Kraven Moorehead

BALTIMORE (AP) — Prosecutors agreed to some unusual terms to win a guilty plea from a former religious cult member charged with starving her 1-year-old son to death: If the child is resurrected, her plea will be withdrawn.

Ria Ramkissoon, 22, also agreed Monday to testify against four other members of the now-defunct religious group known as 1 Mind Ministries. All four are charged with first-degree murder in the death of Javon Thompson, whose body was kept in a suitcase packed with mothballs and fabric softener sheets long after he died.

Ramkissoon's lawyer said the resurrection clause Ramkissoon insisted on shows that she is still "brainwashed" and needs the psychological treatment that is planned as part of her sentencing.

According to a statement of facts, the cult members stopped feeding the boy when he refused to say "Amen" after a meal. After Javon died, Ramkissoon sat next to his decomposing body and prayed for his resurrection.

Ramkissoon's attorney, Steven D. Silverman, said Ramkissoon believes the resurrection will occur. She agreed to plead guilty only after prosecutors said they would drop the charges if the child comes back to life, Silverman said.

"This is something that she absolutely insisted upon, and this is indicative of the fact that she is still brainwashed, still a victim of this cult," he said. "Until she's deprogrammed, she's not going to think any differently."

Baltimore Circuit Judge Timothy J. Doory assured Ramkissoon that the plea would indeed be withdrawn if the child is resurrected.

Ramkissoon pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse resulting in death. She will remain in custody until she testifies against her co-defendants and will receive a suspended 20-year sentence and serve five years probation. Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 11. By then, Ramkissoon would have spent about a year behind bars.

As part of her probation, Ramkissoon must submit to treatment, including sessions with an expert on cult behavior.

The maximum sentence for child abuse resulting in death is 30 years, and defendants typically receive between 12 and 20 years, according to Maryland sentencing guidelines.

Ramkissoon will fare much better under the plea deal than if she had pursued an insanity defense, Silverman said. A court psychiatrist found that she was both competent to stand trial and could have been held criminally responsible for Javon's death because she knew the difference between right and wrong.

Silverman could have challenged that finding, and he said prosecutors told him they wouldn't have stood in his way. In a letter to Silverman that outlined the terms of the plea deal, prosecutors said the finding of criminal responsibility was "somewhat surprising."

If Ramkissoon had been found not criminally responsible in court, she would have been committed indefinitely to a state mental hospital. By pleading guilty, she will serve little jail time and still get the treatment she needs, Silverman said.

Ramkissoon's mother and stepfather and Javon's paternal grandmother wept in court as prosecutors described the boy's death. The petite Ramkissoon, a native of Trinidad, was calm, answering the judge's questions in a barely audible voice.

When asked her address, she gave the location of the city jail. Asked later whether she had any other place she called home, she said, "No."

Ramkissoon's mother, Seeta Khadan-Newton, said the cult manipulated her daughter into disowning her family.

"We are behind her now. We are in the past," Khadan-Newton said.

Geraldine Ridgley, Javon's paternal grandmother, said Ramkissoon deserves a stiffer punishment.

The boy's father, Robert Thompson, was not in court Monday. Ridgley said he was ill. Thompson was in jail when Javon was born.

After the boy died, the cult members left his body inside the apartment where they lived until it began to decompose, according to police documents and the statement of facts. In early 2007, they stuffed the body inside a suitcase and filled it with mothballs and fabric softener sheets to mask the odor.

The cult members relocated to Philadelphia, where they befriended an elderly man and stored the suitcase in a shed behind his home. It remained there for more than a year before police found it, the documents say.

The judge also ordered the four co-defendants to appear before another judge Tuesday to receive a new trial date. Alleged cult leader Queen Antoinette and ex-members Trevia Williams and Marcus A. Cobbs are being held without bail. Steven L. Bynum is free on his own recognizance.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Abu Zubaida was the alpha and omega of the Bush administration's argument for torture.

That's why Sunday's front-page Washington Post story by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick is such a blow to the last remaining torture apologists.

Finn and Warrick reported that "not a single significant plot was foiled" as a result of Zubaida's brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions "triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms."

Zubaida was the first detainee to be tortured at the direct instruction of the White House. Then he was President George W. Bush's Exhibit A in defense of the "enhanced interrogation" procedures that constituted torture. And he continues to be held up as a justification for torture by its most ardent defenders.

But as author Ron Suskind reported almost three years ago -- and as The Post now confirms -- almost all the key assertions the Bush administration made about Zubaida were wrong.

Zubaida wasn't a major al Qaeda figure. He wasn't holding back critical information. His torture didn't produce valuable intelligence -- and it certainly didn't save lives.

All the calculations the Bush White House claims to have made in its decision to abandon long-held moral and legal strictures against abusive interrogation turn out to have been profoundly flawed, not just on a moral basis but on a coldly practical one as well.

Indeed, the Post article raises the even further disquieting possibility that intentional cruelty was part of the White House's motive.

The most charitable interpretation at this point of the decision to torture is that it was a well-intentioned overreaction of people under enormous stress whose only interest was in protecting the people of the United States. But there's always been one big problem with that theory: While torture works on TV, knowledgeable intelligence professionals and trained interrogators know that in the real world, it's actually ineffective and even counterproductive. The only thing it's really good as it getting false confessions.

So why do it? Some social psychologists (see, for instance, Kevin M. Carlsmith on NiemanWatchdog.org) have speculated that the real motivation for torture is retribution.

And now someone with first-hand knowledge is suggesting that was a factor in Zubaida's case.

Quoting a "former Justice Department official closely involved in the early investigation of Abu Zubaida," Finn and Warwick write that the pressure on CIA interrogators "from upper levels of the government was 'tremendous,' driven in part by the routine of daily meetings in which policymakers would press for updates...

"'They couldn't stand the idea that there wasn't anything new,' the official said. 'They'd say, "You aren't working hard enough." There was both a disbelief in what he was saying and also a desire for retribution -- a feeling that 'He's going to talk, and if he doesn't talk, we'll do whatever.'"'

The Post story also makes it clear that some people with great reality-denying skills remain at the upper levels of the government: "Some U.S. officials remain steadfast in their conclusion that Abu Zubaida possessed, and gave up, plenty of useful information about al-Qaeda," Finn and Warwick write.

"'It's simply wrong to suggest that Abu Zubaida wasn't intimately involved with al-Qaeda,' said a U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much about Abu Zubaida remains classified. 'He was one of the terrorist organization's key facilitators, offered new insights into how the organization operated, provided critical information on senior al-Qaeda figures...and identified hundreds of al-Qaeda members. How anyone can minimize that information -- some of the best we had at the time on al-Qaeda -- is beyond me.'"

But who are these people? How can they still possibly believe this given all the evidence to the contrary? What are they doing still in government?

Author and investigative reporter Suskind first exposed the rampant fallacies of the administration's Zubaida narrative in his explosive June 2006 book, The One Percent Doctrine. See my June 20, 2006 column for a summary.

But mainstream news organizations, unable to match Suskind's sources, largely refused to acknowledge his reporting.

Indeed, in September 2006, when the White House for the first time publicly acknowledged the existence of a secret CIA detention and interrogation program, Bush had no qualms about putting Zubaida front and center.

In a major speech, he proudly described how Zubaida -- "a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden" -- was questioned using the CIA's new "alternative set of procedures" and then "'began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives."

All lies and euphemisms. But all reported pretty much straight at the time by a mainstream media that, if it noted Suskind's reporting at all, did so as an afterthought.

There's no doubt that Zubaida's capture in spring 2002 was what sent the administration down the path to state-sanctioned torture. Last April, ABC News reported that starting right after his capture, top Bush aides including Vice President Dick Cheney micromanaged his interrogation from the White House basement. "The high-level discussions about these 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed," ABC's sources said, "some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic." Bush has acknowledged he was aware of those meetings at the time.

Techniques that created damage short of "the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function" were later authorized in an August 2002 Justice Department memo, known as the Torture Memo.

Just two weeks ago, in a New York Review of Books article based on a confidential report from the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mark Danner described the techniques used on Zubaida in harrowing detail.

Here is what Zubaida told the ICRC, via Danner: "'I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck; they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room.'

"The prisoner was then put in a coffin-like black box, about 4 feet by 3 feet and 6 feet high, 'for what I think was about one and a half to two hours.' He added: The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside.... They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls of the room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body. The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury.'"

It goes on and on. Waterboarding -- and Zubaida is one of three detainees known to have been subjected to that notorious torture technique -- was only a part of it.

Bush's personal investment in Zubaida was obvious even in public statements. As early as April 9, 2002, Bush bragged to fellow Republicans at a political fundraiser: "The other day we hauled in a guy named Abu Zubaydah. He's one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States. He's not plotting and planning anymore. He's where he belongs."

In a June 6, 2002, address, Bush called Zubaida al Qaeda's "chief of operations" and said that "[f]rom him and from hundreds of others, we are learning more about how the terrorists plan and operate, information crucial in anticipating and preventing future attacks."

At a Republican fundraiser on October 14, 2002, Bush called Zubaida "one of the top three leaders in the organization."

But according to Suskind, even as Bush was publicly proclaiming Zubaida's malevolence, he was privately being briefed about doubts within the intelligence community regarding Zubaida's significance -- and mental stability. Suskind quotes the following exchange between Bush and then-CIA director George Tenet:

"'I said he was important,' Bush said to Tenet at one of their daily meetings. 'You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?'

"'No Sir, Mr. President.'"

And on the Guardian Web site today, Brent Mickum, an attorney who represents Zubaida, writes: "For many years, Abu Zubaydah's name has been synonymous with the war on terror because of repeated false statements made by the Bush administration, the majority of which were known to be false when uttered....

"[T]he man described by President Bush and others within his administration as a 'top operative', the 'number three person' in al-Qaida, and al-Qaida's 'chief of operations' was never even a member of al-Qaida, much less an individual who was among its 'inner circle'."

I've written extensively about Zubaida before, and about how the facts of his case as unearthed by Suskind thoroughly undermine the Bush administration's arguments. See, for instance, my Dec. 18, 2007 column, Exhibit A for Torture, in which I suggested that "Bush's Exhibit A in defense of torture may in fact be an exhibit for the prosecution." We learned in December 2007 that the CIA had destroyed videotapes of its secret interrogations -- 92 in all, it turns out, 90 of them of Zubaida. In February 2008, I wrote about how the White House's torture argument had now officially become that the ends justify the means.

Over the years, I've made something of a point of debunking the Bush White House's unsupported assertions that any really useful information was gleaned from torture.

And earlier this year, I got into a back-and-forth with one of the remaining torture apologists, former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen. Thiessen wrote a particularly strident Washington Post op-ed on January 22, in which he asserted that President Obama's torture ban would "effectively kill a program that stopped al-Qaeda from launching another Sept. 11-style attack." I explained that Thiessen was making stuff up. Thiessen posted a heated response on the National Review Web site, which I debunked in this post.

Thiessen unsurprisingly responded yesterday to the Post story, calling it a product of "The Left's assault on the CIA program" and warning darkly that "if America is attacked again, those responsible for the disclosure of this information will bear much of the blame."

His attempted rebuttal to the Post's reporting, however, is laughable. "[W]hat Abu Zubaydah disclosed to the CIA during this period was that the fact that KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and that his code name was 'Muktar'," Thiessen writes. "This information provided by Zubaydah was a critical piece of the puzzle that allowed them to pursue and eventually capture KSM....

"This fact, in and of itself, discredits the premise of the Post story – to suggest that the capture of KSM was not information that 'foiled plots' to attack America is absurd on the face of it."

But Thiessen's case falls apart under even the mildest scrutiny. According to the 9-11 Commission report, for instance, the CIA had connected KSM to the alias "Mukhtar" on August 28, 2001 -- seven months before Zubaida was captured, and two weeks before 9/11.

Of course the prime torture apologist remains Cheney, who as recently as two weeks ago asserted in a CNN interview that the administration's interrogation tactics had saved lives. Asked to prove it, he replied lamely: "I've seen a report that was written based upon the intelligence that we collected then that itemizes the specific attacks that were stopped by virtue of what we learned through those programs. It's still classified. I can't give you the details of it without violating classification, but I can say there were a great many of them."

And, finally, in other torture-related news, Marlise Simons writes for the New York Times: "A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said....

"The move represents a step toward ascertaining the legal accountability of top Bush administration officials for allegations of torture and mistreatment of prisoners in the campaign against terrorism. But some American experts said that even if warrants were issued their significance could be more symbolic than practical, and that it was a near certainty that the warrants would not lead to arrests if the officials did not leave the United States."

The complaint names former attorney general Albert Gonzales, fomer Justice Department officials John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, former under secretary of defense for policy Douglas J. Feith, former general counsel for the Department of Defense William J. Haynes II, and former vice presidential chief of staff and legal adviser David S. Addington.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Rick Wagoner will leave his post as CEO of bailed-out General Motors with a $20 million retirement package, the company's financial filings show.

Although the Treasury Department has barred GM from paying severance to Wagoner or any other senior executive, Wagoner is eligible to collect millions in retirement benefits from his former employer, according to the documents reviewed by ABC News.

The Obama administration asked for Wagoner to resign Sunday, as part of its restructuring of the auto industry. President Obama said this morning that forcing Wagoner out indicated it was a time for new leadership.

Under Wagoner's leadership, GM lost tens of billions of dollars, took billions in taxpayer-financed aid, and cut tens of thousands of jobs, including announced plans to cut 47,000 employees by the end of 2009.

Wagoner's Private Jet Trip to Washington

Wagoner was one of the three auto industry CEOs who inflamed Congressional ire by flying to Washington in private jets to ask for taxpayers to bail out their beleaguered businesses. They returned a month later in hybrid cars.
Upon his departure, Wagoner becomes eligible for both a "Salaried Retirement Plan" and an "Executive Retirement Plan" with General Motors. The combined value of the plans at the end of last year was $20.2 million, according to the company's filings with the SEC, although compensation experts said his age -- 56 -- may make him ineligible for the entire amount.

"Most of that will be paid out as an annuity over five years, the remainder is a small lifetime annuity," GM spokeswoman Julie M. Gibson said in an email earlier today. But in a subsequent "clarification" email after this story published, Gibson said that the terms of Wagoner's final compensation were not yet hammered out. "Specifics on any compensation entitled to, or actually paid to Mr. Wagoner are still being reviewed," she wrote.

"I think it's another perfect example of why there's so much frustration among working people," said Tiffany Ten Eyck of Labor Notes, a Detroit-based independent publication covering unions. "I wouldn't mind retiring out of an industry in crisis with a $20 million package."

GM has received billions in loans from the U.S. Treasury Department, and recently asked for billions more. Under its agreement with Treasury, it cannot pay severance fees to senior executives. That ban does not appear to apply to retirement benefits, however.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ARIZONA:

— Douglas Dispatch — Formerly The Daily Dispatch, went from five to three days a week in August.

