January 2024 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Nancy, do you want to say anything about this RICO?
by Gunnar Larson 07 Jan '24

07 Jan '24

Nancy, do you want to say anything about this RICO? https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1nxisegAn_/?igsh=MWtzemFyZmVvN2tndg==

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EFF Asks Court to Uphold Federal Law That Protects Online Video Viewers’ Privacy and Free Expression
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 07 Jan '24

07 Jan '24

In the spirit of less spam! There's so much stuff out there like this. I have not read the below article but it's from the EFF so it's gotta be good. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/eff-asks-court-uphold-federal-law-pro… JANUARY 4, 2024 As millions of internet users watch videos online for news and entertainment, it is essential to uphold a federal privacy law that protects against the disclosure of everyone’s viewing history, EFF argued in court last month. For decades, the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) has safeguarded people’s viewing habits by generally requiring services that offer videos to the public to get their customers’ written consent before disclosing that information to the government or a private party. Although Congress enacted the law in an era of physical media, the VPPA applies to internet users’ viewing habits[1], too. The VPPA, however, is under attack by Patreon. That service for content creators and viewers is facing a lawsuit in a federal court in Northern California, brought by users who allege that the company improperly shared information about the videos they watched on Patreon with Facebook. Patreon argues that even if it did violate the VPPA, federal courts cannot enforce it because the privacy law violates the First Amendment on its face under a legal doctrine known as overbreadth[2]. This doctrine asks whether a substantial number of the challenged law’s applications[3] violate the First Amendment, judged in relation to the law’s plainly legitimate sweep. Courts have rightly struck down overbroad laws because they prohibit vast amounts of lawful speech. For example, the Supreme Court in Reno v. ACLU invalidated much of the Communications Decency Act’s (CDA) online speech restrictions because it placed an “unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech.” EFF is second to none in fighting for everyone’s First Amendment rights in court, including internet users (in Reno mentioned above[4]) and the companies that host our speech[5] online. But Patreon’s First Amendment argument is wrong and misguided. The company seeks to elevate its speech interests over those of internet users who benefit from the VPPA’s protections. As EFF, the Center for Democracy & Technology, the ACLU, and the ACLU of Northern California argued in their friend-of-the-court brief, Patreon’s argument is wrong because the VPPA directly advances the First Amendment and privacy interests of internet users by ensuring they can watch videos without being chilled by government or private surveillance. “The VPPA provides Americans with critical, private space to view expressive material, develop their own views, and to do so free from unwarranted corporate and government intrusion,” we wrote. “That breathing room is often a catalyst for people’s free expression.” As the brief recounts, courts have protected against government efforts to learn people’s book buying[6] and library history[7], and to punish people for viewing controversial material[8] within the privacy of their home. These cases recognize that protecting people’s ability to privately consume media advances the First Amendment’s purpose by ensuring exposure to a variety of ideas, a prerequisite for robust debate. Moreover, people’s video viewing habits are intensely private, because the data can reveal intimate details about our personalities, politics, religious beliefs, and values. Patreon’s First Amendment challenge is also wrong because the VPPA is not an overbroad law. As our brief explains, “[t]he VPPA’s purpose, application, and enforcement is overwhelmingly focused on regulating the disclosure of a person’s video viewing history in the course of a commercial transaction between the provider and user.” In other words, the legitimate sweep of the VPPA does not violate the First Amendment because generally there is no public interest in disclosing any one person’s video viewing habits that a company learns purely because it is in the business of selling video access to the public. There is a better path to addressing any potential unconstitutional applications of the video privacy law short of invalidating the statute in its entirety. As EFF’s brief explains, should a video provider face liability under the VPPA for disclosing a customer’s video viewing history, they can always mount a First Amendment defense based on a claim that the disclosure was on a matter of public concern. Indeed, courts have recognized that certain applications of privacy laws, such as the Wiretap Act and civil claims prohibiting the disclosure of private facts, can violate the First Amendment. But generally courts address the First Amendment by invalidating the case-specific application of those laws, rather than invalidating them entirely. “In those cases, courts seek to protect the First Amendment interests at stake while continuing to allow application of those privacy laws in the ordinary course,” EFF wrote. “This approach accommodates the broad and legitimate sweep of those privacy protections while vindicating speakers’ First Amendment rights.” Patreon's argument would see the VPPA gutted—an enormous loss for privacy and free expression for the public. The court should protect against the disclosure of everyone’s viewing history and protect the VPPA. You can read our brief here[9]. 1: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/california-district-court-holds-video… 2: https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/overbreadth/ 3: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/559/460/ 4: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/06/ten-years-after-aclu-v-reno-free-spee… 5: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/landmark-battle-over-free-speech-eff-urg… 6: https://law.justia.com/cases/colorado/supreme-court/2002/01sa205-0.html 7: https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/libraries-and-intellectual-freedom/ 8: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/293 9: https://www.eff.org/document/stark-v-patreon-eff-cdt-aclu-aclu-northern-cal…

