Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens: September 27, 2012 With Mitt Romney writing off 47 percent of voters, the Presidential race now comes down to the Koch brothers’ money and Paul Ryan’s ambitions.  According to the Republican political consultant, Roger Stone, David Koch played a key role in Ryan’s selection. Says Stone, “The selection was cemented at the July 22nd fundraiser Koch held for Romney at the former’s sumptuous Hamptons estate. Koch pledged $100 million more to C-4 and Super PAC efforts for Romney for Ryan’s selection.”  According to Forbes, the Kochs have budgeted to spend approximately $400 million in this election cycle, chump change to men worth $25 billion each according to the Forbes list of billionaires.   To understand the Koch motivation to get Paul Ryan a heartbeat away from the Presidency, it requires listening to this brief tape, featured at the libertarian Cato Institute web site.  On the tape you will first hear Herman … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 26, 2012  Forty-one days before a Presidential election that billionaire Charles Koch promised would be the “mother of all wars,” the battle is focusing on the ideas spun out of the decades old Koch corporate front groups.  Namely – Ayn Rand’s brand of capitalism.  The uproar has yet to fade on Mitt Romney’s video tell-all, marking 47 percent of Americans as government moochers — “my job is not to worry about those people” — a view that would have warmed the heart of author Ayn Rand, an icon of the far right who was regularly repulsed by government parasites, unless she was doing the mooching.  (In later life, Rand received both Social Security and Medicare benefits.)  Now, multiple media outlets are calling attention to an audio tape of a speech Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan delivered to the Atlas Society in 2005, praising the influence of Ayn … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 25, 2012 There is an infamous video clip in Michael Moore’s film,  “Capitalism: A Love Story,” where Treasury Secretary, Donald Regan, leans toward the ear of President Ronald Reagan while he is delivering a speech and tells him to “speed it up,” in a manner suggesting he is speaking to his paid puppet.  The President doesn’t do anything to quell that impression, amiably accepting the criticism and continuing on.  Who speaks to the President of the United States that way? Donald Regan had been the Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch, the largest Wall Street brokerage firm in terms of stockbrokers throughout much of the last century.  Later, Regan would become President Reagan’s Chief of Staff and was viewed by many as being the Acting President of the United States. When Ron Suskind’s book, “Confidence Men,” was released last year, it included the deeply troubling revelation … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 24, 2012 JPMorgan Chase, the Wall Street mega bank now under criminal probes for losing billions of FDIC insured deposits in risky derivative trades, for years has been one of the dinner hosts of an unseemly industry trade and lobby group established by none other than the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, its own regulator.  On the evening of October 8, 2009, representatives of the largest Wall Street banks enjoyed cocktails and dinner at 270 Park Avenue in Manhattan, the headquarters of JPMorgan Chase.  Bill Hirschberg of Barclays was there; Jeff Feig of Citigroup; Troy Rohrbaugh of JPMorgan; Fabian Shey of UBS and numerous others.   Also  enjoying the food and conversation were seven officials from their regulator, the New York Fed.  The Fed attendees were: Steven Friedman, Marcus Lee, Susan McLaughlin, Patricia Mosser, Jamie Pfeifer, and Brian Sack.  Michael Nelson, currently Counsel and Senior Vice … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 21, 2012 If you place the words “Wall Street mafia” in the Google search engine without the quotes, it produces 11.3 million links. That’s not good for America. Throughout most of our Nation’s history, Wall Street has been synonymous with the U.S. financial markets. But at long last, the simmering subconscious view that Wall Street may have slipped past the demarcation line of mere corruption into the nether world of organized crime is gaining public notice.  That’s a positive sign.  Until we can fully comprehend what we’re dealing with, Congress will continue to tinker around the edges of financial reform while the core continues to rot. On June 22 of this year, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine and Yves Smith of the financial blog, Naked Capitalism, performed a critical public service by advancing the concept of Wall Street mafia from the nebulous unsaid to bold … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 20, 2012 When we read the lawsuits involving Wall Street – firms colluding with each other, document shredding, lawyers’ hiding evidence, decades of deceiving the American people, strong arm tactics, deceptive trade associations – it all has a familiar ring.  It should. Wall Street is following in the footsteps of Big Tobacco.  And there’s one more common bond that should deeply trouble every American.   The law firm that fronted for Big Tobacco for four decades, Covington & Burling, has its former lawyers ensconced in three of the top slots at the U.S. Justice Department. Now Covington & Burling has become Wall Street’s go-to guys for legal counsel in a growing roster of alleged crimes.  The public, and Congress, have a pressing need to question how a law firm that was cited by a U.S. District Court, an Appellate Court and the U.S. Supreme Court as playing … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 19, 2012  The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center on Broadway, built with more than $150 million of taxpayers’ dollars, is spy-central for keeping tabs on the Occupy Wall Street protesters.  Currently sitting around spy-central at taxpayer-funded computer workstations are representatives from the following Wall Street institutions: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  (A Freedom of Information Law request filed by the author with the New York Police Department 11 months ago to obtain the full list of occupants has yet to be answered, despite New York law mandating a response in 5 to 20 business days.)  Sharing the space with the Wall Street crowd in spy-central are at least four formal police groups: the New York City Police Department, the Transit Police, the Port Authority Police, and the newly exposed, privately employed, Federal Reserve … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 18, 2012  There are now three nagging images of Mitt Romney that are seared in the public consciousness.  Many years ago, Romney drove 12 hours to begin a summer vacation with the family inside the car and their Irish setter, Seamus, caged in a dog carrier on top of the car.  Even after the dog became ill, Romney sprayed the dog off and put him back on top of the car.  It’s hard to escape both the inhumanity as well as lack of judgment.  Romney has confirmed the episode but said the dog liked riding on top of the car.  Then there was the episode in 1965 at the elite Cranbrook School.  Romney was a senior in high school – old enough to be responsible for his actions and thought processes.   According to the Washington Post, Romney was repulsed by the long, bleached blond hair of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 17, 2012 By mid morning today, as Occupy Wall Street protesters marched around the perimeter of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, all signs that an FRPD (Federal Reserve Police Department) existed had disappeared.  The FRPD patrol cars and law enforcement officers had been replaced by NYPD patrol cars and officers.   That decision may have been made to keep from drawing attention to a mushrooming new domestic police force that most Americans do not know exists. Quietly, without fanfare or Congressional hearings, the USA Patriot Act in 2001 bestowed on the 12 privately owned Federal Reserve Banks, domestic policing powers. Section 364 of the Act, “Uniform Protection Authority for Federal Reserve,” reads: “Law enforcement officers designated or authorized by the Board or a reserve bank under paragraph (1) or (2) are authorized while on duty to carry firearms and make arrests without warrants for any offense against the … Continue reading →

We are mindful that the preservation of liberty depends in part upon the maintenance of social order. But the First Amendment recognizes, wisely we think, that a certain amount of expressive disorder not only is inevitable in a society committed to individual freedom, but must itself be protected if that freedom would survive. — U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Jr., City of Houston v. Hill (1987) By Pam Martens: September 17, 2012 With chants of “Police everywhere; justice nowhere,” protesters marching through the streets of lower Manhattan this past weekend to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement, ably summed up the situation in New York City.  At times, as captured on video footage, law enforcement looked like the unruly mob, grabbing peaceful protesters and arresting people for no apparent reason. In 1987, in the City of Houston v. Hill, the Nation’s highest court made the law … Continue reading →