— East Valley Tribune — In January, suburban Phoenix newspaper scaled back from seven days to Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. It also became a free publication delivered to four growing communities, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert and Queen Creek; Scottsdale and Tempe dropped from delivery zone.

ARKANSAS:

— Blytheville Courier News — Dropped Mondays.

— The Daily World, Helena-West Helena — Dropped Thursdays.

CALIFORNIA:

— The Davis Enterprise — Dropped Mondays.

— The Gilroy Dispatch — Scaled back last year to Tuesdays and Fridays, instead of five days a week.

— Hollister Free Lance — Scaled back last year to Tuesdays and Fridays, instead of five days a week. Dropped Fridays later in the year.

— Palo Alto Daily News — Free newspaper dropped Mondays last year.

— The Examiner, San Francisco — Reduced home delivery to Thursdays and Sundays, although free newspaper available in news racks on other days.

— San Mateo Daily News — Free newspaper dropped Tuesdays last year.

— Daily Sound, Santa Barbara — Free newspaper dropped Mondays in February.

— Sierra Sun, Truckee — Scaled back in January to Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. It had largely been a weekly until it expanded to twice weekly in 2003 and to five days a week in 2006.

— Tahoe Daily Tribune, South Lake Tahoe — Scaled back in February to Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, instead of Monday through Friday.

— Register-Pajaronian, Watsonville — Scaled back in February to Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, from six times a week.

COLORADO:

— The Aspen Times — Dropped Sundays in January.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA:

— The Washington Examiner — Reduced home delivery to Thursdays and Sundays, although free newspaper available in news racks on other days.

— The Washington Times — Dropped Saturdays last year.

GEORGIA:

— Statesboro Herald — After becoming a seven-day daily in 1982, dropped Mondays in January.

IDAHO:

— Post Register, Idaho Falls — Dropped Mondays in March.

— Standard Journal, Rexburg — Scaled back in March to Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, dropping Thursdays and Fridays.

ILLINOIS:

— Benton Evening News — Dropped Saturdays in February.

— The Carmi Times — Dropped Wednesdays in March.

— Du Quoin Evening Call — Dropped Saturdays in February.

— Eldorado Daily Journal — Dropped Saturdays in February.

— The Courier News, Elgin — Dropped Saturdays and switched to tabloid format in January.

— The Journal-Standard, Freeport — Dropped Mondays in February.

— Kane County Chronicle, Geneva — Dropped Mondays and switched to tabloid format in March.

— The Daily Register, Harrisburg — Dropped Saturdays in February.

— Star Courier, Kewanee — Dropped Mondays last year.

— Macomb Journal — Dropped Mondays in January.

— The Marion Daily Republican — Dropped Saturdays in October.
Daily Review Atlas, Monmouth — Dropped Mondays last summer.

— The Daily Leader, Pontiac — Dropped Fridays.

— The Daily American, West Frankford — Dropped Saturdays in February.

INDIANA:

— The Brazil Times — Dropped Tuesdays in January.

— Banner Graphic, Greencastle — Dropped Tuesdays in January.

— Daily Reporter, Greenfield — Dropped Fridays in December.

— Rushville Republican — Dropped Mondays last year.

IOWA:

— The Daily Nonpareil, Council Bluffs — Dropped Mondays in February.

— The Courier, Waterloo-Cedar Falls — Dropped Saturdays in January.

KANSAS:

— Kansas City Kansan — Went entirely online in January after scaling back to two editions a week, from five, last year.

— The Southwest Times, Liberal — Formerly the Southwest Daily Times, scaled back early last year to Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, dropping Tuesdays and Thursdays. The publisher and many employees left in protest and began the High Plains Daily Leader, printing Sunday through Friday.

— McPherson Sentinel — Dropped Mondays late last year.

— The Ottawa Herald — Dropped Fridays in February.

— Parsons Sun — Dropped Mondays in July.

KENTUCKY:

— Georgetown News-Graphic — Scaled back in February to Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, instead of Tuesday through Friday and Sunday. The newspaper had increased from three to five days a week in August 2006.

— Appalachian News-Express, Pikeville — Dropped from five days a week to three days a week in March.

MARYLAND:

— The Frederick News-Post — Will drop Mondays after this week.

MASSACHUSETTS

— The Christian Science Monitor — The Boston-based national newspaper's final issue as a daily was Friday. Subscribers should receive the first weekly newspaper as early as this Friday. The Monitor also is starting a daily e-mail newsletter for a separate paid subscription, while maintaining its free Web site.

MICHIGAN:

— The Ann Arbor News — Ceasing operations in July after 174 years, replaced by a Web-focused AnnArbor.com, which plans printed newspaper on Thursdays and Sundays.

— The Bay City Times — Will print only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, instead of seven days, beginning June 1.

— The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press — Beginning Monday, both papers will reduce home delivery to Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays and produce slimmer editions for sale at newsstands on the other days. Because The News does not publish on Sundays, subscribers will get the Free Press that day.

— The Flint Journal — Will print only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, instead of seven days, beginning June 1.

— The Daily Tribune, Royal Oak — Scaled back late last year to Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, dropping Mondays and Tuesdays.

— The Saginaw News — Will print only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, instead of seven days, beginning June 1.

MINNESOTA:

— The Minnesota Daily, Minneapolis — The University of Minnesota newspaper dropped Fridays in January.

MISSOURI:

— Columbia Missourian. Dropped Mondays and Saturdays in March.

— The Hannibal Courier-Post — Dropped Mondays.

— The Examiner, Independence — Dropped Mondays in January.

NEBRASKA:

— McCook Daily Gazette — Dropped Saturdays in January.

NEVADA:

— Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard — Scaled back in October to Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, instead of Tuesday through Sunday.

NEW JERSEY:

— Burlington County Times, Willingboro — Dropped Saturdays in February.

NEW MEXICO:

— Las Vegas Optic — Scaled back in March to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, dropping Tuesday and Thursday editions.

NEW YORK:

— The Daily Mail, Catskill — Dropped Sundays and Mondays in March.

— Register-Star, Hudson — Dropped Sundays and Mondays in March.

— Hoy, New York — The five-day-a-week Spanish-language newspaper went online-only Dec. 31.

— Salamanca Press — Scaled back in January to weekly, from five days a week.

NORTH CAROLINA:

— The Dispatch, Lexington — Dropped Mondays in September.

— Washington Daily News — Dropped Mondays.

OHIO:

— Bellevue Gazette — Dropped Mondays in January.

— Fairborn Daily Herald — Dropped Mondays in November.

— The Galion Inquirer — Dropped Mondays in September.

— Greenville Daily Advocate — Dropped Mondays and Tuesdays in January.

— Times-Gazette, Hillsboro — Dropped Mondays in November.

— The Madison Press, London — Dropped Mondays in November.
Piqua Daily Call — Dropped Tuesdays in February.

— The Sidney Daily News — Dropped Tuesdays in February.

— Troy Daily News — Dropped Tuesdays in February.

— Van Wert Times-Bulletin — Dropped Mondays last fall.

— Wilmington News Journal — Dropped Mondays in September.

— The Xenia Daily Gazette — Dropped Mondays in November.

OREGON:

— Herald and News, Klamath Falls — Dropped Mondays in January.

— Argus Observer, Ontario — Will drop Mondays after this week.

PENNSYLVANIA:

— Beaver County Times, Beaver — Dropped Saturdays in February.

— The Intelligencer, Doylestown — Dropped Saturdays in February.

— Bucks County Courier Times, Levittown — Dropped Saturdays in February.

— Herald-Standard, Uniontown — Dropped Saturdays in February.

SOUTH CAROLINA:

— The Item, Sumter — Dropped Mondays last summer.

— The Union Daily Times — Dropped Mondays.

TENNESSEE:

— State Gazette, Dyersburg — Dropped Mondays in February.

— The Newport Plain Talk — Will scale back to Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays after this Thursday's edition. Newspaper had expanded from three days to five in 1999.

— Shelbyville Times-Gazette — Dropped Mondays in March.

TEXAS:

— Mexia News — Formerly The Mexia Daily News, went from five to three days a week in January.

WASHINGTON:

— Seattle Post-Intelligencer — Ended print publication in March; converted to Internet-only operation with much smaller staff.

WISCONSIN:

— The Capital Times, Madison — Became a free publication distributed with its larger rival, Wisconsin State Journal, and given away separately at newspaper racks. Scaled back last year from six days a week to twice weekly — a news and opinion edition on Wednesdays and an arts, entertainment and culture edition on Thursdays.

— Superior Telegram — Formerly The Daily Telegram, scaled back last year to Wednesdays and Fridays, instead of six days.

— The Freeman, Waukesha — Will drop Mondays after this week.

— Daily News, West Bend — Will drop Mondays after this week.

VIRGINIA:

— The Southwest Times, Pulaski — Dropped Mondays in October.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mass. man beheads 5-year-old sister, fatally stabs 2nd sister, is shot dead while hunting 3rd

MILTON, Mass. (AP) — A man on a rampage fatally stabbed his 17-year-old sister, decapitated his 5-year-old sister in front of a police officer and then turned toward his 9-year-old sister with a knife in his hand before officers shot him dead in what their chief described as "a killing field."

There was no clear motive for the events that unfolded Saturday, the day after the 5-year-old's birthday, in a tony Boston suburb that also is home to Gov. Deval Patrick. But there was no doubt at the carnage wrought by 23-year-old Kerby Revelus against his sisters in the two-family home they shared with their parents and grandmother.

Five-year-old Bianca was killed as a cake for her birthday, which investigators believe was Friday, sat on the kitchen table. Nine-year-old Sarafina dialed 911 and watched police shoot her brother as her elder sister, 17-year-old Samantha, lay dead on the floor.

Sarafina was hospitalized Sunday with defensive wounds to her hands and stab wounds in her abdomen and one of her legs, police said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

MOORHEAD, Minn. (AP) — As the Red River crept within view of their backyard this past week, Denette and Billy Narum had an extra incentive to pray their sandbags held. Like most people in the path of potential floods, they have no flood insurance.

Fewer than 800 homeowners in the North Dakota and Minnesota communities most threatened by the swollen river hold insurance policies covering flood damage despite a decade-long push by state and federal officials to get people signed up, according to federal records obtained by The Associated Press.

Like the Narums, who bought their home five years ago, many forgo the insurance because they have never seen a historic flood. Others don't want to shell out up to $800 a year for coverage, instead gambling that city dikes will protect their homes.

That leaves residents exposed to huge losses, and they can't count on a government bailout. People who don't have insurance can get limited federal help if their county is declared a federal disaster area, but it's usually in a loan that must be repaid.

"This was never supposed to happen here," Denette Narum said hours before she and her husband evacuated Friday, giving up on their six pumps as water seeped under sandbags topping a permanent levee and water filled their basement.

About 20 percent of Moorhead residents had been urged to evacuate, although most homes are still OK.

Thousands of volunteers reinforced miles and miles of dikes with sandbags as the river rose to record levels. Even though the National Weather Service said the river appeared to be receding, it was still more than 20 feet above flood stage Sunday and expected to remain that way for days, testing the integrity of dikes that have already suffered some breaches.

Federal Emergency Management Agency reports show that in the besieged city of Fargo, N.D., with a population of 92,000, only 586 homeowners have policies — including just 90 in the area of highest flood risk. In neighboring Moorhead, a city of 30,000, that number is a mere 145.

In fact, only 4,558 homeowners in the entire state of North Dakota and fewer than 9,000 in Minnesota carried flood insurance as of January, the most recent figures available.

FEMA and state officials tried to get the message out about flood insurance after the devastating 1997 Red River flood, which submerged Grand Forks, N.D., and caused an estimated $4.1 billion in damage. Only 743 homeowners in Grand Forks now carry flood insurance.

"Memories are short, and people don't remember the 1997 flood," said Butch Kinerney, spokesman for the National Flood Insurance Program, managed by FEMA. "You see it time and time again: People forget the past."

FEMA doesn't require people to buy flood insurance unless they're in a designated flood plain and have a federally backed mortgage.

Butch and Janet Johnson have lived in Fargo for 35 years, just half a block from the Red River, and don't know any neighbors who have flood insurance. They've received a few fliers in the mail but never considered getting a policy.

"Our house is 100 years old and if it's going to go, they can have it," Janet Johnson said.

The Narums' mortgage company didn't require the insurance, and the previous owner told them there was only an inch of water in the basement during the 1997 flood.

"And that was considered a 100-year flood," said Billy Narum, who built an earthen berm to protect his home in 2006 after he had to sandbag during late spring floods.

Kathy Beckius' duplex about a block from the Red River in Moorhead also was untouched by water during the 1997 flooding, so she and her husband decided against flood insurance. On Saturday, Beckius watched river water backing up in nearby storm drains, flooding streets in the area up to 2 feet deep in spots.

"It's your choice whether you get it or not where we live, and we just chose not to," she said.

After flooding in Minnesota in 2007, Gov. Tim Pawlenty advocated for a law requiring insurance companies to notify homeowners annually about flood insurance. However, there has been little change in the number of policies in Minnesota since Pawlenty signed the law last May, said Ceil Strauss, who coordinates the flood insurance program for the state.

"For the most part, people just don't want to spend the money," Strauss said. "They think they're safe and don't believe they're in a flood plain most of time, even if they are."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As of Saturday, March 28, 2009, at least 4,262 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,425 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is one fewer than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 179 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MADRID, (AP) — A Spanish court has agreed to consider opening a criminal case against six former Bush administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo Bay, a lawyer in the case said Saturday.

Human rights lawyers brought the case before leading anti-terror judge Baltasar Garzon, who agreed to send it on to prosecutors to decide whether it had merit, Gonzalo Boye, one of the lawyers who brought the charges, told The Associated Press.

The ex-Bush officials are Gonzales; former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith; former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington; Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee; and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes.

"The charges as related to me make no sense," Feith said Saturday. "They criticize me for promoting a controversial position that I never advocated."

Yoo declined to comment. A message left at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco where Bybee is now a judge was not immediately returned. A message left at Chevron Corp. in San Ramon, Calif., where Haynes reportedly works as an attorney was not immediately returned.

Spanish law allows courts to reach beyond national borders in cases of torture or war crimes under a doctrine of universal justice, though the government has recently said it hopes to limit the scope of the legal process.

Garzon became famous for bringing charges against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, and he and other Spanish judges have agreed to investigate alleged abuses everywhere from Tibet to Argentina's "dirty war," El Salvador and Rwanda.

Still, the country's record in prosecuting such cases has been spotty at best, with only one suspect extradited to Spain so far.

When a similar case was brought against Israeli officials earlier this year, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos assured his Israeli counterpart that the process would be quashed.

Even if indictments are eventually handed down against the U.S. officials, it is far from clear whether arrests would ever take place. The officials would have to travel outside the United States and to a country willing to take them into custody before possible extradition to Spain.

The officials are charged with providing a legal cover for interrogation methods like waterboarding against terrorism suspects at Guantanamo, which the Spanish human rights lawyers say amounted to torture.

Yoo, for instance, wrote a series of secret memos that claimed the president had the legal authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions.

