Free Republic

The gun control conundrum will continue ad infinitum.  But what is happening in New Jersey should frighten anyone -- gun owner or not.  NJS102 will most likely be affirmed by the Democrat senate majority in the NJ legislature.  The NJ Assembly has already passed the following:  A1217, which would create restraining orders in the state allowing family members and others to ask a judge to have a person's guns seized and ban them from buying weapons for up to a year.  A2757, which would require all private gun sales in the state to go through a licensed dealer who can perform...

Jon Corzine, the former New Jersey governor who led the collapsed brokerage MF Global, has been ordered to pay a $5 million penalty for his role in the firm's alleged illegal use of almost $1 billion in customer funds. A federal court in Manhattan on Thursday granted the order against Corzine to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which brought civil charges against him in 2013. Following the stunning collapse of the big Wall Street firm in late 2011, the CFTC alleged that MF Global misused customer funds in a vain attempt to remain solvent.

THIS IS AN UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT. P R O C E E D I N G S MR. STEINBERG: Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Brookings. I'm Jim Steinberg, the Director of the Foreign Policy Studies Program here. And it's my privilege to welcome and introduce Senator Hillary Clinton from New York as our speaker this morning. It's a cliché when somebody comes up to start an introduction to say, of course our speaker needs no introduction--but in this case it's no cliché. Our speaker, clearly, needs no introduction to this or any other audience. She's had a remarkable...

Many of you have probably seen the ABC miniseries, Madoff, about disgraced Wall Street investment manager Bernie Madoff who in reality ran a massive Ponzi scheme. How accurate was his portrayal by actor Richard Dreyfuss can be up for debate but what is not debatable, but now mostly forgotten, is that Madoff invested heavily in the campaigns of mostly Democrats. Just after the Madoff scandal broke in December 2008, the extent of his political contributions to Democrats was revealed by CNN.Com:

The head of a consulting firm founded by one of Bill Clinton's closest aides pushed back against allegations by Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that the firm had undue influence on Hillary Rodham Clinton's diplomatic work. In a letter to the committee in October, Declan Kelly, the Irish-born chief executive of the firm, Teneo, responded to questions about an agreement that permitted Huma Abedin, one of Mrs. Clinton's closest aides and the vice chairwoman of her campaign, to receive income both from her position at the State Department and as...

Reacting to the disclosure that Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private email account during her tenure as secretary of state, a federal judge agreed Friday to reopen a conservative group's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking details about the employment arrangements of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. However, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan declined — for now — to address claims from Judicial Watch that Clinton's use of the private account and server led State Department officials to commit a fraud on the court by certifying they had turned over all responsive records.

Hillary began helping Bill's fat cats in the US Senate. Earmarks and legislative action benefited Clinton Foundation benefactors. Then Sen-Clinton’s efforts to provide favors to major donors......and to advance her own political ambitions.....stretch back far earlier than the avalanche of news reports about her tenure as America’s top diplomat at the US State Dept. Records show her efforts date back to the time she served as a US senator. She used US govt power to earmark federal funds and influence legislation for donors. <><> Mrs. Clinton introduced a bill when she was New York’s junior senator that allowed a donor...

Jon Corzine is thinking about making a comeback. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Corzine, who was formerly chairman of Goldman Sachs and the CEO at hedge fund MF Global before it went bankrupt in 2011, is considering a comeback. The Journal's Julie Steinberg and Rob Copeland report that Corzine has discussed plans about starting a new fund and that it would be started from his personal wealth and a small group of outside investors. The new fund could have around $150 million in assets under management, the report said. MF Global, which was a $1.6 billion...

If two out of three adults are considered to be overweight in America, it is no surprise that losing weight tops New Year’s resolutions every year. Regardless of age, race, or gender, the battle of the bulge unites many of us. Heck, I even hired a personal trainer since I can’t get it together on my own. And while most of us will abandon our nutrition and exercise routines before January is over, there is a man whose dedication to health in 2015 could make all the difference in the 2016 elections. His name is Chris Christie, governor of New...

Jeffrey Corzine, the youngest son of former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, has died of an apparent suicide. He was 31 years old. The former governor's son was found dead in a Mexico City hotel room a few days ago; he was reportedly found after failing to respond to messages from friends. Corzine, who lived in California and worked as a drug counselor, had a history of substance abuse and depression. "The sad fact is that Jeffrey Corzine had been suffering from severe depression for several years and recently had been receiving treatment for what is a very painful and...

