Grand Jury Does not Indict Cop Who Murdered Eric Garner — But the Man Who Filmed It
If anyone thinks that there is really justice, you should re-read Thraysmachus who debated Socrates. Socrates wishfully believed that in a democracy the people would always be just compared to a tyrant. Thraysmachus disagreed. He warned that all forms of government act in the same identical manner because they only pursue their own self-interest. Hence, justice is merely the will of the stronger. This is precisely correct for this is also the explanation behind Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand. This is why Communism failed. It began to make all people equal, but ended elevating government over the people.
On Wednesday, a Staten Island grand jury decided not to return an indictment for the police officer who murdered Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, by placing him in a chokehold shortly before his death when the man was not resisting. Police are no longer the protectors of society, they have devolved into a military force with no ethics or rules who see everyone of us as merely a probably threat.
To illustrate how corrupt the grand jury system truly is and why lawyers for decades have said a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. That phase was actually coined by a New York State Judge by the name of Sol Wachtler. Wachtler was the former chief judge of New York state who coined that term in a January 1985 interview with the New York Daily News‘ Marcia Kramer and Frank Lombardi. The relevant portion:
In a bid to make prosecutors more accountable for their actions, Chief Judge Sol Wachtler has proposed that the state scrap the grand jury system of bringing criminal indictments.Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”
A month later, the New York Times noted that Wachtler believed grand juries “operate more often as the prosecutor’s pawn than the citizen’s shield.” That belief—that prosecutors can get grand juries to do whatever they want them to do is really universal and if this is not seriously changed, we will see massive civil unrest tear the system apart limb from limb.
The “ham sandwich” term has been universally quoted among lawyers albeit the public perhaps did not hear it until Ferguson. Tom Wolfe included the saying in the 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. “But mainly you used the grand jury to indict people,” Wolfe wrote, “and in the famous phrase of Sol Wachtler, chief judge of the State Court of Appeals, a grand jury would ‘indict a ham sandwich,’ if that’s what you wanted.”
If the government wants your ass it is theirs. I warned about Coxley who led the March on Washington, DC during the Panic of 1893 about unemployment. The Wizard of Oz was based on that march – we are off to see the wizard. Coxley was arrested for walking in the grass to break up that March. There are way too many laws so anyone can be imprisoned at any time for everyone commits at least 3 crimes per day and do not know about it - See Three Felonies a Day - How the Feds Target the Innocent
A different Staten Island grand jury indicted Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the entire incident in August, less than a month after filming the fatal July 17 confrontation in which Daniel Pantaleo and other NYPD police officers murdered Garner in plain view for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. The prosecutors wanted to imprison the camera man so like Coxley, they find some other law to charge him with in retaliation for filming what the police did. The grand jury was manipulated into indicting Orta on weapons charges stemming from an arrest by undercover officers.
Police alleged that Orta had slipped a .25 caliber handgun into a teenage accomplice’s waistband outside a New York hotel. Orta testified that the charges were falsely mounted by police in retaliation for his role in documenting Garner’s death, but the grand jury indicted Orta with a single felony count of third-degree criminal weapon possession and criminal firearm possession.
This illustrates the abuse that people are suffering at the hands of the police. When I worked in the law library, I had to review countless indictments on people. I began to see the same police names constantly coming up. There was a young black kid who looked visibly retarded. I saw the same police names charging him with possession of a gun. There were witnesses who said the police search him and found nothing. They searched him a second time and found nothing. They took him to the police van and suddenly in a third search they miraculously found a gun in his pants. I advised the kid to go to trial, not just because of the witnesses, but because of his appearance. The court appointed lawyer who never win cases to get such jobs, tried to get the kid to plead guilty as always. I encouraged him to go to trial. He won. My own count appointed lawyer then asked me how did it feel that I helped a criminal back on the street. I went to court and demanded he be removed.
The system is so corrupt nobody would believe it. The public actually think government is there to protect them, but they have no such feeling of obligation. It is always about them. Nobody has any 20 year plan even for the economy. All they care about is making the next election. With self-interest the primary mover, its is impossible to reform anything.
Government will never reform anything until the PUBLIC forces that change. Unfortunately, this is why we will see a rise in civil unrest. There is no remorse in government because there is no check and balance. Nobody will make them comply with human rights or the law. Most of mainstream press is corporate owned businesses vulnerable to various charges as well if they do not comply with government wishes. Mainstream media have sealed their own fate for once they laid down the pen, they surrendered their rights as well. Mainstream media have sold their position of protecting the First Amendment long ago for self-preservation. There is nobody watching the government and this is why it will explode in everyone’s faces.
