THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

An estimated 9 million gallons of untreated sewage leaked over the last two weeks from a Frisco pipe into a creek feeding Lewisville Lake, a recreation hotspot and key source for drinking water in North Texas.

State environmental inspectors expect no health risks from the spill, which originated from a broken sewer line under the Dallas North Tollway near Main Street.

// posted by montag @ 6:47 AM 0 Comments

Dick Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman -- whose collapse in September directly ushered in the broader panic -- is already plotting a comeback. According to the Financial Times, he's thinking about starting a "small advisory boutique to help companies with strategic and financial issues." The venture would "harness [Fuld's] contacts in US companies," says the paper.

Meanwhile, two former Wall Street honchos appear to be living the high-life after seeing taxpayers step in to rescue their troubled firms.

The New York Post reports today that Peter Kraus, a former top executive with Merrill Lynch, just bought a $37 million Park Avenue apartment -- "featuring 11-foot-high ceilings, three fireplaces, three maid's rooms, a library, a gallery and a family room/gym." In September, Kraus got a $25 million golden parachute from Merrill when it was sold to Bank of America, even though he had only started work there that month. B of A received $25 billion in taxpayer money as part of the bailout.

And back in March, Jimmy Cayne, the ousted CEO of Bear Stearns, bought two adjacent apartments at the Plaza, perhaps New York's swankiest locale, worth $28.24 million. That same month, his collapsed former firm was bought by JP Morgan Chase, with major government backing. Cayne reportedly spent much of his time playing golf and bridge while Bear Stearns was reeling last year.

// posted by montag @ 6:08 PM 0 Comments

During the Great Depression, Kansans chased away the blues with palliatives like Crawford County Deep Shaft — moonshine, that is.

Today, in what may be the worst economy since, they’re reaching for a vast array of prescription medications.

“We’re seeing an extreme uptick in the abuse of pharmacological drugs,” said Jeff Benz, a founder of Mainstream Kansas City Inc., an alcohol and drug rehabilitation and residential treatment center in Wyandotte County. “We have noticed it for several years, but it really became more pronounced in the last few months.”

Benz’s experience is backed by figures showing increased availability of such drugs in Missouri and Kansas.

Some abusers rely on street narcotics, others on alcohol — “the poor man’s drug,” legal since 1933 and virtually recession-proof.

// posted by montag @ 7:22 AM 0 Comments

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

// posted by montag @ 6:45 AM 1 Comments

In the last two years, the number of Floridians on food stamps has increased more than 40 percent to 1.7 million. That increase is the highest in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And it's the second-largest jump in the state's history, surpassed only during the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, said an analyst at the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based think tank.

Almost one in 10 Floridians is now on food stamps, and state managers say many more qualify.

// posted by montag @ 7:01 PM 0 Comments

"The legacy of the Bush administration has been one of dismal inaction," said Robert Harrison, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco and chairman of the occupational health section of the American Public Health Association. It has been "like turning a ketchup bottle upside down, banging the bottom of the container, and nothing comes out. You shake and shake and nothing comes out," Harrison said.

More than two dozen current and former senior career officials further said in interviews that the agency's strategic choices were frequently made without input from its experienced hands. Political appointees "shut us out," a longtime senior career official said.

Among the regulations proposed by OSHA's staff but scuttled by political appointees was one meant to protect health workers from tuberculosis. Although OSHA concluded in 1997 that the regulation could avert as many as 32,700 infections and 190 deaths annually and save $115 million, it was blocked by opposition from large hospitals.

In the summer, the agency decided against moving further toward the regulation of crystalline silica, the tiny fibrous material in cement and stone dust that causes lung disease or cancer. OSHA promised a scientific peer review of the health risks by early 2005 and then by early 2007, but it never acted. Regulating silica exposures would have prevented an estimated 41 silicosis deaths and 20 to 40 lung cancers annually, according to OSHA.

In the spring, political appointees quietly scrapped work on another long-pending regulation of hazardous exposure to ionizing radiation in mailrooms, food warehouses, and hospitals and airports. It cited "resource constraints and other priorities" -- the same reason officials gave for withdrawing more than a dozen regulatory proposals in 2001.

// posted by montag @ 5:31 PM 0 Comments

But if we must have an officiating priest, let it be some dignified old hypocrite with no factional allegiance and not a tree-shaking huckster and publicity seeker who believes that millions of his fellow citizens are hellbound because they do not meet his own low and vulgar standards.

// posted by montag @ 4:36 PM 0 Comments

Why am I here? It's because of poverty. Here, they have money to build. There, he added, looking toward Gaza, they have only God to protect them.

// posted by montag @ 1:32 PM 0 Comments

I think generations pretty soon are going to start to thank this president for what he's done. This generation will.

// posted by montag @ 12:47 PM 0 Comments

Surf lifesavers and police are warning people not to swim at night after drinking alcohol.

Stuart Hogben, lifesaving services coordinator for the Gold Coast, said it was not uncommon for people to want a swim late at night or early in the morning after a summer party,

But that meant a greater risk of diminished reflexes, as well as rips and gutters and increased shark activity.

