Free Republic

Sixteen appointees and advisers helping president-elect Barack Obama's Justice Department transition efforts all recently sat on the board of an organization little known outside legal circles: The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. The liberal legal network, which blossomed during eight years of Democratic exile, counts as its veterans Obama’s choice for attorney general, Eric Holder: Vice President-elect Joe Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain; and future White House Staff Secretary Lisa Brown. Seven other recent board members are advising the incoming administration on legal, education, and labor-related issues. Theresa Wynn Roseborough is rumored to be a top candidate...

A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that's now choking world banking. Director Rubin and ousted CEO Prince - and their lieutenants over the past five years - are named in a federal lawsuit for an alleged complex cover-up of toxic securities that spread across the globe, wiping out trillions of dollars in their destructive paths.

In one of the most ill-advised pieces of PR I can remember, Bob Rubin has given an on-the-record interview to the WSJ, in which he takes no blame or responsibility for anything which has gone wrong at Citigroup (C). The reaction in the blogosphere has been, predictably, swift and brutal, helped along by the fact that Rubin's famous charm clearly hasn't worked on his interviewers, Ken Brown and David Enrich. Here's their lede: Under fire for his role in the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc., Robert Rubin said its problems were due to the buckling financial system, not its own mistakes,...

Former U.S. Treasury secretary Robert Rubin said the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), where he is a senior counselor, was due to the buckling financial system and not his own mistakes, according to an interview published on The Wall Street Journal's website on Friday. Rubin, who is also a director at Citigroup, acknowledged he was involved in a board decision to ramp up risk-taking in 2004 and 2005, according to the paper, and said if executives had executed the plan properly, the bank's losses would have been less. The Journal said Rubin has earned $115...

NEW YORK - Just in time for Valentine's Day, The New York Times today delivered a remarkable front-page bouquet to Robert Rubin, in the form of an unusually generous assessment of the former Treasury secretary's attempted string-pulling on Enron's behalf.

Another Sunday night, another ad hoc bank rescue rooted in no discernible principle. U.S. taxpayers, who invested $25 billion in Citigroup last month, will now pour in another $20 billion in exchange for preferred shares paying an 8% dividend. Taxpayers will also help insure $306 billion of Citi's mortgage-backed securities. Citi will cover the first $29 billion in losses on these toxic assets, and then taxpayers will cover 90% of the rest, in exchange for another $7 billion in preferred. Dilution for Citigroup investors? Yesterday's 58% pop in the bank's share price suggests the bailout is a good deal for...

If our Washington, D.C., readers noticed a cortege of blue suits carrying a casket in front of the Brookings Institution last week, be not mournful. You were merely watching the leading economists of the Democratic Party burying the faith once known as Rubinomics. May it rest in peace. Rubinomics...Lower the federal budget deficit and, as dawn follows night, interest rates will fall and prosperity will break upon the land... Mr. Rubin's successor at Treasury, Larry Summers, started the bidding with a $65 billion tax rebate and spending plan. Hillary Clinton saw that and raised, and now wants $40 billion in...

Two leading civil rights groups plan to file lawsuits Tuesday against the Bush administration over its domestic spying program.... The Center for Constitutional Rights plans to sue on behalf of four lawyers at the center and a legal assistant there who work on terrorism-related cases at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,... Similarly, the plaintiffs in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit include five Americans who work in international policy and terrorism, along with the A.C.L.U. and three other groups.... One of the A.C.L.U. plaintiffs, Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, ... Also named as plaintiffs in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit are the journalist...

TIME MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 15, 1999 VOL. 153 NO. 6 The Three Marketeers Economist heroes? It sounds silly unless you understand how close we came to economic meltdown last year. BY JOSHUA COOPER RAMO The Phone Rings. You Are on Vacation in the Virgin Islands. You have been dreaming about the fishing for the better part of two months, and you are about to head out to chase the Christmastime bonefish running offshore and to spend a day on the water, with the sun leaching six months of Washington baloney from your brain. The phone rings, and because you are Secretary...

The bank’s downfall was years in the making and involved many in its hierarchy, particularly Mr. Prince and Robert E. Rubin, an influential director and senior adviser. Citigroup insiders and analysts say that Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin played pivotal roles in the bank’s current woes, by drafting and blessing a strategy that involved taking greater trading risks to expand its business and reap higher profits. Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin both declined to comment for this article. When he was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup...

