Divernan
Divernan's JournalMezvinsky Sr.'s victims included family, friends, & his own mother-in-law.
Just google Mezvinsky & Ponzi Scheme.
Dick Scaife & his newspapers endorsed her last presidential run.
By their friends, relatives, investors & backers shall ye know them.
Chelsea's in-laws were known grifters 10 years before she married their son. She evidently felt right at home.
Read the transcript of the speech/no need to attend in person.
Curious about tone of voice or facial expressions? Watch the video.
It's not like Bibi will be whispering sweet nothings in any Dems' ears while walking to or from the podium.
The urgency of your message smacks of desperation on the part of Boehner, AIPAC and or Bibi's handlers who are well aware that by boycotting Bibi's speech, the Democrats are sending a powerful message to the Israeli govt. and voters that it's time to vote in new leadership. It is also very threatening to AIPAC's self-promoted image that it orders members of the U.S. Congress on how to behave when it comes to anything to do with Israel.
Boycotting also sends a message to the rest of the world that when it comes to foreign policy, the United States Congress defers to and stands united behind the United States President.
That will definitely do more to "help us to improve our relations with another country . . . .or the people of this land" (to quote your own words) that letting Boehner/Bibi get by with this treacherous stunt.
You say, "Don't be childish. Be adult." What insultingly condescending two-bit, reverse psychology. I note this is your very first post on DU. We are not such political naifs as to find your comment persuasive.
She offered NO specific position on the issue-leaving typical Clinton wiggle room.
It's like any politician saying he or she is in favor of free speech, or motherhood, or apple pie. The devil is in the details.
It is unprecedented for our government, federal, state or local, to mandate medical treatment for children or adults, other than on a case by case basis. Traditionally, except in an emergency situation, parental consent is required in order to perform medical procedures on children, including adolescents. Courts throughout the world recognize that parents have rights but additionally recognize that these rights are not absolute and exist only to promote the welfare of children.
Well known international exceptions would be North Korea's current regime and Hitler's Nazi government, which arbitrarily euthanized or sterilized adults or children with physical or mental disabilities, without giving relatives or parents any hearings in a court of law. Even China, with its one child policy did not forcibly impose abortions or sterilizations, i.e., medical treatment without a patient's consent.
To enforce the One-Child Policy, the Chinese government used a quota reward system for Planning Officials who carried out the birth control policies. If they did not meet these quotas, they were either punished or lost the opportunity to earn promotions.
The U.S. has also had an abhorrent policy on forced sterilization, i.e, forced medical treatment -
1907-Indiana becomes the first state in the country to successfully pass a mandatory forced sterilization law, in this case impacting the "feebleminded" (mentally handicapped).
1909-California and Washington pass mandatory sterilization laws.
1922-Harry Hamilton Laughlin, director of the Eugenics Research Office, proposes a federal mandatory sterilization law. Like Lincecum's proposal, it never really goes anywhere.
1927-In Buck v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme Court rules (8-1) that laws mandating the sterilization of the mentally handicapped do not violate the Constitution. Writing for the majority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes makes an explicitly eugenic argument:It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.
1936-Nazi propaganda defends Germany's forced sterilization program by citing the United States as an ally in the eugenic movement, and its laws as proof of its status as same. World War II, and the atrocities committed by the Nazi government, would rapidly change U.S. attitudes towards eugenics.
1942-In Skinner v. Oklahoma, the U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously against an Oklahoma law targeting some felons for sterilization (the plaintiff, Jack Skinner, was a chicken thief) while excluding white-collar criminals. The majority opinion, written by Justice William O. Douglas, rejects the broad eugenic mandate previously outlined in Buck v. Bell (1927):Strict scrutiny of the classification which a State makes in a sterilization law is essential, lest unwittingly, or otherwise, invidious discriminations are made against groups or types of individuals in violation of the constitutional guaranty of just and equal laws.
1970-The Nixon administration dramatically increases Medicaid-funded sterilization of low-income Americans, primarily Americans of color. While these sterilizations are voluntary as a matter of policy, anecdotal evidence later suggests that they are often involuntary as a matter of practice as patients are often misinformed, or left uninformed, regarding the nature of the procedures that they have agreed to undergo.
1979-A survey conducted by Family Planning Perspectives finds that approximately 70% of American hospitals fail to adequately follow U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidelines regarding informed consent in cases of sterilization.
1981-Oregon performs the last legal forced sterilization in U.S. history.
http://civilliberty.about.com/od/gendersexuality/tp/Forced-Sterilization-History.htm
True, our state governments have authorized forced sterilizations and lobotomies (Rosemary Kennedy), and even pulling the plug. But these have always been case-by-case decisions.
