The Other Israel (2/7): The Talmud, pt.2
The Other Israel (3/7): Khazars
And a "Bolshevik Bonus" feature....
Photos Obama won't release include images of rape
"At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube."
Palestinians who have spent time in Israeli detention say the images of sexual abuse and humiliation from Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison are painful reminders of their own experience at the hands of Israeli interrogators.
"Since the beginning of 2003 there has been a sharp rise in the torture, ill treatment, humiliation and incarceration in inhuman conditions of Palestinian detainees by the Shin Bet.''
...Israeli interrogation techniques, including the alleged use of banned techniques such as shabah, in which a prisoner is locked in tight handcuffs and leg irons and forced to sit in a contorted position with a stinking sack over the head and loud music playing nonstop.
The Prevalence of Torture By Ralph Schoenman
Chapter 10 excerpted from The Hidden History of Zionism
The Sunday Times study presented the cases of forty-four Palestinians who were tortured. It documented practices in seven centers: prisons within the four principal cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Hebron and Gaza; the interrogation and detention center in Jerusalem known as the Russian Compound or Moscobiya; and special military centers located in Gaza and Sarafand.
The investigation resulted in concrete conclusions: Israeli interrogators routinely ill-treat and torture Arab prisoners. Prisoners are hooded or blindfolded and are hung by their wrists for long periods. Most are struck in the genitals or in other ways sexually abused. Many are sexually assaulted. Others are administered electric shock.
Prisoners are placed in specially constructed “cupboards” two feet square and five feet high with concrete spikes set in the floor. And maltreatment, including “prolonged beatings,” is universal in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Torture is so widespread and systematic, concludes the Sunday Times, that it cannot be dismissed as the work of “rogue cops” exceeding orders. It is sanctioned as deliberate policy and all Israeli security and intelligence services are involved.
Each detention center features interrogators with “apparent predilections.” The Russian Compound [Moscobiya] interrogators in Jerusalem “favor assaults on the genitals, besides endurance tests such as holding a chair with outstretched arms or standing on one leg.”
The specialty of the military center at Sarafand is to blindfold prisoners for long periods, assault them with dogs and hang them by their wrists. The specialty at Ramallah is “anal assault.” Electric shock torture is used almost universally.
Shehadeh Shalaldeh was arrested and interrogated at Moscobiya. A ballpoint refill was pushed into his penis. Abed al-Shalloudi was held without trial for sixteen months. Blindfolded and handcuffed while at Moscobiya, he was beaten by Naim Shabo, an Iraqi Jew, Director of the Minorities Department.
Jewish rabbi calls for extermination of all Palestinian males
International Middle East Media Center – September 18, 2006
A Jewish rabbi living in the West Bank has called on the Israeli government to use their troops to kill all Palestinian males more than 13 years old in a bid to end Palestinian presence on this earth.
Extremist rabbi Yousef Falay, who dwells at the Yitzhar settlement on illegally seized Palestinian land in the northern part of the West Bank, wrote an article in a Zionist magazine under the title "Ways of War", in which he called for the killing of all Palestinian males refusing to flee their country, describing his idea as the practical way to ensure the non-existence of the Palestinian race.
"We have to make sure that no Palestinian individual remains under our occupation. If they (Palestinians) escape then it is good; but if anyone of them remains, then he should be exterminated", the fanatic rabbi added in his article.
Falay is not the first to have called for such extreme measures. Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Kach movement, called for "the transfer of Israel's Arab population to Arab (or other) lands." (As it states on the group's website). Followers of Kahane have been connected to a number of murders of Palestinians, particularly in the Hebron area in the southern West Bank. In the most well-known of such attacks, 29 Palestinians praying in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron were gunned down by Baruch Goldstein, a follower of Kahane, in 1994, with Israeli soldiers looking on and allowing the gunman to reload his automatic machine gun and continue killing innocent civilians. In response to that massacre, the Israeli authorities punished the Palestinian victims by taking over the Ibrahimi mosque and turning half of it into a synagogue, where Israeli settlers go to pray each week. And each year, on the anniversary of the massacre, Israeli settlers in Hebron dress up like Baruch Goldstein and parade through the streets of Hebron, firing guns in the air.
Prominent Israeli rabbi calls for hanging sons of Palestinian gunmen as he quotes biblical Book of Esther.
