CIA Orchestrated Operation Fast and Furious -gov allowed Mexican drug cartel to import tons of cocaine

 

Washington Times journalists Robert Farago and Ralph Dixon cite a “CIA insider” to make the claim that Operation Fast and Furious was a Central Intelligence Agency-orchestrated program to arm the Sinaloa drug cartel, a group that was also given the green light to fly tons of cocaine into the United States.
“In congressional testimony, William Newell, former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division, testified that the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “full partners” in Operation Fast and Furious. Mr. Newell’s list left out the most important player: the CIA. According to a CIA insider, the agency had a strong hand in creating, orchestrating and exploiting Operation Fast and Furious,” report Farago and Nixon.
The program, with its designated cover of tracking where guns went so drug lords who purchased them could later be arrested downstream, was actually a deliberate effort to prevent the Los Zetas drug cartel from staging a successful coup d’etat against the government of Felipe Calderon by arming rival gang Sinaloa, according to the Times writers, a relationship that extended to “(allowing) the Sinaloas to fly a 747 cargo plane packed with cocaine into American airspace – unmolested.”
“The CIA made sure the trade wasn’t one-way. It persuaded the ATF to create Operation Fast and Furious – a “no strings attached” variation of the agency’s previous firearms sting. By design, the ATF operation armed the Mexican government’s preferred cartel on the street level near the American border, where the Zetas are most active,” states the report.
The notion that Fast and Furious was used as a cover through which to arm the the Sinaloa cartel would explain why the feds showed little interest in following up where guns ended up once they left the United States.
The Obama administration and the ATF claim that the Fast and Furious program was part of a sting operation to catch leading Mexican drug runners, and yet it’s admitted that the government stopped tracking the firearms as soon as they reached the border, defeating the entire object of the mission.
It would also account for the fact that the federal government failed to prevent Sinaloa importing tons of cocaine into the U.S.
Back in April, Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, the “logistical coordinator” for the Sinaloa drug-trafficking gang that was responsible for purchasing the CIA torture jet that crashed with four tons on cocaine on board back in 2007 told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago that he had been working as a U.S. government asset for years.

According to court transcripts, Niebla was allowed to import “multi-ton quantities of cocaine” into the U.S. as a result of his working relationship with the FBI, Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

But the notion that Fast and Furious was solely an effort to isolate the Los Zetas cartel isn’t consistent with the fact that one of the gang’s kingpins recently told Mexican federal police that the group purchased its weapons directly from U.S. government officials inside America.

“They are bought in the U.S. The buyers (on the U.S. side of the border) have said in the past that sometimes they would acquire them from the U.S. Government itself,” Rejón Aguilar told police.
As we reported years ago, former DEA agent Cele Castillo has blown the whistle on how the US government controls the Los Zetas drug smuggling gang and uses it as the front group for their narco-empire.

With the gang having first been trained at the infamous School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, Castillo affirms that Los Zetas are still working for the US govern... in protecting drug routes to keep the wheels of Wall Street well-oiled. Castillo has gone on the record to state that the commandos are working directly for the US government drug cartel in carrying out hits on rival drug smugglers who aren’t paying their cut.

Fast and Furious may have served a dual purpose for the Obama administration.
Some evidence indicates the program was a plot on behalf of the administration to discredit the second amendment. While the feds were selling guns to Mexican drug gangs, Obama was simultaneously blaming drug violence on the flow of guns from border states to Mexico.

Even after the revelations surrounding the program became public, the ATF cited the trafficking of guns to Mexico as justification for a new regulation that has led to ATF intimidation of both gun sellers and purchasers, a policy which arrived months after President Obama told gun control advocate Sarah Brady that his administration was working “under the radar” to sneak attack the second amendment.

During a March 30 meeting between Jim and Sarah Brady and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, at which Obama “dropped in,” the president reportedly told Brady, “I just want you to know that we are working on it (gun control)….We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

The quote appeared in an April 11 Washington Post story about Obama’s gun control czar Steve Croley.

