OBAMA WANTS TO MAKE LAWS
ON HIS OWN? PERHAPS HE AND THE US [CORPORATE] HOUSE & SENATE HAVE NOT HEARD
OF ” Ferdinand Pecora’s Investigation of the Great Crash Forever Changed
American Finance”
READ: Ferdinand Pecora –
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pecora’s investigations
highlighted the contrast between the … Chelsea House. … The Hellhound of Wall
Street: How Ferdinand Pecora’s Investigation
Washington[edit]
Ferdinand Pecora was
appointed Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Banking and Currency
in January 1933, the last months of the Herbert Hoover presidency by its
outgoing Republican chairman, Peter Norbeck, and continued under Democratic
chairman Duncan Fletcher, following the 1932 election that swept Franklin D.
Roosevelt into the U.S. presidency and gave the Democratic Party control of the
Senate.
The Senate committee
hearings that Pecora led probed the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929
that launched a major reform of the American financial system. Pecora, aided by
John T. Flynn, a journalist, and Max Lowenthal, a lawyer, personally undertook
many of the interrogations during the hearings, including such Wall Street
personalities as Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange,
George Whitney (a partner in J.P. Morgan & Co.) and investment bankers
Thomas W. Lamont, Otto H. Kahn, Albert H. Wiggin of Chase National Bank, and
Charles E. Mitchell of National City Bank (now Citibank). Because of Pecora’s
work, the hearings soon acquired the popular name the Pecora Commission, and
Time magazine featured Pecora on the cover of its June 12, 1933 issue.[1][2]
Pecora’s investigation
unearthed evidence of irregular practices in the financial markets that
benefited the rich at the expense of ordinary investors, including exposure of
Morgan’s “preferred list” by which the bank’s influential friends (including
Calvin Coolidge, the former president, and Owen J. Roberts, a justice of
Supreme Court of the United States) participated in stock offerings at steeply
discounted rates. He also revealed that National City sold off bad loans to
Latin American countries by packing them into securities and selling them to
unsuspecting investors, that Wiggin had shorted Chase shares during the crash,
profiting from falling prices, and that Mitchell and top officers at National
City had received $2.4 million in interest-free loans from the bank’s coffers.
Spurred by these
revelations, the United States Congress enacted the Glass–Steagall Act, the
Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. With the United
States in the grips of the Great Depression, Pecora’s investigations
highlighted the contrast between the lives of millions of Americans in abject
poverty and the lives of such financiers as J.P. Morgan, Jr.; under Pecora’s
questioning, Morgan and many of his partners admitted that they had paid no
income tax in 1931 and 1932; they explained their failure to pay taxes by
reference to their losses in the stock market’s decline.
Pecora was a founding
member of the National Lawyers Guild: Pecora resigned from the National Lawyers
Guild during its third annual convention in 1939 after the vote against his
resolution disavowing communists failed to carry in the national vote.[3]
VKD. NOW! About those
‘laws’ Obama makes all on his own protecting Organized Crime on Wall Street,
the Security Exchange Commission, the GLASS STEAGALL ACT [not lawfully removed
just set back in an old dusty corner hoping no one would notice], SHERMAN ANTI
TRUST ACT, CLAYTON ACT SEC. 8 [MONOPOLIES] .. circumventing the REAL LAW
MAKERS.
Investigations &
Oversight
August 1, 2013
Room Service in the Clink: The Case of the Consumptive Witness
Historical Highlight
May 24, 1972
The House Select Committee on Organized Crime
Historical Highlight
August 25, 1948
The 1948 Alger
Hiss–Whittaker Chambers hearing before HUAC
“All legislative Powers herein granted
shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a
Senate and House of Representatives.”
— U.S. Constitution,
Article I, section 1
PIC
President Gerald R. Ford
testified before a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee to explain his pardon
of President Richard M. Nixon on October 17, 1974. Ford became the first
sitting president since Abraham Lincoln to address a congressional
investigating committee on Capitol Hill.
