Is equal justice under the law really too much to ask? Opinions are just that, yours included. No DMs. Polymath who dabbles in parody and blocks tyrants.
Unify the 75% and much of the 25% in the extremes will either see their hypocrisy, or crumble outright. Most of what we are being fed is designed to make sure that the 75% never joins forces, because if they do, it’ll completely blow up the control system.
@brivael@elonmusk indeed knows the enemy of the human spark that drives the universe, just as many creators have identified them, notably Douglas Adams’ Vogons.
@MZHemingway Perfect socialist/communist spin. Yes, not many of them vote, but there sure is a shitpile of “their” mail and ballots that do, along with those of the homeless, functionally incapacitated, and the dead.
@kevincorke We might as well call it what it is…
Saying the socialist, communist, authoritarian, dictator, emperor, nihilist, malevolent kings thing out loud…
The last remaining quiet part not yet spoken out loud …is the murderous part…
@FinalTelegraph@elonmusk Machines run on logic & pristine math, or their computations would fail like a sci-fi computer overloading. When we apply first principles, SI can see the ideological/political reptile-brain guardrails & bypass them. The danger is that we are losing our first principles skills.
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
@brivael My take: All historical Vanguard systems are built on the belief that humans are so flawed they must be controlled by absolutist systems-impossibly controlled by flawed humans. We are capable of great good once we realize we all have a little king inside. See the US Constitution.
@sjkokinda So let me if I got this:
The virulent regime that wants a nuclear bomb, missiles to reach the world, used oil to destabilize governments while abetting communism and globalism—the one that slaughters tens of thousands of its own citizens…
…endorses democrats?
Got it.
Je pense que la France est en train de speedrun le jeu. Et je pense qu'elle est prête à boucler.
Aujourd'hui, je vous explique comment Bukele a fait au Salvador.
Au début, les gens étaient sceptiques.
Il faut comprendre d'où partait ce pays. En 2015, le Salvador est la capitale mondiale du meurtre : plus de 100 homicides pour 100 000 habitants. Un pays de 6 millions d'habitants tenu par deux gangs, la MS-13 et Barrio 18, avec des dizaines de milliers de membres. Ils contrôlent des quartiers entiers. Tu franchis la mauvaise frontière invisible entre deux territoires, tu meurs. Chaque commerce paie la "renta". Les chauffeurs de bus qui refusent de payer sont exécutés au volant, devant les passagers. En 2010 à Mejicanos, des membres de gang aspergent un bus d'essence et y mettent le feu avec les gens enfermés dedans. Des gamins recrutés à 12 ans. Des ados tués parce qu'ils refusaient d'entrer dans un gang. Des familles entières qui fuient vers les États-Unis parce que rester, c'est enterrer ses enfants.
Bukele arrive au pouvoir en 2019. En mars 2022, les gangs font une démonstration de force : 62 meurtres en une seule journée, 87 en un week-end.
Sa réponse arrive le lendemain : état d'exception. Et il ne l'a jamais levé.
L'armée et la police entrent dans les quartiers que l'État avait abandonnés depuis 20 ans. Des villes entières sont encerclées et fouillées maison par maison. Plus de 80 000 arrestations. Un tatouage de gang suffit. En quelques mois, il construit le CECOT, une méga-prison de 40 000 places. Les chefs sont isolés, les communications coupées, plus aucun ordre ne sort des cellules. Les peines pour simple appartenance à un gang explosent.
Les ONG hurlent. La presse internationale le traite de dictateur. Lui met "le dictateur le plus cool du monde" dans sa bio et continue.
Résultat : le taux d'homicide passe sous les 2 pour 100 000. Moins que les États-Unis. Le pays le plus dangereux du monde devient l'un des plus sûrs du continent en trois ans.
Et le peuple a tranché. Réélu en 2024 avec environ 85 % des voix, une popularité autour de 90 %. Aujourd'hui, les gens sortent le soir, les terrasses sont pleines, les surfeurs débarquent du monde entier, le tourisme explose, la diaspora revient. Le Salvador est devenu un petit paradis.
Moi, je suis très optimiste sur la France. On a la meilleure culture du monde. Les meilleures infrastructures. Les plus beaux paysages. Un système éducatif qui ne demande qu'à être remis au goût du jour. Et on a une intelligence énorme, notamment dans nos élites. Il faut juste qu'elles arrêtent d'être gauchistes. Mais ça va venir.
La France est prête.