WE all need to READ!

 
"R" VOTERS ARE CONSPICUOUSLY UNINFORMED & REGURGITATE IRRATIONAL CONSPIRACY THEORIES & PROPAGANDA!

Much of it is frankly EMBARASSING! 

WE all need to READ! 

There are many others not included on this list. 

Everyone needs to READ!

This is the READING LIST mentioned:

This is a great readling list written by someone else - good place to begin!

Books I've read recently (2017-2023)

1. Crime in Progress, Glenn Simpson & Peter Fritsch (origin of Steele Dossier)

2. Hoax, Donald Trump and Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, Brian Stelter

3. American Kompromat, Craig Unger

4. House of Trump, House of Putin, Craig Unger

5. Russian Roulette, Michael Isakoff & David Corn

6. It's Even Worse than You Think, David Cay Johnson

7. Too Much and Not Enough, Mary Trump

8. The Reckoning, Mary Trump (this more about public trauma from founding of USA nation)

9. The Mueller Report, Robert Mueller et al

10. Disloyal, Michael /cohen

11. Revenge, Michae Cohen

12. Enough, Cassidy Hutchinson

13. Blowback, Miles Taylor

14. I Alone Can Fix it, Carol Leonnig & Philip rucker

15. A Very Stable Genius, Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig et l

16. Landslide, Michael Wolff

17. Midnight in Washington, Adam Schiff

18. The Room Where It Happened, John Bolton

19. Compromised, Peter Strzok

20. Undaunted, John Brennan (Biog. of author and time in Intelligence Service until Trump)

21. Rage, Bob Woodward

22. Fear, Bob Woodward

23. Peril, Bob Woodward & Robert Costa

24. Authoritarian Nightmare, John Dean & Bob Altemeyer

25. Frankly, We Did Win This Election, Michael C. Bender

26. The Jan. 6 Report, Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney, Jamie Raskin, et al

27. The Breach, Denver Riggleman

28. Confidence Man, Maggie Haberman

29. Betrayal, The Final Act of the Trump Show, Jonathan Karl

30. Fail Zero, Carol Leonnig (this is about the Secret Service - from Lincoln to Trump)

31. Renegade, Adam Kinzinger

Yet to read on my shelf:

I'll Take your Questions Now, Stephanie Grisham

Democracy Awakening, Heather Cox Richardson

Prequel, Rachel Maddow

Network of Lies, Brian Stelter

Oath and Honor, Liz Cheney

Mr. Putin, Fiona Hill

There is Nothing for Yuu Here, Fiona Hill

Lessons from The Edge, Marie Yovanovitch

Blowout, Rachel Maddow (oil industry around world, with special interest in Ukrain & Russia)

Kochland: Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America, Christopher Leonard

 

Just a REMINDER!

POLITICAL HACK BILL BARR & tRump genuflected to PUTIN to protect Family Values REPUBLICANS who slept with a RUSSIAN SPY!

Maria Butina, Convicted Russian Operative, Is Released From Federal Prison

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/773374719/maria-butina-convicted-russian-operative-is-released-from-federal-prison

The DOJ Took More than Two Years to Answer a FOIA on Its Criminal Division Head; Three Days Before Christmas 2023 We Got a Troubling Disclosure

 
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The DOJ Took More than Two Years to Answer a FOIA on Its Criminal Division Head; Three Days Before Christmas 2023 We Got a Troubling Disclosure

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 26, 2023 ~

Kenneth Polite

On July 20, 2021 the U.S. Senate voted 56-44 to confirm Kenneth Polite (pronounced Po-leet) to head the most powerful criminal law enforcement office in the United States, the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The vetting of this candidate immediately raised red flags at Wall Street On Parade.

Despite Polite owing more than $1.5 million in debts according to his financial disclosure form and public mortgage records; paying over 18 percent interest on an outstanding balance on a credit card; 19.99 percent interest on a personal loan; and then accepting a job where his income was going to be slashed by approximately 77 percent – not one Senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked a single question about Polite’s unusual financial obligations during his confirmation hearing on May 26, 2021.

In addition, Polite was coming from the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bochius, which had plenty of red flags itself. Polite was a partner there earning approximately $877,500 in 2020. His job at the Justice Department was to pay less than $200,000 annually. Morgan, Lewis has, for decades, provided legal representation to the Wall Street mega banks. Polite’s financial disclosure form revealed that JPMorgan Chase was one of his clients over the prior 12 months.

JPMorgan Chase is a recidivist lawbreaker on Wall Street with an unprecedented five felony counts brought by the Justice Department and admitted to by the bank. Having a recidivist felon that is the largest bank in the United States as a recent client and then moving into the job as a potential prosecutor of that bank is not good optics, so Polite signed an Ethics Agreement (EA) that read in part:

“he will be required to recuse from particular matters involving specific parties involving his former employer or former clients for a period of two years after he is appointed….”

