Friday, July 23, 2010

Who's got their hands in the pocket of Big Oil?

We're always hearing how Republicans have been bought by the oil companies. Well, one of the allegations being leveled against Charles Rangel, the Dem congressman from NY is that he's been preserving tax benefits for an oil-drilling company in exchange for donations to a project he supported at the City College of New York.

The details are coming out soon. Can't wait.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Only A Matter Of Time...

WASHINGTON – A House investigative committee has charged New York Rep. Charles Rangel, the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, with multiple ethics violations.

The charges were announced Thursday. The panel's actions sends the case to a trial on the allegations. A separate ethics panel will decide whether the alleged violations can be proved by clear and convincing evidence.

The Democrat led the tax-writing committee until he stepped aside last March after the ethics committee criticized his conduct in a separate case.

Sources said the committee and Rangel's attorney attempted unsuccessfully to negotiate a settlement to end the case. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions. A settlement would have required Rangel to agree that he violated ethics rules.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Another FOO gets fitted for an orange jumpsuit

From the AP:

Fraud gets ex-Obama, Clinton fundraiser 12 years

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK – A wealthy Manhattan investment banker and former top Democratic fundraiser was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison for defrauding banks of $292 million, some of which he donated to politicians including Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Al Gore.

Hassan Nemazee, 60, had reached a plea deal in March, admitting that he cheated banks out of the money and pleading guilty to three counts of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in Manhattan said he'll get out of prison in about a decade.

Nemazee was the national finance chairman of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign; he also raised money for Obama and a long list of other prominent Democrats. He was Sen. John Kerry's New York finance chairman during his failed 2004 presidential run.

Prosecutors said he used some of the proceeds from his crimes to make personal donations to election campaigns, to make charitable donations and to live a lavish lifestyle that included apartments in Italy and Manhattan, partial interest in a private plane and a luxury yacht.

Stein said he showed leniency to Nemazee in part because of "his involvement in American political life." If the judge had followed federal sentencing guidelines, Nemazee would have received at least another three years in prison and as many as 19 1/2 years.

Prosecutors said Nemazee used fake collateral starting in 1998 and continuing for more than a decade in order to obtain large loans from major banks. The judge ordered him to pay $292 million in restitution.

An indictment said he forged signatures, concocted bogus account statements and established "virtual offices" to conceal a scam. It said he used proceeds from new loans to pay off older ones — a maneuver prosecutors called a Ponzi scheme.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton nominated Nemazee to be U.S. ambassador to Argentina, but the Senate never confirmed the appointment, in part because of concerns about Nemazee's business dealings.

Nemazee told the judge he blamed his crimes on "pride, ego, arrogance, self-image, self-importance. All these and more are reasons why I traveled down this destructive path."

Prosecutors said he unsuccessfully tried to capitalize on his standing and reputation in political circles by seeking nomination to a Cabinet-level position last year.

In a letter submitted to the judge this week, the government said Nemazee had made more than $845,000 in donations to political candidates and political parties and more than $1.1 million of charitable donations from late 1997 through August 2009.

The government said it sent letters after Nemazee's guilty plea to 115 recipients of charitable and political donations requesting that the recipients return the proceeds to the government.

As a result, $419,000 in fraud money had been returned, another $303,000 has been promised to be returned and $376,000 in fraud proceeds had been designated as no longer requiring a return, the letter said.

It said that another $285,000 was being disputed by recipients as subject to forfeit, and that the rest involved money recipients had donated to charities after Nemazee's arrest.

Money already forfeited includes $167,463 from the Council on Foreign Relations, $100,543 from Harvard University and $50,000 from the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the government said.

The letter said Friends of Hillary had pledged to return $8,200 and Hillary Clinton for President promised to return $11,500, in addition to $11,500 it returned to Nemazee in August 2008. It said the William J. Clinton Foundation had agreed to forfeit $53,000, though the government has agreed that another $100,000 in donations does not need to be forfeited.

The letter said Obama for America had agreed to return the full $13,800 it had received, even though it had already donated $4,600 of funds received from Nemazee to charities after his arrest. It said John Kerry for Senate pledged to return $4,600, and John Kerry for President said it would return $5,000, in addition to $2,000 being returned by the Kerry Committee.

Also included in funds the government agrees no longer needs to be forfeited was $50,000 Nemazee donated to the Gore-Lieberman Recount Committee in 2000, $9,200 by Biden For President Inc. and $2,000 by Edwards for President.

Nemazee, an Iranian-American, was ordered to begin his sentence by the afternoon of Aug. 27. As the sentencing hearing ended, Nemazee wiped his eyes and hugged family members. When he left the courthouse, he walked quickly to a waiting sedan.

More than 100 letters were written to the judge on Nemazee's behalf, and Stein cited one that he said resonated with him because it told how important it was in Iran to protect the honor of a family name.

"The proud name Nemazee now also involves you being a federal felon subject to a prison term. And that's really a tragedy," Stein said. "At some level, this is a Shakespearean tragedy. Only you brought this about."