// posted by montag @ 10:39 PM 0 Comments

Given the current state of the U.S. economy — the unemployment rate was at 6.7 percent in November, with 533,000 jobs lost, and rising — and given other factors, such as a marked decrease in the overall wartime casualty rates, military recruiters should be enjoying a seller’s market.

So far, they are. All four active services have met 100 percent of their recruiting goals during the first two months of the new fiscal year. And the Army and Marine Corps, carrying the brunt of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are off to very hot starts. The Army brought in 101 percent and 106 percent of its October and November goals, respectively, while Marine recruiters enlisted 104 percent and 105 percent.

The six reserve components are doing just as well — all were at or above 100 percent of their goal for October and November, the Pentagon said.

Of equal or greater concern than the raw numbers, however, is the quality of recruits. And the jury’s still out in fiscal 2009’s early stages on whether the services, particularly the Army, are signing up enough of the smartest recruits and minimizing the number of enlistees for whom official waivers are required.

// posted by montag @ 6:03 PM 0 Comments

Like families pawning the silver to get through a tight spot, states such as Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are thinking of selling or leasing toll roads, parks, lotteries and other assets to raise desperately needed cash..

..GOP lawmakers are pushing to privatize the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the state lottery. Both steps require a higher authority — federal legislation in the case of the airport, a voter-approved constitutional amendment for the lottery. But one lawmaker estimated an airport deal could bring in at least $2.5 billion, and the lottery $500 million.

Massachusetts lawmakers are considering putting the Massachusetts Turnpike in private hands. That could bring in upfront money to help with a $1.4 billion deficit, while also saving on highway operating costs.

In New York, Democratic Gov. David Paterson appointed a commission to look into leasing state assets, including the Tappan Zee Bridge north of New York City, the lottery, golf courses, toll roads, parks and beaches. Recommendations are expected next month.

// posted by montag @ 4:51 PM 0 Comments

A car bomb killed at least 24 people, many of them Shiite pilgrims, and wounded 46 others when it exploded Saturday on a busy road in Baghdad that leads to the revered shrine of Kadhimiya, according to the Ministry of Interior.

// posted by montag @ 4:24 PM 0 Comments

It was the gentleman's agreement that accelerated a health cost crisis.

And Dr. Samuel O. Thier, chief executive of Partners HealthCare, and William C. Van Faasen, chief executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, weren't about to put it in writing.

Thier's lawyers cautioned that a written agreement between the state's biggest hospital company and its biggest health insurer that would make insurance more expensive statewide might raise legal questions about anticompetitive behavior, according to officials directly involved in the talks.

And so, in May 2000, the two simply shook hands on this: Van Faasen would give Partners doctors and hospitals the biggest insurance payment increase since Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's hospitals agreed to join forces in 1993.

In return, Thier would protect Blue Cross from Van Faasen's biggest fear: that Partners would allow other insurers to pay less. Those who helped broker the deal say Thier promised he would push for the same or bigger payment increases for everything from X-rays to brain surgery from Van Faasen's competition, ensuring that all major insurers would face tens of millions in cost increases. Blue Cross called it a "market covenant."

The deal, never before made public, marked the beginning of a period of rapid escalation in Massachusetts insurance prices, a Spotlight Team investigation has found, as Partners repeatedly used its clout to get rate increases and other hospitals tried to keep up. Individual insurance premiums have risen 8.9 percent a year ever since the "market covenant," state figures show, more than twice the annual rise in the late 1990s...

...As the state slashed oversight of healthcare, no private company was able and willing to moderate Partners' ambitions. Blue Cross, which now controls 60 percent of the health insurance market, was best positioned to do so but flinched at the possibility of a public tangle. As former Blue Cross executive Peter Meade said at a meeting of company executives in 2000 at which some urged a tougher stand against Partners: "Excuse me, did anyone here save anyone's life today? We are a successful business up against people that save people's lives. It's not a fair fight."

In this laissez-faire environment, Partners has been free to use highly aggressive tactics with hospitals and insurance companies, especially those that don't accede to its demands. In 2007, Partners expelled 290 doctors at Beverly Hospital from its system, exposing them to substantial pay cuts, because they were sending some patients to teaching hospitals outside of Partners

// posted by montag @ 1:35 PM 1 Comments

As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John D. Parsons was accustomed to seeing baby sitters claiming salaries worthy of college presidents, and schoolteachers with incomes rivaling stockbrokers’. He rarely questioned them. A real estate frenzy was under way and WaMu, as his bank was known, was all about saying yes.

Yet even by WaMu’s relaxed standards, one mortgage four years ago raised eyebrows. The borrower was claiming a six-figure income and an unusual profession: mariachi singer.

Mr. Parsons could not verify the singer’s income, so he had him photographed in front of his home dressed in his mariachi outfit. The photo went into a WaMu file. Approved.

