Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the most damning official U.S. report yet produced on Wall Street's role in the financial crisis, a Senate panel accused powerhouse Goldman Sachs of misleading clients and manipulating markets, while also condemning greed, weak regulation and conflicts of interest throughout the financial system. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of Capitol Hill's most feared panels, has a history with Goldman Sachs. He clashed publicly with its Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein a year ago at a hearing on the crisis. The Democratic lawmaker again tore into Goldman at a press briefing on...

In a scathing report, a former chief executive of the California public employee pension fund was accused of pressuring subordinates to invest billions of dollars of pension money with politically connected firms. A 17-month investigation also found that Federico Buenrostro Jr. -- along with former pension fund board members Charles Valdes and Kurato Shimada -- strong-armed a benefits firm to pay more than $4 million in fees to consultant Alfred J.R. Villalobos, who later hired Buenrostro. ... The findings of insider dealings at CalPERS could provide fresh ammunition to Republican lawmakers here who want Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown to convert...

"Israel has made itself defenseless," award winning British journalist and author Melanie Phillips declared Monday on Israeli TV. "Hasbara is a Joke!" she said as she described Israel's self destructive strategy of continuing the failed peace process. "True and lies have been turned on their head," she said. "It was Britain itself that declared that on account of their unique claim to the Land Jews should be allowed to live in Israel and have a state." "The Young in Israel learn that that Israel was basically: "born in sin". Most of the animosity of British Aristocracy is fed by papers...

FishbowlDC has obtained e-mails written by WaPo's conservative-beat blogger Dave Weigel, that the scribe sent to JournoList, a listserv for liberal journalists. (Read up on JournoList with Yahoo! News's Michael Calderone's 2009 story that he wrote for Politico). Seems Weigel doesn't like (and that would be putting it mildly) at least some of the conservatives he covers. Poor Drudge - Weigel wants him to light himself on fire. Weigel's Words: •"This would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire."

In a scathing report delivered to City Hall after sundown yesterday, San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre concluded that there is "substantial evidence" Mayor Dick Murphy and the City Council committed civil violations of federal securities laws. Aguirre's report, widely anticipated at an anxious City Hall, said Murphy and the council, beginning in early 2002, concealed important facts about the city's ailing pension system from the public and from investors in more than $1 billion of city bonds. At a hastily called news conference early last night, Murphy, reading a written statement, called Aguirre's allegations "untrue, irresponsible and defamatory." Murphy...

<p>NEVADA, Iowa (AP) Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt on Wednesday called chief rival Howard Dean a ''fair-weather friend of the American worker'' whose words can't be trusted and motives must be questioned.</p> <p>''To me, there is no room for the cynical politics of manufactured anger and false conviction. I believe in standing for something,'' the Missouri lawmaker said in a speech that heightened his criticism of the Democratic presidential front-runner.</p>