I personally am in favor of vaccinations for children, but as a lawyer I clearly see that this is an extremely delicate & complex legal issue. Hillary's folksy tweet is reminiscent of her phony black dialect - she's talking down to people and she's too emotionally tone deaf to realize it.
Feb 10, 2008 · Hillary Clinton speaking in a black church in a much different accent and dialect than normal. https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Hillary+Clinton+black+accent&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001
And the thing is, and what, as a lawyer myself, really offends me about Clinton's cutsey, insultingly simplistic little grandma tweet, is that she is a lawyer and is completely aware of the legal complexities. So she wants to be hip/au currant and tweet? Great, but this is not the topic for such shallow treatment.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. A whole family of grifters.
As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. Marc Mezvinsky's parents were both grifters. Chelsea's father-in-law, or as some refer to him "felon-in-law" is Ed Mezvinsky. Since Ed Mezvinsky's own mother-in-law was one of his fraud victims, HRC & Bill would have been smart not to invest either their private millions or the Clinton Foundation's funds in son-in-law's hedge fund. And just where did Marc M get his faulty international insights as to Greece? Or was Bill selling short on Eaglevale's choices all along?
(F)ederal prosecutors said Ed Mezvinsky habitually dropped the Clintons' names and boasted of their friendship during the 1990s as he defrauded friends, family members and institutions out of more than $10 million.
Ed Mezvinsky was sentenced in 2003 to serve 80 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to a massive fraud that prosecutors said amounted to a Ponzi scheme. He was released from custody in April 2008, but remains under federal probation supervision.
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/mezvinsky.asp#W86TSmhCqGEkOYkR.99
After serving five years in federal prison, he was released in April 2008. He remained on federal probation until 2011, and still owes $9.4 million in restitution to his victims.
And the groom's mother, Marjorie Margolies? Well, she tried to file for bankruptcy but the bankruptcy judge wasn't having it. Somehow the female bankruptcy judge didn't believe a woman who had served in the US Congress when said woman whined that she had no knowledge of her family's finances because her husband took care of all finances.
Shortly thereafter, she filed for bankruptcy, but failed to receive a discharge from her debts, based on 11 U.S.C. §727(a)(5). The court found Mezvinsky had failed to satisfactorily explain a significant loss of assets in the four years prior to her bankruptcy filing. The bankruptcy judge stated, in her published opinion, "I find that the Debtor has failed to satisfactorily explain the loss of approximately $775,000 worth of assets (the difference between the $810,000 represented in May 1996 and the $35,000 now claimed in her Amended Schedule B)." Sonders v. Mezvinsky (in re Mezvinsky), 265 B.R. 681, 694 (Bankr. E.D. Pa. 2001).
When she filed for bankruptcy, a judge rejected her assertion of ignorance in a scathing decision that, depending on how you read it, either calls her feminist assertions into question or suggests she knows more than she’s letting on. “Her consistent response to questions asked by her creditors about the disposition of her assets is lack of knowledge or ‘my husband handled it,’ a mantra that is completely at odds with her public persona, background, and accomplishments,” the judge wrote.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/the-clinton-in-law-marjorie-margolies-100696_Page3.html#ixzz3PH7Y4Lsv
Who would HRC seat these grifters next to at state dinners? Whomever they might be, they'd better hang onto their wallets.
Fast tracking not just for TPP; raises its ugly head in PA
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2015/02/01/Avoiding-taxes-A-fast-tracked-scheme-will-help-only-nonprofits/stories/201502010086This Pittsburgh Post Gazette editorial opposes a state constitutional amendment being pushed by "non-profit" UPMC.
Avoiding taxes: A fast-tracked scheme will help only nonprofits (Headline)
A runaway train is rolling through Harrisburg, but it will crash and burn in cities and towns across Pennsylvania.
Hospitals and large nonprofits are pushing for a state constitutional amendment that could end attempts by local government to force them to make payments to help cover municipal services. That would leave the average residents and businesses that pay property taxes on the hook, as they are today, for more than their fair share of the cost of policing, firefighting and road maintenance.
The amendment would do this by taking away from the courts the authority to define what constitutes a tax-exempt charity and giving it to lawmakers who are susceptible to lobbying by deep-pocketed, albeit nonprofit, institutions.
Senate Bill 4 contains the proposal, which must be passed in two consecutive sessions of the Legislature to become part of the state constitution. It was OK’d once by the General Assembly and is on a fast track for second approval. If that happens soon, the plan will go before Pennsylvania voters this year, perhaps as early as the May primary, for possible final adoption — all without much public exposure or extensive debate.