During the time that Polite was ostensibly recusing himself from matters involving JPMorgan Chase, the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands brought a civil case in federal court in Manhattan against JPMorgan Chase for “actively participating” in Jeffrey Epstein’s international sex-trafficking ring where Epstein and his wealthy pals were sexually assaulting underage girls.

According to documents released in the lawsuit, the bank was alleged to have laundered more than $5 million in hard cash for Epstein over the span of a decade without filing the legally-required Suspicious Activity Reports with law enforcement. In addition, various employees of the bank were making visits to Epstein’s Manhattan mansion where sexual assaults of minors were alleged to have occurred.

The Criminal Division of the Justice Department has yet to bring a criminal case against JPMorgan Chase for either willfully participating in and/or covering up Epstein’s crimes for more than a decade. (See our report: Former FBI Agent Prepared to Testify that JPMorgan Had Jeffrey Epstein Account for 28 Years – Not 15 Years – and “Impeded” Criminal Investigation of Epstein.)

The number of red flags swirling about Polite’s vetting to become the top criminal cop in the United States and supervise a department of some 1400 prosecutors and staff, prompted Wall Street On Parade to file a Freedom of Information Act request for documents with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) on July 26, 2021. We requested “all electronic correspondence from November 6, 2020 through July 20, 2021 that relates to the nomination or confirmation or vetting of Kenneth A. Polite for the position of Assistant Attorney General at the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.”

We received a response from OGE dated September 30, 2021, more than two months from the date of our inquiry. The cover letter said the OGE was “enclosing 96 pages of responsive records” subject to various redactions.

The 96 records were anything but responsive. Most of the 96 pages were simply clerical emails between staff members that shed zero light on how all of the red flags on Polite’s financial disclosure form and work history had been ignored.

The relevant documents, it turns out, were withheld and sent over to the Justice Department for more stalling. The OGE cover letter explained as follows:

“In searching for responsive records, OGE located 58 (some partial) pages of records that originated at the Department of Justice. We are therefore sending these responsive materials, along with a copy of your request, to the Department of Justice…We are asking the Department of Justice to review the material and respond directly to you.”

This past Friday, December 22, 2023 – more than two years after we first filed our FOIA, the Justice Department finally got around to looking at those 58 documents and sent us only a portion of those, with heavy redactions.

One electronic document did, however, raise more deeply troubling concerns about how candidates for the U.S. Department of Justice are vetted. The email was from Cynthia (Cindy) K. Shaw, the Director of the Departmental Ethics Office at the Justice Department. Shaw noted in a previous email that she would be the “reviewer” working with the OGE in the vetting of Polite. But in this email dated April 14, 2021, Shaw appears to be seeking the opinion of the man being vetted as to whether her suggested wording of his Ethics Agreement might raise questions. (See document below. Redactions were made by the DOJ.)

Is it the legitimate job of an ethics reviewer to make sure no questions are raised by others?

After being put in charge of the Criminal Division under an understanding that he would recuse himself for two years in matters involving his prior clients at Morgan, Lewis & Bochius, Polite ended up resigning his position at the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice after just two years and two months in the job.

Polite headed for another big paycheck at corporate law firm Sidley Austin, where he is the “global co-leader of Sidley’s White Collar Defense and Investigations practice.”

Polite, like so many before him, has gone from head honcho in the top federal division mandated to root out and prosecute criminals to dramatically elevating his income by defending corporate executives against government-alleged crimes.

There is now no Senate-confirmed head of the Criminal Division of the DOJ. The woman Polite hired in May of 2022 to be his Chief of Staff, Nicole Argentieri, has stepped into the role of acting head of the Criminal Division.

Immediately prior to joining the Justice Department, Argentieri had been a partner in the White Collar Defense & Corporate Investigations department at corporate law firm O’Melveny & Myers.

Related Article:

One Day After Frontline Airs Critical Report on Justice Department’s Lanny Breuer, WaPo Reports He’s Stepping Down

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/12/the-doj-took-more-than-two-years-to-answer-a-foia-on-its-criminal-division-head-three-days-before-christmas-2023-we-got-a-troubling-disclosure/

December 26, 2023 (Tuesday) HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

 

Heather Cox Richardson’s post

December 26, 2023 (Tuesday)

On December 26, 1991, the New York Times ran a banner headline: “Gorbachev, Last Soviet Leader, Resigns; U.S. Recognizes Republics’ Independence.” On December 25, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned, marking the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, often referred to as the Soviet Union or USSR.

Former Soviet republics had begun declaring their independence in March 1990, the Warsaw Pact linking the USSR’s Eastern European satellites into a defense treaty dissolved by July 1991, and by December 1991 the movement had gathered enough power that Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine joined together in a “union treaty” as their leaders announced they were creating a new Commonwealth of Independent States. When almost all the other Soviet republics announced on December 21 that they were joining the new alliance, Gorbachev could either try to hold the USSR together by force or step down. He chose to step down, handing power to the president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.