We need your help in locating these four fugitives. Click on their names or photographs to see their wanted posters. It has been 10 years since a group known as “The Family” torched a ski resort in Vail, Colorado, causing $26 million in damage and drawing international attention to eco-terrorists—those who break the law in the name of the environment and animal rights. Since that time, we’ve joined our federal, local, and state law enforcement partners in establishing Operation Backfire to bring these criminals to justice. Our efforts have been successful, but four individuals under indictment remain at large. At...

The FBI on Wednesday quintupled rewards for four suspects in the $26 million arson of a Colorado ski resort 10 years ago. The four suspects, who are thought to be the last members of the eco-terror group known as "The Family," are believed to have fled overseas. "The Family" was thought to be affiliated with ELF, the Earth Liberation Front. Together, the four are suspected in "at least 25 domestic terrorism criminal actions totaling over $48 million in damages, including the largest eco-related arson in history, a $26 million arson at the Vail Ski Resort," ... "These individuals are terrorists;...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today congratulated President-elect Barack Obama on his election win and offered the Muslim community's support for ensuring that America remains both safe and free. In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said: "CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil rights and advocacy group, offers its congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama on his historic election to our nation's highest office. President-elect Obama's victory sends the unmistakable message that America is a nation that offers equal opportunity to people of all backgrounds. "While congratulating President-elect Obama on his win, we also...

After Capital Research Center highlighted the incredible power that Goldman Sachs now wields and in the future will continue to wield in the U.S. government, today comes an article in the New York Times that says about the same thing in a more long-winded fashion. The NYT article, "The Guys From ‘Government Sachs,’" by Julie Creswell and Ben White, provides a snapshot of the concerns that Goldman critics have: They note that decisions that Mr. Paulson and other Goldman alumni make at Treasury directly affect the firm’s own fortunes. They also question why Goldman, which with other firms may have...

After Capital Research Center highlighted the incredible power that Goldman Sachs now wields and in the future will continue to wield in the U.S. government, today comes an article in the New York Times that says about the same thing in a more long-winded fashion. The NYT article, "The Guys From ‘Government Sachs,’" by Julie Creswell and Ben White, provides a snapshot of the concerns that Goldman critics have: They note that decisions that Mr. Paulson and other Goldman alumni make at Treasury directly affect the firm’s own fortunes. They also question why Goldman, which with other firms may have...

by Michael Rubin The Australian October 3, 2008 On November 4, Americans will go to the polls to elect their next president. But even as rival candidates Barack Obama and John McCain spar over who can bring change at home and restore America's image abroad, on the most immediate foreign policy challenge facing the next inhabitant of the Oval Office - Iranian nuclear development - there will be no change. In their first debate, both candidates said their administrations would negotiate with the Islamic Republic, albeit not at the presidential level. Whether Obama or McCain authorises his secretary of state...

Iran's Revolutionary Guards - A Rogue Outfit? by Michael Rubin Middle East Quarterly There is a tendency in Western capitals to dismiss adversarial Iranian behavior as the work of rogue regime factions, which are not representative of Tehran's true intentions. Following a Baghdad press conference providing evidence of Iranian weapons shipments to Iraq,[1] U.S. officials raised doubts about Iran's actual culpability. The weapons shipments do "not translate to that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this," Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted the next day.[2] On February 14, 2007, President...

The Clinton administration helped create the financial crisis we are experiencing today. The Clinton administration with the usual Democrat players botched the economy beginning in the early 1990's.

"....Michael Greenberger served as the CFTC's director of trading and markets at the time. A proponent of tougher oversight, he recalls the Greenspan-Rubin resistance as being fierce and across-the-board. "If we had prevailed, the [subprime-securitization] party would never have gotten started; the wildness wouldn't have happened," he says. "There would have been auditing requirements, capital requirements, transparency. No more operating in the shadows. Bear Stearns, Lehman, Enron, and AIG would be thriving, and spending every waking hour complaining about regulatory restraints imposed upon them." Now a law professor at the University of Maryland, Greenberger adds: "In a booming economy, people...

"Let me welcome you all here today for the signing of this historic legislation. With this bill, the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the 21st century, one that will benefit American consumers, business, and the national economy for many years to come." -- Larry Summers, Then-Clinton Treasury Secretary And Current Obama Adviser, On Gramm-Leach-Bliley (1999) Today, The Obama Campaign, As Barack Obama Has Done Over The Past Few Days, Blamed The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act For The Current Economic Crisis: Obama Campaign Memo: "Gramm Was 'Principal Author' Of The 1999 Gramm-Leach-BlileyAct, Breaking Down Walls Between Banking, Insurance, And...