ed

Entrepreneurial & finance career; Kidder P’body;Synovus; Wachovia; Mortgage Banking. Enjoy dry ironic twisted humor, curious about history and laughs often ...

[Corey Fuller @coreyfuller4]

SITTING ON BOTH SIDES OF THE GUN…

I’m not writing for likes or attention. I’m writing because I’VE LIVED IT!

I grew up in South City Projects in Tallahassee, raised by a single mother who did everything she could to give her boys a better life.

In 1992, my little brother Fred was killed at just 18 years old. One bullet changed our family forever.

So when I hear people saying, “Lock up the parents,” I ask: Do you really think my mother wanted to bury her son?

Yes, I made it out of South City and into the NFL, but people will never know the hell I went through to survive.

After football, I spent over 20 years coaching and working in education, trying to save young people.

WHY? BECAUSE I COULDN’T SAVE MY LITTLE BROTHER!

Sports saved my life. Coaches believed in me. But today, too many children are being punished instead of being reached.

YOU HAVE TO LOVE CHILDREN TO REACH CHILDREN!

Gun violence isn’t just a parenting problem. It’s a community problem, an education problem, and an American problem. We all must be accountable.

To the families affected by the FAMU Homecoming tragedy, my prayers are with you.

I’m 55 years old, and God has blessed me beyond my dreams. But no NFL contract, championship, or amount of money can bring Fred back.

I MADE IT OUT OF SOUTH CITY, BUT SOUTH CITY WILL NEVER LEAVE ME!

We must stop pointing fingers and start saving our children. ALL CHILDREN!

Rest in peace, Fred. I will never forget you. ❤️🙏🏾

TAG AND #justwork #loveyourlife @FSUFootball

[ed @DiscernedEd]

Spectacular…. one of the best nuanced subterfuge stories I’ve ever heard of …

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

In 1941, a Spaniard walked into the British embassy in Madrid and offered to spy on the Nazis.

The British turned him down.

So he went to the Germans instead, pretended to be a loyal fascist, and got hired as a German spy. His plan was to lie to them for the rest of the war.

It worked better than anyone could have imagined.

His name was Juan Pujol García. Before the war he had tried his hand at running a chicken farm and a movie theater. He had no spy training. What he had was a deep hatred of both fascism and communism after the Spanish Civil War, and an incredible imagination.

The Germans gave him a codename, invisible ink, money, and orders to go to Britain and recruit spies.

He didn't go to Britain.

He went to Lisbon, Portugal, and made everything up.

Using a tourist guidebook, maps, magazines, newsreels, and a British railway timetable from the library, he wrote long, detailed reports about life in England. Military movements. Morale. Ports.

He'd never been there. He made mistakes. He didn't understand British money. He once reported that dockworkers in Glasgow would do anything for a liter of wine.

The Germans loved him anyway.

Then British codebreakers reading German messages noticed something strange. The Germans were hunting for a convoy that didn't exist, based on a report from some agent in Britain they'd never heard of.

The British went looking for this mystery spy. They found Pujol. In 1942 they finally took him on and brought him to London.

Now he had real help. MI5 gave him the codename Garbo, after the actress, because they thought he was the greatest actor in the world.

Together with his British handler, Pujol built a fake spy network for the Germans. It eventually had 27 imaginary agents. Each had a name, a personality, a job, and a backstory. A Welsh nationalist. A Venezuelan student. A Greek sailor. Some of them recruited their own imaginary sub-agents.

When they needed to explain why one agent had gone quiet, they killed him off. They even put a fake obituary in a Liverpool newspaper. The Germans reportedly paid a pension to his widow.

Who also didn't exist.

Then came D-Day.

Hours before the landings, the British let Pujol send a message warning the Germans that the invasion was coming in Normandy. It was timed so it would arrive too late to matter, but it made him look brilliant.

Three days later he sent the most important message of his career. Normandy was a trick, he said. The real invasion was still coming, at Calais, led by a huge army under General Patton.

That army was fake too. But the Germans believed him.

