antidote to the pervasive Warren Buffett hagiography in American media. For instance, Buffett lavishes praise on the executives of Wells Fargo, when Wells engages in abusive servicing (see here and here for examples). So Buffett is part of the cohort that has held bank leaders as competent and deserving of their leadership roles, which serves to hide the fact that a big chunk of industry profits rests on predatory behavior, like gotcha terms in checking accounts and credit cards.

The article itself focuses on another recent foible of Warren Buffet.

Last week, Buffett announced a plan to merge a number of ‘food’ companies in a deal he set up with Brazilian 3G Capital. For some reason, they all have German names (I’m not sure why that is or what it means, if anything): Heinz, Kraft, Oscar Mayer.
.
.
.
Buffett, the supposed genius, can only do these deals because nobody demands anybody to pay for the externalities that arise as a result of Warren pushing crap posing as food upon the American people. And then when he’s done getting even richer off of poisoning your kids, he’ll donate billions to their well-being.

The article makes very good points that are more general than just the food issue. You’ll have to read it yourself to get the full benefit.

As I started to read, I thought that Warren Buffet isn’t all bad. I put the explanation for that thought into the following comment:

There is this feeling, partly myth and partly real, that Warren Buffet has a unique management style that lets companies that he buys continue to excel. He picks companies with good managers, and he lets them continue to do their thing. He only offers advice and direction moderately when asked.

Some or all of that may be true, but there is the other side of Warren Buffet which Ilargi highlights in this article. He is ruthless at times. The bargains he gets can only be achieved because his wealth is what gives him great power to drive hard bargains.

I admire Warren Buffet for the part of the myth that may be true, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing the negative side. When I used to watch Nightly Business Report on PBS, it used to drive me batty to see how Suzy Gharib would fawn all over Warren Buffet. You know you aren’t getting straight news when you see behavior like that.

MSNBC has the article and video Leaders agree on key parameters for Iran nuclear deal.

In Lausanne, Switzerland, the EU’s Federica Mogherini and Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announce the framework for the “decisive steps” they have taken in moving closer to a solution for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program.

It is nice to see that there are alternatives to belligerence and intimidation to get agreements among countries. We could have reached this point years ago had not Bush insisted that we needed more sanctions against Iran to get to this point.

See my previous post Netanyahu enters never-never land for the evidence of what I just said about George W. Bush.

Thanks to Jacquelyn Wells for sharing on Facebook msnbc’s video.

Collective Evolution has the article NASA Has Released The Largest Picture Ever Taken. It Will Rock Your Universe.

On January 5th 2015, NASA let out an image of the Andromeda galaxy, which is the closest galaxy to us. They captured the image using the NASA/ESA Hubble Telescope once again, but this time it’s taken to a whole new level. They took 411 images and put them together to create the largest image ever taken. It’s a whopping 1.5 billion pixels and requires about 4.3 GB of disk space!

Here is a video view of that image that tries to visually convey the magnitude of what NASA has done.

Whenever I contemplate some of the wonders that science produces it makes me think of the people who have little knowledge or interest in modern day science.

And to think some people take their view of the world from ancient texts, written thousands of years ago. Compared with what we know today, why would I think that people thousands of years ago had a better understanding than we do today?

I am glad that I saw this article on Matson Haug’s Facebook page.

New Economic Perspectives has the article We Send Teachers to Prison for Rigging the Numbers, Why Not Bankers? The article is by William K. Black

Any reader familiar with my work should be running over in their mind Citigroup’s vastly larger cheating frauds that senior managers produced by using exactly the same tactics to produce hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud.

How did people become suspicious and decide to conduct a real investigation?  They realized that the reported results were too good to be true.  That too is directly parallel to Citi, where massive purchases of “liar’s” loans known to be 90% fraudulent supposedly led to massive profits.

I was thrilled to see this article. Yesterday I made the connection, in the post Net neutrality emails raise suspicions, between the teachers’ conviction and the fraud perpetrated by Koch’s organizations to defraud Congress.  The Koch’s groups’ fraud used a flood of phoney emails on net neutrality to try to convince Congress people that the public is against net neutrality.  It is about time the elite were held to the same standards of honesty that the rest of us must adhere to.

Notice also the tendency of the media to hold public employees to much higher standards than private employees, all the while saying that we need to run government more like a business.  In his article, William K. Black pointed out the irony of this position favoring the techniques of private enterprise.  That is exactly how we got into this mess with the  teachers.

Politico has the story Net neutrality emails raise suspicions.

The flood of traffic seemed to raise some lawmakers’ eyebrows, including Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California, whose office soon determined some of the messages had come from constituents who didn’t recall sending them. Her aides pointed to a memo sent to members’ staff last week by Lockheed Martin, which manages the technology behind some lawmakers’ “contact me” Web pages. Lockheed initially said it had “some concerns regarding the messages,” including the fact that “a vast majority of the emails do not appear to have a valid in-district address.” In some cases, Lockheed also questioned the “legitimacy of the email address contact associated with the incoming message[s].”

“The idea that an outside group could use consumer data to impersonate constituents suggests an attempt to hijack the important feedback members of Congress need to truly represent their districts,” Speier said in a statement, without naming a culprit.
.
.
.
“This is identity theft, but instead of impersonating for financial gain, the originators of this theft are striking at the heart of our representative democracy,” Speier said.

My ass, it’s not for financial gain.  There is tremendous financial gain to be made by stopping the FCC from regulating internet companies as utilities.  If those gainers succeed, then the rest of us lose.

If this isn’t a violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act as it is now being applied, then I can’t imagine what is. The law is even being applied to teachers who help their students cheat on tests when the cheating is organized.  See The LA Times article Atlanta schools cheating scandal: 11 educators convicted of racketeering.

One of the largest school cheating trials in U.S. history drew to a dramatic close Wednesday with a jury finding 11 Atlanta elementary school teachers and administrators guilty of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy to illegally boost students’ test scores. Some of the educators face up to 35 years in prison.

Doesn’t 35 years seem a bit excessive for teachers, especially when the Koch brothers associated organizations can defraud Congress and get away with it?

The Rachel Maddow show has the video Religious right puts GOP at odds with public opinion.

Rachel Maddow shows how conservative politics can often put Republican politicians at odds with public opinion while trying to satisfy the religious right. Tom Lobianco of the Indianapolis Star Tribune joins to discuss Indiana’s new discrimination law.

Rachel Maddow sure can go on and on without ever seemingly getting to the point. As much of this as you can bear to watch, she does make a point. I don’t want to spoil her punchline by commenting further in the open.

The Rachel Maddow show had a great interview with Elizabeth Warren, Senator Elizabeth Warren pushes Democrats to compete on issues.

Senator Elizabeth Warren talks with Rachel Maddow about the differences between Democrats and Republicans on popular issues like student loans and the minimum wage, and why she thinks emphasizing those distinctions is key to Democratic political success.

Besides what is summarized above by MSNBC, Warren also made important comments about the powers of a Senator besides just creating legislation. She also described what she says Democrats can do to demonstrate their faith in the democratic process.