Online Poker Sites Seized

According to the latest report from the Los Angeles Times, the top three online poker sites were shut down and seized by the FBI for money laundering activities. PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker have been shut down and the websites now only offer a FBI and Department of Justice notification that the poker game is over…

The founders of the three largest online poker sites were indicted on Friday in what could serve as a death blow to a thriving industry.

Eleven executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and a number of their affiliates were charged with bank fraud and money laundering in an indictment unsealed in a Manhattan court. Two of the defendants were arrested on Friday morning in Utah and Nevada. Federal agents are searching for the others. – LA TIMES

Check out the links here if you like:

PokerStars
Full Tilt Poker
Absolute Poker

No need to ante up for the next poker hand anymore. That is unless you would like to play a few hands of poker with an FBI agent for coffee money. You can read the full indictment HERE.

Papamoka

***Thank you Memeorandum for the link...

Skin Heads Targeted Obama and 102 Others for Assassination

Leave it to idiotic Skin Heads to think that they were bright enough to covertly carry off an assassination attempt on Barack Obama and 102 other African Americans. I’m sure it was not difficult for federal agents to track down two skin heads with swastika tatoos. This is the second group arrested for making an attempt on Obama and this scares me to the bone. At the times of greatest change in this nations history, the most ignorant amongst us used a bullet too silence that change. Not this time though. Thank God for that! And of course the ATF, FBI, Secret Service and everyone that followed up on these two morons are to be thanked as well.

CNN has this and more to say on it…

Men charged with plotting to kill Obama

(CNN) -- Federal prosecutors charged two men with plotting a "killing spree" against African-Americans that would have been capped with an attempt to kill Sen. Barack Obama while they wore white tuxedos, federal officials said Monday.

The U.S. attorney's office in Jackson, Tennessee, said Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, were self-described white supremacists who met online through a mutual friend.

Both men have been charged with illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun, conspiracy to rob a federally licensed gun dealer and making threats against a presidential candidate.

The men planned to kill more than 100 African-Americans, including 14 who would be beheaded, according to the affidavit. But federal law enforcement sources said there was no evidence Cowart, of Bells, Tennessee, and Schlesselman, of West Helena, Arkansas, had any details of Obama's schedule. - CNN

One of the things that I have heard and read in many left leaning blogs and conversations with friends is the fear that someone, somewhere will never find it acceptable for a black man to be President and will use that as an excuse to assassinate Obama. Sometimes I too have feared the same because outright ignorance is out there in America and blindly accepted simply because it was the way these idiots were raised. I feel bad for them. I really do because getting to know someone different than you can be a life changing experience. It is far to easy to hold onto ignorant fear than shake another mans hand simply because they are different than you. Laziness and fear is how ignorant people that would make an attempt on anyone elses life because of the color of their skin is a copout. Unfortunately, for Skin Heads and people like the KKK I don’t ever think you or I will ever be able to educate them as to how wrong they are when they use racism to feel superior in their shallow little life.

You Tube Video Link

This nations greatness was not born out of a people that accepted the status quo. It was born of a people that saw a far brighter future for the next generation and that legacy has been passed on from the generation of Washingtion and Jefferson right on up the ladder of future leaders of this great nation that knew that without a challenge for change our nation would stagnate. Our society and people are best when we are reaching for a better way for all.

As much as I fear the idiotic fringe in America I think, and I honestly believe that Barack Obama is well aware of this kind of possibility but chooses to push forward for the betterment of all in our nation. You can’t count Obama as a coward faced with the number of attempts on his life so far.

Thank you ATF, FBI, Secret Service and all the law enforcement people that have once more prevented this kind of abomination on the American people. Lock the scum up and throw away the damn key!

Papamoka

Child Prostitution Mega Bust!

Politically, they should call this the “War on Pervert’s”. When I see stories like this one I honestly realize that we live in a very sick society where children need to be protected like gold in Fort Knox.

When it comes to seeing our tax dollars at work you the individual rarely get the chance to see those dollars actually working. Headlines like the one below in regards to a nationwide major child prostitution ring bust by the FBI are comforting to see. Right there are all those ten’s, twenty’s and hundred dollar bill’s that we pay in federal taxes at work. Some of the hard working bills anyway.

Over at Reuters they have this on the news…

Hundreds nabbed in U.S. child prostitution sting
Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:09am EDT


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 300 people have been arrested for involvement in child prostitution rings and 21 children rescued in a nationwide sweep, the FBI said on Wednesday.

"Operation Cross Country," a five-day sting that ended on Sunday, spanned 16 cities in 10 states and the District of Columbia and caught 389 people who exploited children through prostitution, the agency said.

Investigations uncovered schemes ranging from prostituting children at truck stops to promoting their services on the Internet, the FBI said.