TEL AVIV - A prominent Israeli rabbi has called on the state to exact “terrible revenge” against Palestinians for the recent killing of eight teenagers at a religious school in occupied Jerusalem, drawing heavy criticism.
In an article on the front page of a Jewish nationalist pamphlet, Shmuel Eliyahu, chief rabbi of the northern city of Safed, blasted the state for failing to avenge the March 6 attack.
“We must call a spade a spade. Revenge, revenge, revenge. We must not forget. We must exact terrible revenge for the Merkaz Harav attack.
“I am talking about the state. It should hurt them until they yell ‘enough.’ Until they fall flat on the ground and cry ‘help,’” Eliyahu wrote.
The pamphlet — Eretz Yisrael Shelanu (The Land of Israel is Ours in Hebrew) — is distributed in many synagogues across the country, mainly in the illegal West Bank settlements.
The long list of rabbis who signed the notice includes Daniel Staveski, Itzhak Shapira, David Drukman, Yaakov Yossef - son of Shas spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef - and Uzi Sharbaf, who killed several Arab college students in Hebron 20 years ago and was recently pardoned from a life sentence.
What I Learned at a Brooklyn Yeshiva
Leading Israeli rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Shas party) called for the annihilation of Arabs in April 2001, not long before 9/11. "It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable," he was quoted as saying in a sermon delivered on Monday to mark the Jewish festival of Passover.
The lesson that I learned while attending Yeshiva, then, is that Judaism is fundamentally predicated on the veneration of mass murderers.
Military Rabbi Urged Troops to Show No Mercy in Gaza
Brigadier General Avichai Rontzki sent his messages to soldiers during the 22-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The primary concern was a booklet which, among other things, contained a rabbinical edict against showing mercy.
The booklet contains quotes from a nationalist rabbi which declares that showing mercy during the battle would be “terribly immoral” and quotes a medieval sage who cautioned Jews not to “be enticed by the folly of the Gentiles who have mercy for the cruel.” Yesh Din says the booklet could have been seen by soldiers as official encouragement to act in violation of international law… an important issue as the Israeli government scrambles to defend itself against accusations of massive war crimes during the war.
Israeli Rabbi calls for genocide Monday, 12 January 2009
All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.
"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."
“Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.”
“Eliyahu could not be reached for an interview. However, Eliyahu’s son, Schmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground invasion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the entire area.
Rabbi wants Olmert hanged January 3, 2008
A right-wing Israeli rabbi drew censure after calling for Ehud Olmert and other government leaders to be executed.
Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, a Chabad rabbi in Israel, was shown on television Wednesday addressing a demonstration against the Olmert government’s peace moves with the Palestinian Authority.
“The terrible traitor, Ehud Olmert, who gives these Nazis weapons, who gives money, who frees their murderous terrorists, this man, like Ariel Sharon, collaborates with the Nazis,” Wolpe said in his speech.
He added that the prime minister, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak would be “hanged from the gallows” were Israel run properly.
Israeli Rabbi justifies stealing Palestinian olives: an inherited property for people of Israel 10/26/2002
Israeli Rabbi Mordekhai Elyaho, who is considered one of the most important Rabbis of the religious Zionist movement, justified that it is permitted to cultivate olives from the orchards of the Palestinian farmers and to take their harvest.
The justification made by Rabbi Elyaho was made on Thursday during his visit to Haffat Galaad settlement and was broadcast by the 10th channel.
The Arab member in the Israeli Knesset Azmi Beshara called on the legal advisor of the Israeli government Elakim Robinstine, to open investigation against Rabbi Mordekhai Elyaho and to fine him because of his anti- Palestinian statements. Beshara said that statements made by Rabbi Elyaho urge to commit "stealing operations from the Palestinians.
New fatwa for Israeli rabbis 7/20/2000
Former Israeli rabbis council on Wednesday released a Fatwa which states that it is totally forbidden to give up any part of what is called the Torah land of Israel, which includes the occupied city of Jerusalem.
The Hebrew Language Israeli radio said on Wednesday that the two grand rabbis Abraham Shbeira and Mordekhai Elyaho, who undersigned the Fatwa specified that it is forbidden to give any part inside the city of Jerusalem, including the holy al-Aqsa mosque, besides any area in which Jews in various parts of the Israel's Torah are living.