President George W. Bush always denied the U.S. tortured anyone. The U.S. has acknowledged that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described plotter of Sept. 11, and a few other prisoners were waterboarded at secret CIA prisons before being taken to Guantanamo, but the Bush administration insisted that all interrogations were lawful.

Boye said he expected the National Court to take the case forward, and dismissed concerns that it would harm bilateral relations between the two countries.

He said that some of the victims of the alleged torture were Spaniards, strengthening the argument for Spanish jurisdiction.

"When you bring a case like this you can't stop to make political judgments as to how it might affect bilateral relations between countries," he told the AP." It's too important for that."

Boye noted that the case was brought not against interrogators who might have committed crimes but by the lawyers and other high-placed officials who gave cover for their actions.

"Our case is a denunciation of lawyers, by lawyers, because we don't believe our profession should be used to help commit such barbarities," he said.

Another lawyer with detailed knowledge of the case told the AP that Garzon's decision to consider the charges was "a significant first step." The lawyer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

There was no immediate comment from Garzon or the government.

The judge's decision to send the case against the American officials to prosecutors means it will proceed, at least for now. Prosecutors must now decide whether to recommend a full-blown investigation, though Garzon is not bound by their decision.

The proceedings against the Bush Administration officials could be embarrassing for Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has been keen to improve ties with the United States after frosty relations during the Bush Administration.

Zapatero is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama for the first time on April 5 during a summit in Prague.

___

Associated Press writers Harold Heckle in Madrid and Lisa Leff in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A middledle school principal has laid down the law: You put your hands on someone -- anyone -- in any way, you're going to pay.

A violent incident that put one student in the hospital has officials at the Milford school implementing a "no touching" policy, according to a letter written by the school's principal.

East Shore Middle School parents said the change came after a student was sent to the hospital after being struck in the groin.

Principal Catherine Williams sent out a letter earlier in the week telling parents recent behavior has seriously impacted the safety and learning at the school.

"Observed behaviors of concern recently exhibited include kicking others in the groin area, grabbing and touching of others in personal areas, hugging and horseplay. Physical contact is prohibited to keep all students safe in the learning environment," Williams wrote.

Students and parents are outraged. They said the new policy means no high-fives and hugs, as well as horseplay of any kind. The consequences could be dire, Williams warned in the letter.

"Potential consequences and disciplinary action may include parent conferences, detention, suspension and/or a request for expulsion from school," Williams wrote.

Many think the school's no tolerance policy goes way too far. Others said it's utterly ridiculous.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Republicans have unveiled their own alternative to President Barack Obama’s budget plan. It's a big TV-friendly stack of "budget blueprints" and graphs and charts called “The Republican Road to Recovery.”

Someone in the press later observed, "No wonder we've inherited a budget deficit of $1.3 trillion and a debt that's out of control."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From NBC's Chuck Todd

In the midst of the congressional outrage over bonuses and bailouts, many of the very firms who benefitted from TARP funds are still making political donations. And the politicians are still taking them.

According to the latest F.E.C. data for February, several members of Congress who have been critical of the federal government’s bailout of U.S. companies have received campaign contributions just in the last six weeks – from the firms they bailed out.

Campaign-finance-reform advocate Fred Wertheimer says the government's been bailing out banks and other major "too-big-to-fail" firms -- as these same companies continue to use their PACs to make contributions. "It all adds up to kind of a magic circle involving the government, TARP recipients, members of Congress, and campaign contributions." The reality, of course, is that these contributions, individually, aren't a lot of money. But many members of Congress (including Speaker Pelosi and Financial Services Chair Barney Frank) have decided against taking any of the money. The optics of this for both the banks and for the members of Congress is bad, and only feeds the credibility problems both entities have with the American public.

Video: NBC’s Chuck Todd reports on the political contributions some politicians are getting from businesses and other organizations receiving bailout money.

So who is getting money and giving it right back to the politicians? Here’s a list of companies who received at least $1 billion in TARP funds and in February alone also gave money to members of Congress or national parties:

(Note: more TARP-recipients may have given money in February but not every company PAC reports their contributions monthly, some do it quarterly, meaning we won't know until mid-April if these figures are actually higher)

Citigroup
Bank of America
Goldman Sachs
U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Chrysler
American Express
KeyCorp
BB&T
Huntington Shares

Now here’s a list of House leadership and banking committee members who got money from these bailed-out companies:

(Note: Some members of Congress received contributions directly to their campaign accounts and some received money to their leadership PACs.)

Steve Austria, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., $5,000 from Bank of America
Melissa Bean, D-Ill., $5,000 from Bank of America
Roy Blunt, R-Mo., $1,500 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
John Boehner, R-Ohio, $5,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from American Express; $1,500 from U.S.
Bancorp employee PAC
Kevin Brady, R-Texas, $1,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from American Express
Eric Cantor, R-Va., $2,500 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from Chrysler; $2,500
from American Express
Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., $1,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., $5,000 from Bank of American
Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., $1,000 from Chrysler
Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., $1,200 from Huntington Shares
Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, $1,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
Steny Hoyer, D-Md., $1,500 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., $1,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp
Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Leonard Lance, R-N.J., $1,000 from Citigroup; $2,000 from Goldman Sachs
Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., $1,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., $5,000 from Bank of America
Gary Miller, R-Calif., $1,000 from Bank of America
Gwen Moore, D-Wis., $2,500 from Bank of America
Richard Neal, D-Mass., $4,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from American
Express
Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Devin Nunes, R-Calif., $5,000 from Bank of America
Glenn Nye, D-Va., $250 from BB&T
Mike Pence, R-Ind., $1,000 from Chrysler
Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., $1,000 from Chrysler
Mike Rogers, R-Mich., $1,000 from Chrysler
Pete Sessions, R-Texas, $5,000 from Bank of America
Lamar Smith, R-Texas, $1,000 from American Express
Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Mel Watt, D-N.C., $1,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from BB&T; $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp
employee PAC

But Senators also benefitted:

(Note: Both Reid and Shelby say they returned their checks.)

Michael Bennet, D-Colo., $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Robert Bennett, R-Utah, $1,000 from Chrysler
Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, $1,000 from Chrysler
Richard Burr, R-N.C., $5,000 from Bank of America
Tom Carper, D-Del., $620 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Jim DeMint, R-S.C., $2,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $2,000 from BB&T; $1,000
from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., $1,000 from Citigroup
Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., $1,000 from Bank of America
Bob Menendez, D-N.J., $5,000 from Bank of America
Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., $2,500 from Citigroup; $4,000 from Bank of America
Harry Reid, D-Nev., $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Richard Shelby, R-Ala., $5,000 from Bank of America
Arlen Specter, R-Pa., $2,000 from Chrysler
George Voinovich, R-Ohio, $5,000 from Bank of America

And so did the Parties.

The Democrats:
(Note: Both the DSCC and the DCCC say they never received the checks Bank of America reported in their March FEC report)

NDCPAC, $5,000 from Citigroup, $5,000 from Bank of America
Blue Dog PAC, $5,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
DSCC , $15,000 from Bank of America
DCCC, $15,000 from Bank of America
FourOhDems, $1,000 from Huntington Shares

And the Republicans:

HouseConFund, $5,000 from Bank of America
GOP Main Street, $5,000 from Bank of America
NRSC, $15,000 from Bank of America
NRCC $15,000 from Bank of America

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs actually reported members of Congress who refused to cash their checks, including Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., Rep. Pete DeFazio, D-Ore., and then-Congressman and now chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

LONDON (AP) — The Lancet medical journal on Friday accused Pope Benedict XVI of distorting scientific evidence in his statement that condoms worsen the AIDS crisis. It said he should retract the comments.

On a trip to Africa last week, the pope told reporters, "You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms." He then added, "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

France, Germany and the U.N. AIDS-fighting agency criticized the comments as irresponsible and dangerous.

In the latest issue of the prestigious British medical journal, the editors wrote that the pope "publicly distorted scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine on this issue."

The editorial referred to a statement by the UNAIDS agency and the World Health Organization that said, "The male latex condom is the single, most efficient, available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV (the virus that causes AIDS)."

The editorial said the pope should retract his comments or correct the record.

"Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics, who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide," the journal states.

The Vatican has said that the pope was expressing a long-standing Vatican position, and that he wanted to stress that a reliance on condoms distracted from the need for proper education in sexual conduct.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is proposing to keep secret from travelers and the public its vast records on how frequently and where commercial planes are damaged by hitting flying birds.

The agency's formal secrecy proposal came just after FAA officials had said they were going to release the huge database to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

As President Barack Obama promises a more open government, the FAA says it needs to expand secrecy to cover this safety data because if the public learned the information then airports and air carriers wouldn't report damage from birds.

"To have the government actually chill public access to safety information is a step backward," said James Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "Public awareness is an essential part of any strong safety program."

After a multiple bird strike forced a US Airways jet to ditch in the Hudson River on Jan. 15, The Associated Press requested access to the bird strike database, which contains more than 100,000 reports of bird strikes that have been voluntarily submitted since 1990.

In a Feb. 18 conference call, FAA officials promised The Associated Press the agency would turn over the data within days. Since then, the FAA has said only that the AP's request for the data under the Freedom of Information Act was "under review."

Last Thursday, the FAA quietly published its proposal to keep the data secret in the Federal Register, a dry compendium of rules and proposals the government publishes daily.

The agency based its proposal on the assumption that the industry it regulates is more concerned about its image and profits than about the safety of its passengers.

"The agency is concerned that there is a serious potential that information related to bird strikes will not be submitted because of fear that the disclosure of raw data could unfairly cast unfounded aspersions on the submitter," the FAA said in the Federal Register.

The FAA is particularly worried that the public will compare the data on various airports. "Drawing comparisons between airports is difficult because of the unevenness of reporting," it said. Not only do some airports do a better job than others of reporting strikes, they also face different challenges based on the bird habitats in their areas, the agency said.

"Inaccurate portrayals of airports and airlines could have a negative impact on their participation in reporting bird strikes," FAA added.

"It sounds like the FAA is going back to their early 1990s view that their job is to promote the carriers and look out for their bottom line," said Mary Schiavo, former Transportation Department inspector general. "They were criticized for that and then said they also were concerned with safety, but this sounds like they're reverting to being cheerleaders for the industry."

"In this case, secrecy is going to kill," added Schiavo, a pilot herself. She said that since the US Airways incident, businessmen have told her of corporate jets damaged in bird strikes and their interest in researching the problem, which she said the FAA's proposal would prevent.

The FAA has rejected another method of dealing with the problem of unequal reporting by airports and airlines.

In 1999, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the voluntary reporting system fails to produce reports on many bird strikes so the FAA database "grossly underestimates the magnitude of the problem." Further, the board quoted Agriculture Department experts as saying "over 50 percent of the reports lack the most critical piece of information about a strike, the species of bird."

As a result, the board recommended that the FAA require that bird strikes be reported. But the FAA refused.

Meantime, the FAA acknowledges that, with increases in air travel and in the populations of dangerous large birds like Canada geese, the problem is growing. It said the annual number of strikes reported has grown from 1,759 in 1990 to 7,666 in 2007.

The FAA bragged in the notice that its wildlife strike database is "unparalleled."

On Wednesday, after last week's FAA proposal to keep the data secret, Melanie Yohe of the FAA told the AP the release of the database was "way overdue" and that "it should be with you right now." She said there is "no reason for it to take this long."

The FAA's proposal is reminiscent of NASA's efforts in late 2007 to withhold air safety data from the AP because it claimed that revealing the information could damage the public's confidence in airlines and affect airline profits. NASA released parts of the data months later under pressure from Congress and the public, disclosing thousands of pages that were deliberately scrambled so no one could identify the pilots who were promised anonymity to participate in the government safety survey.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

WASHINGTON (AP) — More states logged double-digit unemployment rates in February, with North Carolina and Rhode Island seeing their rates hit record highs.

The U.S. Labor Department's report, released Friday, showed the terrible toll the recession, now in its second year, is having on workers and companies alike.

Seven states have unemployment rates that topped 10 percent last month. That's up from four states in January.

The U.S. unemployment rate, released earlier this month, rose to 8.1 percent in February, the highest in more than 25 years. Economists predict the national jobless rate will hit 10 percent by year end even if the recession were to end later this year as some hope.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

U.S. to kill shrubs on Mexican border
U.S. border Patrol has hatched plans to use an Agent Orange like ( the type of shit they use in Vietnam that injured a lot of U.S. Troops) chemical to poison the dense foliage on the Rio Grande ( no worry about run off) riverbank, behind which smugglers and other criminals hide on their way toand from Mexico, the Organic Health and Wellness Web site reports

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

DANA POINT, Calif. -- More games that count, perhaps as early as August 2011? That's exactly what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wants.

There are several hurdles before the league can expand its regular season from 16 to 17 or 18 games. Among them is reaching a new collective bargaining agreement with the players' union.

Still, the commissioner hopes to present a proposal to the owners in May after the matter was discussed at length this week at the owners meetings.

"It's possible that we could vote in May, but we want to have core discussions on this," Goodell said Wednesday. "Anytime you have change, there is some reluctance. But it's clear we don't need four preseason games anymore."

Goodell said the league has not seriously discussed the subject with its broadcast partners. He couldn't imagine them not being interested in more meaningful games.

"I think the quality of NFL programming, that every one of our network partners would say, if they have the chance to have more regular-season programming, they'd be interested in it," Goodell said. "A key point is the fans also recognize players they want to see are not in those preseason games; that's why they are not attractive. They want to see those players play."

As for those players and their union, Goodell recognizes an expanded schedule will be part of CBA negotiations. Owners opted out of the current deal last year, and it expires after the 2010 schedule, which would be an uncapped season.

"Under the current agreement, additional regular-season games would not be covered," Goodell said. "I think our most important priority after we get done with our internal analysis is talking to our key partners, and that includes the players. I think we want to make sure that the right dialogue takes place before we make any final votes."

DeMaurice Smith, the NFLPA's incoming executive director, wants any decision that affects the players to happen collaboratively.

"His hope is that the concerns and interests of the players will be seriously considered," said George Atallah, a director at the public relations firm Qorvis Communications and a spokesman for Smith during his transition. "He was elected by the players to be their advocate on such issues and is more than ready to serve them."

Among the issues team owners must discuss is when the regular season would begin; how many bye weeks would be scheduled; how deep into February the playoffs and Super Bowl would go; and when the offseason programs -- including the combine and the draft -- would be held.

Plus, where would the extra games be played, particularly with 17 of them?

One possibility, an idea Goodell and senior vice president of sales and marketing Mark Waller first mentioned several years ago, would be 17 neutral-site games, including some abroad. That would enable the league to step up its efforts internationally, a particular goal of Goodell's.

"There's been some discussion about that," Goodell said. "That's been one of the appealing features of converting preseason games into regular-season games is it gives you more inventory, more games that you can take to neutral sites, either internationally or domestically. So that is a compelling feature."

Another option would be having one conference play nine home games during a season, and the other conference do so the next year.

