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Chairwoman Mary Schapiro's general counsel is accused of having a conflict of interest in the Madoff affair that Schapiro knew about. Two influential congressional leaders are directly challenging Security and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro as a new Bernard Madoff scandal engulfs the agency, this one involving charges of conflicts of interest by her own general counsel. Pajamas Media has obtained a copy of the letter sent to the SEC chairwoman. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) today sent a sharply worded joint letter to the SEC chief, demanding she explain why the she appointed General Counsel...

Accused Ponzi swindler Nevin Shapiro had a knack for making prominent connections. Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade took rides on Shapiro's $1.5 million Riviera yacht. Shapiro, now jailed on federal charges, boasted of giving Shaquille O'Neal a pair of diamond-studded handcuffs as a birthday gift. Two sources recall a photo of the seven-foot-one NBA legend bench-pressing Shapiro like a dumbbell. And when Shapiro's sometime dining companion Carlos Noriega, Miami Beach police chief, met U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at South Beach's Prime 112 steakhouse, Shapiro was there to get his photo snapped with the nation's top law enforcement official, a...

Just got this in my email box. Shapiro hosted for Doyle yesterday and was awesome: We'll have on Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), and we'll tackle the latest triumphalism from the Obama White House over the destruction of America's health care system. We'll also have exclusive tape on President Obama's new judicial nominee who many say will be sitting on the Supreme Court within the next year -- and yes, he's a radical socialist! You can listen live here.

Cross-posted at BigJournalism.Already, the media has jumped on the John Patrick Bedell story, claiming that he was a raving right winger “with virulent antigovernment feelings,” as the Christian Science Monitor puts it. And, just as they did with the Joseph Stack case, they’re ignoring the evidence in order to come to that conclusion. John Patrick Bedell, whom authorities identified as the gunman in the Pentagon shooting on Thursday, appears to have been a right-wing extremist with virulent antigovernment feelings. If so, that would make the Pentagon shooting the second violent extremist attack on a federal building within the past month....

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) is the most unpopular man in the Senate, according to his colleagues. "Today we have a clear-cut example to show the American people just what's wrong with Washington, D.C.," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash). "He's hurting the American people," spat Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). What is Bunning doing that deserves such reproof? He has the audacity to stall a 30-day extension of unemployment and COBRA health care benefits on the grounds that the extension would add $10 billion to the federal deficit, which is already expected to hit $1.6 trillion this year. Majority Leader Sen. Harry...

Shapiro's in for Doyle today. Making the case that Obama is politically raping the American people with health care.

Today, President Obama made the most stunning remarks on the economy he has made during his tenure: "For growth to be truly sustainable -- for our prosperity to be truly shared and our living standards to actually rise -- we need to move beyond an economy that is fueled by budget deficits and consumer demand," the president said. "In other words, in order to create jobs and raise incomes for the middle class over the long run, we need to export more and borrow less from around the world, and we need to save more money and take on less...

Rule No. 1 for Being Taken Seriously: Don't post pictures of yourself on the Internet that are not safe for work (NSFW). Rule No. 2 for Being Taken Seriously: Don't whine and cry when people criticize you for posting NSFW photos. Meghan McCain doesn't know either one of these rules. But then, Meghan McCain doesn't know much of anything. McCain is obviously not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. This is a woman who, while appearing on Bill Maher's show, explained that she knew nothing about Ronald Reagan because "I wasn't born yet." (Paul Begala, no intellectual titan himself, quickly...

According to the left, I am now a member of a treasonous group. I cheered when President Obama and his newly-made over milquetoast wife made asses of themselves in Copenhagen while attempting to wheedle the Europeans into granting Chicago the 2016 Olympics. And I gnashed my teeth when the Nobel Prize Committee decided to fete Obama with the Peace Prize. So that makes me an America-hater. “Why, oh why, do conservatives hate America so?” asks Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, singling out Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck as paradigmatic of the conservative “hate America” movement. “The problem for the...

Still No Accountability (excerpted from: http://www.commoditynewscenter.com/blogs/When_Regulators_Need_Regulators) Over the past couple of days the plot has once again thickened, and guess who is back at the center of it all? Mary Shipiro and her agency, the SEC. Didn't hear about what happened? Neither did anyone else. On Friday a story hit the wire late in the day and that has gone largely unnoticed. Around 6pm EST, both the New York Times and Reuters covered what happened and the stories were similarly titled "SEC Lawyers Investigated for Insider Trading." In a nutshell the story goes like this... What is the reason that...