// posted by montag @ 10:58 PM 0 Comments

When Obama defends Warren’s words by calling them an example of the “wide range of viewpoints” in a “diverse and noisy and opinionated” America, he is being too cute by half. He knows full well that a “viewpoint” defaming any minority group by linking it to sexual crimes like pedophilia is unacceptable.

It is even more toxic in a year when that group has been marginalized and stripped of its rights by ballot initiatives fomenting precisely such fears. “You’ve got to give them hope” was the refrain of the pioneering 1970s gay politician Harvey Milk, so stunningly brought back to life by Sean Penn on screen this winter. Milk reminds us that hope has to mean action, not just words.

By the historical standards of presidential hubris, Obama’s disingenuous defense of his tone-deaf invitation to Warren is nonetheless a relatively tiny infraction. It’s no Bay of Pigs. But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president. It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.

// posted by montag @ 10:44 PM 2 Comments

"The 2008 election was a wake-up call for Republicans to reach out and bring more people into our party. I am shocked and appalled that anyone would think this is appropriate as it clearly does not move us in the right direction."

// posted by montag @ 9:34 PM 0 Comments

During five active-duty tours totaling six weeks since August 2006,

// posted by montag @ 6:47 PM 0 Comments

After months of stinging criticism for letting crooks and con artists prey on Florida borrowers, regulators have proposed sweeping changes in state law that would make Florida one of the most tightly regulated mortgage markets in the country.

The provisions call for annual criminal background checks for everyone selling mortgages in Florida, a ban on the most toxic types of loans and reviving a state fund that used to compensate victims of mortgage fraud.

The fund would provide up to $50,000 for people who can prove they were scammed by rogue brokers. Regulators quietly killed a similar fund more than 10 years ago, then used the money to pay for operating expenses, like salaries and conferences at five-star hotels, The Miami Herald reported in September.

Under current state law, brokers are screened only when they apply for the first time. Their license can be revoked if they get convicted of a crime after that, but the state relies on the brokers to report their own arrests.

''This will give us a shot to look at everybody's background once a year,'' Straub said.

The Miami Herald found 564 brokers who were convicted of crimes after getting their licenses -- including at least 20 convicted of mortgage fraud. All were allowed to keep selling loans.

// posted by montag @ 6:35 PM 0 Comments

"The federal officials who took me into custody said that I cost the oil companies in the room hundreds of thousands of dollars and prevented 22,500 acres of land from being sold for fossil fuel development,"

Paying for the leases could keep DeChristopher out of legal trouble. The U.S. Attorney's Office for Utah told the Deseret News earlier this week that it is still screening the case against DeChristopher to determine whether it will seek a federal grand jury indictment. The charge being considered is likely one of making a false statement.

DeChristopher, 27, has admitted to bidding to run up the value of some parcels. He won 13 parcels of land but said he had no intention of paying for them. When other bidders became suspicious, he was taken into custody by federal authorities.

// posted by montag @ 1:37 PM 0 Comments

Pat Robertson is "remarkably pleased" with President-elect Barack Obama, the conservative leader told CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux – and believes President Bush’s administration has not dealt with the nation’s economic crisis in a “professional manner.”

“Well, it's hard to assess blame, but I, over the years — I hate to be critical, I mean I am a Republican, and this is the president of the party that I'm a member of — but I think we've had some serious goofs along the way,” he said on the Situation Room Tuesday.

“The Katrina matter was terrible. The rebuilding of Iraq has been terrible. The [handling] of the economy right now has been terrible. It hasn't been handled in what I would consider a professional manner.”

// posted by montag @ 1:13 PM 0 Comments

Israel hammered Hamas targets in Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 205 people in retaliation for ongoing rocket fire in one of the bloodiest days of the decades-long Middle East conflict.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said "Operation Cast Lead," which has also left some 300 wounded, would continue "as long as necessary."

"The battle will be long and difficult, but the time has come to act and to fight," he said.

// posted by montag @ 1:01 PM 0 Comments

A naked man wandering around an apartment complex near Houston, Texas died after police shocked him with a taser four times...

..."Torturing and killing the mentally ill with tasers is becoming commonplace," Hullabaloo's Digby blogs,"There must be a better way."

Tasers have have killed more than 400 people in the United States and Canada since 2001, according to a recent study.

// posted by montag @ 12:51 PM 0 Comments

The Obama administration, on the other hand, will find itself in a position very much like that facing the New Deal in the 1930s.

Like the New Deal, the incoming administration must greatly expand the role of government to rescue an ailing economy. But also like the New Deal, the Obama team faces political opponents who will seize on any signs of corruption or abuse — or invent them, if necessary — in an attempt to discredit the administration’s program.

First, the administration of the economic recovery plan has to be squeaky clean. Purely economic considerations might suggest cutting a few corners in the interest of getting stimulus moving quickly, but the politics of the situation dictates great care in how money is spent. And enforcement is crucial: inspectors general have to be strong and independent, and whistle-blowers have to be rewarded, not punished as they were in the Bush years.

Second, the plan has to be really, truly pork-free. Vice President-elect Joseph Biden recently promised that the plan “will not become a Christmas tree”; the new administration needs to deliver on that promise.