An 18-game schedule, obviously, would eliminate such concerns. It also would mean dropping two preseason contests.

"Fans don't believe preseason games are up to our standards," Goodell said.

Clearly, neither does he.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

HAVELOCK - Jeremy Brown thought he had seen everything as chief of the Harlowe Volunteer Fire Department.

That was until Saturday morning.

A group of volunteer firefighters needed more than an hour to rescue a dog that had gotten its head stuck in the bottom of a hollowed-out tree.

"We've never been taught anything about extricating a dog from a tree," Brown said. "We're good at cars, not at trees. There's no textbook to tell you how to extricate a dog from a tree."

Brown said the dog, named Rocky, is just fine, especially considering its ordeal.

"The biggest thing is that we saved the dog's life," he said. "The dog's fine, no injuries, no nothing."

Michael Adams Sr., the dog's owner, said his fiancée, Viktoriya Gillikin, let the family's two dogs out of the house about 6:30 a.m. Saturday, but only one came back.

"That's unusual because they're always together," he said.

He said the family went looking for Rocky and couldn't find their 6-month-old pup. Adams said a neighbor walking his own dog heard some whining from the woods and found the dog.

"I think he was chasing a squirrel," Adams said of Rocky, a lab-pit bull mix. "But he ran right in there so fast that he got pinned. We tried to dig him out but we couldn't pull him out."

That's when Brown received a phone call about the trapped dog, but he could not imagine what he found when he arrived at the tree off Belangia Road in Eastern Craven County.

"One of the neighbors asked how we were going to get the dog out, and I said ‘I don't know,'" Brown said.

Brown called for his equipment truck, which has chain saws and extrication equipment such as the Jaws of Life.

He said he and nine of his volunteers determined that the 40-foot oak tree was hollow at the bottom and proceeded to saw the tree down about three feet above where the dog was stuck.

With the top of the tree gone, they could see into the bottom of the hollowed-out tree and realized the dog was pinned between a root and a section of the 4-foot wide tree, Brown said.

Crews then began sawing through the sides of the tree and used the Jaws of Life to peel and pry open the tree down the sides. They were then able to free the dog to the cheers of a crowd that had gathered to watch the rescue.

"He was a happy dog. That's for sure," Adams said. "He was leaping all over them."

Brown said despite all the commotion going on, Rocky remained calm during the rescue.

"The dog tried to move a little, but then stayed still. It was incredible," Brown said. "Considering the saws and everything going on around him, he remained calm. Apparently he knew we were trying to help him."

Adams said his family can't thank Brown and his volunteers enough.

"Those guys did a real good job getting him out. It was a job," Adams said. "We appreciate what they did."

Brown said the rescue produced a good feeling among the volunteers, too.

"I've been doing this for 14 years, and I've never had to extricate a dog from a tree," Brown said. "It was unreal.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The scent of burning wood mulch smells like money to New Bern.

While the city is still bracing for smaller returns in nearly all of its revenue categories, its partnership with the Craven County Wood Energy Biomass Plant has yielded monumental returns.

Since late September, the city has been selling at least 25 tons of wood mulch daily to the plant, which is in the Craven County Industrial Park. City leaders thought the partnership with plant operator CMS Energy might "put a little extra money" in New Bern's piggybank this year, Assistant City Manager Danny Meadows said.

They weren't expecting an extra $100,000.

That's what we're on target to make by the end of the first year," Meadows said Tuesday. "We've made anywhere from $8,000 on the low end to as much as $11,000 a month."

The city's wood waste comes from its curbside pick-ups and from limbs that are hauled to its convenience centers. That wood was always ground up, anyway, and made available to the public.

Some of it still is free to the public. But on the rest, New Bern makes $16 a ton.

At the plant, the mulch is put into a boiler and as it burns, it generates steam.

"We're not talking about steam that comes from a teapot, either," said Jeff Holyfield, a spokesman for CMS Energy. "It is 1,200 to 1,500 degrees - industrial strength."

That steam powers a turbine hooked to a generator, and "wood energy" is born.

The plant generates 50 megawatts of electricity, which is then sold to power companies.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By TOM MURPHY | AP Business Writer
10:19 AM EDT, March 24, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) — Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. Chief Executive James M. Cornelius received compensation valued at nearly $22 million in 2008, as the drug company saw a profitable year and the 65-year-old executive reached retirement age.

Cornelius saw his salary rise 10 percent to $1.5 million after he was appointed chairman in February 2008, according to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But most of his compensation came from stock options and restricted stock valued at $15.7 million, an 86 percent increase from 2007.

Cornelius received the majority of that total because under company policy, all previously unvested options and restricted shares vest for an employee once he or she reaches retirement age, spokesman Brian Henry said. Cornelius has announced no plans to retire.

Henry also said a performance-related award for the years 2006 through 2008 also was included in the $15.7 million total.

Of that total, options valued at $7.1 million have exercise prices of $22.14, above Bristol's current share price. Bristol shares traded for $20.88 Tuesday morning.

Bristol-Myers also gave Cornelius a separate performance-related bonus of $4.5 million, which more than doubled the bonus he received in 2007.

The drugmaker also paid for a car and driver valued at $69,346 for its chief executive. The company requires that for security reasons.

The proxy said Cornelius reimbursed Bristol-Myers $47,715 for personal air travel.

The Associated Press compensation formula is designed to isolate the value the company's board placed on the executive's total compensation package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, any bonuses, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year.

The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements, which reflect the size of the accounting charge taken for the executive's compensation in the previous fiscal year.

Bristol-Myers earned a profit of $5.25 billion, or $2.63 per share, last year, and revenue rose 13 percent to $20.6 billion.

The drugmaker's share price fell 12 percent in value last year, to close 2008 at $23.25. But the Standard and Poor's 500 index took a deeper fall over the same span, dropping 38 percent.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The convenient and long-standing tradition south of the border is to blame Mexico's problems on the U.S. It can often be justified when the matter is the drug-trafficking violence now terrorizing much of Mexico, which is powered in large part by the insatiable gringo demand for drugs, the relentless flow of high-powered weapons from the U.S. and the just as chronic laundering of drug cash north of the border. As Washington hyperventilates over the threat of Mexico's narco-carnage spilling into the U.S., it can't ignore America's role in its neighbor's trafficking tragedy.

At the same time, Mexican officialdom has always used American myopia as an excuse to blow off its own epic failings. The most glaring, of course, is Mexico's police corruption and the lack of rule of law, which has given the drug cartels free rein and too often turned Mexican law enforcement into narco-collaborators. Perhaps the only way to shame Mexican politicians into owning up to that national sin — and finally doing something about it — is for the U.S. to confront its own shortcomings. (See photos from Mexico's narco-carnage.)

Washington will have at least started that process when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Mexico today for a two-day visit. In response to growing fears both in Washington and on the border that Mexican drug violence is leeching onto U.S. soil — Attorney General Eric Holder recently called the cartels "a national security threat" for the U.S. — the Obama Administration on Tuesday unveiled a new border security plan that will put more than 500 new federal agents in border states. More significantly, it is taking stronger measures to reduce U.S. narco-demand, cut off weapons smuggling into Mexico and lasso more of the billions of dollars heading to the drug cartels. "This is a supply issue, and it's a demand issue," Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano acknowledged. Clinton's seemingly surprised Mexican counterpart, Foreign Relations Secretary Patricia Espinosa, conceded the plan was "consistent with our bilateral relation in fighting organized crime." (Rate Hillary Clinton in this year's TIME 100 poll.)

That should grease the skids for President Obama's own visit to Mexico April 16-17 before he attends the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad that same week. Only time will tell if the U.S. gesture can prod Mexico now to take its police-reform obligations more seriously. (See a gallery of pictures of crime fighting in Mexico's capital.)

But along the border, at least, the plan is being largely applauded by law enforcement officials who feel their region was neglected during both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies. "This was a long time coming," says Richard Wiles, the Democratic sheriff of El Paso County, Texas, which sits across the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico — a city that has seen almost 2,000 drug-related murders since the start of last year, with many of the victims being police, not to mention an epidemic of kidnappings and extortion. (Nationwide, Mexico has had almost 7,000 narco-killings during that time.) Says Wiles: "It's a shame that it took so many killings in our sister city to give these issues the national attention they're getting now."

Border sheriffs like Wiles (who say it's no coincidence the plan was crafted in part by Napolitano, a former border governor) are particularly gratified to see Washington sending 100 more Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) agents to help intercept the deluge of assault rifles, automatic pistols and grenades moving south. Until now, the El Paso sector had only seven ATF agents. The Obama plan will also place more federal anti-drug and immigration and customs agents along the 2,000-mile-long frontier. Those cops, moreover, will be equipped with new X-ray technologies to detect contraband cash as well as guns.

The plan hopes to dampen U.S. demand for illicit drugs by beefing up programs like drug courts that waive sentences in exchange for mandatory rehab. In addition, the plan doubles the number of joint local-state-federal border enforcement security teams and ratchets up intelligence resources to track Mexico's increasingly chaotic mix of drug organizations, at least three of which are currently fighting for control of Juarez. "Adding resources to fight the weapons flow, the bulk currency shipments and strengthen intelligence are all welcome moves," says John Bailey, an expert on Mexican drug-trafficking at Georgetown University in Washington. "The question is whether the Americans are now putting some kind of long-term policy in place," which had all too often been missing in previous administrations.

Although the cartel violence has largely left U.S. border towns like El Paso untouched — mainly, say analysts, because the Mexican narcos don't want to provoke Washington into even more severe crackdowns on their lucrative trafficking corridors there — local police say it has begun to leapfrog the border into Sunbelt cities like Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona and even Atlanta. That has set off political alarm bells in Washington, where earlier this year the Pentagon issued a hyperbolic report that called Mexico a "failed state" along with the likes of Pakistan. Nevertheless, says Bailey, "the general feeling is that the Vandals are at the gate and we've got to repress them. It's reached a level of moral panic, and it's an issue where the Republicans feel they can hold the Democrats' feet to the fire."

Indeed, many Republicans, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, feel the Obama plan should go further. Perry wants to bring 1,000 National Guard soldiers to patrol his state's border with Mexico, and said Tuesday even more border patrol agents should be sent as well. The White House, however, seems cool to the idea of militarizing the border, especially since potential gringo military intervention is one of the key concerns Mexicans have about the Merida Initiative, a bilateral anti-drug plan that began last year and is supposed to funnel almost $1.5 billion in U.S. aid to Mexico over three years.

The Merida project was designed to support Mexican President Felipe Calderon's two-year-old offensive against the cartels, which has had to rely on the Mexican military, given the corruption and incompetence of most Mexican police forces. Seven thousand troops now patrol Juarez. The Merida Initiative does steer resources to Mexico's fledgling police and judicial reform efforts, including sorely needed police retraining; but critics say it should do more in that area, since professionalized cops are the real long-term solution to the crisis. Then again, that responsibility is Mexico City's, not Washington's. Hillary Clinton and President Obama can now go south of the border and say the gringos have at least begun to do their part.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CARSON CITY, Nevada: For nearly three decades, most U.S. states have dealt with lawbreakers in two ways: Lock more of them up for longer periods, and build more prisons to hold them. Now many governments, out of money and buried under mounting prison costs, are reversing many of those policies and practices.

Some states, like Colorado and Nevada, are closing prisons. Others, like Kansas and New Jersey, have replaced jail time with community programs or other sanctions for people who violate parole. Kentucky lawmakers passed a bill this month that enhances the credits some inmates can earn toward release.

Michigan is doing a little of all of this, in addition to freeing some offenders who have yet to serve their maximum sentence, previously anathema. And on Wednesday, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat, signed legislation to repeal the state's death penalty, which aside from ethical concerns was seen as costly.

Being tough on crime and sentencing has long been the clear path toward job retention for state lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats alike. But the economic crisis is forcing them to take a more pragmatic approach and view prisoners as a budget expense that must be reined in.

"When state budgets are flush," said Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, "prisons are something that governors and legislators all support, and they don't want to touch sentencing reform. But when dollars are as tight as they are now, you have to make really tough choices. And so now things are in play."
Today in Americas
Obama turns lecturer in news conference
U.S. turns attention to frayed relationship with Mexico
True environmentalism, or mountains of vanity?

Recessions tend to prompt changes to corrections policies. After the recession at the start of this decade, numerous states passed laws eliminating some long mandatory minimum sentences; several began to offer early release and treatment options to some drug offenders. Those changes, though, were far less reaching than what is happening now and did little to curb exploding corrections budgets.

Over the past 20 years, correction department budgets have quadrupled and now are outpacing every major spending area outside of health care, according to a recent report by the Pew Center on the States. With 73 million Americans in prison, on parole or under probation, states spent $47 billion in 2008, the study said.

Faced with such costs, even states known for being particularly tough on crime are revisiting their policies and laws.

"In Kentucky, our prison budget is approaching half a billion dollars," said J. Michael Brown, secretary of the State Justice and Public Safety Cabinet. "And as dollars get scarce, it forces a tremendous amount of scrutiny."

The most pervasive trend among corrections departments has been to look closely at parole systems, in which it is no longer cost-effective to monitor released inmates, largely because too many violate their terms, often on technicalities, and end up back in crowded prisons. In California, among the few states to mandate parole for all convicts, parole violators — not new offenders — account for the largest percentage of inmates entering the system.

New Jersey recently began a program for some offenders on parole with technical violations, like failing to report to a parole officer or changing their address without the officer's approval. Rather than being returned to jail, those former inmates are sent to a center for a clinical assessment of their risks and needs. With that change, the state stands to save $16.2 million by the time the fiscal year ends on June 30.

Other states are shortening lengths of parole, or even sentences, to save money.

In Kentucky, Gov. Steven L. Beshear, a Democrat, is about to sign a bill that makes permanent a pilot program that offers qualifying inmates credit for time served on parole against sentence dates, in part to avoid a pattern of inmates choosing to stay in prison rather than risking later parole violations. The state has also adopted a program that gives treatment rather than jail time to select drug offenders, which some lawmakers had sought for years.

In California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has called for $400 million to be cut from the state's corrections budget, officials are seeking to remove low-level drug offenders from the parole supervision system and to provide them treatment options instead.

Like other states making such changes, California is led by a governor who long opposed such shifts in prison policies. But Mr. Schwarzenegger, as well as other leaders and lawmakers who are far more conservative, have come around to a view held by advocates of sentencing and prison reform that longer sentences do little to reduce recidivism among certain nonviolent criminals.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CLEVER, Missouri: Crashing through a gate in the dead of night, thieves using trucks and trailers recently robbed a farmer here of 53 Brahman crossbreed cows valued at some $50,000.

Known for a distinctive hump at the base of the neck, Brahman cattle are rare here and would be easily spotted at a local auction, leading investigators to think the rustlers already had a buyer — or a butcher — lined up.

"Those were full-grown cows," Sheriff Joey Kyle of Christian County said. "Around 1,100 pounds apiece. That's 53,000 pounds of beef on the hoof. Your normal stock trailer will handle a dozen to 15 cows, so do the math."