German forces that could have been rushed to Normandy were held back near Calais for weeks, waiting for an attack that never came.

The Germans were so grateful they awarded him the Iron Cross.

A few months later, King George VI made him a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

He's one of the only people known to have been decorated by both sides of the war.

After the war, afraid of revenge from surviving Nazis, he faked his own death from malaria in Africa and disappeared to Venezuela, where he lived quietly running a shop.

For decades the world thought he was dead.

In 1984, a British writer tracked him down. Pujol came back to Normandy for the 40th anniversary of D-Day and met veterans who had landed on the beaches.

Some of them thanked him.

[Disguised Tweet Violating Nole @SpartacusNole56]

Saw this on the F Book and cackled!

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@brewmeone @JimmyPatronis @FloridaState This is NOT as outlandish a proposition as it first may appear… I think a decent stat guy and a decent lawyer could persuade a reasonable man. There’s purposeful … bias. 😎

[Jimmy Patronis @JimmyPatronis]

Saturday night wasn’t just two blown calls on back to back Hail Marys. @FloridaState has every reason to question whether the ACC’s vendetta against them has made its way onto the field.

FSU stood up to the ACC when nobody else wanted to. They fought to escape the garbage deal its leadership put them in, and now they’re fighting the “Protect” College Sports Act, which raises serious questions about whether the ACC is trying to protect its own interests at their expense.

College football is big business, and the explosion of sports betting has raised the stakes even higher. Sports betting isn’t a fad, and it’s not going away. With billions of dollars riding on game outcomes, we can’t afford to ignore the growing risk of corruption.

When refs see coaches making millions and players cashing in, they’re not immune to the temptation to get their own piece of the pie. They’re human, too. And that raises serious questions about accountability and the integrity of the game.

Investigating the officials is step one. It’s time to hold the ACC accountable.

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@BudElliott3

How can South Carolina open as a home favorite against Tennessee? Not sure how that’s possible… seems logical popular money would go to Tennessee as they beat Bama and the line would have to move toward Gamecocks… is someone hurt?

[Brian Ross @brewmeone]

We got flying cars before Miami won the ACC

[Ducky ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @thatjerkme]

@Porsche But were you inverted?

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@SenWarren She has concerns.
Right.
Where the hell is she when out and out insider trading is being promoted from the frickin Oval Office.
She’s worried about vanilla.

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@BioComparator Advantage…..a pill one time vs 4 injections? …and the costs ? The question has never really been an improvement… the question has always been sufficient data. The REAL intrigue… they partnered with a group in China and it works well. But can you submit that data? No.

[ed @DiscernedEd]

I always snickered at the titles like “Bankers Trust”. I saw unbalanced outcomes in distribution of IPO shares, derivatives pricing… etc.

History has always favored the owners of the gold …

Not sure this administration cares… they actually seem to be the culprits …

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,

My name is Everett Stern. In 2010 I was a compliance officer at @HSBC. From a back office in New Castle, Delaware, I watched billions of dollars move to drug cartels, sanctioned regimes, and terrorist organizations. The enemies of the United States. I documented it, I escalated it, and when the bank would not act, I took it to the @FBI, the @CIA, and eventually the @SECGov.

The result was a $1.92 billion settlement. At the time, it was one of the largest in American history. It was also about five weeks of the bank’s profit. Not one banker was charged. Not one went to prison.

I paid a different price. I lost my career, my savings, and my place in the industry I had trained for. I was blacklisted. Every door in American finance closed at once. I slept on a camping cot in a 300 square foot apartment because I could not afford a bed, and I waited tables at @PFChangs to eat. I tell you this not for sympathy, but so you understand that I know exactly what it costs to do the right thing in American finance, and exactly how little the system does in return.

I made that sacrifice because I believed it would change something.

Yesterday, your department fined @BankofAmerica $1.2 billion for failing to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, some of it tied by your own findings to Chinese laundering networks, narcotics, and the southwest border, alongside 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Iran, and global terrorism. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act.

Fourteen years after HSBC. A bank with “America” in its name. And once again, not one individual charged.