Almost as a concession to the animosity rising against the Legislature’s hurry-up offense, the Senate Finance Committee has set a hearing for Wednesday on the bill. It comes, however, in the 11th hour of the amendment process — too late for a careful examination of this costly issue.
Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf to sign order barring drilling of new oil, gas wells in state forests, parks
Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Gov. Tom Wolf is set to sign an executive order reinstating a moratorium on new leases for oil and gas drilling under state-owned forests and parks, according to his office.
The order arises in Wolf's second week in office and reverses an executive order issued by former Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014 that ended a blanket ban on drilling leases. The Corbett administration had agreed to delay new leasing until a legal challenge to his plan was resolved. A Commonwealth Court decision this month opened the door for the state to proceed with the plan to expand drilling in forests and parks.
Drilling and fracking critics including the Sierra Club and PennFuture cheered the announcement as a campaign promise fulfilled and a public health and environmental safeguard.
“There's broad public support to keep fracking out of our state parks and forests, (and) during the campaign Governor Wolf made a commitment to prevent new leasing of our public lands, and we're pleased to see him follow through on that commitment,” said Joanne Kilgour, director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Sierra Club.
Read more: http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/7661139-74/state-drilling-gas#ixzz3QCcpjg7K
Hot damn! A Democratic candidate KEEPS his campaign promises and does so in less than a month! Other promises he immediately fulfilled upon taking office were: (1) to ban all state employees in his administration from accepting gifts and (2) banning no-bid contracts (a big problem in PA).
Although anyone would look good compared to newly ex-governor Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania Governor Wolf is just outstanding. All the regular folks I deal with in various civic organizations are delighted about and excited by Pennsylvania's new Democratic governor.
He's also chosen to remain in his own home, rather than move into the ostentatious governor's mansion. His home is about a 30 minute commute from the Capitol and all the administrative agencies' headquarters. Corbett used to commute across the state to his home in suburban Pittsburgh for 3 day weekend - which meant that if any emergency/disaster occurred requiring a state response, Corbett was a 4.5 hour drive away. Wolf is in the capitol 24/7.
Hedge fund managers: grifters widening inequality through insatiable avarice
Robert Johnson, president of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos that many hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes, should widening inequality fuel civil unrest. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway."
This raises a number of questions: (1) Wouldn’t it be cheaper for hedge fund managers to simply stop paying politicians to rig the economic game on their behalf? (2) Do they really need their “carried interest” tax loopholes and their easy access to insider information? (3) Wouldn’t they rather live on $5 million a year in peace, rather than $500 million and worry about civil unrest? (4) Why do they suppose widening inequality won’t create civil unrest in New Zealand?
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich?fref=nf
Ah yes, Hedge Fund Vultures are raping America, one tax loophole at a time. Read the following article to learn the incredible amounts these grifters pay themselves and learn some eye-popping facts about "these smarmy fuckwads who operate said Hedge Funds and do it with little, if ANY, regulatory oversight." From Leopold’s writeup, via Alternet, (http://www.alternet.org/story/151569/how_dracula_hedge_funds_are_sucking_us_dry), one eye-popping fact:
… the top 10 hedge fund elites make on average nearly $1 million an HOUR.
As Leopold points out..those guys are trying real hard to maintain a low profile. But he managed to find data on their pay scale, in relation to other rich folks, for 2010 and included the median family income level here in these United States in the following chart:
The Highest Income Celebrities, CEO and Hedge Fund Managers (2010)
The Top Ten------------------ Average Yearly Income---- Years for average American family to earn as much.
Hedge Fund managers --------$1,753,000,000-------- 35,217 years
Movie directors/producers------ $126,000,000 --------- 2,531
Top celebrities from all fields ----$119,800,000-----------2,407
Pop musicians------------------------$87,200,000---------- 1,752
Non-financial CEOs------------------$47,100,000------------- 946
Athletes--------------------------------$44,600,000-------------896
Movie stars----------------------------$42,600,000-------------856
Authors-------------------------------- $26,900,000-------------402
Lawyers-------------------------------- $20,000,000------------402
http://www.roundtree7.com/2011/07/hedge-fund-execs-the-gamblers-rake-it-in-at-our-expense/
Corporate vultures who are betting against us really do not deserve that level of pay.
Why am I so sure they’re ripping us off? I’ve had the dubious honor of exploring some of their biggest deals, including the “Greatest Trade Ever,” in which hedge funds bet against the housing bubble and won big. It turns out those bets were rigged. Hedge funds brazenly colluded with big investment banks to create securities that were designed to fail, so they could bet against them. So far the SEC has forced Goldman Sachs to pay $500 million in penalties and JP Morgan recently coughed up $153.6 million. This was to settle charges that these banks failed to inform investors that hedge funds had a heavy hand in constructing securities so that they would fail.