It was the first cattle theft in the county in more than two years and the largest state officials could recall. It came amid a surge of such thefts here in southwestern Missouri. In January, rustlers hauled away 41 cows in nearby Lawrence County. Investigators in Barry County report 30 head stolen in the last six months. In Greene County, Sheriff Jim Arnott said rustlers had struck 10 times since October, stealing a total of 93 cows.

"It's a big spike," Sheriff Arnott said. "Usually we'll go a year or two with no thefts, but it's really picked up. In these economic times people are taking desperate measures, whether it's stealing, or whether they're trying to come up with money through insurance fraud."
Today in Americas
Obama turns lecturer in news conference
U.S. turns attention to frayed relationship with Mexico
True environmentalism, or mountains of vanity?

Earlier this month, rustlers in Watertown, South Dakota, used tractor-trailers to steal nearly 200 cows from an auction market. State officials in Wyoming report that thieves stole 225 head of cattle in 2008, up from 90 in 2006.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Top hedge fund managers do well in a down year
By Louise Story
Published: March 25, 2009

The financial crisis may have turned much of Wall Street's wealth into dross, but a select group of hedge fund managers has managed to maintain a golden touch that might make King Midas blush.

As major markets and economies careened downward last year, 25 top managers reaped a total of $11.6 billion in pay by trading above the pain in the markets, according to an annual ranking of top hedge fund earners by Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine, which comes out Wednesday.

James H. Simons, a former math professor who has made billions year after year for the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, earned $2.5 billion running computer-driven trading strategies. John A. Paulson, who rode to riches by betting against the housing market, came in second with reported gains of $2 billion. And George Soros, also a perennial name on the rich list of secretive moneymakers, pulled in $1.1 billion.

Of course, their earnings were not unscathed by the extensive shakeout in the markets. In a year when losses were recorded at two of every three hedge funds, pay for many of these managers was down by several million, and the overall pool of earnings was about half the $22.5 billion the top 25 earned in 2007.

The managers' compensation, which was breathtaking in the best of times, is eye-popping after a year when hedge funds lost 18 percent on average, and investors withdrew money en masse.
Multimedia
Photos: Top 25 hedge fund managers
» View
Audio: Today's Business (mp3)
» Listen
Today in Business with Reuters
Top hedge fund managers do well in a down year
I.M.F. approves Romanian rescue
U.S. Treasury chief campaigns for broader control of financial firms

Government scrutiny, over Wall Street pay and the role all kinds of institutions play in the financial markets, is also mounting. Hedge funds are facing proposals for new taxes on their gains, and on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said he would seek greater power to regulate hedge funds.

Some people on the list disputed Alpha's calculations, which are estimates that include the increase in value of personal investments the managers made in their funds. But none offered different values for their bonuses or the soaring wealth in their funds.

To make the cut this year, a hedge fund hotshot needed to earn $75 million, down sharply from the $360 million cutoff for 2007's top 25. Still, amid the financial shakeout, the combined pay of the top 25 hedge fund managers beat every year before 2006.

"The golden age for hedge funds is gone, but it's still three times more lucrative than working at a mutual fund and most other places on Wall Street," said Robert Sloan, managing partner of S3 Partners, a hedge fund risk management firm. "But this shouldn't pop up on the greed meter. They made money. That's what they're supposed to."

In an interview, Mr. Paulson — whose lofty 2008 earnings were down from the $3.7 billion that Alpha estimated he earned in 2007 — said his pay was high in large part because he is the biggest investor in his fund. In fact, he said he receives no bonus. The pensions, endowments and other institutions that invest in his fund do not mind the hefty cut of profits he and his team take, he said.

"In a year when all their other investments lost money, we're like an oasis," Mr. Paulson said.

"We have investors who were invested with Madoff, and they can't thank me enough," he added, referring to the disgraced financier Bernard L. Madoff.

Even as the spotlight intensifies, these hedge fund managers and others who made it through last year with cash on hand are the sort of investors the U.S. government hopes will step in and buy troubled assets from banks. The richest managers are also in the best position to take advantage of the distressed environment to build their wealth.

"The guys who own the future are the guys like John Paulson and the others on the Alpha list," said Keith R. McCullough, the chief executive of Research Edge, a firm in New Haven that provides trading analysis for hedge funds. "Ironically enough, we're going to go beg for capital from the very people we've been trying to vilify." Mr. Paulson, though, said he did not plan to participate in the new public-private investment program.

One hedge fund manager on the list, Paul Touradji, said he understood the public outcry against people who are paid regardless of whether they earned money for their clients. "Wall Street should get paid only when they reward their clients," he said. "For every dollar we made, our clients earned multiples."

Mr. Touradji, $140 million richer than in 2007, according to Alpha, said he gave his investors advice by sharing strategies — something rare in the black-box hedge fund world. Last year, for instance, he spotted the commodities bubble early and warned his investors, which include pension funds and endowments, to reshuffle their other holdings, saving them from losses.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

LONDON (Reuters) - Vandals smashed windows and damaged a car Wednesday at the home of a former bank chief who sparked public anger when he refused to give up his huge pension after the government rescued his bank.

A previously unknown group calling itself "Bank Bosses Are Criminals" said it had carried out the attack.

Sir Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, left the bank with an annual pension of around 700,000 pounds last October after the government bailed it out.

After the attack in the early hours, a protest group emailed local papers claiming responsibility for the attack.

"We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless," the message said.

"This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning."

BACKLASH

Goodwin's refusal to repay the pension, despite leading the bank into Britain's biggest ever corporate failure, triggered a public and political backlash.and so it begins

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While the American International Group comes under fire from Congress over executive bonuses, it is quietly fighting the federal government for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.

A.I.G. sued the government last month in a bid to force it to return the payments, which stemmed in large part from its use of aggressive tax deals, some involving entities controlled by the company’s financial products unit in the Cayman Islands, Ireland, the Dutch Antilles and other offshore havens.

A.I.G. is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, which has an 80 percent stake and has poured nearly $200 billion into the insurer in a bid to avert its collapse and avoid troubling the global financial markets. The company is in effect asking for even more money, in the form of tax refunds. The suit also suggests that A.I.G. is spending taxpayer money to pursue its case, something it is legally entitled to do. Its initial claim was denied by the Internal Revenue Service last year.

The lawsuit, filed on Feb. 27 in Federal District Court in Manhattan, details, among other things, certain tax-related dealings of the financial products unit, the once high-flying division that has been singled out for its role in A.I.G.’s financial crisis last fall. Other deals involved A.I.G. offshore entities whose function centers on executive compensation and include C. V. Starr & Company, a closely held concern controlled by Maurice R. Greenberg, A.I.G.’s former chairman, and the Starr International Company, a privately held enterprise incorporated in Panama, and commonly known as SICO.

The lawsuit contends in part that the federal government owes A.I.G. nearly $62 million in foreign tax credits related to eight foreign entities, with names like Lumagrove, Laperouse and Foppingadreef, that were set up or controlled by financial products, often through a unit known as Pinestead Holdings.

United States tax law allows American companies to claim a credit for any taxes paid to a foreign government. But the I.R.S. denied A.I.G.’s refund claims in 2008, saying that it had improperly calculated the credits. The I.R.S. has identified so-called foreign tax-credit generators as an area of abuse that it is increasingly monitoring.

The remainder of A.I.G.’s claim, for $244 million, concerns net operating loss carry-backs, capital loss carry-backs, a general refund claim and claims for refunds of other tax-related payments that A.I.G. says it made to the I.R.S. but are now owed back. The claim also covers $119 million in penalties and interest that A.I.G. says it is due back from the government.

In part, A.I.G. says it overpaid its federal income taxes after a 2004 accounting scandal that caused it to restate its financial records. A.I.G. says in part that it is entitled to a refund of $33 million that SICO paid in 1997 as compensation to employees, which it now says should be characterized as a deductible expense.

A.I.G.’s lawyers in the case, at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, referred calls to the company. Asked about the lawsuit, Mark Herr, an A.I.G. spokesman, said Thursday that “A.I.G. is taking this action to ensure that it is not required to pay more than its fair share of taxes.”

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In honor of the mother of the octuplets, Denny's is offering a new
breakfast meal:

The Octo-Slam.

You get fourteen eggs, without a sausage, and the people next to you have to pay the bill.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 04:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Did you know the toothbrush was invented by the French?
If it had been invented by anyone else it would have been called the Teethbrush.

Q: when was the last good french barbecue?
A: 1431, and it involved Joan of Arc

Q: Why don't the French Barbeque?
A: The snails keep slipping between the grills.

Q: How do you get a French waiter's attention?
A: Start ordering in German.

Q: What's the difference between France and Quebec?
A: Quebec has prettier women and colder beer.

Q: Why do the French like smelly cheeses?
A: Well, in a room full of French people, you can't really smell the cheese.

"A Frenchmen's home is where another man's wife is." - Mark Twain -1878-79 Journal

"There is nothing lower than the human race...except for the French." - Mark Twain 1878-79

"French history: They turn on their friends and surrender to their enemies!"

I got a tip for you , if you install the french versions of your favorite programs, THEY RUN A LOT FASTER

The makers of French's Mustard made the following recent statement: "We at the French's Company wish to put an end to statements that our product is manufactured in France. There is no relationship, nor has there ever been a relationship, between our mustard and the country of France. Indeed, our mustard is manufactured in Rochester, NY. The only thing we have in common is that we are both yellow".

Why wouldn't the Statue of Liberty work in France? Because she has only one arm raised.

Q. How do you stop a French tank?
A. Say "boo"

How do you separate the men from the boys in France? With a crowbar.

Hey ! Do you know what's the difference between a Frenchman and a chimpansee ? - One of them is hairy, stinky, and scratches his ass all the time. The other is a chimpansee.

Why do the french get more votes in the U.N. They vote with both hands

Q. What is the difference between a frenchwoman and a basketball team?
A. The basketball team showers after 4 periods.

The Surgeon General got a new law passed: all cigarette boxes must have a picture of a French guy on it.

Q. How many jokes are there about the French?
A. One, the rest are true

What is the french peoples favorite movie? the running man

During WW2, the French resistance fighters, in their finest hour, bravely threw sticks of dynamite at the advancing German troops. The Germans then lit them and threw them back.

Q.What is the first thing the French teach their kids in school?
A.How to say "We Surrender" in German!

Q. Why don't cheesburgers sell well in France
A. Because they don't smell like crap.

When is it white laundry day in France? Never, any white laundry in france is already hung up on a stick being waved

Q. How many frenchmen does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. One, because he holds the bulb and all of Europe revolves around him

Q. How do you confuse a French Soldier?
A. Give him a rifle and ask him to shoot it.

Q. Why don't Master Card and Visa work well in France
A.They do not know how to say "CHARGE!"

Q. What do women who are snipers in the French military use as camouflage?
A. Their armpits

Q. Whats the difference between a frenchmen and a bucket of shit?
A. The bucket

What do you call a french man killed defending his country? ... I don't know either, its never happened!

Did you hear that the Post Office had to recall its series of stamps depicting famous Frenchmen? People were confused about which side to spit on.

"I just love the French. They taste like chicken!"

Q. Why do french people always wear yellow?
A. To match the color of their blood!

Why do the French never perform �the wave� at a soccer game? Because, that's a gesture reserved for use only in time of war.

Q. What does a French military alliance and a French romance have in common?
A. Both are brief, sordid, and completely meaningless.

Q. What's the difference between a Frenchman and a catfish?
A. One is an ugly, scum sucking bottom-feeder and the other is a fish.

Q. What's the difference between a Frenchman and a trampoline?
A. You take off your shoes before you jump on the trampoline.

The French have only one actual fighting war hero, Joan of Arc, and they turned her over to the enemy!

Question: What English word has no equivalent in the French language?
Answer: Gratitude

Why does the French Navy suck? Because cardboard doesn't float!

Q. Since everyone knows that French men are gay, how come there are French children?
A. Because of the confusion caused by the fact that French women have mustaches!!

Q. Do you know why so many Europeans Immigrated to North America? A. To get as far away from the French as possible.

What do you call a Frenchman advancing on Baghdad? A salesman

What's the shortest book ever written? French War Heroes.

As read this on the back of a public restroom door. "Here I sit with my buns a'clenchin, giving birth to another Frenchman.

Q. What is the first thing the French Army teaches at basic training?
A. How to surrender in at least 10 languages.

Q. What is the most useful thing in the French Army?
A. A rearview mirror, so they can see the war.

Why does Nike like the French Army?
Because, in war time, they are the biggest buyers of running shoes.

Why did the French celebrate their World Cup Championship in 2000 so wildly? It was their first time they won anything without the help of the U.S.

What's the difference between 1943 and 2003? This time around, the Vichy government is telling the German puppets what to do.

Q. Why do the French Smell?
A. So blind people can hate them too!

Q. Why do the french call their fighter the *Mirage*?
A. Because it doesn't really exist.

Q. Why don't the French eat M&M candies?
A. They're too hard to peel.

Going to war without the French on your side is like going hunting without an accordian.

How did the French react to German reunification? They put up speed bumps at the borders to slow down the panzers.

A man askes his companion, "What's the most common French expression"? His friend scratches his head, shrugs his shoulders and replies, "I give up!"

Why is good to be french? You can surender at the begining of the war, and US will win it for you.

Q. How many German and Frenchmen died in World War II????
A. Not Enough.

The French; they are a funny race, they fight with their feet, and fuck with their face!

Why do we need France on our side against Sadamm and Osama? So the French can show them how to surrender.

What's the difference between a dead skunk and a dead french man In the middle of the road? There's skid marks In front of the skunk.

Q. How many frenchman does it take to gaurd Paris?
A. Nobody knows, its never been tried before

What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up? The Army.

Q.How do you castrate a frenchmen???
A.Kick his sister in the jaw.

Why do frenchmen always were yellow tyes?
A. to match the teeth

Whats the best place to hide your money?
A. under the soap of a frenchman

Q. how can you tell if a frechmen has been in your backyard?
A. your garbage is gone and your dog is pregnant!

Why don't they have fireworks at Euro Disney? Because every time they shoot them off, the French try to surrender.

Q. What do you do if you see 90,000 dead french-men?
A. Stop laughing and re-load!!

Q. What do you call 20 dead frenchmen in the back of a lorry.
A. A good days hunting.

Q. What do you do if you drive over a French man?
A. REVERSE!

Did you hear about the Frenchman who lost his licence to practice medicin? He was caught having sex with some of his patients. It's a shame, he was by far the best vet in town.

What do you get if you see a Frenchman up to his neck in sand? Get more sand.

Q. Why do French men have moustashes?
A. To remind them of their mothers.

Q. How long does it take a french woman to have a poo?
A. 9 months

Its best to learn French so you can make fun of them before you kill them.

Why wasn't Jesus born in france? Because they couldn't find three wise men or a virgin.