Finally, the Obama administration and Democrats in general need to do everything they can to build an F.D.R.-like bond with the public. Never mind Mr. Obama’s current high standing in the polls based on public hopes that he’ll succeed. He needs a solid base of support that will remain even when things aren’t going well.

// posted by montag @ 6:58 AM 0 Comments

But then Lance Inc., a Charlotte, North Carolina-based snack food company, purchased Archway at a bankruptcy auction. And last week 60 workers were asked to return immediately, with perhaps more coming back in the months ahead.

When it promised to reopen the bakery, Lance gave all 300 former Archway workers a $1,500 prepaid debit card.

David Singer, CEO of Lance, says the gift cards were a way of letting Ashland know the new owners are different. "We wouldn't do it willy-nilly," Singer says. "We do want to make money. But this is the pool of folks that we intend to hire. We just wanted to let them know who we were."

The 60 workers rehired so far are earning their previous salary and retained their seniority. They also were provided health insurance from day one.

The bakery now produces Lance cookies that are sold to big chains like Target and Wal-Mart. But production of Archway cookies is scheduled to resume soon. Lance has told the employees that it hopes to have the plant fully operational by the end of 2009 -- that is, five lines of cookies being produced simultaneously.

// posted by montag @ 5:50 PM 0 Comments

Mexicans awoke this holiday morn to see the reigning Miss Sinaloa 2008 on the front page of almost every newspaper in the country. But it wasn't the cheesecake photo of the beauty queen Laura Elena Zúñiga in a red bikini that was so startling on Christmas Eve. It was the photograph that ran beside it: Miss Sinaloa was busted.

Zúñiga was arrested with a group of seven suspected gunmen and cartel associates, who were riding in a couple of trucks that got stopped at a military checkpoint around midnight Monday just outside the colonial city of Guadalajara. The headline in El Universal almost translates itself: "Detienen a Miss Sinaloa y 7 narcos."

The newspapers had more details. Zúñiga was arrested with her boyfriend, Angel Orlando García, a top capo in the Juarez drug cartel, according to police. He is the brother of a former leader of the Juarez drug cartel, Ricardo García, known as "El Doctor," who was jailed in 2005.

On the front page, Reforma also included a short news item next to its Miss Sinaloa piece. It reported that the former girlfriend of the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, was found dead stuffed in a car trunk. Her assailants had carved the letter "Z" on her body.

// posted by montag @ 5:33 PM 0 Comments

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said Tuesday that they will propose legislation next month to force companies that receive money from the fund to report how they've spent it.

The legislation would also prohibit them from spending the taxpayer dollars on lobbying or political contributions. It would also apply to some recipients of the Federal Reserve's emergency lending programs.

The legislation was introduced earlier this year, but the Senate did not take it up. The sponsors have long said they plan to pursue it when the 111th Congress convenes Jan. 6.

“At present, we don't know whether these companies are using these funds to fly on private jets, attend lavish conferences or lobby Congress,” Feinstein said in a statement.

// posted by montag @ 12:55 PM 0 Comments

Christmas shoppers were evacuated from a North Carolina store after a customer dropped several bullets onto a moving escalator and a round went off.

The Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday that a customer accidentally dropped the .22-caliber bullets on the escalator at Dick's Sporting Goods at Northlake Mall in Charlotte.

Police spokesman Bob Fey said the customer had just bought a box of bullets Tuesday and dropped them on the moving stairs. He said the back of one bullet was compressed by the escalator and fired.

// posted by montag @ 12:47 PM 0 Comments

A wall holding back 80 acres of sludge from a coal plant in central Tennessee broke this week, spilling more than 500 million gallons of waste into the surrounding area.
Environmental Protection Agency officials are on the scene and expect the cleanup to to take four to six weeks.

Environmental Protection Agency officials are on the scene and expect the cleanup to to take four to six weeks.

The sludge, a byproduct of ash from coal combustion, was contained at a retention site at the Tennessee Valley Authority's power plant in Kingston, about 40 miles east of Knoxville, agency officials said.

The retention wall breached early Monday, sending the sludge downhill and damaging 15 homes. All the residents were evacuated, and three homes were deemed uninhabitable, a TVA spokesman told CNN.

The plant sits on a tributary of the Tennessee River called the Clinch River.

"We deeply regret that a retention wall for ash containment at our Kingston Fossil Plant failed, resulting in an ash slide and damage to nearby homes," TVA said in a statement released

// posted by montag @ 7:24 AM 0 Comments

During his tenure, the SEC has watched as all the investment banks it oversaw collapsed, were swallowed up or got out of their traditional line of business. The agency, meanwhile, was on the sidelines while the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve worked to bail out the financial sector. And the SEC, by its own admission, failed to detect an alleged $50 billion fraud by Bernard L. Madoff that may be the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

But in his first interview since the Madoff scandal broke, Cox said he was not responsible for the agency's failure to detect the alleged fraud and that he had responded properly to the broader financial crisis given the information he had. Confronted with a barrage of criticism from lawmakers, former officials and even some of his staff, Cox said he took pride in his measured response to the market turmoil.

