by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Every so often a news story catches the eye for no other reason than the blatantly bad decision making and stupidity that went in to creating it. Submitted for your approval are three stories of just such a nature. I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide which one was dumb, dumber and dumbest . . .
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Federal officials appeared quite pleased with themselves earlier this week when they announced their $1.9 billion settlement with HSBC. HSBC, the world’s third largest bank, has been accused of laundering money for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels and clients with ties to terrorists.
In July, a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report about its probe into HSBC and its shady financial dealings. The subcommittee found that HSBC and its affiliates in the United States “exposed the U.S. financial system to a wide array of money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks due to poor anti-money laundering (AML) controls.”
Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the subcommittee, said:
“In an age of international terrorism, drug violence in our streets and on our borders, and organized crime, stopping illicit money flows that support those atrocities is a national security imperative. HSBC used its U.S. bank as a gateway into the U.S. financial system for some HSBC affiliates around the world to provide U.S. dollar services to clients while playing fast and loose with U.S. banking rules. Due to poor AML controls, HBUS exposed the United States to Mexican drug money, suspicious travelers cheques, bearer share corporations, and rogue jurisdictions. The bank’s federal bank regulator, the OCC, tolerated HSBC’s weak AML system for years. If an international bank won’t police its own affiliates to stop illicit money, the regulatory agencies should consider whether to revoke the charter of the U.S. bank being used to aid and abet that illicit money.”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I originally had a guest blog planned for today on a completely different topic, but I ran across an article in Friday’s Huffington Post, that changed my direction. Since I was a youth I have been aghast at the fact that I grew up in a country where such things as homosexuality and abortion were prohibited by law. It seemed like this was too personal an interference by the State into the personal affairs of people and that this interference often ruined people’s lives. Then too, I grew up in New York State, where for so many years divorce was unobtainable leading to such ridiculousness as Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s wife having to establish Nevada residence in order to obtain a divorce from him. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that religious dogma had no business invading our legal system.
Although there were many prior years of a movement building up in support of abolishing Abortion Laws, the decision of Roe vs. Wade in 1973 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade was a breathtaking and welcome surprise. Immediately after, however, there started the blow-back against that decision that almost forty years later continues with fervor and intensity. The opposition cites “The Bible” as the source of their angry opposition and claims that their religion, as encoded in “The Bible” describes abortion as murder, with the life of the child beginning at fertilization. When they quote “The Bible” of course they mean the “New Testament” and what they call “The Old Testament”. Jews actually don’t recognize the term “Old Testament”, to us it is called the “Torah”, since Jews believe that their “Torah” was never replaced by a “New Testament”. The anti-Abortionists need to cite the “Torah” for their beliefs, since the Gospels don’t discuss the abortion issue. Like much that exists in Christian Dogma today, there is a need to cite the “Torah” for their beliefs since there is no evidence in the Gospels that Jesus ever spoke on some matters. Christian “Torah” citation though is haphazard in that they choose what portions to recognize and what portions to ignore. The sentiments of those Christians against abortion are based in the “Torah”. What if their citation of this venerable book stemmed from an incorrect translation of it many, many centuries ago? If they cited it incorrectly in the first instance, doesn’t that destroy their whole argument that abortion is murder in God’s eyes, especially if the writers of the “Torah” never understood abortion to be murder? This is what I’d like to discuss. Continue reading “The Specious Roots of the Anti-Abortion Controversy”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut have left us all with a sense of shock and helplessness. Twenty elementary school children dead, six educators slaughtered, and a place we all like to think of as a safe haven from the misery of the world polluted by horrific violence wrought by weapons more properly used on a battlefield. Politicians from President Obama to New York Mayor Bloomberg have called for “meaningful action” to combat gun violence which is endemic to America.
As we discussed earlier, the Justice Department issued a statement after the passage of state laws legalizing marijuana that they would not affected federal enforcement. Obama officials also stated after the election (after being silent during the campaign) that marijuana policy would not change. Now, President Obama has given an interview that the federal government will not make enforcement a “priority” against recreational users. This is being billed as a major scope on “Obama’s pot problem.” However, there may be less than meets the eye here. He does not address the organizations and distributors of legal marijuana, which his Administration has cracked down on for the last four years. It also raises an interesting contradiction with other fields where Obama had insisted that matters are left to the Justice Department on questions of enforcement.