Q. How do you brainwash a Frenchman?
A. Fill up his boots with water

Q. Is it rude to call a Frenchman a frog?
A. Yes, it is unfair to amphibians.

Q. Why do the French cook with lots of garlic?
A. To improve their breath.

Q. Wy don't the French want to bomb Saddam Hussein?
A. He hates America, he loves mistresses and he wears a beret. He is French

Q. How do you kill a Frenchman?
A. Slam the toilet seat down when he's getting a drink.

The only way the French are going in is if we tell them we found truffles in Iraq.

Q. Why do the French use a lot of bleach on their sheets?
A. So you can see their white flags better.

The French are to warfare what the British are to cooking

You really do have to hand it to the French...After all, they won't fight for it.

Q. What happens when a Frenchman doesn't pay his garbage bill?
A. They stop delivering.

Q. How do you ruin a French party?
A. Flush the punch bowl.

Q. Why did the Frenchman sell his water skis?
A. He couldn't find a lake with a hill in it.

Q. How many Frenchmen does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. All of them: One to screw the bulb in, the rest to brag about how great the French are at screwing.

Q. How many Frenchmen does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. It doesn't matter; if you're depending on the French to do the job, it's screwed anyway.

Q. What do you do if a Frenchman throws a hand-grenade at you?
A. Take the pin out and throw it back.

Q. What do you do if a Frenchman throws a pin at you?
A. Run like hell - he's still got a hand-grenade between his teeth.

Q. Did you hear about the French helicopter crash?
A. The pilot got cold, so he turned off the fan.

Q. How do you break a Frenchman's finger?
A. Hit him on the nose.

Q. How do you get a Frenchman out of a bath tub?
A. Throw in a bar of soap.

Q. How do you keep a Frenchman in suspense?

Q. What does it say on the bottom of a Perrier bottle in France?
A. Open other end.

Q. Did you hear about the French hockey team?
A. They all drowned in spring training.

Q. Did you hear about the new automatic French parachutes?
A. They open on impact.

Q. Did you hear about the French submarine with a screen door?
A. Don't laugh... it keeps the fish out.

Q. What did France used to be called?
A. Germany, and then we saved them.

Three guys, an Englishman, a Frenchman and an American are out walking along the beach together one day. They come across a lantern and a genie pops out of it. "I will give you each one wish, " says the genie. The American says, "I am a farmer, my dad was a farmer, and my son will also farm. I want the land to be forever fertile in America." With a blink of the genie's eye, 'FOOM' - the land in America was forever made fertile for farming. The Frenchman was amazed, so he said, "I want a wall around France, so that no one can come into our precious country." Again, with a blink of the Genie's eye, 'POOF' - there was a huge wall around France. The Englishman asks, "I'm very curious. Please tell me more about this wall. The Genie explains, "Well, it's about 150 feet high, 50 feet thick and nothing can get in or out." The Englishman says, "Fill it up with water."

Q. What's the difference between a Frenchwoman and a werewolf?
A. The Frenchwoman is not quite as hairy but the werewolf smells better

Q. Why did the French plant trees along the Champs Elysees?
A. So the Germans could march in the shade.

Q. What do you call a Frenchman with a sheep under one arm and a goat under the other?
A. A bisexual.

Q. What are they calling the Germans, French and Belgians at the Pentagon.
A. The Axis of Weasels.

Q.The American military wears combat boots. What does the French military wear?
A. Track shoes.

Q. How do you sink a French battleship?
A. Put it in water.

Q. Did you hear bout the French Kamikaze?
A. He flew 30 successful missions.

A French firing squad stands in a circle, then surrenders.

Q. Why did the French agree to build the channel tunnel?
A. To make it easier to escape to England when the Germans come again.

Q. What's green, cold, slimey and croaks?
A. A Frenchman

Next time there's a war in Europe, the loser has to keep France.

TOP TEN REASONS FOR BEING FRENCH
10 When speaking fast you can make yourself sound gay.
9 Experience the joy of winning the world cup for the first time.
8 You get to eat insect food like snails and frog's legs.
7 If there's a war you can surrender really early.
6 You don't have to read the subtitles on those late night films on TV.
5 You can test your own nuclear weapons in other people's countries.
4 You can be ugly and still become a famous film star.
3 Allow Germans to march up and down your most famous street humiliating your sense of national pride.
2 You don't have to bother with toilets, just shit in the street.
1 People think you're a great lover even when you're not.

Q. why are the French afraid of soap?
A1: because if they drop it the Germans will fuck them again
A2: they have never seen it before

Q. Why are the French so afraid of war?
A. You would be too if you never won one in your history.

The French still need more proof that Michael Jackson has had plastic surgery.

France did send Inspector Clouseau to Iraq to help with the inspections. Know what he found?
-- 20 more votes for Al Gore.

Q. What would the French call a nuclear explosion in Paris?
A. Proof that more inspectors are needed.

"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get Saddam out of Ira
Q. After all, France wouldn't help us get the Germans out of France!"

A lion in the zoo was lying in the sun licking its rear end when a visitor turned to the zoo keeper and said, "That's a docile old thing isn't it?" "No way," said the zoo keeper, "it's the most ferocious beast in the zoo. Why just an hour ago it dragged a Frenchman into the cage and completely devoured him." "Hardly seems possible" said the astonished visitor, "but why is it lying there licking its rear?" "The poor thing is trying to get the taste out of its mouth."

The only seat available on the train was directly adjacent to a well dressed middle aged French woman and the seat was being used by her dog. The weary traveler asked, "Ma'am, please move your dog. I need that seat." The French woman looked down her nose at the American, sniffed and said, You Americans. Your are such a rude class of people. Can't you see my little FiFi is using that seat?" The American walked away, determined to find a place to rest, but after another trip down to the end of the train, found himself again facing the woman with the dog. Again he asked, "Please, lady. May I sit there?". I'm very tired." The French woman wrinkled her nose and snorted "You Americans! Not only are you rude, you are also arrogant....Imagine!" The American didn't say anything else, he leaned over, picked up the dog, tossed it out the window of the train and sat down in the empty seat. The woman shrieked and railed, and demanded that someone defend her honor and chastise the American. An English man sitting across the aisle spoke up indignantly "You know,sir, you Americans do seem to have a penchant for doing the wrong thing. You eat holding the fork in the wrong hand. You drive your autos on the wrong side of the road. And now, Sir, you've thrown the wrong bitch out the window."

A French and American general were surveying a battlefield. A bullet strikes the American general, grazing his arm. He shouts "Aide! Bring me my red jacket!" The French general asks "Why did you do that?" The American general responds "So my men don't see that I'm bleeding, and lose hope." A second bullet narrowly misses the French general's ear, and he shouts: "Aide! Bring me my brown trousers!"

A Frenchman, an American, and a Brit were all busy getting drunk in Saudi Arabia when the cops burst in. They were soon sentenced to death, but through good lawyers, the three men were able to reduce their sentence to life. As luck would have it, it was a Saudi holiday, so the judge said, "Because it's a holiday you will each recieve 20 lashes and be let go. It is customary to grant one wish before punishment. The Brit thinks and says, "Strap a pillow on my back." They do, but it only holds for 10 lashes. The Frenchman sees this, and requests two pillows on his back. These only hold for 15 lashes. The judge turns to the American and says "Because you are from such a respectable country, you get 2 wishes." The American replies, "I wish to be flogged 100 times, not 20." The judge thinks this is very honerable and asks "And your second?" The American answers "Strap the Frenchman to my back."

A cannibal went into the butcher shop to buy some brains for dinner. She saw that American and British brains were $4.95 per lb and French brains were $450.00 per lb. She gasped and asked the butcher if the price of the French brains were a misprint. "No ma'm," answered the butcher. "That is the correct price." "Well, why are the French brains so expensive?" exclaimed the cannibal. "Do you know how many French it takes to get a pound of brains?" replied the butcher.

Q. Why do Frenchmen wear berets?
A. So they know which end to wipe.

Q. Did you hear about England's new zoo?
A. They put a fence around France.

Q. How do you get a one-armed Frenchman out of a tree?
A. Wave to him.

Q. How do you sink an American battleship?
A. Have the French build it.

NEWS FLASH: The French Open tennis tournament had to be cancelled. France has plenty of rackets, but no balls.

Q. What's the similarity between a Frenchman and a cue ball?
A. The harder you hit them, the more english you get out of them.

Q. Why do Doctors like to operate on the French?
A. Because they have no guts and their heads and asses are interchangeable.

The Tour de France is so popular with the French because it's the one sport where you don't need balls.

Q. How do you say "Give me liberty or give me death!" in French?
A. I give up.

Q. Did you hear about France's new weapons contracts?
A. They gave one to Ace Hardware to produce 250,000 wood sticks...they are still looking for a company to produce 250,000 little white flags.

Q. Where are the brave French soldiers buried?
A. There aren't any so they had to bury some of ours on their soil.
Random Factoid
A German World War II submarine was sunk due to malfunction of the toilet.

--------------------------------------------------------

: What are they calling the Germans, French and Belgians, at the Pentagon?
A: "The Axis of Weasels."

Q. Why do we need France on our side against Saddam and Osama?

A. So the French can show them how to surrender.

Q: How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?

A: Nobody knows, it's never been tried.

Q. Why don't they have fireworks at Euro Disney?

A. Because every time they shoot them off, the French try to surrender.

Q. Why did the French plant trees along the Champs Elysees?

A. So the Germans could march in the shade.

Q: How many gears does a French tank have?
A: 4 reverse and 1 forward, in case the enemy attacks from the rear.

Q: How can you identify a French Infantryman?
A: Sunburned armpits.

Q. What's the difference between Frenchmen and toast?

A. You can make soldiers out of toast.

Q. What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up?

A. The Army.

Anyone see the French Military Rifle on eBay? It's never been shot and only dropped once

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Q: What is the similarity between swedes and sperm?
A: Only one in a million becomes something.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

March 19 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said the Obama administration asked him to insert a provision in last month’s $787 billion economic- stimulus legislation that had the effect of authorizing American International Group Inc.’s bonuses.

Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, said yesterday he agreed to modify restrictions on executive pay at companies receiving taxpayer assistance to exempt bonuses already agreed upon in contracts. He said he did so without realizing the change would benefit AIG, whose recent $165 million payment to employees has sparked a public furor.

Dodd said he had wanted to limit executive compensation at companies that got money from the government’s financial-rescue fund. AIG has received $173 billion in bailout money. His provision was changed as the stimulus legislation was negotiated between the House and Senate.

“I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate- passed amendment” to the stimulus bill, “but I did so at the request of administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG,” Dodd said in a statement released last night. “Let me be clear -- I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week.” He didn’t name the administration officials who made the request.

No Insistence

An administration official said last night that representatives of President Barack Obama didn’t insist on the change, though they did contend that the language in Dodd’s amendment could be legally challenged because it would apply retroactively to bonus agreements. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity.

That provision in the stimulus bill may undercut complaints by congressional Democrats about the AIG bonuses because most of them voted for the legislation. No Republicans in the House and only three in the Senate supported the stimulus measure

“Taxpayers deserve better than this from their government, and this is just the latest reason why legislation must be transparent for all Americans to see before it is recklessly signed into law,” said Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House.

The new law, approved by Congress Feb. 13 and signed into law by Obama the next week, effectively authorized bonus arrangements at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts as long as they were in place before Feb. 11. The AIG bonuses qualified under that provision.

Obama and many lawmakers who voted for the legislation, such as Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, are demanding AIG employees surrender their bonuses.

Schumer Letter

Schumer yesterday sent a letter to AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy warning him to return bonuses or face confiscatory taxes on them. The letter was signed by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and seven other senators.

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Schumer, said the senator “supported a provision on the Senate floor that would have prevented these types of bonuses, but he was not on the conference committee that negotiated the final language.”

A House vote is planned for today on a bill to impose a 90 percent tax on executive bonuses paid by AIG and other companies getting more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds.

“I expect it to pass in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters yesterday in Washington.

Republican Attacks

Republicans seized on the provision in the stimulus bill to paint Democrats as hypocrites.

“The fact is that the bill the president signed, which protected the AIG bonuses and others, was written behind closed doors by Democratic leaders of the House and Senate,” Iowa Senator Charles Grassley said in a statement.

Dodd said the provision was written to give the Treasury Department enough discretion to reclaim bonuses as necessary.

“Fortunately, we wrote this amendment in a way that allows the Treasury Department to go back and review these bonus contracts and seek to recover the money for taxpayers,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers in a letter this week that department lawyers believe it would be “legally difficult” to prevent AIG from paying bonuses.

Other Democrats who voted for the stimulus bill have ramped up criticism of AIG’s bonuses, including Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who told reporters, “I think the time has come to exercise our ownership rights.”

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

WASHINGTON: The Federal Reserve sharply stepped up its efforts to bolster the economy on Wednesday, announcing that it would pump an extra $1 trillion into the financial system by purchasing Treasury bonds and mortgage securities.

Having already reduced the key interest rate it controls nearly to zero, the central bank has increasingly turned to alternatives like buying securities as a way of getting more dollars into the economy, a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air. But the moves on Wednesday were its biggest yet, almost doubling all of the Fed's measures in the last year.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple of days ago I said that there were Swedish joke
I was proven wrong

A small two-seater Cessna 152 plane crashed into a cemetery early this morning in central Sweden. Swedish search and rescue workers have recovered 3000 bodies thus far, and expect that number to climb as digging continues into the evening...

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lawmaker says 13 firms receiving government bailout money owe more than $220M in back taxes

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER | Associated Press Writer
9:40 AM EDT, March 19, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — At least 13 firms receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday.

Rep. John Lewis, chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two firms owe more than $100 million apiece.

"This is shameful. It is a disgrace," said Lewis, D-Ga. "We are going to get to the bottom of what is going on here."

The House Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight discovered the delinquent taxes in a review of tax records from 23 of the firms receiving the most money, Lewis said as he opened a hearing on the issue.

"If we looked at all 470 recipients, how much would they owe?" Lewis asked.

He did not name the firms owing back taxes.

Banks and other firms receiving federal money were required to sign contracts stating they had no unpaid taxes, Lewis said. But he said the Treasury Department did not ask them to turn over their tax records.

The revelation is sure to spark outrage on Capitol Hill, where the House is expected to vote Thursday on a bill that would impose steep taxes on employee bonuses at firms that have received bailout money.

To date, the Troubled Asset Relief Program has paid out more than $300 billion to private companies, with billions more on the way.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bolivian girl stirs to life at own funeral; mother, stepfather charged with attempted murder

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — A prosecutor says a 3-year-old girl escaped being buried alive after a neighbor noticed her body move at her funeral.

Prosecutor Jaime Soliz says the girl's body shows evidence of abuse and burns, allegedly caused by her mother and stepfather.

He told a news conference on Wednesday that "the parents left her for dead, neither offered her help, and even worse, if the girl hadn't shown signs of life, she would have been buried."

He says the parents are charged with attempted murder.

According to Bolivia's "El Deber" newspaper, the mother and stepfather blame the child's bruises and burns on falls.