"We together have no higher calling than to protect our children and to safeguard their innocence. Yet, the sex trafficking of children remains one of the most violent and unforgivable crimes in this country," FBI Director Robert Mueller said at a news conference.

While I applaud the FBI for a job well done I have to wonder based on the facts from the article if we as a people are really doing enough? The FBI program Innocence Lost Initiative has been ongoing since 2003 and to date they have 308 convictions and have rescued 433 children from monster perverts. While I am thankful for the convictions and the saved children I think our nation needs to look at the laws concerning child molesters, pedophiles and any other sicko that preys on children. These monsters were not only abusing these children sexually but making money from their exploitation.

My questions are not for the job the FBI is doing in this effort to protect our nations children but to put some teeth behind their efforts when a conviction is the end result. Our Congress should look at the sexual predation of our children especially when it comes to prostitution of a child with harsh jail and financial penalties. These children were held against their will somewhere and if it was the perverts home then it should be seized by the government as a direct penalty. For that matter seize all their assets to pay for the psychological treatment the kids they abused are going to need.

Crimes against children gets my blood to boiling thinking how the blatant evil actions committed against them will effect them for the rest of their lives. Some of them, with the right help, they just may survive it but they still will have a part of their innocence lost forever. Many of these children will never overcome this abuse.

Information from the FBI report:

The Innocence Lost initiative was created in 2003 to address the growing problem of child prostitution in America. Our Criminal Investigative Division partnered with the Child Exploitation-Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice and with the nonprofit National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to bring together state and federal law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and social service providers. The initiative’s 24 task forces and working groups have recovered 433 children to date and seized over $3 million in assets.

“Child trafficking for the purpose of prostitution is organized criminal activity using kids as commodities for sale and trade,” said NCMEC President and CEO Ernie Allen during the press conference. “These kids are victims. They lack the ability to walk away. This is 21st century slavery.”

“Snip”

In addition to the Innocence Lost initiative, our Crimes Against Children program manages Child Abduction Rapid Deployment (CARD) Teams, which support state and local law enforcement in investigations, and the Innocent Images National Initiative, which targets the proliferation of child porn.

The message to the public, NCMEC's Allen said, is: "If you see it in your city, if you hear about it, if you suspect it, report it."

To do that, please contact the NCMEC hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST or file a report through its CyberTipline. - FBI


Papamoka

FBI, Innocence Lost Initiative, Predators, Child Molesters, Child prostitution, Robert Mueller, Operation Cross Country, Prosecute Perverts, Sentencing Child Molesters, Defending Children, Defense of Children, Lost Children, Child Rape, Broken Society

Technorati Tags:
FBI, Innocence Lost Initiative, Predators, Child Molesters, Child prostitution, Robert Mueller, Operation Cross Country, Prosecute Perverts, Sentencing Child Molesters, Defending Children, Defense of Children, Lost Children, Child Rape, Broken Society

The Biggest Fascist Paramilitary You Never Heard Of

By: Liberal Jarhead

Note: Liberal Jarhead is a contributor to Bring It ON! I've always enjoyed his posts on anything to do with the Military and with his kind permission has offered this piece to Papamoka Straight Talk...

Ever heard of Infragard? Well, I hadn’t, until I opened the March 2008 issue of The Progressive. We should have, though, should have heard a lot about it.

Infragard consists of 23,000 private industry officials, organized into 86 chapters overseen by the FBI, who act as intelligence sources for the Bureau and the Homeland Security Department, in exchange for getting “near-daily updates” on terrorist threats before the rest of us and, as The Progressive learned, sometimes before elected officials. According to its website, http://www.infragard.net/, “350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have a representative in Infragard,” and an Infragard executive reports that “Infragard members have contributed to about 100 FBI cases.”

Here’s what may be the best part: according to Matthew Rothschild, author of the Progressive article, “One executive, who showed me his Infragard card, told me they have permission to ‘shoot to kill’ in the event of martial law.”

The second-best part: because these people are in the private sector rather than government, the administration uses the trade secret exemption to bar the release of information about the Infragard program under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Now, there’s nothing wrong, and a lot that’s right, with either individual citizens or businesses giving information on crimes and terrorism to the police and other elements of the government. But that process should be transparent (allowing, of course, for anonymity for witness protection).

But this is different. With Infragard we have big corporations deputized as something like an old west posse, but those corporations have access to lots of information about the rest of us ordinary schmoes that is not supposed to be in the public domain. There’s a good chance that includes the people who hold our mortgage, car, and credit card loans if we have them, manage our health insurance, and sell us books, videos, plane tickets, recreational activities, and just about everything else.