In fact, we can now show that hedge funds helped to prolong the housing bubble, deepen the crash and profit along the way. No matter what their apologists say, those hedge fund profits came from trash securities that never should have seen the light of day. Not only didn’t they create positive value for the economy, they created billions of losses that led to bailouts, unemployment and massive public debt. Whether any of them engaged in outright fraud, we leave to the courts. It doesn’t matter. It was a monumental economic rip-off, whether legal or illegal.
To really get your goat..let me tell you what tax rate they get to use, drumroll please…
To add enormous insult to our grievous injuries, these hedge funds managers only pay a 15 percent federal income tax rate (instead of 35 percent) on nearly all of their obscene incomes. That’s because of a tax loophole that allows them to declare their income as capital gains — they call it “carried interest.”
Scotland: Total Ban on Fracking & Unconventional Gas In Sight
I really love the Scots. With both the SNP and Labour opposed to fracking, things are looking good for a nationwide ban. First they kicked Wee Donald (Trump) out when he opposed Wind Farms; now this! We should all sing a chorus of Scots Wha Hae:
Lay the proud usurpers low,
Tyrants fall in every foe,
Liberty's in every blow! -
Let us do or dee.
http://bright-green.org/scotland/scotland-total-ban-on-fracking-and-unconventional-gas-in-sight/
After a flurry of announcements and counter-announcements this week the campaign to ban toxic and risky forms of gas drilling in Scotland may be almost won. The SNP have just announced their support for an amendment in Westminster to have a moratorium on all forms of on-shore unconventional gas extraction. Earlier this morning Scottish Labour announced they would ban fracking with existing powers in Scotland if they controlled the Scottish Parliament after the 2016 elections.
The speed with which the parties have upped their game following each other’s moves shows how anger over fracking plans is close to the surface in Scotland. Hundreds rallied against fracking December and are returning for another rally at Grangemouth refinery tomorrow. A much larger march is planned in just over a month.
Although today’s new policy positions fall short of a total ban, they remain a huge victory for Scotland’s broad alliance against unconventional gas who are fighting a wide ranging campaign against the Scottish and UK governments, local authorities, and fossil fuel companies.
Mary Church, Friends of the Earth Scotland, said the sudden policy changes “are a direct response to the passionate and informed opposition from community groups and concerned citizens.”
GOP Sen. Ernst’s family actually received nearly $1/2 million in federal subsidies
Even within the GOP, Ernst is a world class hypocrite!
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/sen-joni-ernsts-family-actually-received-more-than-460000-in-federal-subsidies/#.VMChywrqqWU.facebook
Sen. Joni Ernst’s family actually received more than $460,000 in federal subsidies (Headline)
Despite Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) rhetoric about growing up poor on Tuesday night, her family actually received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government aid between 1995 and 2009, the District Sentinel news co-op reported.
Farm subsidy records indicate that the freshman senator’s father, Richard Culver, has received $38,395 in commodity subsidies and conservation payments, with all but $12 of the money being used for support of his corn crops. Ernst’s uncle, Dallas Culver, has reportedly received $250,000 in federal corn subsidies and $117,141 in additional aid. And her paternal grandfather, Harold Culver, got an additional $57,479 in aid between 1995 and 2001.
Ernst did not mention her family’s use of federal programs during her response to the State of the Union. Instead, she said she was raised “simply” and taught to live within her means.
EXCLUSIVE: Iowa Senate shocker — contracts awarded to Joni Ernst’s father raise conflict of interest questions
Father of GOP nominee won $200,000 in contracts when Joni Ernst was in office, despite conflict of interest rules. Salon reported last October that Ernst’s father received more than $200,000 in contracts for his construction company during her stint as auditor for Montgomery County, despite a state rule requiring that contracts be voided if a county official or employee “had an interest” in the contractor. http://www.salon.com/2014/10/07/exclusive_contracts_awarded_to_joni_ernsts_father_raise_conflict_of_interest_questions/
Radio Iowa reported last May that Ernst said she was “philosophically opposed” to federal farm subsidies during a GOP primary debate. However, she added, she would continue to support them if elected.
http://www.radioiowa.com/2014/05/03/all-five-iowa-gop-candidates-for-us-senate-favor-farm-subsidies/
(And note ALL FIVE of the Republicans in Ernst's primary contest supported continued farm subsidies! A veritable grasping clutch of hypocrites.