"What we have done in this current turmoil is stay calm, which has been our greatest contribution -- not being impulsive, not changing the rules willy-nilly, but going through a very professional and orderly process that takes into account unintended consequences and gives ample notice to market participants," Cox said. This caution, he added, "has really been a signal achievement for the SEC."

// posted by montag @ 6:47 AM 0 Comments

A senior federal banking regulator approved a plan by IndyMac Bank to exaggerate its financial health in a May federal filing, allowing the California company to avoid regulatory restrictions only two months before it collapsed, a federal inquiry has found...

...The regulator named in Thorson's letter, Darrel Dochow, was removed from his position yesterday as director of OTS's west division, which supervised Washington Mutual, Countrywide, IndyMac and Downey Savings and Loan, among other banks that have been seized or sold this year.

It is the second time Dochow has been removed from a position as a senior thrift regulator. He was demoted in the early 1990s after federal investigators found that he had delayed and impeded proper regulation of Charles Keating's failed Lincoln Savings and Loan.

// posted by montag @ 7:18 AM 0 Comments

A milkman supplied cannabis to pensioners to ward off their aches and pains, a court heard.

Robert Holding, 72, delivered the drug while doing his rounds to 17 customers he had built up through "word-of-mouth", Burnley Crown Court was told.

Judge Beverley Lunt said Mr Holding said in his police statement that the cannabis was for "elderly people who had aches and pains".

Mr Holding, of Fair View Road, Burnley, admitted supplying cannabis.

// posted by montag @ 6:50 AM 0 Comments

The families of three men who were killed last week during a search of a grain warehouse want to press charges against American soldiers under the terms of a new security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq.

The security document protects American soldiers so long as they're on U.S. bases or on missions, so it's unlikely that the families can base their claims on it, though they plan to press their case with the help of international lawyers.

Nonetheless, their charges are a preview of some of the nettlesome questions that are likely to arise as the U.S. yields more authority to Iraq under the terms of the pact, which takes effect Jan. 1.

// posted by montag @ 4:33 PM 1 Comments

On Monday, Toyota said it expected an operating loss in its auto operations of 150 billion yen, or $1.7 billion, for the fiscal year ending March 31. That would be the company’s first annual operating loss since 1938, a year after the company was founded, and a huge reversal from the 2.3 trillion yen, or $28 billion, in operating profit earned last year.

// posted by montag @ 12:54 PM 0 Comments

In short, getting to the point where our economy can thrive without fiscal support may be a difficult, drawn-out process. And as I said, I hope the Obama team understands that.

Right now, with the economy in free fall and everyone terrified of Great Depression 2.0, opponents of a strong federal response are having a hard time finding support. John Boehner, the House Republican leader, has been reduced to using his Web site to seek “credentialed American economists” willing to add their names to a list of “stimulus spending skeptics.”

But once the economy has perked up a bit, there will be a lot of pressure on the new administration to pull back, to throw away the economy’s crutches. And if the administration gives in to that pressure too soon, the result could be a repeat of the mistake F.D.R. made in 1937 — the year he slashed spending, raised taxes and helped plunge the United States into a serious recession.

The point is that it may take a lot longer than many people think before the U.S. economy is ready to live without bubbles. And until then, the economy is going to need a lot of government help.

// posted by montag @ 12:47 PM 0 Comments

Nearly every bank AP questioned - including Citibank and Bank of America, two of the largest recipients of bailout money - responded with generic public relations statements explaining that the money was being used to strengthen balance sheets and continue making loans to ease the credit crisis.

A few banks described company-specific programs, such as JPMorgan Chase's plan to lend $5 billion to nonprofit and health care companies next year. Richard Becker, senior vice president of Wisconsin-based Marshall & Ilsley Corp., said the $1.75 billion in bailout money allowed the bank to temporarily stop foreclosing on homes.

But no bank provided even the most basic accounting for the federal money.

"We're choosing not to disclose that," said Kevin Heine, spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, which received about $3 billion.

Others said the money couldn't be tracked. Bob Denham, a spokesman for North Carolina-based BB&T Corp., said the bailout money "doesn't have its own bucket." But he said taxpayer money wasn't used in the bank's recent purchase of a Florida insurance company. Asked how he could be sure, since the money wasn't being tracked, Denham said the bank would have made that deal regardless.

Others, such as Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Carissa Ramirez, offered to discuss the matter with reporters on condition of anonymity. When AP refused, Ramirez sent an e-mail saying: "We are going to decline to comment on your story."

Most banks wouldn't say why they were keeping the details secret.

// posted by montag @ 12:37 PM 1 Comments

"Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have so deeply embedded tacit approval for illegal acts in government agencies that wrongdoing by their philosophical sympathizers will continue in shadow operations for years to come."

How many of those shadow sympathizers will remain deep in the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security—and, as I shall later emphasize, in the omnivorous National Security Agency, with its creatively designed submarine that, on the bottom of the ocean floor, will be tapping into foreign cables carrying overseas communications, including those of Americans?