And the sheriff has a recent history of going on illegal fishing expeditions through the private affairs of regular citizens not because they’re suspected of anything in particular, but just because you never know what us untrustworthy citizens might be up to – especially if we belong to groups that express disagreement with BushCo’s behavior, like the Quakers, or the ACLU, or a lot of the writers at this and other progressive blogs.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” That quote is usually attributed to Benito Mussolini; he never really said that, but it does seem to sum up the essence of fascism as practiced in a number of countries, and it seems to be a pretty close description of Infragard.

And don’t think we’ll automatically be able to breathe a big sigh of relief if a Democratic administration takes office 327 days from now – the executive branch, and its functionaries, seem to like to accrue power and hate to give it up, regardless of party. After all, they know that they can trust themselves to use it only for reasons that meet with their own approval. This administration has indeed been cruder and more aggressive about it than most, but both parties have overseen way too many witch hunts. It’s the corruption of power, not of any particular party or left-wing or right-wing orientation. In fact, Infragard was started under the Clinton administration, although it has expanded quite a bit under Bush.

So next time there’s a big terrorist attack in the U.S., or another major natural disaster like Katrina, don’t be too surprised if you see Wal-Mart and Bank of America managers, along with Blackwater’s boys, rolling down your street packing iron. After all, if that’s what it takes to keep Osama from taking away our civil liberties...

Originally posted at Bring It ON!

F.B.I. Investigating Home Lending

Don’t for a minute think that this post is about you the disenfranchised foreclosed on former first time home owner. Even though you were told by your lending professional, abandoned on the side of the road used car salesman, small appliance repair, and fortune teller that you could afford your recently foreclosed home, this story is not about you. Justice is never about you so this post is not about anyone at or below the middle class income level that lost their home to dubious lending practices.

One thing is a given in America, the only justice is for the millionaires that can afford to demand it. All of the bum loans that the mortgage lending and banking industry gave out like free cheese to the poor was not a big enough problem to look into. And yet when the millionaire investors start loosing their shirts it just might be a problem.

F.B.I. Opens Subprime Inquiry

By REUTERS
Published: January 29, 2008

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 (Reuters) — The F.B.I. has opened investigations into 14 corporations as part of a crackdown on improper subprime lending, agency officials said on Tuesday.

F.B.I. officials told reporters that the inquiry involved potential violations including accounting fraud and insider trading.

Separately, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley said government investigators were seeking information from them about their subprime mortgage activities. But it was not immediately clear if the disclosures by the three banks were linked to the F.B.I. probes.

F.B.I. officials did not identify the companies they were looking at, but said the investigation reached across the industry to include developers, subprime lenders, companies that securitized loans and investment banks that held them.

The cases could lead to potential civil or criminal charges, the officials said.
The F.B.I. said it was investigating the cases with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has opened about three dozen investigations into the subprime market collapse.

Targets of the S.E.C. probe include the investment banks Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, as well as the Swiss bank UBS and the bond insurer MBIA. It was not clear whether any of those companies were involved in the F.B.I. investigation.

The S.E.C., which has formed an internal subprime-mortgage task force, is looking at how financial firms priced mortgage-based securities and whether they should have told investors earlier about the declining value of those securities. - New York Times

All of the businesses that sold the loans to you the former homeowner hardly ever hold on to those loans. They sell them to bigger banks and bigger banks bundle them all together and sell them as investment vehicles for the mega rich. Now that the loans are being defaulted on in larger than life numbers those investment vehicles are up on cinder blocks with tickets on them from the board of health as a public nuisance. AKA losing money for the mega rich people and businesses that invest in them.

What the F.B.I. is investigating at the banks is the fact that the SEC has some serious rules about selling bovine by product as any kind of investment product. Especially, when those products are purchased by the mega dough bucks people at the top of the income earners heap.

Now it’s officially a Subprime Lending crisis! Now let’s see who goes to minimum security, weekends off for god behavior prison? Maybe when these guys have to loose their golf handicap they might see what justice is really all about.

One more note, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have all dropped in shareholder value between $15 and $20 in the last three months. Things that make you go hmmmm or screw them too?

Papamoka

Feel free to link to or borrow this post…

Cross posted at MichaelLinnJones.com

*****Buzz Tracker has linked to this post...

Technorati Tags:
Banks, FBI, Home Lending Crisis, Sub Prime Lending, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, Foreclosure, Home Lost, Home loans, Housing Market Crisis, Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, Investment Banking, SEC, Securities, Safe investments, Home ownership, deceptive lending, Closing points, adjustable rates, zero interest, ARM

Bush and Cheney Burn the Constitution

Picture courtesy of the White House





Pardon me for being so pissed off at this story in the New York Times on President Bush and Vice President Cheney breaking the laws of our nation by secretly setting up torture in the good old USA. Burn the damn Constitution and the Bill of Rights and full speed ahead for the new born King (s)! Most folks have mortgage burning parties, Bush and Cheney are having a Constitution burning party but it’s all hush hush. Don’t tell anyone but they broke the law.