No, Todd Akin has not joined the California bench. Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson, a judge in Southern California, has been publicly admonished for saying a rape victim “didn’t put up a fight” and that if someone doesn’t want sexual intercourse, the body “will not permit that to happen.” Johnson is a former prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney’s sex crimes unit and said that the 2008 sentencing that he had cases where women’s vaginas were “shredded” by rape. The California Commission on Judicial Performance voted 10-0 to sanction Johnson for his bizarre and offensive comments.
Continue reading “California Judge Sanctioned After Saying Women’s Bodies Can Prevent Rape”
Pope Benedict XVI this week raised an outcry among civil libertarians and gay activists by blessing Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, who has promised to pass the country’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a “Christmas gift”. Kadaga’s bill would execute gays who are found to be “repeat offenders.”
Continue reading “Pope Blesses Ugandan Leader Who Wants To Execute Gays”
These two men are accused in a truly bizarre plot to kill and castrate teen pop star Justin Bieber. 41-year-old Mark Staake, 41, (left) and his nephew Tanner Ruane, 23, (right) hatched the plan with another man who was a prison inmate with Staake. The plot reportedly involved killing four people in total and castrating them, according to New Mexico police.
Continue reading “Three Men Charged in Plot To Kill And Castrate Justin Bieber and Three Others”
There is another dog fighting arrest this week, though with an added chilling twist of the involvement of children. Shane Santiago and his wife Laura Acampora are charged with endangering the welfare of children in addition to animal cruelty charges because they were raising five children in the rented home while dogfighting was going on in the basement. The children are with other family members and presumably officials have inquired into whether or how other family members were not aware of this large operation before handing over the children. In a twisted irony, police found a copy of parenting magazine in this house of horrors.
Continue reading “Pennsylvania Couple Charged In Horrific Dog-Fighting and Child Endangerment Case”
Georgia Camden County Probate Judge Shirley Wise has pleaded guilty to three felony charges and resigned her judgeship this week — the state’s eighth jurist to leave office for misconduct. What is astonishing is the decision to allow Wise to avoid any jail time given her confession to theft by taking, theft by deception, and violation of her oath of office.
The University of Kentucky (Lexington) is reportedly investigating an incident that is captured on a YouTube video where police force their way into a student’s dorm room in search of alcohol after a report of alcohol being dumped from the window. The student is told that he could be expelled and that they do not need a warrant to enter the room. Indeed, one officer is heard saying that “there is no fourth amendment.” One officer has been terminated, but notably the university says that it was not due to the entry into the room.
Mohammad Safi appears to have found the American dream. In 2006, Safi graduated from a medical school in Afghanistan. He then came to the United States and began working as a psychiatrist at a California mental hospital. By 2010, he made $822,302. As California struggles with this economic crisis and shuts down needed social programs, the state is still paying absurd annual salaries like Safi’s. His windfall is due entirely to the failure of the correctional department to meet minimal standards of care for prisoners. The state waited to be ordered to meet mental health standards before having to go into a bidding process to quickly secure such doctors. This set off an instant wage war with the mental health department, which had to bid higher for its doctors. The result? Some 16 California psychiatrists, including Safi, made more than $400,000
We have previously discussed the often hostile treatment of victims of sexual abuse in some Orthodox Jewish communities. On Monday, one such case reached verdict with the conviction of Nechemya Weberman, a religious counselor in Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community. Weberman was convicted of 59 counts for the sustained sexual abuse of a girl who was sent to him after she began to question her faith and dress immodestly. The case highlighted the harsh treatment of those who reveal such crimes in the Orthodox community. During the trial, three men were charged with criminal contempt for snapping images of the victim on the witness stand with cellphone cameras and then posting them online. Previously, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes charged four men with trying to bribe the accuser to drop the charges. The case also raised troubling questions of special treatment given to the accused in this politically powerful community by Hynes in withholding their names from the public.
We discussed earlier how the top Justice Department attorney in Washington State said that the federal government would not yield to the state referendums legalizing marijuana use and possession. This followed a statement the day after the election that the Administration would not change their policy on targeting marijuana, including medical marijuana. However, a new Gallup poll shows an impressive 64 percent of Americans object to the enforcement in state legalizing or decriminalizing pot. Only 34 percent supported the continuation of the Obama policy.
We have been following the increased attacks by political (here and here) and religious figures (here and here) against atheists and agnostics in recent years. A new report is out from the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) detailing this trend globally.
Continue reading “Report: Atheists and Religious Critics Persecuted Around The World”