The two rabbis claimed that the said Fatwa is inspired from the provisions of the Torah which considers one who gives any part of the land of Israel as a criminal and damned for ever.
Rabbis call on govt to "guard" Israel's daughters
Israeli rabbis want the government to reduce the number of foreign female workers entering the Jewish state because the country's male employers are being seduced by their charms, which poses a risk to Jewish women, a report said on Monday.
The plea follows an appeal lodged at a rabbinical court south of Tel Aviv by a scorned wife whose husband had an affair with a Filippina employee, said the Hebrew paper Maariv daily.
"The authorities should apply restrictions to guard the honor of Israel's daughters," wrote Rabbi Nahum Gortald, the head of the tribunal.
There is no civil marriage law in Israel, and people of different religions must go abroad to marry.
Jones is a self-inflating (though not charmless) showboat who gets energy from hearing himself speak; he has cast himself as the star and main target in a conspiracy thriller he sees following him everywhere: a shirtless biker hanging around the Washington Mall is certainly Secret Service; the fire alarm that goes off in his hotel can only be a "setup."
The most prominent of the filmmakers’ subjects, the radio host Alex Jones, who is based in Austin, Tex., rails against the powers that be — all of them — in a manner that reinforces every cliché of the conspiracy theorist loon: paranoid, megalomaniacal, delusional, sweaty. The documentary’s most action-packed scene finds Mr. Jones throwing a major hissy fit when his hotel fire alarm goes off, thereby proving, without a shadow of a doubt, that “they” are trying to suppress his revelations.
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows….
Rep. Alan Grayson talks to the Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman of the Federal Reserve, asking her questions regarding trillions of dollars that came from the Fed’s expanded balance sheet and what the losses on its $2 trillion portfolio are.
The Inspector General does not have the answers Grayson is looking for.
Grayson asked Coleman if her agency had done any research into the decision not to save Lehman Brothers, which “sent shockwaves through the entire financial system,” Coleman said it had not.
“What about the $1 trillion plus expansion of the Federal reserve’s balance sheet since last September?” Grayson asked.
“We have different connotations,” Coleman replied. “We’re actually conducting a fairly high-level review of the various lending facilities collectively.”
Translation: Nobody at the Fed knows where the money went.
Do you know what who got the $1 trillion or more in the Fed’s expansion of its balance, Grayson pressed.
“I do not know. We have not looked at this specific area at the particular point on that specific review,” Coleman answer.
What about the trillions of off-balance transactions since last September, Grayson asked.
Coleman demurred again, saying the IG does not have jurisdiction to audit the Federal Reserve.
The FCC investigated a pirate radio station in Boulder, Colorado earlier this month and left a copy of their official inspection policy asserting that they have the authority to perform warrantless searches of private property if there is any FCC-licensed equipment on the property, including cordless phones, cell phones, wireless routers, intercom systems, and baby monitors.
Q: The FCC Agent standing at my door does not have a search warrant, so I don't have to let him in, right?
A: Wrong. Search warrants are needed for entry involving criminal matters.
Q: Well then, if I am a low-power broadcaster and don't have an FCC license, they need a search warrant, right?
A: Wrong again. The FCC agents have the authority to inspect all radio equipment; even if you do not have a license, the FCC can still inspect your equipment. Section 303(n) of the Act gives the FCC the right to inspect all "stations required to be licensed." This language covers your low-power radio station. The FCC agents are inspecting the equipment, not searching your house.
Timothy Geithner’s father, former Ford Foundation official Peter F. Geithner, sits on the board with Kissinger of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. He sat behind his son at the Senate confirmation hearing. He supervised the work of Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, when she worked for the foundation in Indonesia.
Timothy F. Geithner became the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, 2003. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Group of Thirty. Geithners first job was with Kissinger Associates, where he worked with the former secretary of state.
From there, he went to the U.S. Treasury Department, where he rose to become an aide to Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin, treasury secretaries under Bill Clinton. Geithner served as the point man in the talks that led to the Federal Reserves loan of $29 billion to assist J.P. Morgan Chase Co. in its buyout of the assets of Bear Sterns. He brokered the sale of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan using taxpayer money. His father, Peter F. Geithner, is the director of the Asia program at the Ford Foundation in New York.
Peter Geithner oversaw the Ford Foundation's microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by Ann Dunham-Soetoro, mother of President Barack Obama, and they met in person at least once. Geithner's maternal grandfather, Charles F. Moore, was an adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served as a vice president of Ford Motor Company.