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All,New starlink satellites�
by notmotor 07 Jan '24

07 Jan '24

And how are things with GPS now? In fact, the GPS module works as a receiver and cannot be tracked, but maybe I don't know something?

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Cpunks List: Remove The Spammer From The List
by grarpamp 06 Jan '24

06 Jan '24

Greg, it is time for you to remove this spammer from the list. The Internet has, since its inception, mutually and universally, for good reasons, and with full conviction, wisely decided that such spammers shall be banned. This spammer has spammed over 70,000+ spams upon the list and its subscribers. All of them filled with nonsense gibberish, generated noise, and personal psychobabble crap, none of it having any relation or point to topic. This spammer has posted and admitted multiple times that they are doing it with full knowledge and intent to destroy the list and harm its subscribers. This spammer has been told to stop by everyone many times, and they have still refused to stop abusing the list with spam. This spammer has also refused the listop's directive to stop abusing the list with spam. This spammer has caused valuable contributors who are otherwise unable to filter out the abusers spam to leave the list. This includes a number of original members. This spammer is abusing members network and storage space. This spammer is causing damage to the list. This spammer is causing mail delivery problems. This spammer has destroyed usability of the web archives. This spammer is using tens of sockpuppet accounts to spam the list. This spammer has been banned for abusing other forums as well. The Internet has decreed that it is not the job of subscribers to deal with these egregiously abusive spammers. The Internet has provided three options for list operators... 1) You must kick this spammer's accounts off the list. 2) You must set the moderation flag on this spammer's accounts and deal with and filter them out yourself. 3) You must move this spammer's accounts off to a separate new list that you create for them alone. Take your pick and make it happen. The list thanks you.

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Mike Johnson, “Champion of the Fossil Fuel Industry” and Climate Change Denier Elected as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
by Gunnar Larson 06 Jan '24