Corzine off the crook - No criminal charges It’s official. Jon Corzine will not be cuffed over MF Global’s improper handling of customers’ funds leading up to the commodity brokerage firm’s spectacular collapse in late 2011, The Post has learned. Federal investigators have found no evidence that the disgraced Wall Street titan broke the law. “After 18 months of investigation, the criminal probe into Jon Corzine is now being dropped,” a person with knowledge of the probe told The Post. “There is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing,” this person said. The Justice Department’s decision to drop the case is sure...

Jon Corzine to be hit with civil charges, report says Former MF Global head Jon Corzine is expected to have civil charges filed against him, according to a report on NYTimes.com.

Shortly after Barack Obama won reelection in November, New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out that Republicans’ cloudy political prospects had a bright silver lining. “One of the reasons you have 30 Republican governors in America, and why we’re the only organization to add Republican strength,” Christie said, “is because people see us getting things done.” Christie’s stance countered most of the elite postelection commentary, which gleefully pronounced the Republican Party’s political irrelevance. But the governor was right. Since Obama first took office in 2008, Republicans have picked up a net nine governorships, bringing their total to 30 states,...

A bankruptcy trustee has sued Jon S. Corzine and other former MF Global executives, claiming they were “grossly negligent” in the lead up to the brokerage firm’s collapse.

MF Global’s Bankruptcy Nears a Happy ConclusionWhen Mahesh Desai checked his MF Global account 15 months ago, his $580,000 nest egg was gone. Like thousands of investors and farmers who had their savings with MF Global, Mr. Desai lost his money in the brokerage firm’s chaotic final days. Regulators discovered that $1.6 billion was trapped in a web of improper wire transfers, a stunning breach that sent federal investigators scrambling to build a case. On Thursday, a bankruptcy court will review a proposal that would return 93 percent of the missing money to customers like Mr. Desai...

This week financial news organization CNBC gave some mainstream attention to the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History, in which “Banksters” and their U.S. racketeering partners are being accused of laundering of 43 trillion dollars worth of ill gotten gains. The lawsuit is said to involve officials located in the highest offices of government and the financial sector. Since this information was surprisingly revealed by the mainstream news organization there has been a very suspicious and deadly fallout at the CNBC headquarters. Within hours the original page for the article was taken down, and CNBC senior...

Jon Corzine Might Launch His Own Hedge FundHe is unlikely to face criminal charges over the failure of MF Global By Christopher Freeburn, InvestorPlace Writer Aug 17, 2012, 9:28 am EDT With reports circulating that federal regulators will not seek criminal charges in the collapse of brokerage MF Global, the firm’s former head, Jon Corzine is considering a new career option. The one-time Governor of New Jersey and former head of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), is mulling the idea of starting his own hedge fund, according to the New York Times. **SNIP** However, sources close to the former...

Barack Obama lately has been accusing presumptive rival Mitt Romney of not waging his campaign in the nice (but losing) manner of John McCain in 2008. But a more marked difference can be seen in Obama himself, whose style and record bear no resemblance to his glory days of four years ago. Recently, the president purportedly has been reassuring Democratic donors that his signature achievement, Obamacare, could be readjusted in the second term -- something Republicans have promised to do for the last three years. What an evolution: We have gone from being told we would love Obamacare, to granting...

Jon Corzine left Goldman Sachs with a net worth far exceeding even that of Mitt Romney today. Many accounts of his tenure at Goldman suggest he "failed up" the corporate ladder. Pushed out of Goldman in a power struggle (sparked in part by his support for a government bailout of Long-Term Capital Management), he nonetheless pocketed somewhere between $350 million and $500 million when the company went public. He used the cash to buy himself a Senate seat, spending $62 million out of his own pocket. After the Senate, he spent nearly $40 million of his own money to...

Ahead of Tuesday's Senate Banking Committee hearing on MF Global, we present the April 20 installment of Capital Account with Lauren Lyster, featuring futures industry veteran guest, Mark Melin. Ms. Lyster pulls no punches in the opener: Has the case really gone cold? Or, are those who are in charge of the investigation, the "regulators" and the trustees, simply spraying teflon on every piece of sticky evidence that could lead to criminal prosecutions--and, ultimately--the recovery of stolen customer money? We wish that MF Global were just a one-off affair--a bad apple, if you will. Unfortunately, it seems more likely to...