Jewish Academics Voice Approval For The DELIBERATE Targeting Of Children from QuoTodt on Vimeo.
Jewish Communists: The Documentary Record
"The only two non-Jews in the communist conspiracy were Chambers and Hiss...Every other one was a Jew and it raised hell with us."
Statement of President Richard Nixon in 1971, as recorded at the White House on tape and released by the National Archives in 1999. The reference is to Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. (Sources: N.Y. Times, Oct. 7, 1999 and Newsweek, Oct. 18, 1999, p. 30)
Jewish Professor Arno Mayer of Princeton in his important book, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? states that the German invasion of Russia was carried out with the intention to eradicate Bolshevik (Soviet Communist) ideology. The Germans were hardly the only ones in the West to believe that, "Soviet Russia is a dictatorship of Jewry."
On Feb. 8, 1920 a young British writer made a similar observation in the Illustrated Sunday Herald:
"There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews."
The writer was Winston Churchill. Though he would later sell his soul for considerably more than thirty pieces of silver, his analysis of the authentic nature of Soviet communism remains trenchant.
As soon as Obama's Chief of Staff, Raham Emanuel gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.
It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity.
It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust.
It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy.
In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned.
To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working to ban as anti-semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world.
Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that less than 6 million Jews were murdered.
Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-semitics? Surely the case doesn’t need to be protected by thought control.
Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda.
Neal Wolin, Treasury Nominee, Helped Draft Legislation Deregulating Banks
Hmmm. This isn't exactly confidence inspiring.
Tim Geithner's new nominee for number two at the Treasury Department, Neal Wolin, played a key role in drafting legislation in the late 1990s deregulating the banking system, a former Treasury Department official confirms to us.
A U.S. Department of Labor Web Site
Success Lasts a Lifetime with Job Corps
Job Corps is a free education and training program that helps young people learn a career, earn a high school diploma or GED, and find and keep a good job. For eligible youth at least 16 years of age, Job Corps provides the all-around skills needed to succeed in a career and in life.
"My program for educating youth is hard. Weakness must be hammered away. In my castles of the Teutonic Order a youth will grow up before which the world will tremble. I want a brutal, domineering, fearless, cruel youth. Youth must be all that. It must bear pain. There must be nothing weak and gentle about it. The free, splendid beast of prey must once again flash from its eyes...That is how I will eradicate thousands of years of human domestication...That is how I will create the New Order." -- Adolf Hitler, 1933.
Career Preparation Period (CPP)During his/her first 60 days with Job Corps, the student:
Learns, demonstrates, and practices personal responsibility skills required at the workplace;
Learns, demonstrates, and practices job search skills including computer fluency;
Creates a personal career development plan (PCDP) with the help of Job Corps staff;
Commits to his/her PCDP; Visits and learns about One-Stop centers.
BERLIN (AFP) – US President Barack Obama will visit the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany on a trip to Europe in June, following in the wartime tracks of his great uncle, press reports said Wednesday.
Officers can't wear uniforms, carry guns or chase criminals on main roads that enter Israeli-controlled zones, making it easy for car thieves and drug dealers to escape, police said. Outlaws are also known to seek refuge in villages close to Israeli military installations or Jewish settlements, knowing Palestinians police won't be allowed in to arrest them.
"Lawbreakers know they can flee to places where there are settlers and we will not be allowed to go after them," said police spokesman Adnan Damiri.
Obama wants Fed to be finance supercop
WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve could become the supercop for "too big to fail" companies capable of causing another financial meltdown under a proposal being seriously considered by the White House.
The Obama administration told industry officials on Friday that it was leaning toward making such a recommendation, according to officials who attended a private one-hour meeting between President Barack Obama's economic advisers and representatives from about a dozen banks, hedge funds and other financial groups.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other officials made it clear they were not inclined to divide the job among various regulators as has been suggested by industry and some federal regulators. Geithner told the group that one organization needs to be held responsible for monitoring systemwide risk.
"Committees don't make decisions," said Geithner, according to one participant.
The Fed itself hasn't taken a position on whether it should have the job, although Chairman Ben Bernanke has said the Fed would have to be involved in any effort to identify and resolve systemwide risk.