06 Jan '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/10/mike-johnson-champion-of-the-fossil-… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 26, 2023 ~ Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the New Speaker of the House of Representatives Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the New Speaker of the House Most people in America have never heard of the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Billionaire Charles Koch, the fossil fuel kingpin and self-anointed head of the right-wing political money machine, probably likes it that way. Koch is likely hoping that Americans will just breathe a sigh of relief that the House of Representatives finally has a leader and not look any deeper into who was handed the reins. According to OpenSecrets.org, the nonprofit watchdog of campaign money, the largest industry supporting Johnson since his first federal campaign in 2015 is the oil and gas industry, which has infused $338,000 into Johnson’s campaign coffers. Of that amount, $30,000 came from the Koch Industries PAC, where Charles Koch has sat as the Chairman and CEO for 56 years. Within hours of the news that Johnson was the new House Speaker, the Sierra Club released this statement: “Since he first launched his House campaign in 2015, Johnson has received more money tied to the oil and gas industry than any other industry. At the same time, Johnson has a long track record of downplaying and being dismissive of the climate crisis. In 2017, Johnson remarked, ‘The climate is changing, but the question is, is it being caused by natural cycles over the span of the Earth’s history? Or is it changing because we drive SUVs? I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.’ “Additionally, Johnson has worked repeatedly to undermine the Endangered Species Act and weaken protections for those species covered by it.” Nonprofits funded by Charles Koch and family-related trusts have also been behind much of the climate denial propaganda. In 2012, the New York Times published documents which had been leaked from The Heartland Institute. The documents showed that the group was planning a tailored curriculum for high schools to spread skepticism about climate change. The documents also showed that the Charles Koch Foundation had contributed $25,000 in 2011 and was anticipated to contribute $200,000 in 2012 to the Heartland Institute. The Heartland Institute is a climate science denier that has received more than $26 million from two Koch-related groups, Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust, according to the Conservative Transparency Project using publicly available 990 IRS tax filings. Charles Koch is now effectively functioning as a puppet master in Washington, pulling levers here and there and everywhere. As we wrote previously: “Imagine a country that allows a private fossil fuels conglomerate (or its billionaire boss, Charles Koch, the 17th richest person in the world according to Forbes) to get away with the following: Meet secretly with big political donors twice a year to plot a coordinated strategy to put their chosen people in public office; Meet at his private club with a sitting Supreme Court justice who will then rule on key legislation that benefits his interests; Fund an organization that then sluices money to the wife of the Supreme Court Justice; Run a highly sophisticated voter registration database, data mining and get-out-the-vote operation called i360, in order to pack Congress with people who will pursue an antiregulatory agenda; Install dozens of its lawyers and operatives into the highest offices of the federal government; Run a sprawling, opaque trading operation that could potentially be raising the prices of the fossil fuel products it sells via the futures market; Continue to operate major factories in Russia, ignoring sanctions and a murderous regime waging an unprovoked war on Ukraine, until a pressure campaign forced it to say it will look for an exit strategy; Fund a sprawling network of taxpayer-subsidized front groups to deny climate change and foment hate; Provide funding to groups involved in sending a mob to attack the seat of government of its own home country on January 6; Fund groups that use dark money and propaganda to put lifetime justices on the highest court to pass legislation friendly to the fossil fuels conglomerate. Congressman Mike Johnson is also a propagandist for Donald Trump. Below is a sampling of what he has posted on his Twitter (X) page in the past: Tweets by Congressman Mike Johnson Johnson and his wife, Kelly, who calls herself a “pastoral counselor,” have their own podcast, “Truth Be Told,” which panders to the religious right while attempting to prop up the political career of Donald Trump. (Multiple episodes start out with a few minutes of unknown voices saying how smart Johnson is and how wonderful the couple is. So much for humility. Trump’s voice can also be heard in this opening saying, “Mike Johnson, what a great guy.”) In an August 25, 2023 podcast, Johnson called charges against Donald Trump “bogus charges,” implied that the U.S. Department of Justice did not have a case against Trump but had instead been “weaponized” against a political candidate. Johnson also potentially tainted the jury pools that will hear criminal cases against Trump by declaring “it’s not racketeering,” “it’s not a crime.” Johnson has a law degree and has been a practicing attorney in the past. He should know better than to make such statements in advance of seeing the evidence that is presented at trial.

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WeSuck: First Came the Hype; then Came Adam Neumann’s Self-Dealing; then Came the IPO Scandal; Now Comes the Bankruptcy
by Gunnar Larson 06 Jan '24