Top Boston philanthropist Carl Shapiro is reportedly facing a criminal probe into his ties to Bernard Madoff, although experts say it’s not clear the 96-year-old Hub man will ever face charges. “When you hit 96, I think you get some immunity,” said Willis Riccio, former New England chief of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Shapiro is one of at least eight Madoff associates targeted by a probe into Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Others include Shapiro’s son-in-law Robert Jaffe - a part-time Weston resident who allegedly served as Madoff’s Hub salesman -...

Spokesman Robert Wood says the top US diplomat for the Middle East Jeffrey Feltman and National Security Council member Daniel Shapiro are traveling to Damascus on Tuesday for their second visit to Syria since March. The trip was announced as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad arrived in Syria to meet with leaders of 10 hardline Palestinian groups.

By Judy Shapiro United States News Agency New York --- February 18, 2009...... I find myself in an usual business at a very unusual time. After spending years working with technology leaders in telecommunications, software and security, I wanted to explore the expanding role of social networks in our everyday online worlds. So I went looking for opportunities in this new “cool” space. Not so easy given my decidedly lack of “coolness” (I haven’t seen “20 something” in a few decades). Yet nonetheless, in a sheer stroke of great luck and timing, I recently landed at Paltalk — the leader...

Enough with the pseudonyms. Western civilization isn't at war with terrorism any more than it is at war with grenades. Western civilization is at war with militant Islam, which dominates Muslim communities all over the world. Militant Islam isn't a tiny minority of otherwise good-hearted Muslims. It's a dominant strain of evil that runs rampant in a population of well over 1 billion. Enough with the psychoanalysis. They don't hate us because of Israel. They don't hate us because of Kashmir. They don't hate us because we have troops in Saudi Arabia or because we deposed Saddam Hussein. They don't...

Our political leadership -- folks like President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and President-elect Barack Obama -- told us that the government would save us. They said that the economic crisis was so dire, so grim, that we needed to allow the government to spend our money to bail out Wall Street. They stated that Paulson, with full authority and no oversight, would be able to right the ship. We were ignorant enough to believe them. Now they tell us that Paulson has exercised his authority recklessly. They say that...

Greg Campbell is an obscure writer for the Fort Collins, Colo. But on Oct. 26, he penned what serves as the perfect window into the mind of many Barack Obama supporters. Campbell attended an Obama rally with his 11-year-old son, Turner. Turner was excited by Obamas typical American Dream stump speech. Campbell himself was excited not by Obama, but by his sons reaction: “For me, (Obama’s message) sunk in because I could see it through the eyes of an 11-year-old.” We have reached a dangerous point in American politics when parents take their voting cues from 11-year-old children. But Campbell...

Watch this video. It is Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast singing "Be Our Guest" -- Barack Obama's version. The lyrics: Ma chere Mademoiselle, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair as the government proudly presents - your dinner! Be our guest! Be our guest! Put our service to the test Give your money to the IRS, And we'll provide the rest Welfare check Free health care Why, we always do what's fair! Try abortion! Costs no money! Don't believe me?...

With the election fast approaching, and American Jews still polling strong support for Obama, I cut a YouTube video entitled "The Jewish Case Against Barack Obama." There's a 1:40 second trailer, which can be found here, as well as the video itself, which is split into three parts (total about 20 minutes). Part I discusses Obama's advisors. Part II covers his friends. Part III touches his running mate and his own statements, and concludes. Every American Jew, and every American supporter needs to watch this video before voting. Barack Obama is the most frightening candidate for pro-Israel Americans since the...

Forget buyer's remorse -- the real malady likely to be triggered by the never-ending Democratic presidential race is buyer's confusion. [snip] With the chances to rerun the outlaw Michigan and Florida primaries now at the vanishing point, it may be time to inquire about a do-over for the rest of America. This is not an argument for Clinton, who otherwise probably has too far to go and too few remaining primaries to get there. But after a week punctuated by Obama's right-stuff response to wrong-way Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Clinton's document dump of today-tea-was-served White House schedules, Democrats are being...

Sen. Barack Obama's star appeal is causing physiological reactions in his supporters. Which is to say, they're fainting. And these fainting routines are causing me physiological reactions. Which is to say, I'm throwing up. At no less than six of Obama's recent rallies, fans have reportedly fainted. Those incidents were caught on video or audio. In each, Obama -- who never even thinks to put down the microphone or ask a campaign aide to take care of the matter -- narrates to the crowd as medical volunteers show up to minister to the stricken. In two of the videos, he...