Free Republic

Wall Street ‘red light’ on Madoff By Henny Sender in New York Published: January 4 2009 23:31 | Last updated: January 4 2009 23:31 Large Wall Street firms privately harboured suspicions about Bernard Madoff’s investment business, in some cases steering clients away from dealing with him, but were reluctant to share their concerns with regulators, according to US bankers. Banks were sceptical that Mr Madoff could deliver the consistently high returns that he reported, and they were also put off by a lack of transparency at his investment firm. For these reasons, big Wall Street firms are notably absent from...

Clinton donor benefited from legislation backed by Sen. ClintonAn upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Clinton's foundation in November 2004, about the same time Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped... By CHARLIE SAVAGE The New York Times Originally published Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 12:00 AM WASHINGTON — An upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Clinton's foundation in November 2004, about the same time Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman's mall project. Sen. Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds...

<p>Two EMT workers in Britain were arrested after they were heard allegedly discussing whether they should bother to resuscitate a disabled man who had collapsed at home and subsequently died.</p> <p>Barry Baker, 59, who lived alone, dialed 911 saying that he thought he was having a heart attack. An ambulance was sent to his house while a controller kept him talking on the line.</p>

The New Testament’s warning against materialism parallels Buddhist teachings about “attachments to material wealth,” and people do indeed get into trouble–like overwhelming credit card debt–when they become slaves to materialism. One of Aesop’s fables features a miser who buried a huge ingot of gold in his yard, and then visited the mound every day. A thief noticed this, dug up the mound, and stole the gold. A passer-by, upon seeing the miser’s distress, urged him to bury a stone in the gold’s place–because a stone would do him just as much good as the idle gold. Ebenezer Scrooge’s real problem...

US PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama has called for "a shift in ethics" on Wall Street so that bankers and investors consider the common good as well as personal profits. Naming three veteran regulators to his economic team yesterday, Mr Obama said tougher oversight was needed to restore transparency and stability to the financial system, blaming the Bush administration for "starting from the premise" that deregulation was always good. "We have been asleep at the switch - not just some regulatory agencies but some of the congressional committees," Mr Obama said. "We are going to have to greatly strengthen our regulatory apparatus."...

A note to all those visitors who will soon flood Washington for the inauguration: Be careful of the "swamp." That would be the swamp Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to drain when she led her party to victory in 2006. The GOP had been rocked by scandal, and Mrs. Pelosi and Democrats won, in part, by promising to clean up the "culture of corruption" that pervaded Washington. Instead, Democrats now have an image problem. The real issue isn't so much Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's Senate-seat auction, as it is the focus that his scandal has directed toward a wider assortment of...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – All spiritual experiences are based in the brain. That statement is truer than ever before, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. An MU study has data to support a neuropsychological model that proposes spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. The study is one of the first to use individuals with traumatic brain injury to determine this connection. Researchers say the implication of this connection means people in many disciplines, including peace studies, health care or religion can learn different ways to attain selflessness, to...

Regarding the Instruction Dignitas PersonaeAim In recent years, biomedical research has made great strides, opening new possibilities for the treatment of disease, but also giving rise to serious questions which had not been directly treated in the Instruction Donum vitae (22 February 1987).  A new Instruction, which is dated 8 September 2008, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, seeks to provide some responses to these new bioethical questions, as these have been the focus of expectations and concerns in large sectors of society.  In this way, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seeks both...

As conservatives, more importantly, conservative leaders; lets not just mock the liberals for what is going on in Illinois politics. They are showing the world who they really are and falling all over themselves trying to explain what is happening in that state. My hope is that our Republican leadership is learning a lesson from all of this and keeping our house (Republican party) clean.

House Republicans were heading toward a down-in-the-dumps holiday. Then the House ethics committee handed them a gift. The committee's investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel's tax problems is expanding, turning what has been a minor headache for Democratic leaders into a New Year's migraine. The last thing Democrats need is an ethics cloud hovering over 20-term House veteran who, as House Ways and Means Committee chairman, will play a critical role in advancing President-elect Barack Obama's goals of an economic recovery plan, middle-class tax relief and expanded health insurance. It was only last month that the top House Democrat, Speaker Nancy...

That the governor of Illinois would attempt to sell a U.S. Senate seat didn't shock me. Across America, there is a growing sense of entitlement among more and more elected officials. Not all, of course, but too many. From city councils to Congress, elected positions have evolved from their intended part-time status to full-time obsessions. And as governments have grown, so have their access to big money. Political leaders now hold life-and-death fiscal power over people and businesses. Most states' legislatures were designed to be part-time, citizens' deliberative bodies. The harvest schedules of old agrarian societies were a reason. So...