06 Jan '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/11/wesuck-first-came-the-hype-then-came… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 3, 2023 ~ Adam Neumann, Co-Founder of WeWork Adam Neumann, Former Chairman and CEO of WeWork WeWork, the flexible-office-space company, is the quintessential proof that you can’t put lipstick on a pig forever. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that WeWork “ is planning to file for bankruptcy as early as next week….” On October 5, the credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded WeWork’s long-term debt deeper into junk bond territory after WeWork elected to withhold interest payments on its debt that were due Oct. 2. Year-to-date, the publicly-traded stock of WeWork has lost 98 percent of its value. Its shares were trading for pennies in August on the New York Stock Exchange when the financial wizards at the company came up with the idea to do a 1-for-40 reverse stock split in early September to put a little lip gloss on the pig. Yesterday, the stock closed at $1.11, which would mean that it actually closed at just under 3 cents were it not for the 1-for-40 reverse stock split. The collapse in the share price in August came as a result of an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 8 which had included these fatal words: “…as a result of the Company’s losses and projected cash needs, combined with increased member churn and current liquidity levels, substantial doubt exists about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.” Back in 2019, venture capitalists had valued this company at $47 billion and were hoping to cash out in a hot IPO. Yesterday, the company closed with a market value of $59 million. JPMorgan Securities LLC, a unit of five-felony-count JPMorgan Chase, which is currently making headlines with its own scandal of being the financier to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring for 15 years, was going to be the lead underwriter of the 2019 IPO of WeWork, along with Goldman Sachs. But then Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business began to write viral posts on his blog. One of those posts stated that “bankers (JPM and Goldman) stand to register $122 million in fees flinging feces at retail investors visiting the unicorn zoo.” After reading the 2019 IPO prospectus, Wall Street On Parade called WeWork’s planned IPO “hype wrapped in subterfuge.” We said “It’s a money-losing commercial real estate company attempting to pass itself off as the Dalai Lama of office space rentals. The company has never made a dime of profits and its losses spiraled to $900 million in the first half of this year.” To enhance its valuation, WeWork attempted to portray itself as interconnected to technological breakthroughs. We explained in 2019: “We’re also going to have to excise ‘the extensive technology infrastructure’ because what they’re really talking about is not Silicon Valley breakthrough technology but jazzing up drab offices with beer taps, microbrewed coffee, fruit-infused water and WiFi – the latter of which you can get for free in any Panera’s, along with a table and chair, for the price of a cup of herbal tea.” In 2019, WeWork was represented by a very sophisticated law firm, Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The Wall Street bank underwriters were represented by another sophisticated law firm, Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett. Somehow, all of the Big Law masterminds paid big fees to scrutinize what they were helping to bring to the public markets, failed to see the self-dealing by WeWork’s then Chairman and CEO, Adam Neumann, as fatal to a public listing of its stock. Neumann owed his loyalty to the company under the past century of corporate law. But, instead, he was buying up commercial real estate on his own behalf and then leasing it back to WeWork. According to the IPO prospectus, WeWork was leasing four properties from Neumann on which it owed “future undiscounted minimum lease payments” of “approximately $236.6 million….” Neumann also owned another six properties which WeWork might decide to buy from him according to the prospectus. Neumann also had the right to overrule the Board of Directors. According to the prospectus: “Adam [Neumann] controls a majority of the Company’s voting power, principally as a result of his beneficial ownership of our high-vote stock. Since our high-vote stock carries twenty votes per share, Adam will have the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to the Company’s stockholders for approval, including the election of the Company’s directors. As a founder-led company, we believe that this voting structure aligns our interests in creating shareholder value.” That didn’t turn out to be true. As of this morning, Forbes puts Neumann’s net worth at $2.2 billion. WeWork’s shareholders are sitting with an effective 3-cent stock that is likely to be wiped out in bankruptcy. How did Neumann get so rich bringing a dog to market? In October 2019, CNBC reported this: “Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann will get up to $1.7 billion to walk away from the company and give up his voting rights, according to people familiar with the matter. SoftBank will pay Neumann up to $970 million for his shares, a $185 million consulting fee and will offer him $500 million in credit to help repay his loans to J.P. Morgan Chase, UBS and Credit Suisse, said the people, who asked not to be named because details of the agreement are private.” What is Neumann up to lately? Last week he was cavorting in Riyadh, along with speakers Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and David Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, at the Saudi Arabia investment summit. The IPO in 2019 was so heavily panned by Professor Galloway, ourselves, and numerous others that it was cancelled — delivering egg to the faces of its underwriters and their well-paid lawyers. Neumann resigned as CEO shortly after the IPO was pulled. Two years later, WeWork did an end run by going public by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The key functions of Wall Street are to efficiently allocate capital to deserving businesses and act as an effective pricing mechanism. When a company goes from a valuation of $47 billion in 2019 to $9 billion in 2021 to $59 million in 2023, Wall Street’s pricing mechanism is broken. And when a CEO pockets $2.2 billion after nefarious self-dealings and the company files bankruptcy four years later, Wall Street’s key function as an efficient allocator of capital is also broken. (See House Lawmakers Will Hear Today How the Integrity of U.S. Markets Is Being Dirtied by SPACs and Direct Listings: Coinbase Should Be a Case Study.) Yesterday, another once highly celebrated young entrepreneur, Sam Bankman-Fried, whose FTX crypto exchange had been gearing up to go public but is now in bankruptcy, was convicted of pulling off a massive fraud. For why WeWork’s Adam Neumann was never prosecuted, see this blog post from former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, titled: “The 6 secrets to becoming a fabulously rich con artist.” Something is fundamentally wrong with the structure of Wall Street, the watchdogs that are supposed to be policing it, the Senate Banking Committee that is supposed to be attending to timely reforms, and the Big Law firms that seem more interested in raking in billions than insuring the integrity of markets. The failure of all of these checks and balances have their roots in the corruption of campaign financing laws with unlimited money from corporations, hedge funds and Wall Street’s billionaires now grossly disfiguring every aspect of government by the people. This simply can’t end well. As we saw in 2008, markets eventually collapse under the weight of their own corruption, cratering the U.S. economy in the process.