Secretary Bessent, I want to say plainly what I believe you already know. The fines are not working.

A fine is paid by shareholders, absorbed by the balance sheet, and forgotten by the next earnings call. Bank of America reported earnings this morning. Nobody who set the alert thresholds, nobody who decided the 2024 cease and desist could wait, nobody who chose the backlog over the law will lose a single thing they value. Their lives are untouched. That is the entire reason the behavior repeats.

This is money laundering. This is blood money. Money that reaches a cartel buys fentanyl that kills Americans. Money that reaches a terrorist organization buys the next attack. This country has fought a war on drugs and a war on terror for decades, at enormous cost in lives and treasure, and all the while we have allowed the financing to flow through institutions we charter and regulate. Cut off the money and we win. We have never seriously tried.

There is also a question of equal justice that I cannot let go.

Before I walked into the FBI building to report HSBC, I stopped in front of the Great Seal on the wall and read the words engraved beneath it: “Justice is the defense of our liberty.” I believed that. I still want to. But every day in this country, people go to prison for crimes that are nothing next to moving money for the people who want Americans dead. A suit, a title, and a corporate badge should not be a shield from the consequences that apply to everyone else. If a street dealer goes to prison for what he sells, the banker who moved the cartel’s money should be standing next to him.

I also want to raise something that is rarely said in these conversations. Why has no one inside Bank of America come forward the way I did? The answer is that everyone in American banking knows what happened to me, and to the whistleblowers who came after. The last person who spoke up is the only policy anyone believes. That is a culture problem, and it starts with leadership, in the banks and in the agencies that regulate them.

This is not a political issue. It has spanned administrations of both parties. It is a national security issue, and I am asking you to treat it as one.

Three things would change the math overnight.

Refer individuals for criminal prosecution. Not the analyst in the queue. The executives who set the thresholds and chose the risk. One banker in handcuffs would do more than every fine in Treasury’s history combined.

End “too big to jail.” An institution cannot be too big to fail and too big to jail at the same time. If it is the first, it must be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.

And if Bank of America will not act as America’s bank, review its charter. A national charter is a privilege granted on behalf of the American people. It should be conditioned on not moving money for the people trying to kill them.

Secretary Bessent, you said yesterday that these actions send a clear message that even the biggest institutions are not above the law. With respect, the institution was never the problem. The people inside it are above the law, and they know it. Until that changes, I will keep writing letters like this one, and the next bank will keep paying the next fine.

I gave up everything I had to stop this. I am asking you to use the power you have to finish it.

Respectfully,

Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Crazy Moments @Crazymoments01]

The calf was born last night. The bear showed up this morning... Our donkey went at it before the cow even knew it was there. Braying, rearing, kicking. The bear went back into the woods and the calf stood up for the first time right after.

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@2StockTrades $ino
One of two things here … complete failure post FDA is coming … or another round of massive dilution to fund going forward… either way the price gets dinged. I’ll watch…..

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@OracleofWallSt Why is San Jose … 1st !

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@TJSalomone Actually… a motivated lawyer could make a case for financial damages.. just sayin.

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@LittleFSUboi @TJ_Pittinger Truth. But, the other truth - what if UVA receivers had actually CAUGHT passes that hit them in the hands. 😮

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@Utah_Nole @KevinCo99529517 Why is margin of victory your hill to die on? How good was the ACC that year? Consider that margin turned into a one pt natty win against Auburn… a lucky to be there opponent. That Joe Burrow LSU offense was possibly better than ours.

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@KelvinHunt_FSU @SteVin_Diesel Not gonna beat Clemson or Pitt with this group.

[ed @DiscernedEd]

@TheStalwart It IS circular… and you can spend money with your MasterCard and make your home life very comfortable for a long time ……. until the amount owed negatively impacts decisions/developments you need to fulfill… and choices have to be considered. I think we are almost there. ✨😎

[Lynne @_ayandamay]

If we start destroying the lives of young rapists, we might avoid having old rapists in charge of everything in the future.!!