WASHINGTON – The House ethics committee is expanding an investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. The ethics panel issued a statement Tuesday saying it had voted to expand an already far-ranging probe into the New York Democrat to examine whether he protected an oil drilling company from a big tax bill when the head of that company pledged a $1 million donation to a college center named after the congressman. The move means the Rangel inquiry will likely stretch well past early January, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had previously said she...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi took stewardship of the House two years ago with a pledge to "drain the swamp" and clean up ethical abuses in Congress. Now an investigation of one of her party's best-known members is putting her in an uncomfortable spot. Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York is the subject of an investigation by a House ethics panel over his ownership of several rent-controlled apartments in New York, his failure to pay taxes on an offshore rental property, and his use of office letterhead to solicit donations for a public-policy school that would bear his name. Last month,...

Pope Benedict asserted that natural law is "the authentic guarantee" of freedom and the defense against "any form of ideological manipulation..."

Between 2004 and 2007, Rep. Charles Rangel steered nearly $80,000 in campaign cash to an Internet company run by his son – paying lavishly for a pair of political Web sites so poorly designed an expert estimated one should have cost no more than $100 to create. The payments are apparently legal under federal law, but their disclosure raises new questions about the Ways and Means chairman as he faces House ethics committee probes into his failure to pay taxes on rental income and his alleged use of House stationery to solicit contributions for a public policy center that bears...

A steady stream of revelations about erroneous financial records and questionable ethics dating back to July has put the spotlight once again on New York Rep. Charles B. Rangel, prompting observers to wonder aloud whether it's time for Rangel to step down from his committee chairmanship. The Democratic chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee has been at the center of a seemingly endless swirl of questions about his activities. He came under fire this week after The New York Times reported that Rangel worked to protect a tax shelter for Nabors Industries, an oil company whose chief...

More evidence has emerged of appalling conflicts of interest that throw into doubt the advice rendered and the research performed by two prominent psychiatrists who have received substantial funding from the pharmaceutical industry. The revelations prove, once again, the need for universities and professional societies to crack down on conflicts of interest, and for Congress to pass legislation that will bring hidden conflicts into the open. Earlier this year, Congressional investigators discovered that Dr. Joseph Biederman, a world-renowned child psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, had failed to report to Harvard at least $1.4 million in income...

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the far-reaching ethics investigation into Rep. Charles Rangel will conclude by early next year. Pelosi issued a statement late Wednesday saying she has been assured the report by the House ethics committee will be completed before this session of Congress ends on Jan. 3. "I look forward to reviewing the report at that time," said Pelosi, who has resisted calls from Republicans to remove Rangel from his powerful position atop the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee. Her announcement puts a ticking clock on an investigation that could have dragged on for many more...

An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular public radio program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. The psychiatrist and radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated. Dr. Goodwin’s weekly radio programs have often touched on...

An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular NPR program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. The psychiatrist and radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated. Dr. Goodwin’s weekly radio programs have often touched on subjects...

I have to write about patriotism for an ethics course, and give a "bad" example of it.

WASHINGTON -- A top adviser to President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday that the transition team would raise about $7 million to cover its costs, supplementing $5 million in government funds, but would reject donations from lobbyists or corporations and rely instead on the same pool of small donors who helped propel the Democrat to victory. “We’ll raise all that money from individuals,” said John D. Podesta, who is a co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s transition team. “There’s a $5,000 limit on those contributions.” In his remarks to a packed briefing room in the temporary transition offices here, Mr. Podesta, a former...

Dear Fox News: I noticed you ran a story the other day that I broke. You didn't give me credit or invite me on. Bad Fox. Bad. It was about Bertha Lewis, interim chief organizer of the radical vote fraud wholesaler, ACORN, and how she endorsed Barack Obama for president even though her organization swears up and down it's nonpartisan. See link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKIbK6OTelA (See CRC post here, cross-post from NewsBusters here.) Next time you want to borrow one of my things, just ask. Better yet, ask me about it. Sincerely yours, Matthew

New complaint charges VP hopeful of charging state for kids' travel

<p>WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) -- A Washington jury on Monday found U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska guilty of all seven corruption counts he was charged with over gifts he accepted from an oil industry contractor but failed to report.</p> <p>Jurors said Stevens, who is running for a seventh term, deliberately failed to disclose on mandatory Senate financial disclosure forms more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from the oil company VECO and its chief executive officer, Bill Allen.</p>

With potential conflicts of interest Vice Presidential Candidate Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) has paid more than $2 million in campaign cash to his family members, their businesses and employers.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose reformer image took a hit in a report concluding she abused her powers to settle a family score, has skirted state ethics rules before for personal benefit and used her office to help friends and supporters, according to an Associated Press review of records. Palin's first try at statewide office, after six years as mayor of Wasilla, was an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 2002. To raise money, she improperly used her City Hall office and equipment, city records show. A year later she would make headlines by blasting a fellow...