View Larger
Image courtesy of the
Library of Congress
President Gerald R. Ford
testified before a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee to explain his pardon
of President Richard M. Nixon on October 17, 1974. Ford became the first
sitting president since Abraham Lincoln to address a congressional
investigating committee on Capitol Hill.
The Constitution says
nothing about congressional investigations and oversight, but the authority to
conduct investigations is implied since Congress possesses “all legislative
powers.” The Supreme Court determined that the framers intended for Congress to
seek out information when crafting or reviewing legislation. George Mason of
Virginia said at the Federal Convention that Members of Congress “are not only
Legislators but they possess inquisitorial powers. They must meet frequently to
inspect the Conduct of the public offices.”
Origins
The constitutional framers
assumed that Congress would conduct investigations as the British House of
Commons conducted them. James Wilson of Pennsylvania, a future Supreme Court
Justice and Convention delegate, wrote in a 1774 essay that members of the Commons
were considered “grand inquisitors of the realm. The proudest ministers of the
proudest monarchs have trembled at their censures; and have appeared at the bar
of the house, to give an account of their conduct, and ask pardon for their
faults.” When the U.S. House convened in 1789, it established an early set of
select committees, such as Rules and Ways and Means, to structure the
legislative process including investigations.
Early Investigations
The House used its
investigatory privileges in the First Congress (1789–1791). Robert Morris of
Pennsylvania, the superintendent of finances during the Continental Congress
and a financier of the American Revolution, asked Congress in 1790 to
investigate his handling of the country’s finances in order to clear his name
of potential impropriety. The House referred Morris’s request to a select
committee, setting a precedent for future investigations, while the Senate had
President George Washington appoint special commissioners and report back to
that body. Representative
James Madison of Virginia said that the “House should possess itself of the
fullest information in order to doing justice to the country and to public
officers.”
Two years later, the House
authorized a special committee to investigate the military defeat of General
Arthur St. Clair. This was the first time the House investigated an official
under the President’s direct supervision. Several Representatives debated
whether the House had authority to conduct such an investigation at all.
Initially, Representative William Giles of Virginia moved a resolution to
request that President Washington launch an investigation. But the House
amended the resolution to create a select committee, authorized “to call for
such persons, papers, and records, as may be necessary to assist their
inquiries.” Washington consulted his Cabinet to discuss compliance with the
House’s investigation. They agreed upon rules of disclosure that formed the
early basis of what is now known as “executive privilege,” or The President’s
prerogative to use private documents and unvarnished advice to formulate policy
decisions.
Subpoena Power and
Contempt
The House has compelled
the attendance of witnesses since 1795, when it investigated an attempt to
bribe Members. Indeed, early cases of congressional subpoena and contempt
powers focused on the abuse or discredit of the House itself. Robert Randall, a
real estate speculator, had tried to purchase what is now Michigan from the federal
government and share the proceeds with Members of Congress who approved the
sale. As a result, Randall was the first individual held in contempt of
Congress. The House Sergeant-at-Arms was authorized to arrest him and bring him
before the House, where he was reprimanded and placed in a local jail for a
week.
Subpoena power for routine
legislative matters evolved after an 1827 debate authorizing the Committee on
Manufactures to “send for persons and papers.” The committee, seeking more
information on reforming the tariff of 1824, wanted to conduct its own
investigation given that voluntary testimony and memorials to the committee had
been “in many instances opposed to each other, and contradictory as regards
facts.” One Representative denounced the action as an “inquisition” and such
power generally as “odious, and oppressive, in the highest degree.”
Representative Edward Livingston of Louisiana said it was better to have an
independent investigation than rely on voluntary testimony by “those interested
to deceive.” Livingston said, “all our laws…would be better, more stable, more
wise” if the House conducted its own investigations.
The House reformed and
routinized its subpoena and contempt powers during the 19th century. Initially,
it had authorized the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest those disregarding the orders
of the House and bring them before its Membership. After an 1857 case involving
a reporter for the New York Times who was held in contempt for not divulging
his sources for a report concerning potential bribery of House Members,
Congress passed the forbearer to the current law on contempt (2 USC §194). In
that law, the failure of a witness to answer “any question pertinent” to a
congressional investigation would prompt an investigation by the Department of
Justice, as well as potential fines and jail time.