Somebody call the decorator for the White House and get rid of all those old farts that believed in a nation under law. George Washington has to go, he was to much of a moderate liberal and for God’s sake he only had one tooth in his head. Replace George with one of Bugsy Segal smiling at the poker table in Vegas. Jefferson, what a hack! If there was ever a liberal in America this clown topped the cake. Replace his picture with Jesse James of the old west, now that is an American spirit to admire. That pussy footing FDR is a joke and his picture has to go too. Replace him with a real able bodied person that could fend for himself like the Teflon Don John Gotti.

We are a nation of laws and our President took an oath to uphold the Constitution. CNN, or Fox News must have missed the shot where he blew his nose with the Constitution right after the oath. Television blunders happen.

So while the Congress outlawed torture by American military and government agencies, don’t tell anyone but the President, Vice President, and the Attorney General continued on with their version of the law. Like that is a surprise to this writer?

Over at the New York Times they have this to say…


Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
Published: October 4, 2007
This article is by Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.

The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil. - New York Times

If the laws of our land are not followed by all of our citizens including those from the President down then our nation and our people have a serious problem. Our laws and the legality of them is to be decided by the Supreme Court ultimately and not by a staffer with a law degree at the White House. Congress banned torture but the President probably had one of those pesky signing statements (Making the law written and passed by the Congress void) attached to his signature.

Over at the Gun Toting Liberal they have this to say about this same article...

GTL Comment: Okay, let’s just THINK for a moment — in future conflicts, the way we treat OUR prisoners will set the precedence for how our own troops are treated by our enemies. If you think this brutal, illegal treatment of our enemies is acceptable, then you have ZERO legs to stand on when the enemy inflicts this level of BRUTALITY upon your son, daughter, husband, wife, or friends in uniform. Is this such a “good idea” now? - GTL

One word… IMPEACHMENT! How many ways does the President and the Vice President have to break the law before somebody in the Congress grows some gonads to start the process?

When the laws of our land only apply to the rest of us and not the President or anyone in his administration then our format of government will have no function and that leads to just one thing… Anarchy! Impeach the President and the Vice President for breaking the laws that Congress passed.

Papamoka

*****Buzz Tracker has linked to this post...

*****The Supreme Court Zeitgeist has linked to this post...

Technorati Tags:
Law, Supreme Court, Swords of Justice, Balance of Justice, Republican, Democrat, Anarchy, Rebelion, Signing Statements, Cheney, Gonzales, Bradbury, New York Times, Scott Shane, David Johnston, James Risen, Constitution, Laws of the Land, King Bush, Congress, Palosis, Pelosi, Reid, Harry Reid, Scales of Justice

Technorati Tags:
Law, Supreme Court, Swords of Justice, Balance of Justice, Republican, Democrat, Anarchy, Rebelion, Signing Statements, Cheney, Gonzales, Bradbury, New York Times, Scott Shane, David Johnston, James Risen, Constitution, Laws of the Land, King Bush, Congress, Palosis, Pelosi, Reid, Harry Reid, Scales of Justice
Add to: Technorati Digg del.icio.us Yahoo BlinkList Spurl reddit Furl

Former FISA Judge Slams Bush

Picture courtesy of Smithsonian NMAH

Finally, there is someone other than the press and the blogosphere questioning President Bush use of warrantless wire taps. Who better than a former judge of the court that used to approve wire taps to speak out on this issue?

Even though the warrantless wire taps were labeled by the courts as technically illegal without the courts approval the President to this day uses them at his own discretion because the laws of the courts do not apply to him.

Over at the Washington Post they have this to say about it…

Ex-Surveillance Judge Criticizes Warrantless Taps

By Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press
Sunday, June 24, 2007; Page A07

A federal judge who used to authorize wiretaps in terrorism and espionage cases criticized yesterday President Bush's decision to order warrantless surveillance after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war," said Royce C. Lamberth, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington and a former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, speaking at the American Library Association's annual convention.
Lamberth, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, expressed his opposition to letting the executive branch decide on its own which people to spy on in national security cases.

The judge said it is proper for executive branch agencies to conduct such surveillance. "But what we have found in the history of our country is that you can't trust the executive," he said.
"The executive has to fight and win the war at all costs. But judges understand the war has to be fought, but it can't be at all costs," Lamberth said at the Washington Convention Center. "We still have to preserve our civil liberties. Judges are the kinds of people you want to entrust that kind of judgment to more than the executive." - Washington Post

Can we get an Amen from the choir?

President Bush using warrantless wire taps for expedience purposes was blown out of the water by Judge Lamberth when on 9/11 the darkest day of this century he approved FIVE warrants during the commute from his home to the court. Is that not quick enough for President Bush?

Papamoka