But that feud exploded into the race for the White House after an independent investigator concluded that Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, unlawfully abused her power as Alaska governor to push for her former brother-in-law to be sacked as a state trooper. The politically-charged finding ensured that the so-called Troopergate controversy dominated political headlines barely three weeks before the Nov 4 presidential election. The report found that Mrs Palin violated a state ethics law prohibiting public officials from using office for personal benefit - in this case, pursuing her family's grudge against Trooper Mike Wooten following his messy divorce...

The ridiculously lengthy "PUBLIC REPORT" for the Legislative Council of Alaska, released October 10, 2008 by Stephen Branchflower, reached the following conclusions: 1. For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.l10(a) provides "The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust." 2. I find that, although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire...

STATEMENT FROM MCCAIN-PALIN SPOKESWOMAN MEG STAPLETON Friday, October 10, 2008 ARLINGTON, VA — McCain-Palin 2008 spokeswoman Meg Stapleton issued the following statement on today’s release of Stephen Branchflower’s report: “Today’s report shows that the Governor acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan. The report also illustrates what we’ve known all along: this was a partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior. Lacking evidence to support the original Monegan allegation, the Legislative Council seriously overreached, making a...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state's public safety commissioner. The investigative report concludes that a family grudge wasn't the sole reason for firing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan but says it likely was a contributing factor. The Republican vice presidential nominee has been accused of firing a commissioner to settle a family dispute. Palin supporters have called the investigation politically motivated. Monegan says he was dismissed as retribution for resisting pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's...

Won't discuss and spread the info, but it's available at link. :::sigh:::

-snip- Lawmakers indicated they planned to release the report even though there was disagreement about its findings. "I think there are some problems in this report," Republican state Sen. Gary Stevens. "I would encourage people to be very cautious, to look at this with a jaundiced eye."

Who Is to Say Flora Don't Have Feelings? Figuring Out What Wheat Would Want ZURICH -- For years, Swiss scientists have blithely created genetically modified rice, corn and apples. But did they ever stop to consider just how humiliating such experiments may be to plants? That's a question they must now ask. Last spring, this small Alpine nation began mandating that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant's dignity. [Beat Keller] Beat Keller "Unfortunately, we have to take it seriously," Beat Keller, a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. "It's one more constraint on doing genetic research."...

This is the last part in a two-part series. In my column yesterday, I explained how Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, did the equivalent of falsely shouting, "fire" in a crowded theater. He did that by repeating a rumor (a false rumor) that a major insurance company was about to go bankrupt. That caused insurance stocks to plunge more than $25 billion. Later, having already demonstrated his idiocy, he demonstrated a majority leader who is unable to use the English language when he explained what he was only trying to say was "conditions in the...

The ethics committee approved a trip Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) took to an Antigua beach resort late last year — an excursion that critics say was paid for by lobbyists. Last November, Rangel, his son Steven and a top aide, George Dalley, attended a business conference at the Sandals Grande Antigua Resort & Spa for a foundation affiliated with a weekly New York-based Caribbean newspaper. The organization, the Carib News Foundation, has organized and sponsored the annual conference to promote business, trade and ties between the U.S. and the Caribbean at luxurious resorts in different areas of the islands of...

Dear Leader Nancy Pelosi has a problem. It's her credibility. While claiming to support legislation that would make it illegal to hire family members onto campaign staffs, it seems that she has been paying her husband nearly $100,000 over the past 9 years for doing just that. Pelosi paid husband with PAC funds Financial Leasing Services Inc. (FLS), owned by Paul F. Pelosi, has received $99,000 in rent, utilities and accounting fees from the speaker's "PAC to the Future" over the PAC's nine-year history. Now strictly speaking, what Pelosi is doing isn't illegal. But it is the height (or depth)...

I have just sent this appeal to my representatives in Washington. Feel free to copy and paste and send to your representatives. Dear Representative, Please do NOT support the $700 Billion Bailout Plan until the Banks and the Lending institutions indentify the Toxic Loans and DE-BUNDLE them. It would take very little effort on their part to identify each loan based on a computer search of their existing loans: 1. Full Default = no payments in 3+ months (Toxic) 2. Partial Default = no payments in 1-3 months (Potential Toxic) 3. Good Standing = on-time payments

“Welcome to the murky world of modern racism, where most of the open animus has been replaced by a shadowy bias that is difficult to measure.” – Charles M. Blow, in The New York Times Our unelected press elites, the ones who shape the opinions and convictions of millions, cannot conceive of Obama losing this election purely because of his far left politics. In the editorial echo chambers of our biggest newspapers and news networks, the “murky world of modern racism” is a forgone conclusion. It must be the ominous specter of racism, after all, reasonable and intelligent people vote...

