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The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare

The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare
She tried to stay quiet, she really did. But after eight years of keeping a heavy secret, the day came when Alayne Fleischmann couldn't take it anymore. "It was like watching an old lady get mugged on the street," she says. "I thought, 'I can't sit by any longer.'" Fleischmann is a tall, thin, quick-witted securities lawyer in her late thirties, with long blond hair, pale-blue eyes and an infectious sense of humor that has survived some very tough times. Featured News From Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing. Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as "massive criminal securities fraud" in the bank's mortgage operations. Jamie Dimon (Photo: Bloomberg/Getty) Related:  corruption | government

White House: Obama Sees ‘Emperor’ Label As ‘Badge Of Honor’ Reporters grill Press Secretary, ask if Obama sees himself as ‘King’Steve Watson Prisonplanet.com November 20, 2014 In a remarkable exchange, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told gathered reporters Wednesday that President Obama looks upon being criticised as an ‘emperor’ as “a badge of honor”. Responding to a question regarding Republican criticism of Obama’s executive amnesty plans, Earnest said “We’ve heard this rhetoric for some time.” “Their most recent statement referred to ‘Emperor Obama,’” Earnest said, adding “The fact is the president is somebody who is willing to examine the law, review the law and use every element of that law to make progress for the American people and that’s a criticism the president wears with badge of honor.” Obama is set to announce the extremely controversial executive agenda tonight, then he will travel to Las Vegas in an attempt to garner support for the measure. “Absolutely,” Earnest replied. “Not a king, either?” Sen. Print this page.

Money Won on Tuesday, But Rules of the Game Changed This post first appeared at OpenSecrets blog. Republican Senate candidate and North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis speaks to supporters at an election night rally in Charlotte, NC, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, after defeating Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Republicans made the most of their fundraising advantage and routed Democrats in Tuesday’s midterms, but they seized the majority in the Senate and built their lead in the House even as fewer donors participated in the process and more of the dollars came from secret sources. Democrats weren’t swamped when it came to the money game, but the GOP clearly had the upper hand. The real story of the election’s campaign finance chapter was not which side had more resources, but that such a large chunk of the cost was paid for by a small group of ultra-wealthy donors using outside groups to bury voters with an avalanche of spending. (Graph: OpenSecrets.org) None of those trends are new or terribly surprising. Records topple

John Cusack: Henry Kissinger is Mass Murdering Globalist Scum! Are Crisis Actors Being Used In Ebola Scare? Special Report CDC Confirms Ebola Can Spread Like The Flu George Noory Goes Off On Obama's Ebola Response How To Prime Your Natural Defenses To Fight Ebola American Politics Are Dominated By Racism Obama Tells Voters To Commit Fraud Musician Arrested For Playing Protest Song Iconic Hacker Reveals How He Hacked Nixon Hotline Are GMOs to Blame For Kids Bowel Disease? Australia Close Borders While Obama Invites Ebola in Google Doodle Celebrates Cancer-Causing Vaccine Busted: Released Ebola Nurse Works for CDC Victory! Will Obama Ship Ebola Into The U.S.? Gov't Has Pushed Race Politics To Control The People Legendary Hacker Leaks Government Plan To Take Over Internet Another Nail In The GMO Coffin Gov't Has Become A Competition Of Corruption Progressives: The New Gods Steve Quayle: Ebola is An Aerosolized Weapon Drug Convicted Illegal Who Killed 2 Deputies Deported Twice Why Are Florida’s Political Elite Afraid of This Man? U.S.

Gerrymandering Rigged the 2014 Elections for GOP Advantage This post first appeared at Republic Report. Bow Stanley, from Silver Lake, Kansas, votes at the Prairie Home Cemetery building, Tuesday, November 4, 2014, in Topeka, Kansas. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) In the midterm elections, Republicans appear to have won their largest House majority since the Hoover administration. As Rolling Stone reported, GOP donors plowed cash into state legislative efforts in 2010 for the very purpose of redrawing congressional lines. Here’s an example from the election last night. A similar dynamic played in North Carolina, another state in which GOP control in 2011 created intensely partisan congressional boundaries. In 2012, the first congressional election after the last round of gerrymandering, Democratic House candidates won 50.59 percent of the vote — or 1.37 million more votes than Republican candidates — yet secured only 201 seats in Congress, compared to 234 seats for Republicans. As the results from this year roll in, we see a similar dynamic.

Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required Photo ARNOLDS PARK, Iowa — For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away — until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000. The agents did not accuse Ms. “How can this happen?” The federal government does. Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. “They’re going after people who are really not criminals,” said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor who is now a forfeiture expert and lawyer in Virginia. The I.R.S. is one of several federal agencies that pursue such cases and then refer them to the Justice Department. Ms. In May 2012, the bank branch Ms.

Dark Money Fuels Election Wins for Climate Deniers This post first appeared at EcoWatch. In what turned out to be a bad midterm election for the environment, climate deniers won a slew of races across the country, fueled by big spending from fossil fuel interests such as the Koch brothers. Their money overruled increasing public support for reigning in carbon-spewing industries to address climate change. The Koch brothers conceal much of their money in so-called (501)(c)(4) organizations, a form of nonprofit that can spend unlimited amounts of “dark money” without revealing its funders.(Photo: EcoWatch) Dirty energy money also overshadowed the heaviest pro-environmental spending yet from climate-friendly billionaire Tom Steyer and his organization NextGen Climate. In fact, three of the seven candidates that NextGen Climate made top priorities prevailed: Senator Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Senator-elect Gary Peters in Michigan and governor-elect Tom Wolf. New head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee?

City Stealing From Citizens By Tampering With Traffic Lights, page 1 originally posted by: smithjustinb a reply to: Swills It is despicable that the people were milked in this way. But it is an equally despicable concept that taxes should be higher for people who make more and lower for people who make less. America is a capitalist nation. Not a socialist one. So in your idiotic world, where the rich, who made their way out of "fast food", they should not have to suffer a financial burden for breaking the law? That was the entire point. If you never made it "out of fast food" $100 will make you starve this week. Your imagined society doesnt even make sense. The entire point of fines is to impose financial hardship on the person. The only way to be equal any other way is to raise the fine so high that the ultra rich are pained, even though the lower classes cant pay $1,000,000 parking tickets. In a free society, money doesnt buy special treatment with the law. Every person I have ever met with any type of actual money spoke exactly like you.

Did Voting Restrictions Determine the Outcomes of Key Midterm Races? This post first appeared at The Nation. A voter fills our a provisional ballot by hand for the midterm elections at a polling place in Annapolis, Maryland, Tuesday, November 4, 2014. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Bryan McGowan spent 22 years in the US Marine Corps, including four tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. When he was stationed at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina from 2005 until 2010, McGowan used same-day registration to register and vote during the early voting period in the state. He relocated to Georgia in 2010 because of his military service and returned to North Carolina in 2014. Sadly, McGowan’s story was not atypical this election year. In the North Carolina senate race, Republican Thom Tillis, who as speaker of the North Carolina General Assembly oversaw the state’s new voting law, defeated Democrat Kay Hagan by 50,000 votes. (Photo: The Nation) Leslie Culbertson arrived at her polling place in Charlotte’s Eastover Elementary School expecting to quickly cast her ballot.

Daily | Mises Institute The political class breathed a sigh of relief Saturday when the US Senate averted a government shutdown by passing the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill. This year’s omnibus resembles omnibuses of Christmas past in that it was drafted in secret, was full of special interest deals and disguised spending increases, and was voted on before most members could read it. The debate over the omnibus may have made for entertaining political theater, but the outcome was never in doubt. Most House and Senate members are so terrified of another government shutdown that they would rather vote for a 1,774-page bill they have not read than risk even a one or two-day government shutdown. Those who voted for the omnibus to avoid a shutdown fail to grasp that the consequences of blindly expanding government are far worse than the consequences of a temporary government shutdown. Second on the chopping block should be the Internal Revenue Service. [Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute.]

Elizabeth Warren: It’s time to work on America’s agenda (J. David Ake/AP) By Elizabeth Warren November 7 at 6:51 PM Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, represents Massachusetts in the Senate. There have been terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Election Days for Democrats before — and Republicans have had a few of those, too. But for all the talk of change in Washington and in states where one party is taking over from another, one thing has not changed: The stock market and gross domestic product keep going up, while families are getting squeezed hard by an economy that isn’t working for them. The solution to this isn’t a basket of quickly passed laws designed to prove Congress can do something — anything. It’s not about big government or small government. The American people want a fighting chance to build better lives for their families. Americans understand that building a prosperous future isn’t free. But the lobbyists’ agenda is not America’s agenda. Yes, we need action.

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