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A Big Picture Look at Our Major Wall Street Corruption Stories of 2023
by Gunnar Larson 06 Jan '24

06 Jan '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2023/12/a-big-picture-look-at-our-major-wall… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 28, 2023 ~ The year 2023 will go down in U.S. banking history as the year in which the fastest bank runs in U.S. history occurred, producing the second, third and fourth largest banking failures in U.S. history in the span of seven weeks. Losses of more than $32 billion from these failed banks hit the Federal Deposit Insurance Fund (FDIC). Adding to the regulatory hubris, the largest and riskiest bank in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase, was allowed by its compromised regulators to become even riskier by gobbling up the failed First Republic Bank while JPMorgan Chase got an unexplained $50 billion 5-year loan from the FDIC at an undisclosed interest rate to sweeten its purchase of the failed bank. And, what good is a banking crisis if the Fed can’t pony up yet another bank bailout fund, this time with loans of up to an unprecedented one-year term. (Under Federal Reserve statutory legislation, the Federal Reserve Act, the Fed is supposed to make short-term loans. Ignoring statutory legislation has never been a problem at the Fed, however.) Less than two months after this unprecedented banking chaos occurred, Fed Chair Jerome Powell was back to delivering his Alice in Wonderland narrative to Congress that the “U.S. banking system is sound and resilient.” (If it is so sound and resilient, why does it need so many emergency bailout programs from the Fed?) Attesting to the systemic nature of the banking crisis, the share prices of the four largest banks in the U.S. began to sell off, with both Bank of America and Wells Fargo losing over 20 percent in the span of three weeks. (See chart below.) Trading Performance of Four Largest U.S. Banks During Bank Run in March 2023 And, of course, one can’t have a real banking crisis without a Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) blowing up. This time it was a Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, with heavy ties to Wall Street mega banks, which might help explain the above chart. Below, we’ve broken down our major banking and Wall Street corruption stories of 2023 into a few key categories, hoping that our readers will see the overarching reality that corruption has reached unparalleled levels in the U.S. banking system, fueled by its incestuous relationship with Wall Street trading houses and Big Law, while the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and Big Media focus on keeping the American people in the dark. ~~~~~ All Things Crypto On August 1, 2022, Wall Street On Parade published this headline: Brace Yourself for Federally-Insured Bank Failures Caused by Crypto. By March 8, 2023, the federally-insured crypto-involved bank, Silvergate, blew itself up, and decided to voluntarily wind down. By March 10, 2023 another crypto-involved bank, Signature Bank, had blown up and was put into FDIC receivership. Two days later, the U.S. financial system found itself in the full throes of major bank runs when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed into an FDIC receivership. This collapse was followed by First Republic Bank on May 1. The criminal trial of crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried would likely be considered by mainstream media as one of the key financial stories of 2023. At Wall Street On Parade, however, where we take a big picture view of the insidious machinations on Wall Street, it was the intimate involvement of Wall Street’s go-to law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, in the Bankman-Fried and broader crypto matters that caught our eye. See for example: Two Indicted Masterminds of the FTX Fraud Were Clients of Big Law Firm Sullivan & Cromwell Sam Bankman-Fried, BlockFi and Sullivan & Cromwell: A Viper’s Nest of Conflicts and Intrigue Bombshell Emails Raise Questions about What Sullivan & Cromwell Knew about Fraud at Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Firms A Sam Bankman-Fried Company Loaned or Invested More than $1 Billion in Clients of its Law Firm, Sullivan & Cromwell Bankruptcy Law Expert, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Asks FTX Bankruptcy Judge to Boot Sullivan & Cromwell from the Case Going forward, please notice how rarely the mainstream business press is willing to investigate or even mention a Big Law firm’s nefarious relationships with Wall Street. For more on our crypto-related coverage, see the following: The U.S. Congress Twiddled Its Thumbs on Crypto while 10 Countries Banned It and 42 Others Placed Heavy Restrictions Four Crypto-Friendly Banks Are Being Bailed Out with Billions from a Federal Housing Program Regulators Wake Up to Uninsured Deposits at the Mega Banks The year 2023 was also the year when federal banking regulators woke up to the frightening reality of how fast bank runs can occur in the digital/social media age. It took only a few social media posts to start an avalanche of digital deposit withdrawals at Silicon Valley Bank. In the span of just 24 hours, $42 billion in deposits had exited the bank with another $100 billion queued up to leave the next day – meaning it was possible for a federally-insured bank to lose 85 percent of its deposits in the span of 48 hours in the digital/social media age. (For a closer look at what was going on at Silicon Valley Bank, see our report: Silicon Valley Bank Was a Wall Street IPO Pipeline in Drag as a Federally-Insured Bank; FHLB of San Francisco Was Quietly Bailing It Out.) In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on November 15, FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg cited “over reliance on uninsured deposits” as one of