Back at home, will President Obama order the countermanding of the FBI's return to the unbounded surveillance practices of J. Edgar Hoover? In an order implemented as recently as this December—by FBI Director Robert Mueller (who says he'd like to stay on) and Attorney General Michael Mukasey—the FBI can start an investigation without requiring any evidence of wrongdoing

// posted by montag @ 12:16 PM 0 Comments

Afghan and coalition troops found and destroyed 2.5 tons of marijuana in an abandoned school in southern Afghanistan, while coalition troops killed four militants elsewhere in the south, officials said Sunday.

The marijuana, which was stored in 2-feet tall stacks, filled several rooms of a school in the Arghistan district of the southern province of Kandahar, a statement from U.S. forces in Afghanistan said.

// posted by montag @ 12:41 AM 1 Comments

Clients of Fairfield, a secretive hedge fund advisory company based in Connecticut, lost $7.3 billion to Mr. Madoff’s fund. But for Fairfield, working with Mr. Madoff was hugely profitable.

Internal documents from Fairfield show that the firm has taken more than $500 million in fees since 2003 alone from the money it placed with Mr. Madoff. Nearly all those fees went to a handful of Fairfield executives, including Walter M. Noel, Fairfield’s founder, who used the money to build a glamorous life, splitting his time between homes in New York, Connecticut, Florida and the Caribbean.

// posted by montag @ 12:15 AM 0 Comments

A whistle-blower inside the Justice Department has accused members of the team investigating public corruption in Alaska of official misconduct, according to the judge who presided over Sen. Ted Stevens' trial in Washington, D.C.

The whistle-blower's complaint, dated Dec. 2, is now the subject of an internal investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, according to a memorandum and order signed Friday by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia.

Sullivan revealed the existence of the complaint, and three secret hearings about it last week, in his 29-page order.

Sullivan said little about the nature of the alleged misconduct. Among the allegations was that a government employee accepted "multiple things of value" from sources cooperating in the investigation, Sullivan said.

The judge also reported that the whistle-blower accused at least two federal employees of intentionally violating government policies in the corruption investigation in Alaska and in connection with material that was supposed to be provided to Stevens for his defense, Sullivan said.

// posted by montag @ 10:54 PM 0 Comments

In front of a ballroom full of N.C. bankers in January 2006, Wachovia chief executive Ken Thompson warned of the dangers of “toxic” home loans.

A problem with so-called option adjustable-rate mortgages, he told the group, was that homeowners can end up owing more at the end of the month than the beginning, which can be a “tough situation” for customers and lenders.

“I have literally been amazed at the terms offered by some mortgage lenders, thankfully not at Wachovia and thankfully not so much in North Carolina,” he said.

Four months later in May 2006, Thompson took a $24 billion plunge into the mortgage business by buying Oakland, Calif.-based Golden West Financial. Its specialty? The same loans he had cautioned against: option ARMs.

// posted by montag @ 6:58 PM 0 Comments

All of President Bush's actions during his years as a wartime leader were done with full legal authority, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Fox News Sunday.

Asked by Chris Wallace if it's legal when the president makes a decision to help the country when it's fighting a war, Cheney said, "As a general proposition, I'd say yes."

// posted by montag @ 1:57 PM 0 Comments

"Just because I like pizza it doesn’t mean I should marry it. Biologically, I am predisposed to enjoy the immaculate melding of mozzarella cheese, red sauce and thick crust baked to tasty perfection.

"But that doesn’t mean I should enter into a lifelong commitment with Sicilian or plain, nor bed it down, nor bring children into the world and have them have to explain to their classmates why their mom’s crust is not a crisp as it once was.

"Does any child deserve to have their friends tossing Monday 2 for 1 coupons in his face? Not in my world they don’t. Yet, to say that I am against pizza-eaters or gays is absurd. Our Saddleback Church offer more weight-watchers meetings to overeaters than any other evangelical megachurch on the west coast."

// posted by montag @ 1:45 PM 1 Comments

When the FedEx Corporation slimmed down its pension plan last year, it softened the blow by offering workers enriched 401(k) contributions to make up for the pension benefits some would lose. But last week, with Americans sending fewer parcels and FedEx’s revenue growth at a standstill, the company said it would suspend all of its contributions for at least a year...

..FedEx is not the only one. Eastman Kodak, Motorola, General Motors and Resorts International are among the companies that have cut matching contributions to their plans since September, when the credit markets froze and companies began looking urgently for cash. More companies are expected to suspend their matching contributions in 2009, according to Watson Wyatt, a benefits consulting firm.

For workers, the loss of a matching contribution heightens the pain of a retirement account balance shriveling away because of the plunging stocks markets.

"Welcome to Wal-Mart. Get your shit and get out"

// posted by montag @ 1:26 PM 0 Comments

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.

"Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!"

// posted by montag @ 1:06 PM 0 Comments

The non-profit Jim Bunning Foundation, which collects the money the former pitcher gets from autographing baseball memorabilia, has taken in more than $504,000, Senate and tax records show.

