DPA

Wall Street Bankers and Lobbyists Move to Ensure Industry Continues to Regulate Itself

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Not content with continued prosecutorial immunity and trillions in taxpayer bailouts and backstops, Wall Street banksters are making moves to ensure they regulate themselves.

In case you’re still wondering who the real owners of this country are…

The Wall Street Journal reports:

ORLANDO, Fla.—Wall Street’s top lobbying group wants a closer relationship with the policy makers that oversee its member firms.

John Rogers, chairman of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and a top official at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., on Tuesday called for a standing body made up of bankers and regulators to discuss developments in policy, examination and enforcement. A key responsibility for the panel would also involve regularly providing guidance on postcrisis rules and other issues to financial firms.

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Florida Man Sentenced to 2.5 Years in Jail for Having Sex on the Beach

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Back in May, I highlighted the case of 40-year-old Jose Caballero, who faced 15 years in jail for having sex on a Florida beach in broad daylight. Here’s an excerpt from the post, titled: Florida Man Faces 15 Years in Jail for Having Sex on the Beach (Still No Bankers in Jail):

This story demonstrates how completely and totally broken the U.S. justice system is. Should this couple have been having sex in public and in broad daylight? Absolutely not. Should there be some sort of punishment? Absolutely.

That said, the punishment should fit the crime in a just civilization, and 15 years behind bars for public sex is more akin to what you’d expect in Saudi Arabia. It’s particularly appalling when compared with the license to commit fraud and steal, which politically connected oligarchs have been granted. After all, who was really harmed by this couple’s act? Sure, some tourists may have had their day temporarily ruined or inconvenienced. A three-year-old girl may have seen something, but would probably have no way of understanding what it was. On the other hand, criminal bankers have demonstrably ruined the lives of hundreds or millions, if not billions, of people across the globe. Yet not a single TBTF executive has been prosecuted. They were bailed out instead.

Meanwhile, what about the pastor who faces only four months for molesting a little girl. Yes, you read that right. Our society is so completely fucked up, that two people irresponsibly making love in public will have their lives ruined, while a religious authority caught molesting a little girl receives a slap on the wrist.

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How the IRS and Department of Homeland Security are Expanding Undercover Work (IRS Agents Can Even Pose as Clergy)

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Screen Shot 2014-11-17 at 3.40.39 PMThose guidelines apply only to the law enforcement agencies overseen by the Justice Department. Within the Treasury Department, undercover agents at the I.R.S., for example, appear to have far more latitude than do those at many other agencies. I.R.S. rules say that, with prior approval, “an undercover employee or cooperating private individual may pose as an attorney, physician, clergyman or member of the news media.”

Across the federal government, undercover work has become common enough that undercover agents sometimes find themselves investigating a supposed criminal who turns out to be someone from a different agency, law enforcement officials said. In a few situations, agents have even drawn their weapons on each other before realizing that both worked for the federal government.

– From the New York Times article: More Federal Agencies Are Using Undercover Operations

If this article doesn’t prove to you without a shadow of a doubt what the prosecutorial priorities of the U.S. federal government are I don’t know what will. I have been railing for years on this site about how the rule of law is dead and buried in the USA. How the “justice” system is targeting average citizens for non crimes, while allowing the large financial criminals responsible for destroying the global economy to get off on DPAs, or deferred prosecution agreements originally crafted to deal with juveniles (see: The U.S. Department of Justice Handles Banker Criminals Like Juvenile Offenders…Literally).

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The U.S. Department of Justice Handles Banker Criminals Like Juvenile Offenders…Literally

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Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 1.52.39 PMThese agreements were created 100 years ago to give juvenile defendants and first-time offenders a chance to for rehabilitate themselves. Only in the last 20 years have DPAs migrated to the field of corporate criminals, treating them like kids who’ve just gone down a bad path in life.

The Justice Department is leaning on these toothless agreements more and more. Of the DoJ’s 283 deferred prosecution agreements since 2000, half have come since 2010, Reilly found in a working paper for BYU Law Review.

Why has the DoJ been so keen on deferred prosecution since 2010? It coincides exactly with investigations into the 2008 financial crisis.

– From the Guardian article: In market-rigging case, US Justice Department treats corporate criminals like juvenile offenders

We all know by now that if you’re a woman with an overgrown lawn, a child walking by himself to the park, a homeless person, or someone feeding a homeless person, you’re a contemptible criminal in the eyes of the U.S. injustice system. As such, police and prosecutors will come down on you as hard as they possibly can. Subjecting you to the full and brutal force of the law, including jail sentences for non-crimes.

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