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Hungary Gets Second Junk Debt Rating as S&P Follows Moody’s

It looks like Hungary is going down the drain faster than the European Union. Read the whole article: Hungary Gets Second Junk Debt Rating as S&P Follows Moody’s

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) — Hungary lost its investment-grade rating at Standard & Poor’s, the second such downgrade in a month, increasing pressure on Premier Viktor Orban to obtain an International Monetary Fund backstop.
This was Nov. 25th:
Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) — Hungary lost its investment-grade rating at Moody’s Investors Service after 15 years as the Cabinet seeks International Monetary Fund help to boost confidence in the European Union’s most-indebted eastern member. Elliott Gotkine reports on Bloomberg Television’s “Countdown” with Owen Thomas. (Source: Bloomberg)

Hungary Cut to Junk at Moody’s After IMF Plea

Will Public Outrage Finally Force The President To Prosecute Outlaw Bankers?

Nearly 5,000 military families may have been illegally foreclosed upon by banks

 

The President has adopted the language of the 99 percent, and it's paying off for him. He's surged from a position slightly behind Mitt Romney in last month's CNN polling to a 52 percent-45 percent lead against the Republican this week. While other factors were involved, his new rhetoric about income inequality and forcing everybody to "play by the same rules" resonated especially well with voters who have seen their government enforce one rule of conduct for Wall Street and another for the rest of us.

Unfortunately, his Administration hasn’t backed up that rhetoric with action. It has steadfastly refused to investigate and prosecute the bank crimes who brought this economy to its knees. So have the chief law enforcement officials for most states. Instead they’re trying to cut sweetheart deals that would let crooked bankers go with a slap on the wrist.

People are getting fed up. Grassroots outrage against the lack of prosecutions is giving rise to organized citizen action who are protesting these injustices under a "fair settlement" banner. Will this public backlash become strong enough to finally force national and state governments to enforce the law and protect the economy?

The Excuse Makers

If excuses were investigations there'd be justice for everyone. But only a handful of state Attorneys General, led by New York's Eric Schneiderman, have been willing to stand up to big bankers and their friends in high places. The President himself has been serving as Excuse Maker-in-Chief, as when he told 60 Minutes that “Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn’t illegal."

That's right, of course, in a literal "what the meaning of 'is' is" sense.. Some of the damaging behavior wasn't illegal. And some car accidents aren't caused by drunk drivers. But many, if not most of them, are. If a country road was littered with whiskey bottles and corpses, and the county sheriff hadn't booked anyone for a DUI in three years, people would be asking why he's not doing his job.

That's what many people are asking about this President and his Justice Department.

You can't set your foot down around this place without stepping in excuses. Another Administration official told a bank-friendly reporter at the Wall Street Journal that it’s too difficult to win convictions for crimes that are as as complicated as banking fraud. “Our job is too hard,” the Justice Department seems to be saying.

But it wasn’t too hard in the 1980s, when a fairly bank-friendly President named Ronald Reagan was running the Federal government. More than 1,000 bankers were convicted in the Savings & Loan scandal for crimes that were very similar to the ones that led to the 2008 financial crisis. A man named Bill Black led the investigations that resulted in those convictions, and the Obama Justice Department hasn’t even asked for his advice.

It isn’t hard for juries to understand lying, either, and stock fraud is usually a case of somebody lying to someone else. There seem to be some pretty clear-cut cases of it lying around waiting to be prosecuted. There is widely documented fraud involving false title documents submitted in foreclosure proceedings; several big banks have already admitted to illegally foreclosing on military families,and investigations show that nearly 5,000 military families may have been illegally evicted; and there's very compelling evidence regarding my former employer AIG.

And it isn’t hard to understand widespread and organized rings designed to forge court documents, commit perjury, and evade state taxes. And yet that’s exactly what big banks did in order to commit massive foreclosure fraud on US homeowners.

The Doers

People who are familiar with Wall Street fraud have come to believe that the Obama Justice Department just doesn’t want to investigate and prosecute bankers.It's gone to great lengths to avoid prosecuting them. In fact, that’s become so clear to Steve Linnick, Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, that he’s stopped referring potential criminal cases to the Justice Department at all. Instead he’s started sending them to Mr. Schneiderman, who has broad power to bring prosecute financial wrongdoing under a 1927 New York law called the Martin Act.

There is one Attorney General for each of the fifty states. Each of them has the ability to prosecute the crimes committed by banks in their own jurisdictions. They can also cooperate with Mr. Schneiderman, whose authority under the Martin Act extends across state lines. That power gives state AGs another tool for protecting their state’s residents from fraud and bringing criminal bankers to justice.