AIPAC Policy Conference 2009 came to a momentous close Tuesday, with thousands of delegates trekking to Capitol Hill for some 515 lobbying meetings with their members of Congress. Following rousing speeches by Vice President Joe Biden and Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, delegates urged their elected officials to enhance President Obama's diplomatic outreach to Iran with heightened sanctions, reaffirm crucial principles as the United States pursues Arab-Israeli peace and support $2.775 billion in security assistance to Israel. Click here to see highlights. More...
'Goldman Conspiracy:' Bogle's 'pathological mutation?'
Machinations on Wall Street, in government give rise to 13-episode TV plot
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
Yes, this time the banks are the gangsters. They're robbing Main Street's Treasury. And it's an inside job. Hank Paulson, the "Goldman Conspiracy's" Trojan Horse, plays a "Dillinger," leading a much bigger conspiracy, the "Happy Conspiracy," that robbed America's 300 million citizens and taxpayers. They made off with trillions, while our "guards," a clueless Congress, laid down their guns and surrendered the keys to the vault.
Today, the "Goldman Conspiracy" is the visible hand of Bogle's invisible "Happy Conspiracy" that's "ripping us off as massively as a bank being held up by a guy with a gun and a mask." Except today: No masks, no guns. Congress just writes blank checks.
Episode 1. 'Goldman Conspiracy' as the new Mafia Godfather
Readers are mad as hell: One simply passed on "the inscription on the very first page of Mario Puzo's "The Godfather:" "Behind every great fortune, is a great crime.' So who'll play the new Godfather? How about Michael Chiklis, the corrupt cop in "The Shield?"
Episode 2. 'Goldman Conspiracy' hires Barney Frank guy as lobbyist
Great drama, like "The Sopranos?" A reader sent this Economic Policy Journal report: "The Goldman Sachs relationship with Congress has just gotten even more intimate. Goldman has grown another tentacle, designed to grab directly at the House Financial Services Committee chair Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. The new top lobbyist, Michael Paese, was recently the top staffer to Frank. He has been a registered lobbyist for the Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association since he left Frank's committee in September." Like Damages and Dexter, you can't just make up a juicy plot like this.
Episode 3. 'Goldman Conspiracy' amassing power to rule the world?
One reader said it all: "This is not about political parties, political movements, or control of political theory. This is about power! Pure, in your face, control of every asset and wealth variable in this world. Goldman Sachs and co-conspirators have control and in the best position for control of much of the world's investments and assets." And many don't like what they see: "Stop the looting. Start the prosecutions. Now!" Unfortunately Goldman is real and more dangerous than the conspiracies Jack Bauer destroys in "24."
Episode 4. 'Goldman Conspiracy' is manipulating stock market
"Something smells fishy in the market. And the aroma seems to be coming from Goldman Sachs," says John Crudele in the New York Post. Stocks prices soaring. "So, who's moving the market?" Not the little guy. "Professional traders, with Goldman Sachs leading the way." NYSE numbers show "Goldman did twice the number of so-called big program trades during the week of April 13," over a billion shares, creating "a historic rally despite the fact that the economy continues to be in serious trouble." Then he tells us why: Because the "Goldman Conspiracy" is using TARP and Fed money, churning the markets. They are "gambling with taxpayer money."
Episode 5. 'Goldman Conspiracy' Cartel? Plutocracy? Dictatorship?
"The Goldman Cartel like the Drug Cartel, like the mafia, like communism. Americans fell asleep at the wheel. We have crashed. We were brainwashed that America was good. We pledge allegiance to the flag, etc." Yes many like this reader were angry, ready to fight, near rebellion, because "now we are a fascist nation, maybe worse."
Episode 6. 'Goldman Conspiracy' repeating record 2006-07 earnings
In "Goldman Sachs boosts risk-taking at the fastest pace on Wall Street," Bloomberg's Christine Harper writes: CEO "Blankfein has shown no inclination to change the business model that helped Goldman Sachs set industry records for earnings and pay in 2006 and 2007." At the November peak of the credit crisis, he said "nothing that happened this year altered the core of what Goldman Sachs is ... we won't stop doing the things that made us a leading investment bank." Harper added: "First-quarter revenue-per-employee and compensation figures bear that out ... Each of the firm's 27,898 employees brought in, on average, $338,017 in revenue" while "compensation and benefits at Goldman Sachs totaled $4.71 billion in the quarter, an average of $168,829 per employee."