WASHINGTON (CBS) ― CBS 2 has learned the House of Representatives will conduct an inquiry into Rep. Charles Rangel, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The ethics committee of Congress announced they established a subcommittee to investigate Rangel, who has already been in plenty of hot water recently. One stunning part of the determination is that the committee decided to investigate his use of congressional stationery in three separate years to seek donors for a public policy institute in his name at City College. The committee will also investigate Rangel's use of four rent-stabilized apartments leased in...

Charlie Rangel wants a Congressional Ethics Committee investigation into his shady dealings for the last 15 years. Will he get out jail free card?

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has a warning for Sen. Barack Obama. He predicts that before the presidential election, Obama will regret supporting ethics legislation that Blagojevich calls inadequate. "This is a Republican trap," Blagojevich said. "They're setting Barack Obama up by using this ethics issue in Illinois." Nonetheless, as CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, Obama's endorsement appears to guarantee the ethics bill will become law. Sources tell CBS 2 that at least three teams of IRS agents are now investigating Blagojevich. It's a large commitment of federal resources. Among other things, they're sifting through documents related to allegations of...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Charles Rangel wrote six checks for about $10,800 in back taxes, and then penned an open letter to New Yorkers Friday, saying he has done nothing dishonorable and is the target of a GOP "guerrilla war." Rangel, the dean of the New York congressional delegation, has faced a string of embarrassing revelations — he didn't pay taxes on rental income for a beach house in the Dominican Republic; he used three rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, including one for a campaign office; he used his congressional stationery to drum up private donations to a college center named after...

September 19, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor Blocking Care for Women By HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON and CECILE RICHARDS LAST month, the Bush administration launched the latest salvo in its eight-year campaign to undermine women’s rights and women’s health by placing ideology ahead of science: a proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would govern family planning. It would require that any health care entity that receives federal financing — whether it’s a physician in private practice, a hospital or a state government — certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way...

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi Army wants every Iraqi Soldier to receive ethics training just like he receives marksmanship or drill and ceremony training. Since 2003, the primary focus for the Iraqi Army has been building the force. Getting Soldiers trained to fight took precedence over many other military functions. Iraqis came from all locations and all walks of life to join the fight to secure their country from terrorists. Every one of those Soldiers brought a unique set of values with him: personal values, family values, community values and religious values. Creating a culture of ethical behavior means that each...

Jeffery Goldberg from The Atlantic Magazine is reporting that underhanded, leftist photographer Jill Greenberg has just been let go by her Representing Agency, the Vaughan Hannigan photo agency. This is a perfect example of a lesson of consequences. When Greenberg admitted that she lied and tricked John McCain so that she could manipulate his image to slander him and did so in the employ of The Atlantic Magazine, she lost any future work with that magazine for her unprofessional behavior. And now, more consequences have come her way. No one is, of course, saying that Jill Greenberg isn't allowed to...

Deal Hudson points out this Wired article published yesterday claiming that McCain has taken a "Sharp Right Turn on Stem Cells". Hudson credits McCain's "shift" to the tireless work of Senator Sam Brownback. I directly asked Sen. Brownback about these ongoing efforts earlier this year, and wrote-up his answer here. I think the jury is still out on this one, but judging by the reaction of pro-embryonic stem cell research scientists, I think there are more encouraging signs than before. Therefore when someone from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute says that he reads McCain's statement as a "bad omen,"...

"Ooohhh, isnt it nice, When your heart is made out of ice"Ride Sally Ride by Lou Reed At the Washington Post On Faith blog Sally Quinn writes, ostensibly, about the morality of abortion and the impact that should have on your choice of candidate. The piece begins by following the logical consequences of a belief that life begins at conception. I will get back to this concept of belief versus observation later (please stick with me) as I think it to be crucial, but let me run through some of Quinn's post first. She, quite rightly points the logical inconsistency...

Rep. Charles Rangel won't step down from his chairmanship at the House's tax-writing committee, his lawyer said Tuesday. "Mr. Rangel has not considered, nor has it ever been on the table, that he would step aside from his current position as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee," said Lanny Davis, the attorney for Rep. Rangel, a New York Democrat. Mr. Davis said Rep. Rangel is going to hire a forensic accountant to examine the last 20 years of his financial records, which will be forwarded directly to the House Ethics Committee. Speculation has grown in recent days that...