Of that, Bunning has earned $180,000 in salary for working a reported hour a week.

By contrast, the foundation has given $136,435, or about one-fourth of its income, to churches and charitable groups around Northern Kentucky. The largest sums went to local Catholic churches Bunning has attended.

Records show that Bunning is the foundation's sole employee and the only person to draw a paycheck from it.

The foundation is overseen by a three-member board: the senator's wife, Mary Bunning; an old friend, Cincinnati tire dealer Bob Sumerel, whose family has given about $25,000 to Bunning's campaigns; and Robinson, a former congressional aide to Bunning whose lobbying clients in recent years have received budget earmarks from the senator.

// posted by montag @ 12:28 PM 0 Comments

The president and his spinmeisters keep talking about how, with the passage of time, historians will come to judge his presidency a huge success, much as history has come to judge the administration of Harry S. Truman.

Balderdash. Or as I much prefer to say in situations like this: Bullshit!

Historians are more likely to rank George W. Bush as the worst president this nation has ever had in the 232 years of its existence.

While I'm at it, George W. Bush shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as Harry Truman. Harry Truman was a friend of mine early in my career, and George W. Bush is no Harry Truman. Not even close.

Truman kept a little wooden sign on his Oval Office desk that declared: "The Buck Stops Here."

The buck never stopped anywhere in the Bush administration. It just circled the Capitol Beltway at ever-increasing speeds.

Bush kept us safe at home. Yes he did, by delivering nearly 200,000 American soldiers and Marines to Iraq and Afghanistan where they were much more accessible targets. Some 4,500 Americans have been killed in those ongoing wars, and more than 75,000 have been wounded or injured. Hundreds of thousands more have come home suffering mentally for what they've seen or done in these brutal wars.

Bush told his War College audience that of all the things he loved about the job, he was proudest of all of his role as their commander-in-chief.

Why then did he and his minions oppose virtually every attempt to reinforce their numbers and shorten the time they spent in Hell? Why did they oppose virtually every attempt to increase their pay and their benefits, and those of millions of American veterans of these and other wars?

How could so proud a commander sit idly by while soldiers and Marines were sent off to war without the armored vehicles and body armor they so desperately needed in this new kind of war?

How could his administration pinch pennies when it came to funding and manning the military hospitals that treat the thousands of wounded troops flowing home from his wars?

How can this man talk about making the world a safer and freer place by his actions when so much innocent blood has been shed by civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan? When millions have been turned into homeless refugees inside and outside Iraq? When America is left with far fewer friends and allies among the nations of the world?

The only good news left to us this gloomy, cold December is that we only have to put up with this wretched spectacle for another 30 days or so.

// posted by montag @ 6:26 PM 0 Comments

From Ronald Reagan’s voodoo economics to Henry Paulson’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, we’ve put the mighty resources of the national government overwhelmingly on the side of those who were already rich and powerful.

Ordinary workers have suffered. It took years to get a lousy little boost in the minimum wage for the working poor. Attempts to expand health insurance coverage were fought almost to a standstill. Guaranteed pensions vanished. And the maniacs who set fire to the economy with their incendiary financial instruments (yet another form of voodoo) were hot to privatize Social Security.

As Andy Stern, president of the huge Service Employees International Union, told me on Friday: “We’ve had a 25-year experience with market-worshipping, deregulating, privatizing, trickle-down policies, and it has ended us up with the greatest economy on earth staggering, and with the greatest amount of inequality since the Great Depression.”

// posted by montag @ 1:25 PM 0 Comments

All you have to do is cut it off while he sleeps

// posted by montag @ 7:13 PM 0 Comments

The auto companies must not squander this chance to reform bad management practices and begin the long-term restructuring that is absolutely necessary to save this critical industry and the millions of American jobs that depend on it, while also creating the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow."

// posted by montag @ 5:41 PM 0 Comments

Consider the hypothetical example of a money manager who leverages up his clients’ money with lots of debt, then invests the bulked-up total in high-yielding but risky assets, such as dubious mortgage-backed securities. For a while — say, as long as a housing bubble continues to inflate — he (it’s almost always a he) will make big profits and receive big bonuses. Then, when the bubble bursts and his investments turn into toxic waste, his investors will lose big — but he’ll keep those bonuses.

O.K., maybe my example wasn’t hypothetical after all.

So, how different is what Wall Street in general did from the Madoff affair? Well, Mr. Madoff allegedly skipped a few steps, simply stealing his clients’ money rather than collecting big fees while exposing investors to risks they didn’t understand. And while Mr. Madoff was apparently a self-conscious fraud, many people on Wall Street believed their own hype. Still, the end result was the same (except for the house arrest): the money managers got rich; the investors saw their money disappear.

At the crudest level, Wall Street’s ill-gotten gains corrupted and continue to corrupt politics, in a nicely bipartisan way. From Bush administration officials like Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who looked the other way as evidence of financial fraud mounted, to Democrats who still haven’t closed the outrageous tax loophole that benefits executives at hedge funds and private equity firms (hello, Senator Schumer), politicians have walked when money talked.