the key factors in the bank failures this past spring. He added this: “…we are updating examiner guidance to be more explicit about analyses of uninsured deposit concentrations and have reemphasized to examiners the importance of forward–looking indicators of risk, such as high growth rates and breaches of internal risk limits. Additionally, we have strengthened our instructions for examiners on timely escalation of supervisory responses when management has been unable or unwilling to effect corrective action, or when financial conditions deteriorate rapidly, or both….” Despite this pledge from the FDIC Chair of more attention to “uninsured deposit concentrations,” Wall Street On Parade reported the following: November 14, 2023: The Deposit Insurance Fund Has a Balance of $117 Billion to Protect Deposits at 4,622 Banks. But One of Those Banks Has $1.4 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits May 11, 2023: At Year End, 4,127 U.S. Banks Held $7.7 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits; JPMorgan Chase, BofA, Wells Fargo and Citi Accounted for 43 Percent of That Former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan’s Trading Scandal Remains Behind a Dark Curtain for the Second Year in a Row The other big story that should have made the front pages of newspapers across America this year was how the investigation of former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan (who made million dollar trades in S&P 500 futures while sitting at the helm of the Dallas Fed and being privy to inside information as a voting member of the FOMC in 2020) was resolved by law enforcement. Instead, there was no announcement by law enforcement despite a two-year probe into the matter. On October 31, 2023, Wall Street On Parade provided an update to our readers. See: After Two Years, There’s Still No Law Enforcement Report on Former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan’s Trading Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin. Kaplan, for his part, appears to be attempting to resuscitate his scandalized reputation with the willing help of Maria Bartiromo and Fox Business news. (See here and here.) Despite Kaplan triggering the biggest trading scandal in the 110-year history of the Fed, he now has the audacity to actually be giving advice to the Fed on how it should conduct its monetary policy. Wall Street On Parade’s Award for the Slimiest Story of the Year Goes to Jamie Dimon and His Five-Count Felon Bank, JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase is not just the largest and riskiest bank in the U.S., it is also the most frequently charged with felony counts by the U.S. Department of Justice. (See: JPMorgan’s Board Made Jamie Dimon a Billionaire as the Bank Rigged Markets, Laundered Money, and Admitted to Five Felony Counts.) Given the bank’s unprecedented rap sheet, that reads more like that of an organized crime family than a federally-insured bank, one would think that the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice would be all over the bank after the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands introduces evidence into a federal court that credibly alleges that JPMorgan Chase was “actively participating” in Jeffrey Epstein’s international sex trafficking of minors for more than a decade. Instead, the bank was allowed to settle the case (and a related case) for $365 million with nary a whimper from Judge Jed Rakoff, despite 17 Attorneys General objecting to the settlement on the basis that it usurped their rights. The tricked up settlements were the handiwork of another Big Law firm, WilmerHale, which represented JPMorgan Chase. See part of our coverage below of this unprecedented long-term relationship between the largest federally-insured bank in the United States and the multi-decade sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. (Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide by the New York City Medical Examiner.) New Court Documents Suggest the Justice Department Under Four Presidents Covered Up Jeffrey Epstein’s Money Laundering at JPMorgan Chase Janet Yellen’s Treasury Department Hires 5-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase to Look for Fraud JPMorgan’s Settlements Reach $365 Million Over Civil Claims It Banked Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking of Minors; Criminal Charges Could Lie Ahead Former FBI Agent Prepared to Testify that JPMorgan Had Jeffrey Epstein Account for 28 Years – Not 15 Years – and “Impeded” Criminal Investigation of Epstein Gary Gensler’s SEC Is Drawing a Dark Curtain Around Child Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, His Money Man Leslie Wexner and Their Ties to JPMorgan Jamie Dimon Faces an Uphill Battle Convincing a Jury He Didn’t Know that Child Sex-Trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, Was Financing His Operation Out of JPMorgan NYS Regulator Fined Deutsche Bank $150 Million Over Ties to Jeffrey Epstein but Says It Doesn’t Have a Scrap of Paper on JPMorgan and the Sex Trafficker Court Filing: JPMorgan Chase “Actively Participated in Epstein’s Sex-Trafficking Venture” JPMorgan Listed a “Lolita’s Closet” on the New York Stock Exchange for Jeffrey Epstein’s Money Man, Les Wexner JPMorgan/Jeffrey Epstein Cases Are a Cross Between the Bank’s Chinese Princeling Scandal and Madoff Fraud, Using Sex with Minors as a Bribe JPMorgan Is Alleged to Have Used Its Hedge Fund’s Private Jet to Engage in Sex-Trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein 72 Hours Before JPMorgan Offered $290 Million to Make Epstein Claims Go Away, a Lawyer Disclosed that the Bank Had Withheld 1500 Documents Jamie Dimon’s Deposition in Epstein Case Reveals Email Stating that Dimon Was to Be Treated to “Heavy Snacks” at Epstein’s Home JPMorgan Chase and Jeffrey Epstein Were Both Involved in a Strange Offshore Company Called Liquid Funding

