HelmVille
The Docktor:
The Reality:
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The Docktor:
"In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
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The Reality:
A radical makeover at the US department of justice has seen key drives to fight corruption hamstrung in ways that could benefit US businesses operating abroad and foreign kleptocrats, including some Russian oligarchs...
{snip}
...(New US'ian Attorney General Pam) Bondi moved fast on her first day to issue a directive ending “Task Force KleptoCapture”, which had targeted Russian oligarchs with Kremlin links since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with some notable results.
Last year, the department announced the taskforce had charged more than 70 individuals for “violating international sanctions and export controls levied against Russia”, and some, such as Russian oil and metals multibillionaire Viktor Vekselberg, had their yachts seized...
Peter Stone, The Guardian, March 10, 2015
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Image at the top of the post?...Thompson on the trail of big fish, cardiovascular nirvana and Lono, circa 1981.
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9 comments:
Post-peak Thompson is better than no Thompson at all. (So says the guy who was ever so pleased to get 'Hey Rube' for Christmas one year.) Glad I bought the ticket, took the ride and got the fuck off.
Beer--
Me too!
I really, really still dig the letters compilation, Proud Highway, which James Parker writes about here ...Reading that stuff is like stumbling over the very finest work of the first, and very possibly best, blogger ever.
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The first thing an "asset" must do is satisfy the assets handler and his friends.
The USA is on a dark journey into a comic book dystopian future, only there are no super heroes, no Batman, no Superman, and it seems no Democrats to save the day.
The age of honour is long dead and it is now the age of "who can offer the most money" as everyone it seems, has a price.
This about sums up the trump regime and its henchmen. From your linked article… “ Jettisoning the DoJ’s robust FCPA enforcement under the guise that it somehow makes US companies anti-competitive seems stubbornly ignorant,” former acting chief of the fraud section Paul Pelletier told the Guardian.
(The question is, how did Pelletier know all this in 2015?)
EE--
One can only wonder what the deluded Mr. Schumer's price was.
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RossK
You've got me there Graham.
I will note, however, that Mr. Pelletier is also quoted in the Guardian piece saying the following:
“US public companies very much understand that this type of corruption is actually bad for business and that shareholders won’t tolerate it.
“This new policy, however, is not likely the result of ignorance. More credibly, the rescission of FCPA enforcement is a clarion signal to non-public US companies to corruptly seek a beachhead for their enterprises in foreign countries.”
So.
Is this actually a signal to the oligarchs that if they can buy back all the stock and take things private again that they will be even more scott-free than they are now?
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This makes a strong argument in addition to the tariffs pushback for banning US firms from Canadian contracts. They are no longer subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and there’s no enforcement unit even if they were.
Not that the US ever took it seriously anyway. People may recall a certain U.S. railway company that paid the bribes to a couple of upstanding BC government officials who were criminally convicted for accepting said bribes. I wrote the FBI field office in that company’s head office locale twice to point out that the payments appeared to be a clear violation of the Act, but they were not interested.
Elon now committing crimes in Canada.....https://www.yahoo.com/news/teslas-being-accused-something-unbelievably-191217748.html
A hell of a lot more than 30 pieces of silver!
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