The dissolution of the USSR meant the end of the Cold War, and those Americans who had come to define the world as a fight between the dark forces of communism and the good forces of capitalism believed their ideology had triumphed. Two years ago, Gorbachev said that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, "They grew arrogant and self-confident. They declared victory in the Cold War."

The collapse of the USSR gave the branch of the Republican Party that wanted to destroy the New Deal confidence that their ideology was right. Believing that their ideology of radical individualism had destroyed the USSR, these so-called Movement Conservatives very deliberately set out to destroy what they saw as Soviet-like socialist ideology at home. As anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “For 40 years conservatives fought a two-front battle against statism, against the Soviet empire abroad and the American left at home. Now the Soviet Union is gone and conservatives can redeploy. And this time, the other team doesn't have nuclear weapons.”

In the 1990s the Movement Conservatives turned their firepower on those they considered insufficiently committed to free enterprise, including traditional Republicans who agreed with Democrats that the government should regulate the economy, provide a basic social safety net, and promote infrastructure. Movement Conservatives called these traditional Republicans “Republicans in Name Only” or RINOs and said that, along with Democrats, such RINOs were bringing “socialism” to America.

With the “evil empire,” as President Ronald Reagan had dubbed the Soviet Union, no longer a viable enemy, Movement Conservatives, aided by new talk radio hosts, increasingly demonized their domestic political opponents. As they strengthened their hold on the Republican Party, Movement Conservatives cut taxes, slashed the social safety net, and deregulated the economy.

​​At the same time, the oligarchs who rose to power in the former Soviet republics looked to park their illicit money in western democracies, where the rule of law would protect their investments. Once invested in the United States, they favored the Republicans who focused on the protection of wealth rather than social services. For their part, Republican politicians focused on spreading capitalism rather than democracy, arguing that the two went hand in hand.

The financial deregulation that made the U.S. a good bet for oligarchs to launder money got a boost when, shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act to address the threat of terrorism. The law took on money laundering and the illicit funding of terrorism, requiring financial institutions to inspect large sums of money passing through them. But the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) exempted many real estate deals from the new regulations.

The United States became one of the money-laundering capitals of the world, with hundreds of billions of dollars laundered in the U.S. every year.

In 2011 the international movement of illicit money led then–FBI director Robert Mueller to tell the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City that globalization and technology had changed the nature of organized crime. International enterprises, he said, “are running multi-national, multi-billion dollar schemes from start to finish…. They may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military…. These criminal enterprises are making billions of dollars from human trafficking, health care fraud, computer intrusions, and copyright infringement. They are cornering the market on natural gas, oil, and precious metals, and selling to the highest bidder…. These groups may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called ‘iron triangles’ of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat.”

In 2021, Congress addressed this threat by including the Corporate Transparency Act in the National Defense Authorization Act. It undercut shell companies and money laundering by requiring the owners of any company that is not otherwise overseen by the federal government (by filing taxes, for example, or through close regulation) to file with FinCEN a report identifying (by name, birth date, address, and an identifying number) each person associated with the company who either owns 25% or more of it or exercised substantial control over it. The measure also increased penalties for money laundering and streamlined cooperation between banks and foreign law enforcement authorities.

But that act wouldn’t take effect for another three years.

Meanwhile, once in office, the Biden administration made fighting corruption a centerpiece of its attempt to shore up democracy both at home and abroad. In June 2021, Biden declared the fight against corruption a core U.S. national security interest. “Corruption threatens United States national security, economic equity, global anti-poverty and development efforts, and democracy itself,” he wrote. “But by effectively preventing and countering corruption and demonstrating the advantages of transparent and accountable governance, we can secure a critical advantage for the United States and other democracies.”

In March 2023 the Treasury told Congress that “[m]oney laundering perpetrated by the Government of the Russian Federation (GOR), Russian [state-owned enterprises], Russian organized crime, and Russian elites poses a significant threat to the national security of the United States and the integrity of the international financial system,” and it outlined the ways in which it had been trying to combat that corruption. “In light of Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine,” it said, “we must redouble our efforts to prevent Russia from abusing the U.S. financial system to sustain its war and counter Russian sanctioned individuals and firms seeking to exploit vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.”

The collapse of the USSR helped to undermine the Cold War democracy that opposed it. In the past 32 years we have torn ourselves apart as politicians adhering to an extreme ideology demonized their opponents. That demonization also helped to justify the deregulation of our economy and then the illicit money from the rising oligarchs it attracted, money that has corrupted our democratic system.

But there are at least signs that the financial free-for-all might be changing. The three years are up, and the Corporate Transparency Act will take effect on January 1, 2024.