And yet, only a handful of brave Attorneys General are willing to enforce the law against bankers. In one way or another, Schneiderman’s battle is also being waged by Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Beau Biden of Delaware, Jack Conway of Kentucky, and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.

That leaves forty-two other states whose AGs are refusing to enforce the law. And the Obama Administration isn’t content to just let bad bankers go free to commit more crimes. It’s also pressuring the AGs to accept a cushy deal with the banks that would leave crimes unpunished, homeowners unsafe, and bank fraud victims uncompensated.

The People

It’s been a long time coming, but the backlash is here. Occupy Wall Street lit the fire with its “one demand” – an end to the insanity and a realization that bankers and other oligarchs rule the economy like a medieval fiefdom. And now the demand for economic justice is reaching into state governments and the Department of Justice.

A loose coalition of groups is demanding that more Attorneys General prosecute of bank crimes aggressively, offering support for those who are already moving, and calling on the states to reject the cushy deal that the Federal government and some of the AGs are trying to cut with the banks.

Independent citizen groups and progressive organizations are forming alliances at the state level with unions like the AFL-CIO and SEIU, as well as groups such as Clergy and Laity for Economic Justice. Californians for a Fair Settlement, Pennsyvanians for a Fair Settlement, Nevadans for a Fair Settlement and other state teams have begun putting pressure on each state’s Attorney General to reject the Administration-backed deal and immediately begin aggressive investigations and prosecutions.

Like David Dayen, I’m hesitant to embrace the “fair settlement” framing completely until some of those investigations are further along. Based on the overwhelming evidence we’ve seen so far, a truly fair resolution will probably involve handcuffs, orange jumpsuits, and perp walks along with a financial deal. Financial restitution will need to include, at a minimum:

   1. substantial principal reductions for underwater homeowners, along with lower interest rates;
   2. a breakup or restructuring of the “MERS” shell game so that it no longer enables deceit, tax evasion, and the conversion of home mortgages from a two-party contract to a commodity bankers can trade and sell without regard to property rights;
   3. the right to rent a home that has become distressed; and,
   4. a loan modification facility that is not administered by the banks themselves.

“Fair Settlement” is a good enough umbrella under which to place these demands, as long as it’s clear that prosecutions and real restitution are vital elements of fairness. The question now is, How strong will this movement become? Will the public back these groups in demanding justice and rejecting any more cushy bank deals? If they don’t, the country will have serious problems in the years to come.

The President is enjoying the fruits of his rhetoric this week, and it's excellent rhetoric. But he'll need to match his words to his deeds if he wants the rewards to continue, and that means directing his Justice Department to drop the cushy bank agreement and start prosecuting Wall Street wrongdoers. And voters are likely to be unforgiving of state politicians who won the office of Attorney General by promising to uphold the law and then turn a blind eye to "wrong" acts by the "right" people.

It’s bad enough to watch powerful people break the law with impunity, shatter the economy, get rescued with taxpayer dollars, and then get to scoff at the law as they walk away unpunished. Here’s what’s even worse: If they’re not brought to justice, they’ll do it again.

Savers to suffer from low interest rates until 2014

Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously in favour of a Bank Rate freeze 

 

Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee did not discuss whether to raise or cut interest rates at its December meeting raising the prospect of Bank Rate staying on hold for many months to come.

Howard Archer, an economist at IHS Global Insight said: "It is very clear that interest rates will not rise for many, many months to come – we do not expect any hike before the second half of 2013 and it currently looks eminently possible that the Bank of England could keep interest rates down at 0.50pc through to 2014.

He added that it was significant that even at the height of the 2008/9 recession, the Bank of England did not lower interest rates below 0.50pc, which reflected doubts within the MPC that even lower interest rates would have a net beneficial impact.

"It is notable that the December minutes once again did not reveal any discussion within the MPC over the possibility of trimming interest rates from 0.5pc. This suggests that they are unlikely to go down lower. Indeed, it is significant that even at the height of the 2008/9 recession, the Bank of England did not lower interest rates below 0.5pc, which reflected doubts within the MPC that even lower interest rates would have a net beneficial impact," he said.

Minutes from the MPC's December meeting revealed that some committee members thought the outlook for the economy had deteriorated during the month and further money printing would be required in due course.