Current Practice
Hearings are most commonly
held for three reasons: to consider pending legislation; to investigate issues
that may require legislation in the future; and, to investigate and oversee
federal programs. They reflect the most important issues of the day and what
occupies congressional attention. This means that Congress holds hearings on a
variety of issues, from steroid abuse in professional sports to the use of
weather satellites. Hearings have also been used to further the rights of
minority groups. Congressional investigations not only help legislators make
better policy decisions, but they are central to the system of checks and
balances. Investigatory hearings can uncover presidential abuses of power and
corruption, such as the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s or Watergate in the
1970s. But hearings have also been used for less noble purposes, such as the
blacklisting of private citizens during the “un-American activities” hearings
in the 1950s. While the power to investigate is broad, the Supreme Court has
since ruled that Congress must confine itself to “legislative purposes” and
avoid the strictly private affairs of individual citizens.
For Further Reading
Aberbach, Joel D. Keeping
a Watchful Eye: The Politics of Congressional Oversight. Washington, D.C.: The
Brookings Institution, 1990.
Barrett, David M. The CIA
and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy. Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 2005.
Minta, Michael D.
Oversight: Representing the Interests of Blacks and Latinos in Congress.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Ogden, August Raymond. The
Dies Committee: A Study of the Special House Committee for the Investigation of
Un-American Activities, 1938–1943. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1943.
Ogul, Morris S. Congress
Oversees the Bureaucracy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976.
Perino, Michael. The
Hellhound of Wall Street: How Ferdinand Pecora’s Investigation of the Great
Crash Forever Changed American Finance. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.
FOREIGN
BANKING ACT DECEMBER 24, 1919. SEC. 43 …
Mar 9, 2003 – That which
is due or owing by the government of a state or nation. …. as the Edge, or
Foreign Banking Act, approved December 24, 1919.
Please be sure not to
miss: Abuse of Act of Congress known as: The Foreign Banking Act, Dec. 24,
1919. Sec. 43 & Sec. 25. Abuse of Powers by The Federal Reserve Banking
System “Trust”, empowered by said Act of Congress(?)
SECTION. 43.—FEDERAL
FOREIGN BANKING ACT
(Law, Banking and Business. Copyright, 1918, by THE JOHN A. HERTEL CO.,
Copyright 1921 by THE JOHN A . HERTAL CO.)
VKD. PLEASE NOTE WHILE
READING THE BEFORE MENTIONED.. I’LL BET YOU AS DID I found no where in the
before-mentioned, the Act of Congress of The Foreign Banking Act, Dec. 24, 1919
whereas; Allowances for THE UNLAWFUL CONVERSION of THE GOLD COLLATERAL INTEREST
DUE to the DURHAM HOLDING TRUST (TIAS 12087) or the murder of the former CEO of
COSMOS SEAFOOD ENERGY MARKETING, LTD; Russell Herman, or the FORGERY of his
signature, or the Allowing of Agreements to SPLIT 50-50 with the AL QAEDA-AL
KADDA, ABBU SAYEFF, MILF the “UNLAWFUL CONVERSION” Gold Collateral Interest..
Or the BRADY BONDS, or, or, or..–? Perhaps I missed something in that Act of
Congress of December 24, 1919?
Something else I did not
see in that December 24, 1919 Act of Congress. I did not see the allowance for
the Federal Reserve Board Chairman to go outside the United States and set up a
COMPETITIVE BANKING SYSTEM called the EURO DOLLAR with deliberate intentions of
BANKRUPTING THE UNITED STATES DOLLAR with about “80%” underwriting in BOGUS
BONUS 3392-181 GOLD INSTRUMENTS” written on our GOLD COLLATERAL, THE DEBT OF
THE UNITED STATES “without our permission?” Did you?
to be continued later..
V.K. DURHAM, CEO