The judge called Nemazee a "highly intelligent, educated person" who had been extremely charitable. He also made several mentions of his involvement in political life, saying it was admirable and lifted him high in Iranian-American society.

Yet, he said, Nemazee had committed a crime that was "breathtaking in its brazenness, in its scope."

Nemazee said he has spent long hours trying to understand his actions.

"The guilt and shame that I bear," he said, "will remain with me long after I return from prison."

Saturday, July 10, 2010

What passes for education....



On Monday I had been watching MSNBC. I think it was Lester Holt who introduced a story about kids who had been moved to do good by something they'd experienced in science class. Great, I thought. I hear enough horror stories about kids doing the wrong things lately so when I sat down in my easy chair I was ready for a story that just might renew my faith in the youth of today.

Holt started to speak glowingly about the Boston area science class that had been shown Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and had been moved to take on a mission of turning their entire school green. I thought to myself "Figures, it's Boston". Never mind the fact that very little of this documentary has been proven as truth. At least these kids weren't on the corner at the 7-11 or getting together to see who could get pregnant first.

My son goes to public school during the year but is attending a military school to brush up on some things during the summer. I picked him up from there this morning and brought him back for a home cooked meal. The conversation on the way home was an eye opener. When discussing his week he asked me "Did you know John McCain was a war hero?". Why yes, I did. He began to explain how they'd seen this movie called "Faith Of My Fathers" and, with an enthusiasm I rarely see, went on to inform me about McCain's heroic character and leadership. And all I could think about was the kids in MA, misled by a public school system hell bent on force feeding our kids an ideology. The green movement is first and foremost a democratic money train, and our public schools are willing and enthusiastic participants.

So instead of electing an American hero in 2008, we put a pot smoking "community organizer" from Acorn in the Whitehouse.
Go figure.

Friday, July 9, 2010

NASA. I Thought It Was a Space Program?

We have seen and heard a lot of bizarre things from the Obama Administration in the last year and a half. But one of the oddest things I have seen yet was NASA Administrator Charles Bolden saying that one of the goals of NASA was "outreach to Muslims"?????? What? I thought NASA was supposed to be concentrating on space exploration. We landed on the moon in 1969 and NASA was all excited about the fact that we would be able to land another man on the moon by 2020. So it was going to take 50 years to accomplish what we already did in 1969! When I was a kid I thought after landing on the moon the next goal was to land a man on Mars not just have a space shuttle circle the earth for the 30 years. With a new priority of NASA now being outreach to Muslims, I guess our next space mission is going to be landing on Iran!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Eric Holder....Color Blind or Just Blind?

J. Christian Adams, a well thought of attorney for the jsutice department resigned over the handling of a voter intimidation case and testified recently as to what compelled him to resign. Mr. Adams testified under oath that he and all DOJ attorneys have been given a directive handed down from Eric Holder, stating that under no circumstances are they to prosecute cases where the defendant is black and the victim white. He has colleagues who can support this claim however the Whitehouse and Holder have refused to permit them to testify. What happened to the "transparency" Mr. Obama promised us?

The department abandoned the New Black Panther case last year. It stemmed from an incident on Election Day in 2008 in Philadelphia, where members of the party were videotaped in front of a polling place, dressed in military-style uniforms and allegedly hurling racial slurs while one brandished a night stick.

The DOJ has made excuses about dropping the case, saying that voter intimidation cases are hard to prove. The video below seems to indicate to me that this is an open and shut case of voter intimidation. check it out and decide for yourself. Either way, the fact that Holder would issue such a directive shows once again that he is unfit to be Attorney General or hold public office of any kind.

Here's the clip:

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Illinois Be Dammed

Now there's another state on the brink of collapse and I'm not sure the dam will hold. Daniel W. Haynes, Illinois's comptroller, says "This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely necessary essential services" in a NT Times article of Saturday July 3. So you think California has been mismanaged? Wait till you here this....Illinois has a budget deficit of at least $12 billion. That's equal to half the state's budget! And, to top it off, their federal stimulus dollars are almost completely spent.

Collapse is imminent as the cracks are starting to show. The state's pension fund is 50% underfunded and legislators left for summer break without deciding what to do about 26% of the state budget. The governor wants to borrow $3.5 billion to cover a year's worth of pension payments costing about $1 billion in interest. Every major rating agency has downgraded the state so the cost of funds will be even greater.

What are we learning about the past 18 months? Well, it's interesting to note that the three states in significant financial trouble are Illinois, California, and New York. All three are blue states run as entitlement states with huge government overhead and excessive taxation. The author of the article, Michael Powell, makes the observation that Illinios's problems are a result of the "dysfunctional political class" failing to take the necessary steps of cutting jobs and increasing taxes. Well at least he's half right. Increasing taxes has worked well in Greece, now hasn't it Michael.

Although countries can go bankrupt, states really can't. The other 47 will be carrying water for the states of CA, NY, and IL for a while. In Washington, the Obama administration wants another "stimulus" while piling on additional expenses like the new health care bill. Are we learning anything from the free spending policies of California, New York, and Illinois?

Grab a bucket.