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Boeing 737 Max Blowout Points to Pervasive Flaws
by Gunnar Larson 06 Jan '24

06 Jan '24

Boeing 737 Max Blowout Points to Pervasive Flaws https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-01-06/boeing-737-max-blowou… Boeing Co.’s 737 Max jet was supposed to be the safest plane in the world. The perception is anything but. Almost five years after the second fatal crash involving the plane prompted a global grounding, and three years after the Federal Aviation Administration said the Max could safely return to US skies, the aircraft is still having troubling safety problems. Alaska Air Group Inc. grounded its entire fleet of Boeing 737 Max-9 aircraft after a piece of the plane blew off soon after takeoff on a late Friday evening flight, leaving a gaping hole with views of the starry night where a panel should have been.

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A Jan. 6 Reckoning Matters Even if Outrage Has Waned
by Gunnar Larson 06 Jan '24

06 Jan '24

A Jan. 6 Reckoning Matters Even if Outrage Has Waned https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-01-06/on-jan-6-anniversary-… This weekend marks three years since the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, and as Americans reflect on the shocking images and lies perpetrated from that day, there’s also an alarming amount of revisionist history happening, particularly among voters on the right. Many in the Republican Party, whose leaders made urgent calls to then-President Donald Trump to call off the mob, now seem engaged in a concerted effort to minimize what occurred.

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US Intelligence Shows Flawed China Missiles Led Xi to Purge Army
by Gunnar Larson 06 Jan '24

06 Jan '24

US Intelligence Shows Flawed China Missiles Led Xi to Purge Army https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-06/us-intelligence-shows-fl… US intelligence indicates that President Xi Jinping’s sweeping military purge came after it emerged that widespread corruption undermined his efforts to modernize the armed forces and raised questions about China’s ability to fight a war, according to people familiar with the assessments.

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