The girl's funeral was Monday in a poor neighborhood of Santa Cruz. Dr. Carlos Camacho says she is in grave condition at a hospital in the city.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

AG Signals Shift in Marijuana Policy
By AP / DEVLIN BARRETT Thursday, Mar. 19, 2009

(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Eric Holder signaled a change on medical marijuana policy Wednesday, saying federal agents will target marijuana distributors only when they violate both federal and state law.

That would be a departure from the policy of the Bush administration, which targeted medical marijuana dispensaries in California even if they complied with that state's law. (Read: "Is Pot Good For You?")

"The policy is to go after those people who violate both federal and state law," Holder said in a question-and-answer session with reporters at the Justice Department.

Medical marijuana advocates in California welcomed the news, but said they still worried about the pending cases of those already in court on drug charges.

California law permits the sale of marijuana for medical purposes, though it still is against federal law.

Holder did not spell out exactly who no longer would face the prospect of raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration. But he was quick to add that law enforcement officers will target anyone who tries to "use medical marijuana laws as a shield" for other illegal activity.

"Given the limited resources that we have, our focus will be on people, organizations that are growing, cultivating substantial amounts of marijuana and doing so in a way that's inconsistent with federal and state law," the attorney general said.

Advocates and government officials had been waiting since President Barack Obama was sworn into office for a clear signal on what the new president's drug policy would be toward medical marijuana. As a candidate, he repeatedly promised a change in policy in situations in which state laws allow the use of medical marijuana.

Yet shortly after Obama took office, DEA agents raided four dispensaries in Los Angeles, prompting confusion about the government's plans.

Thirteen states have laws permitting medicinal use of marijuana. California is unique among them for the presence of dispensaries, which are businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services. Legal under California law, such dispensaries are still illegal under federal law.

Kris Hermes, a spokesman for national medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, said he welcomed Holder's perspective.

"It signals a new direction and a more reasonable and sensible direction on medical marijuana policy," he said.

Still, Hermes said his Oakland-based organization was concerned about the fate of more than two dozen California medical marijuana cases currently pending in federal court.

"There remains a big question as to what the federal government's position is on those cases," Hermes said. He pointed specifically to the case of Charles Lynch, who was federally convicted for running a medical marijuana dispensary collective in San Luis Obispo County last year.

Hermes said Lynch could face decades in prison when he is sentenced Monday even though his clinic had been compliant with state law.

According to the government's sentencing recommendation for Lynch, which says the five-year mandatory minimum prison term is an appropriate one, Lynch had violated California state law because his "operation was rife with activities having more to do with business and casual drug distribution than anything medical."

U.S. attorney's office spokesman Thom Mrozek declined to comment on what would happen to the outstanding marijuana cases in the Los Angeles area.

The 13 states that permit medical use of marijuana are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

AIG is to date the most expensive corporate bailout in American history, requiring $180 billion in government funds. But it may soon have competition. Last week mortgage giant Freddie Mac said it had lost $50 billion in 2008 alone. A look at the company's books suggests the government will have to spend at least triple that much to save the financial firm from collapse. If the housing market worsens, the tab could be even larger.

"Freddie's portfolio of [mortgage] insurance is more risky than the market was led to believe," says Paul Miller, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. Sister company Fannie Mae lost even more last year, with $58.7 billion of red ink. But Fannie was better capitalized than Freddie going into the credit crunch. So even though Freddie by many measures is smaller than Fannie, the problems at Freddie will probably end up costing more.

Citigroup and other banks have also lost money and will need more capital to survive. But in those cases it's not clear who will take the hit — shareholders, bondholders or the government. In the cases of AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, however, there is no question where the money will come from. Freddie and Fannie were taken over by the government and put into conservatorship last fall. AIG is currently 80% owned by the government. The losses at those companies are now taxpayer losses. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

And like AIG, Freddie has had to go back to the government a number of times with cup in hand. The mortgage giant has already received $14 billion in government aid. After a fourth-quarter loss of $24 billion, the company said it needed an additional $31 billion from the government to keep the lights on.

Freddie's business, which in part comes from a government mandate, is insuring mortgages. So when borrowers lose their jobs, as many now are, Freddie is going to lose money. But only a quarter of Freddie's red ink, or about $13 billion, comes from mortgage-insurance woes. The firm took a larger hit from its investment in mortgage-backed securities tied to subprime, adjustable-rate or jumbo mortgages. By law, Freddie isn't allowed to insure against losses on those types of mortgages, in part because they are riskier. But it bought securities tied to those home loans anyway — which it is allowed to do — to capture the higher rates of return that those mortgage bonds offered. Unfortunately, the bets didn't pay off. Freddie lost $16 billion on those investments. (See pictures of Americans in their homes.)

Another bet that didn't pay off for Freddie was on interest rates. The firm's managers bought derivatives that would pay out if interest rates rose. Instead, a global financial meltdown has caused interest rates to plummet. That resulted in a $15 billion loss for Freddie from its hedges.

Freddie lost $1 billion more on bonds tied to short-term loans made to Lehman Brothers. Like Lehman, that investment went belly up. Then there are all the houses it has to repossess as people stop paying their mortgages. The company now owns about 30,000 homes. Maintaining these houses costs about $3,300 a month each, and that comes on top of the loan loss, which is typically about one-third the size of the mortgage. Wave goodbye to another billion.

When will the red ink at Freddie stop? It's hard to say. In its most recent annual report, the company said that if it had to mark all its assets to the price similar bonds are trading for in the market, the company's net worth would sink by an additional $65 billion. But Freddie's bottom-line woes may run even deeper. Freddie has $38 billion in losses it has yet to acknowledge in its investment portfolio. The firm also has $48 billion in nonperforming loans that it either holds or has guaranteed against. In a painful stroke of irony, there is a $15.4 billion line item for deferred taxes on the asset side of Freddie's balance sheet. That means Freddie is still hoping to claim $15 billion in write-offs against future profits. But since Freddie continues to lose money and is now part of the government, the likelihood that it will have to pay taxes anytime soon is probably nil. Add up all those items, and it becomes apparent that the government will probably spend more than $100 billion in additional funds cleaning up the mess at Freddie.

"The losses at Freddie show the pressure the banking system as a whole is under," says Fred Cannon, chief equity strategist at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. "Freddie is going to need more capital, but they are not alone."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG's impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is 10 days before Treasury staffers say they first learned "full details" of the bonus plan, and three days before the Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From TPM.com:

That'll Work
AIG CEO Edward Liddy: We'll ask the bonus recipients to give half the money back.
Late Update: If being paid a $1 a year as CEO shields Liddy from serious criticism and being held accountable, then let's pay the guy a real salary. It'd be worth a million a year of taxpayer money not to have to watch congressmen pandering to Liddy's sanctimony.

Later Update: Some more about Liddy. He was on the board of Goldman Sachs before becoming AIG's CEO. Before that, he was CEO of Allstate from 1999-2006. And this I didn't know: He was CFO under Donald Rumsfeld at Searle back in the 1980s when Rummy was CEO.

--David Kurtz

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

St.Patrick's Day has come and gone.
Once again the Irish have proven to be the best

Every year Irish jokes flow like the beer and yet you never hear them whine or complain that someone is making fun of them
like I always say
They are the only group I can think of that can still laugh at a JOKE

The Irish don't get pissed because they know it is just a JOKE unlike every other group
which is why I say Irish woman are dolls with the temperment of a Saint
Irishmen......not so much

Except for the French, there are no french jokes.........unless someone changed it from some other nation of origin
and swedes of course but that's just because nobody knows where or what a swede is any way

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An Irish man went to confession in St. Patrick's Catholic Church.
'Father', he confessed, 'it has been one month since my last confession. I had sex with Nookie Green twice last month.'

The priest told the sinner, 'You are forgiven. Go out and say three Hail Mary's.'

Soon thereafter, another Irish man entered the confessional. 'Father, it has been two months since my last confession.. I've had sex with Nookie Green twice a week for the past two months.'

This time, the priest questioned, 'Who is this Nookie Green?'

'A new woman in the neighborhood,' the sinner replied.

'Very well,' sighed the priest. Go and say ten Hail Mary's.

At mass the next morning, as the priest prepared to deliver the sermon, a voluptuous, drop-dead gorgeous redheaded woman entered the sanctuary. The eyes of every man in the church fell upon her as she slowly sashayed up the aisle and sat down right in front of the priest. Her dress was green and very short, and she wore matching, shiny emerald-green shoes.

The priest and the altar boy gasped as the woman in the green dress and matching green shoes sat with her legs slightly apart, just enough to realize she wasn't wearing underwear.
The priest turned to the altar boy and whispered, 'Is that Nookie Green?'

The bug-eyed altar boy couldn't believe his ears but managed to calmly reply, 'No Father, I think it's just the reflection from her shoes'..

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?
By Alison Stateman / Los Angeles Friday, Mar. 13, 2009
california medical marijuana
Mario Anzuoni / Reuters / Corbis

Could marijuana be the answer to the economic misery facing California? Democratic state assemblyman Tom Ammiano thinks so. Ammiano introduced legislation last month that would legalize pot and allow the state to regulate and tax its sale — a move that could mean billions of dollars for the cash-strapped state. Pot is, after all, California's biggest cash crop, responsible for $14 billion a year in sales, dwarfing the state's second largest agricultural commodity — milk and cream — which brings in $7.3 billion a year, according to the most recent USDA statistics. The state's tax collectors estimate the bill would bring in about $1.3 billion a year in much needed revenue, offsetting some of the billions of dollars in service cuts and spending reductions outlined in the recently approved state budget.

"The state of California is in a very, very precipitous economic plight. It's in the toilet," says Ammiano. "It looks very, very bleak, with layoffs and foreclosures, and schools closing or trying to operate four days a week. We have one of the highest rates of unemployment we've ever had. With any revenue ideas, people say you have to think outside the box, you have to be creative, and I feel that the issue of the decriminalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana fits that bill. It's not new, the idea has been around, and the political will may in fact be there to make something happen." (See pictures of stoner cinema.)

Ammiano may be right. A few days after he introduced the bill, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that states should be able to make their own rules for medical marijuana and that federal raids on pot dispensaries in California would cease. The move signaled a softening of the hard-line approach to medicinal pot use previous Administrations have taken. The nomination of Gil Kerlikowske as the head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy may also signal a softer federal line on marijuana. If he is confirmed as the so-called drug czar, Kerlikowske will take with him experience as police chief of Seattle, where he made it clear that going after people for possessing marijuana was not a priority for his force. (See a story about the grass-roots marijuana war in California.)

In 1996 California became one of the first states in the nation to legalize medical marijuana. Currently, $200 million in medical-marijuana sales are subject to sales tax. If passed, the Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act (AB 390) would give California control of pot in a manner similar to that of alcohol while prohibiting its purchase by citizens under age 21. (The bill has been referred to the California state assembly's public-safety and health committees; Ammiano says it could take up to a year before it comes to a vote for passage.) State revenues would be derived from a $50-per-oz. levy on retail sales of marijuana and sales taxes. By adopting the law, California could become a model for other states. As Ammiano put it, "How California goes, the country goes."

Despite the need for the projected revenue, opponents say legalizing pot would only add to social woes. "The last thing we need is yet another mind-altering substance to be legalized," says John Lovell, lobbyist for the California Peace Officers' Association. "We have enough problems with alcohol and abuse of pharmaceutical products. Do we really need to add yet another mind-altering substance to the array?" Lovell says the easy availability of the drug would lead to a surge in its use, much as happened when alcohol was allowed to be sold in venues other than liquor stores in some states. (Read why Dr. Sanjay Gupta is against decriminalizing pot.)

Joel W. Hay, professor of pharmaceutical economics at USC, also foresees harm if the bill passes. "Marijuana is a drug that clouds people's judgment. It affects their ability to concentrate and react, and it certainly has impacts on third parties," says Hay, who has written on the societal costs of drug abuse. "It's one more drug that will add to the toll on society. All we have to do is look at the two legalized drugs, tobacco and alcohol, and look at the carnage that they've caused. [Marijuana] is a dangerous drug, and it causes bad outcomes for both the people who use it and for the people who are in their way at work or other activities." He adds, "There are probably some responsible people who can handle marijuana, but there are lots of people who can't, and it has an enormous negative impact on them, their family and loved ones." (See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.)

In response, retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray, a longtime proponent of legalization, estimates that legalizing pot and thus ceasing to arrest, prosecute and imprison nonviolent offenders could save the state $1 billion a year. "We couldn't make this drug any more available if we tried," he says. "Not only do we have those problems, along with glamorizing it by making it illegal, but we also have the crime and corruption that go along with it." He adds, "Unfortunately, every society in the history of mankind has had some form of mind-altering, sometimes addictive substances to use, to misuse, abuse or get addicted to. Get used to it. They're here to stay. So let's try to reduce those harms, and right now we couldn't do it worse if we tried."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

AIG is to date the most expensive corporate bailout in American history, requiring $180 billion in government funds. But it may soon have competition. Last week mortgage giant Freddie Mac said it had lost $50 billion in 2008 alone. A look at the company's books suggests the government will have to spend at least triple that much to save the financial firm from collapse. If the housing market worsens, the tab could be even larger.

"Freddie's portfolio of [mortgage] insurance is more risky than the market was led to believe," says Paul Miller, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. Sister company Fannie Mae lost even more last year, with $58.7 billion of red ink. But Fannie was better capitalized than Freddie going into the credit crunch. So even though Freddie by many measures is smaller than Fannie, the problems at Freddie will probably end up costing more.

"Freddie's portfolio of [mortgage] insurance is more risky than the market was led to believe," says Paul Miller, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. Sister company Fannie Mae lost even more last year, with $58.7 billion of red ink. But Fannie was better capitalized than Freddie going into the credit crunch. So even though Freddie by many measures is smaller than Fannie, the problems at Freddie will probably end up costing more.

Citigroup and other banks have also lost money and will need more capital to survive. But in those cases it's not clear who will take the hit — shareholders, bondholders or the government. In the cases of AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, however, there is no question where the money will come from. Freddie and Fannie were taken over by the government and put into conservatorship last fall. AIG is currently 80% owned by the government. The losses at those companies are now taxpayer losses. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

And like AIG, Freddie has had to go back to the government a number of times with cup in hand. The mortgage giant has already received $14 billion in government aid. After a fourth-quarter loss of $24 billion, the company said it needed an additional $31 billion from the government to keep the lights on.

Freddie's business, which in part comes from a government mandate, is insuring mortgages. So when borrowers lose their jobs, as many now are, Freddie is going to lose money. But only a quarter of Freddie's red ink, or about $13 billion, comes from mortgage-insurance woes. The firm took a larger hit from its investment in mortgage-backed securities tied to subprime, adjustable-rate or jumbo mortgages. By law, Freddie isn't allowed to insure against losses on those types of mortgages, in part because they are riskier. But it bought securities tied to those home loans anyway — which it is allowed to do — to capture the higher rates of return that those mortgage bonds offered. Unfortunately, the bets didn't pay off. Freddie lost $16 billion on those investments. (See pictures of Americans in their homes.)