// posted by montag @ 7:13 AM 0 Comments

"The worst breach of national security in the history of the United States came under your watch," Verjee persisted.

"Absolutely," Rice agreed.

"Did you ever consider resigning?" asked Verjee. "Taking responsibility?"

"I do take responsibility," Rice finally acknowledged, "but this was a systemic failure. ... We, the administrations before us, had not thought of this as the kind of war against the terrorists that we were going to have to wage."

// posted by montag @ 6:48 AM 0 Comments

Iraq and the entire region is watching what happens next to this formerly little-known Iraqi journalist. That leaves Maliki with few good options. The prime minister has worked hard in the past year to cultivate his nationalist bona fides, increasingly pushing back against Washington and driving a hard bargain on a recently approved bilateral security pact with the U.S. Yet those finely honed patriotic credentials could crumble if Maliki deals harshly with Zeidi.

Still, it's doubtful that Zeidi will be released without trial, despite the intense public pressure, merely because such public affronts to leaders are extremely rare in the Middle East and unlikely to go unpunished. Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done and so Zeidi will most likely be tried and then either released with a fine or a muted sentence, according to several parliamentarians. Few doubt that he will not be convicted. "It's about what happens after the conviction," says Othman. "Maliki could do something about it then, pardon him or release him with a fine. Many people support Zeidi." Othman adds: "People will blame Maliki if he is sentenced, or if he's been tortured... and we are in an election year." Maliki must tread lightly, to make sure that most disdained item of clothing in the Arab world, the shoe, doesn't trample his ambitions at the ballot box.

// posted by montag @ 7:11 PM 0 Comments

FBI agents temporarily deployed to Iraq received an average of about $45,000 in excessive overtime because they billed the government for 16 hours a day throughout their 90-day assignments, according to a Justice Department audit.

The audit, released Thursday by Inspector General Glenn Fine, found the agents routinely submitted the overtime with the blessing of their managers from 2003 through 2007. The report says the excessive overtime totaled $7.8 million.

"The FBI inappropriately permitted employees to regularly claim overtime for activities that are not compensable as work, such as time spent eating meals, exercising more than 3 hours per week, and socializing," the report said. The socializing included going to movies and cocktail parties.

// posted by montag @ 7:03 PM 0 Comments

What I've also said is that it is important for America to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues.

// posted by montag @ 6:09 PM 1 Comments

For Dow Kim, 2006 was a very good year. While his salary at Merrill Lynch was $350,000, his total compensation was 100 times that — $35 million.

The difference between the two amounts was his bonus, a rich reward for the robust earnings made by the traders he oversaw in Merrill’s mortgage business.

Mr. Kim’s colleagues, not only at his level, but far down the ranks, also pocketed large paychecks. In all, Merrill handed out $5 billion to $6 billion in bonuses that year. A 20-something analyst with a base salary of $130,000 collected a bonus of $250,000. And a 30-something trader with a $180,000 salary got $5 million.

But Merrill’s record earnings in 2006 — $7.5 billion — turned out to be a mirage. The company has since lost three times that amount, largely because the mortgage investments that supposedly had powered some of those profits plunged in value.

Unlike the earnings, however, the bonuses have not been reversed.

// posted by montag @ 7:19 AM 0 Comments

What matters to me is I didn't compromise my soul to be a popular guy.

// posted by montag @ 9:18 PM 0 Comments

The Fairfield Greenwich Group charged clients an annual fee of 1 percent of assets invested for providing access to exclusive hedge funds and performing due diligence on them, in addition to a fee of 20 percent on investment gains each year, according to people close to the fund’s operations. At that rate, an investment of $7 billion paid Mr. Noel’s company $70 million annually, and then $140 million more in a year in which Mr. Madoff reported a 10 percent gain (he steadily reported returns of 10 to 12 percent).

Other middlemen for Mr. Madoff’s vehicles — like J. Ezra Merkin and his Ascot Partners fund and Gerald Breslauer, a financial adviser in Los Angeles who invested with Mr. Madoff on behalf of Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg — also collected millions in fees, though they may have had different arrangements.

Mr. Merkin and his Ascot fund took 1.5 percent of assets.

The Tremont Group, a unit of Oppenheimer that is in turn owned by MassMutual, had $3.3 billion with Mr. Madoff, while Optimal Investment Services of Geneva, a unit of Santander of Spain, puts its exposure at $3.1 billion. Other big investors include Kingate Management at $3.5 billion, Union Bancaire Prive of Geneva at $1 billion and Bank Medici of Vienna at $2.1 billion, demonstrating the worldwide reach.

// posted by montag @ 6:47 AM 0 Comments

When asked by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl whether he approved of interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison, Mr. Cheney, in a break from his history of being press-shy, admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.

"I supported it," he said regarding the practice known as "water-boarding," a form of simulated drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes in US courts for water-boarding, a practice which the outgoing Bush administration attempted to enshrine in policy.

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do," Cheney said. "And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

// posted by montag @ 6:48 AM 0 Comments