Episode 7. 'Goldman Conspiracy' sneaks in another Trojan Horse
Another reader added this: Gary Gensler, another long-time partner in the "Goldman Conspiracy," is Obama's nominee for chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Maybe the "Goldman Conspiracy" really does "own" Washington.
Episode 8. 'Goldman Conspiracy' operates like Las Vegas casino
New York Observer columnist Michael Thomas imagines the Wall Street/Washington merger operating as a "publicly owned casino" where "every grifter, sharpie, shark imaginable" gets to play with our money. "This stinks. Stinks to high heaven. Stinks all the way from Wall Street to K Street, whence you can be sure significant funds have been routed to Congress" as political payoff. And it paid off last week in killing a bill to let bankruptcy courts renegotiate over a million mortgages held by underwater homeowners. The bill was defeated by lobbyists for the same banks taxpayers gave trillions to. The L.A. Times reported that the Consumer Federation of America attributed the defeat to the "bankers continuing clout and to the fact that they are major financial players in campaign contributions, to Democrats as well as Republicans." Remember the fun in TV's Vegas?
Episode 9. 'Goldman Conspiracy' is gambling with taxpayer money
The New York Times reported in "After off year Wall Street pay bouncing back" that average pay is again around $570,000 at the "Goldman Conspiracy" branch of the "Happy Conspiracy." What a comeback: They were virtually insolvent six months ago till Paulson secretly arranged a $50 billion lifeline in a combo of TARP, Fed credits and the AIG bailout. His old "Goldman Conspiracy" buddies then doctored their balance sheets and it was back to "business as usual," echoing the action in "Prison Break."
Episode 10. 'Goldman Conspiracy' expands in shadowy twilight zone
The Fed and Treasury are loaded with Goldman alums, as one reader pointed out, adding three more to Paulson and Neel Kashkari: "Treasury Chief of Staff Mark Patterson, New York Fed President William Dudley and New York Fed Chair Stephen Friedman were once executives, directors or lobbyists for Goldman Sachs." How many more? We have entered "The Twilight Zone," Wall Street's version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
Episode 11. 'Goldman Conspiracy:' No comparison to founding fathers
Another reader criticized the false choice: "The difference between our founding fathers and the Goldman Gang is the fact that the former risked their own fortunes while the latter risked yours and mine. These two groups shouldn't even be mentioned in the same paragraph. I vote RICO." Another saw no "change" when it comes to the "Goldman Conspiracy" running our government from the shadows: "It is apparent that Washington lobbyists will not be outlawed, nor Goldman Sachs alumni refused government rule, so nothing will change." Apparently "change" is a great campaign slogan, as long as the "Goldman Conspiracy" gets more control. Think "Terminator" but with no "Salvation."
Episode 12. 'Goldman Conspiracy' really is taking over the world
"How far does 'The Goldman Conspiracy' reach? Truth is stranger than fiction," writes one reader. "The Federal Opposition Leader in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, potentially the next Prime Minister, is a Goldman Sachs alumni. Spooky!" Yes, he was Chairman, Goldman Sachs Australia. We already reported Goldman Trojans in the Bank of Canada and Bank of Italy, and now see Britain's Independent reporting that Paul Deighton, a Goldman banker, is now planner for the 2012 Olympics; Gavyn Davies, a longtime Goldman economist, was chairman of the BBC network; and Duncan Niederauer, John Thain's former deputy at Goldman, was later with Thain modernizing the NYSE.
Episode 13. 'Goldman Conspiracy' ... can't beat 'em? So, join 'em!
"Goldman people are everywhere" observes a reader. "Perhaps we should all buy Goldman stock? Join the party instead of watching from afar. I think it is very scary, no point in having a stock market anymore." Worse, no point in voting, doesn't matter!
Thirteen episodes are often the number a network buys for a new series. But expect lots more. This one's guaranteed to go on through at least three more seasons to the 2012 election ... probably indefinitely, because the "Goldman Conspiracy" is secretly expanding beyond Washington ... taking over the networks ... Hollywood ...EU ... UN ... ultimately the universe.
Yes, the "Goldman Conspiracy" franchise is more powerful than "Bond," "Batman," "24," "Bourne," "Raiders," "Die Hard" and "The Terminator." See it! Buy it!