Vicky Redwood, UK economist at Capital Economics, said: "December's UK MPC minutes reiterate the committee's view that there is little point in trying to fine-tune policy, but nonetheless suggest that the door remains open to more QE before too long."
The Bank published its quarterly inflation report last month, in which it forecast a heightened risk of a double-dip recession and paved the way for another bout of QE.
Bank governor Sir Mervyn King sent a stark message to political leaders as he flagged an unresolved eurozone debt crisis as the "single biggest risk" to the economy.
The worsened prospects for the UK economy mean the Bank expects inflation to fall far quicker than previously estimated, hitting the Government's 2pc target in the second half of next year before falling to as low as around 1.3pc in 2013.
However the MPC noted in the December minutes it was a possibility that inflation will fall slower next year than the pace implied in its central projections.

Guess Where a Big Chunk of MF Global Customer Money Just Turned Up? At JPM London

Let's see.  MF transferred $200 million to their clearing bank JP Morgan in London three days before their bankruptcy according to the WSJ.  Dealbook says it was on the LAST business day.   And it took the regulators THIS long to find it?

And allegedly at the time JPM London suspected that the money might be coming from the customer accounts.  I wonder why that would occur to them?  

Read this carefully. The spin is there but the truth is beneath the surface of sugar frosting and distracting swirls of fluff, and the decorations carved from baloney that have marked this story from day one.

This could be a misdirection. I wondered if this was money to cover the bonuses to the London MF staff, but they were paid the day before the bankruptcy. Nothing like making a find and then being able to dismiss it.

At the end of the day, I think the regulators have known where the money went for some time now. The problem is that the parties who received it won't admit it and give it back, and they have powerful friends.  And there is a greater scandal floating beneath the surface.  Maybe involving someone big enough to rig a global market or two.

I enjoyed the 'report' saying that George Soros had received the funds and assets. As if he was engaged in margin calls with MF Global prior to bankruptcy.  He might have bought something in the aftermarket peddled to him by the original recipient who held MF Global testicular-wise before they went under. That was the most likely reason the firm would take the risk and dip into customer funds in desperation to maintain their 'winning positions.'

It is also credible that MFG was 'set up' by a company with an inside knowledge of their financial condition and cash flows.  

When will they roll out the rest of the story, Christmas Eve or New Year's day?  And in what year?

2012 Economic Outlook: Countdown to the End

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog

Today marks the official one year countdown to the end of the Mayan calendar.  365 days from today will be December 21, 2012.

Some say it marks the end of the world, but others say it is really the end of an era.

An Associated Press (AP) report, yesterday, about Mexican tourism said, “It’s selling the date, the Winter Solstice in the coming year, as a time of renewal. Many archeologists argue that the 2012 reference on a 1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar.  “The world will not end. It is an era,” said Yeanet Zaldo, a tourism spokeswoman for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun. “For us, it is a message of hope.” (Click here for the complete AP story.)

I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen in 2012, but I am betting that a dramatic change is coming.

For most, life will be much harder and people will be much poorer.  You’ve heard of peak oil?  Well, peak credit is also topping out, and it looks like everything will hit the fan next year.

Charles Hugh Smith has a similar 2012 economic outlook, and wrote an in-depth post yesterday where the title describes the entire story: “2011: The Last (Debt-Consumerist) Christmas In America.”

 Mr. Smith said, “A funny thing happens when you depend on expanding debt to fund your consumption: eventually the cost of servicing your rising debt reaches the limit of your income, and you can’t borrow any more, unless interest rates decline so you can leverage your income into higher debt. . . .Lowering interest rates extends the era of debt-based consumption, but it only puts off the inevitable crash when the ability to borrow runs out. Eventually the cost of servicing this lower-interest debt absorbs all your disposable income, and the borrowing skids to an abrupt stop.”  (Click here to read the most excellent post from Charles Hugh Smith.)

Of course, when the borrowing stops, the money printing will begin.

I think we are somewhere between borrowing and money printing with the emphasis on the printing part.  $12 trillion are held outside the U.S. in liquid dollar assets.

In the end, the world will face a currency crisis as dollar holders rush to cash out of an increasingly debased buck.  Is 2012 the year?  We will see.

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