Government has abused their power to police and tax. They assume it will blow over and everything gets back to normal. That is true only up to a point. When the economy turns down very hard, the sparks will fly. This is what our computer model is warning. Everything is unfolding is precise manner that leads to very serious problems. Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence warned that the king was also protecting his people for committing crimes against the people. There he created“mock trials” to protect them – history has repeated once again. All government devolve to self-interest. Exercise your free speech and they will find something else to charge you with and pretend that is the reason you go to prison – never for what you said.Why Central Banks Buy Equities
Why are central banks buying equities outright and trading futures? Very simple – EURO CRISIS! I have reported that central banks have been buying equities because there is a real crisis underway in central bank reserves. Behind the curtain, they need diversity because the Euro Crisis has creates a Reserve Crisis. There is no real alternative to the US dollar because of the faulty design in the Euro. Even the Chinese Yuan has surpassed the euro as a trade currency.
The dollar has become the world currency by default. The idea that the euro would displace the dollar was the typical mantra or people who do not understand the first thing about currency. The structure of the Euro stood no chance of displacing the dollar nor does the Japanese yen or the the Chinese Yuan. Until we eliminate government debt, sorry – but the dollar is the only alternative. The US debt provides the foundation for the world economy to park money. If we eliminate the ability for governments to borrow, then we can return to the original design of the Federal Reserve. To stimulate the economy it would buy corporate paper. When WWI began, the US government ordered the Fed to buy government paper. That was never reversed. Today they hand bankers billions in hope they will lend to business but they have been trading. Central banks have been transformed into entities that are incapable of dealing with the economy because everything they do is indirect. They control noting. It is all an illusion and the press maintains that illusion for the ownership of the press are pursuing their politically correct self-interest..
Here is where equities come into play. The central banks realize they are screwed they can only bailout corrupt banks or buy government paper destined to default. Talk about doom and gloom. The collapse of the Euro and the Japanese yen leaves no appreciable alternative for central bank reserves. The USA cannot expand its debt fast enough to supply the entire world economy as the Euro Crisis continues and Japan melts-down. Hence, the central banks are diversifying into PRIVATE assets. They have ZERO alternatives.
This is part of the rally in equities we have been warning about. This also can be the cause of a Phase Transition that takes the Dow to the 40,000 level once we begin to see national bankruptcies. Big money needs an outlet. Individuals can buy gold coins and hide them in you sock drawer. Big money cannot be bothered with tangible physical assets. They need electronic these days.
So hold on to your hat. This ride is by no means over yet. It is just starting to get interesting
The Euro Crisis to Spread to a World Crisis
The Greek financial crisis began precisely to the day on our model for the start of the Sovereign Debt Crisis. That was truly amazing since we protected that ideal date in 1985. It is always fascinating to see how precise the world economy truly is – that strange hidden order beneath a surface of a convincing illusion of chaos.
I have stated that the debt had to have been consolidated. Failure to do that is what this crisis is all about. People do not understand currency. They mistakenly assume a strong currency is bullish for the country. However, this introduces deflation into the mix because the debts become more expensive in real terms to repay.
I was blamed for starting the takeover boom in the 1980s that they made the movie Wall Street about. What people did not see was the fact that the international takeovers I was advising based upon currency. I would structure the borrowing in a currency that would decline against the currency in which the asset existed. In this manner, I transformed debt into a performing asset. You could borrow in a depreciating currency reducing your cost making 40%. It drove people crazy for those outside looking in could not understand what I was doing. We kept it a guarded secret.
Conversely, Southern Europe in joining the Euro experienced exactly the opposite result. As the Euro rose in value, their national debts appreciated in REAL COST TERMS. The Euro rose from 82 cents in 2000 to $1.60 in 2008. Historically, whatever national debts that preexisted nearly doubled in real terms. This was extremelyDEFLATIONARY. There was no possible way the Eurozone could survive under these conditions. The problem we have is very clear. Governments are run by lawyers and advised by academics with zero trading experience. Anyone working on a foreign exchange desk could have figured this one out is under 3 seconds – the time it takes a cop to kill a citizen these days.
Greece now needs despite the 240 billion euros in loans in the coming year to still keep pace with the fact that they have been totally screwed with the euro. Greece is headed into official bankruptcy for the people have had their future stolen from them by politicians now trying to support their personal power grab in Brussels. The Troika talks of a transition process. Nevertheless, all the parliaments of the Eurozone have to agree. It can be expected that the program will be adopted because of the fact they have no known alternatives. This will be more and more of the same policy without any comprehension of what is the driving force behind this economic catastrophe. Brussels and the IMF will sneak these measures through without any major debates just before the Christmas break. They need to cover up their utter failures.
The international loan program for Greece must be expected to be extended beyond the end of the year as well. The last installment of the current loan is in question because of disagreements over fiscal policy in Athens and the upcoming pension reform can still not be paid. The Troika (EU, ECB, IMF) are incapable of even comprehending the magnitude of what has taken place. There seems to be little hope of dealing with the Euro Crisis because of the serious flaws in its design. As we head into 2015, there appears to be little hope against a rising dollar. This will be deflationary in the USA also raising the net real value of the dollar debts to everyone who has issued dollar debt in countless currencies to save interest. The contagion will spread next year and we will see the downturn after 2015.75 will be far more confusing to these people who lack any comprehension of currency and the world economy.
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