Another bet that didn't pay off for Freddie was on interest rates. The firm's managers bought derivatives that would pay out if interest rates rose. Instead, a global financial meltdown has caused interest rates to plummet. That resulted in a $15 billion loss for Freddie from its hedges.

Freddie lost $1 billion more on bonds tied to short-term loans made to Lehman Brothers. Like Lehman, that investment went belly up. Then there are all the houses it has to repossess as people stop paying their mortgages. The company now owns about 30,000 homes. Maintaining these houses costs about $3,300 a month each, and that comes on top of the loan loss, which is typically about one-third the size of the mortgage. Wave goodbye to another billion.

When will the red ink at Freddie stop? It's hard to say. In its most recent annual report, the company said that if it had to mark all its assets to the price similar bonds are trading for in the market, the company's net worth would sink by an additional $65 billion. But Freddie's bottom-line woes may run even deeper. Freddie has $38 billion in losses it has yet to acknowledge in its investment portfolio. The firm also has $48 billion in nonperforming loans that it either holds or has guaranteed against. In a painful stroke of irony, there is a $15.4 billion line item for deferred taxes on the asset side of Freddie's balance sheet. That means Freddie is still hoping to claim $15 billion in write-offs against future profits. But since Freddie continues to lose money and is now part of the government, the likelihood that it will have to pay taxes anytime soon is probably nil. Add up all those items, and it becomes apparent that the government will probably spend more than $100 billion in additional funds cleaning up the mess at Freddie.

"The losses at Freddie show the pressure the banking system as a whole is under," says Fred Cannon, chief equity strategist at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. "Freddie is going to need more capital, but they are not alone."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Text size: increase text sizedecrease text size
Bad luck for this Irishman: Visiting PM begins speech, realizes it's Obama's

By Associated Press
8:28 PM EDT, March 17, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address at a St. Patrick's Day celebration at the White House when he realized something sounded way too familiar. Turns out, he was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just given.

Cowen was set to speak twice at the White House on Tuesday night because there were two different parties going on at the executive mansion. No matter — he would give the same speech to the two different audiences.

But Cowen was 20 seconds into his second address when it dawned on him that he was giving word for word the speech that Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.

Cowen stopped and looked back at the president to say, "That's your speech."Obama laughed and returned to the podium to offer what might have been Cowen's remarks. In doing so, President Obama thanked President Obama for inviting everyone over.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

SPIN METER: Shocked, shocked! Washington knew AIG details for months, rises in anger only now

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cue the outrage.

For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn't until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back.

Why the sudden furor, just weeks after Barack Obama's team paid out $30 billion in additional aid to the company? So far, the administration has been unable to match its actions to Obama's tough rhetoric on executive compensation. And Congress has been unable or unwilling to restrict bonuses for bailout recipients, despite some lawmakers' repeated efforts to do so.

The situation has the White House and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the defensive. The administration was caught off guard Tuesday trying to explain why Geithner had waited until last Wednesday to call AIG chief executive Edward M. Liddy and demand that the bonus payments be restructured.

Related links

*
Timothy Geithner Timothy Geithner Photo
*
AIG BAILOUT AIG BAILOUT Photo

Publicly, the White House expressed confidence in Geithner — but still made it clear he was the one responsible for how the matter was handled.

While administration officials insisted Tuesday that neither Obama nor Geithner learned of the impending bonus payments until last week, the problem wasn't new. AIG's plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars were publicized last fall, when Congress started asking questions about expensive junkets the company had sponsored. A November SEC filing by the company details more than $469 million in "retention payments" to keep prized employees.

Back then, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., began pumping Liddy for information on the bonuses and pressing him to scale them back. "There was outrage brewing already," Cummings said. "I'm saying (to Liddy), 'Be a good citizen. ... Do something about this.' "

Around the same time, outside lawyers hired by the Federal Reserve started reviewing the bonuses as part of a broader look at retention and compensation plans, according to government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The outside attorneys examined the possibility of making changes to the company plans — scaling them back, delaying them or rescinding them. They ultimately concluded that even if AIG's bonuses were withheld, the company would probably be sued successfully by its employees and be forced to pay them, the officials said.

In January, Reps. Joseph E. Crowley of New York and Paul E. Kanjorski of Pennsylvania wrote to the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department pressing the administration to scrutinize AIG's bonus plans and take steps against excessive payments.

"I at that point realized that we were going to have a backlash with regard to these bonuses," Kanjorski said in an AP interview. In a meeting with Liddy later that month, he said he told the AIG chief that "all hell would break loose if we didn't find a way to inform the public ... and that we should take every step to put that information out there so we wouldn't have the shock."

Around the same time, Congress and Obama's team were passing up an opportunity to put in place strict laws to revoke bonuses from recipients of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. In February, the Senate voted to add such a proposal to the economic recovery bill that cleared Congress, but in final closed-door talks on the measure, that provision was dropped in favor of limits that affect only future payments.

"There was a lot of lobbying against it and it died," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who proposed the measure with Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. He said Obama's team is sending mixed messages on what will and won't be tolerated on bonuses, with the president coming out strongly against excessive Wall Street rewards but top officials not following through.

"The president goes out and says this is not acceptable, and then some backroom deal gets cut to let these things get paid out anyway," Wyden said. "They need to put this to bed once and for all."

Last Wednesday, an apparently tense conversation between Geithner and Liddy brought the matter to a head. Geithner had learned of the bonus payments the previous day, said a Treasury Department official familiar with the government's dealings with AIG.

Liddy, in a letter to Geithner on Saturday, referred to their "open and frank conversation" over the retention payments on March 11. "I admit that the conversation was a difficult one for me," Liddy wrote.

On Thursday, as Treasury lawyers scrambled to find a way to cancel the payments, Geithner informed the White House of the situation, and senior aides there relayed it to Obama, the administration officials said.

Meanwhile, the administration moved to get ahead of what was certain to be an embarrassing story.

Unprompted, officials leaked news of the bonuses to select reporters late Saturday afternoon, highlighting what Geithner had done to try to restrain the payments. The story quickly became fodder for the Sunday news talk shows.

Then on Monday, the president himself came out strongly on the issue, calling the payments "an outrage" and publicly directing his team to look for ways to cancel the payments.

Questioned repeatedly to explain this in light of the fact that the administration had already scoured its options and come up empty — and that the bonuses had already gone out the door to their recipients — Gibbs said that the president wanted his aides to make sure "to exhaust all legal remedies."

That's done little to quell the expressions of outrage that were blasting about by Tuesday.

"It's shocking," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader, that "the administration would come to us now and act surprised."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Under fire for bonuses, AIG says over $90 billion of its bailout money went to other banks

Under fire for bonuses, AIG says over $90 billion of its bailout money went to other banks

By JENNIFER MALLOY ZONNAS | AP Business Writer
8:33 AM EDT, March 16, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) — American International Group Inc. used more than $90 billion in federal aid to pay out foreign and domestic banks, some of whom had received their own multibillion-dollar U.S. government bailouts.

The embattled insurer's disclosure on Sunday came amid outrage on Capitol Hill over its payment of tens of millions in executive bonuses, and followed demands from lawmakers that the names of trading partners who indirectly benefited from federal aid to AIG be made public.

The company, now about 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, has received roughly $170 billion from the government, which feared that its collapse could cause widespread damage to banks and consumers around the globe.

"The ability of AIG to meet its obligations is important to the stability of the U.S. financial system and to getting credit flowing to households and businesses," Federal Reserve spokeswoman Michelle Smith said.

Some of the biggest recipients of the AIG money were Goldman Sachs at $12.9 billion, and three European banks — France's Societe Generale at $11.9 billion, Germany's Deutsche Bank at $11.8 billion, and Britain's Barclays PLC at $8.5 billion. Merrill Lynch, which also is undergoing federal scrutiny of its bonus plans, received $6.8 billion as of Dec. 31.

The money went to banks to cover their losses on complex mortgage investments, as well as for collateral needed for other transactions.

Other banks receiving between $1 billion and $3 billion from AIG's securities lending unit include Citigroup Inc., Switzerland's UBS AG and Morgan Stanley.

Municipalities in certain states, including California, Virginia and Hawaii, received a total of $12.1 billion under guaranteed investment agreements.

The company said it used billions more to fund its Maiden Lane business, which was set up following the federal bailout to purchase toxic assets, and to repay debt and provide capital for some of its operations.

"I've been asking for this information for months. This is a good first step, but I'm concerned by how long it took,' said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who is chair of Congress' Joint Economic Committee.

The details from AIG came after Obama administration officials and top Republicans voiced sharp criticism over $165 million in bonus payments AIG said it must make Sunday. The contracts are part of a larger total payout which has been reportedly valued at $450 million.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner dated Saturday, AIG Chairman Edward Liddy said outside lawyers informed AIG that it had contractual obligations to make the payments and could face lawsuits if it did not do so.

Liddy said the company entered into the bonus agreements in early 2008 before AIG got into severe financial straits and was forced to obtain a government bailout.

AIG has agreed to the Obama administration's requests to restrain future payments.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker calls CNBC, business media attacks 'out of line'

By Associated Press
9:47 AM EDT, March 18, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) — Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, is calling comedian Jon Stewart's attacks on business network CNBC "incredibly unfair."

At a media conference Wednesday in New York, Zucker said the "Daily Show" host's recent rips on CNBC, its "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer and business media in general were "completely out of line."

Stewart has had strong words for CNBC, making the point that reporters who cover Wall Street should have done more to warn of the financial meltdown through critical reporting, instead of acting like market cheerleaders.

Zucker says that while "everyone wants to find a scapegoat," to suggest that the business media or CNBC was responsible for the economic meltdown is "absurd."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Former Bush aide gets 30 months for stealing from Cuban democracy advocates

By Associated Press
9:33 AM EDT, March 18, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Bush White House aide was sentenced to 2½ years in prison for stealing nearly $600,000 from a government program that promotes democracy in Cuba.

Felipe Sixto apologized Wednesday for stealing from the Center for a Free Cuba. He had pleaded guilty Dec. 19 to theft.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton sentenced him to 30 months in prison, three years supervised release and fined him $10,000.

Sixto quit his job as a special assistant to President George W. Bush for intergovernmental affairs almost a year ago after learning that the center was beginning legal action against him.

Sixto worked as the center's chief of staff before moving to the White House. He acknowledged overcharging the organization more than $579,000 when purchasing radios and flashlights with federal funds. His lawyer said 90 percent of the money had b

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Conn. teacher accused of forcing 5-year-old boy to eat his lunch from a garbage can

By Associated Press
6:16 AM EDT, March 18, 2009

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) — A kindergarten teacher in a Bridgeport school has been arrested for allegedly forcing a 5-year-old boy to eat his lunch from a garbage can.

Sixty-seven-year-old Anne O'Donnell of Fairfield, a teacher at Park City Magnet School, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of risk of injury to a minor.

School officials say the charge stems from an incident last week when the boy apparently tossed out his lunch of chicken nuggets and a banana from the school cafeteria.

The teacher is accused of retrieving the items from the garbage can and forcing the boy to eat them in front of her.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Has a Comedian Just Saved America?
By PAM MARTENS
As testimony to how Orwellian life has become under the outrages of Wall Street hubris, last week saw a comedian, who poses as an anchor on a fake news show, grab the reins of the Wall Street investigation from the actual investigators in Congress.
Either Jon Stewart is the smartest man in America or he has incredible instincts. In a week’s time, he has zeroed in, like a heat-seeking missile, on the core of Wall Street’s malady. How insightful of Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” to rationalize that the core of Wall Street’s corruption might well be the same core that it has drawn the darkest curtain around: trading.
Stewart is the son of an educational consultant mother (Marion Leibowitz), physicist father (Donald Leibowitz) and trading technology guru brother (Larry Leibowitz) an executive at the New York Stock Exchange. He’s got a smart family and he’s equally smart, advancing the national debate on a comedy channel.

After a week of explosive commentary and video clips of questionable reporting at the cable business network, CNBC, Stewart interviewed Jim Cramer on Thursday, March 12. Cramer hosts CNBC’s “Mad Money” show which promotes itself as an advocate for the small investor while, at the same time, suggesting lots of buying and selling of specific stocks. Stewart used the highly anticipated interview to show a devastating clip revealing Cramer to be the embodiment of the market manipulators that he rails against on his show. Acknowledging on the clip that he would never say something like this on TV, Cramer states:
“You know, a lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures. It doesn’t take much money.”
Allow me to translate:
You know, a lot of times when I was making a large bet that prices would decline in a specific stock or bond or derivative when I worked in the largely unregulated world of private money called hedge funds, and I needed to give that decline a little unseen assistance to make my bets profitable, I would go into the futures market to trade. That’s because I could put down as little as 4 to 10 percent of the money I needed for the trade and borrow the balance in what is called a margin account.
The academics and economists (none of whom ever worked a day on Wall Street) have been telling us in OpEds and speeches and testimony before Congress that the crumbling Wall Street structure results from bundled subprime mortgages, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and asset backed securities.
Trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds have been spent on the premise that these toxic assets are the problem. The fate of a nation has been staked on that analysis: that if we get these assets off the balance sheets of the major firms, the credit spigots will begin to flow once again, the banks will once again trust each other and lend to each other, and investors will resume buying stocks and bonds with their confidence in the system restored.
Stewart’s weeklong commentary and clips helped to dramatically expose this logic as bogus. None of the toxic instruments would have grown to a problem capable of collapsing the country’s financial system if their trading had been regulated, transparent and fairly reported on by mainstream media. The security instruments were never the problem; how they were traded was the problem. For example, the mortgage and debt securities were, in reality, junk bonds but they were tradedas triple A. They were not traded on an exchange where price discovery would have shown them to be junk bonds, they were traded in an opaque over the counter market. In the case of credit default swaps, they were traded in a market created by the very firms who needed to hide for as long as possible (while executives reaped windfall compensation and bonuses) the dubious pricing of the securities and gargantuan amounts being issued. (See CounterPunch column “How Wall Street Blew Itself Up.”)
Wall Street is supposed to have an early warning system that if something is amiss it will self correct in time to avoid a collapse of the system. That early warning system is known as price action. In other words, the trading price of Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and AIG should have begun a downward trajectory years ago as these firms loaded up on leveraged junk. There is only one possible scenario, in my opinion, to explain why this did not happen: trading in the market was rigged. Thanks to Jim Cramer, the public now knows how easy it is to get stock prices to move up or down. (As one more example, see “Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff.”)
To be a fair marketplace, the trading price of stocks and bonds must represent the composite wisdom of all market participants who have the same opportunity to ferret out information from public sources. When trading is internalized at the big Wall Street firms (meaning they are allowed to match customer stock orders in-house), when they are able to create and clandestinely operate their own trading venues off the radar screens of the regulators, when they are able to create offshore vehicles like Structured Investment Vehicles to hide bets gone bad, there is no longer any composite wisdom. There is only dumbed down information which the public possesses from CNBC and the superior information available to those operating inside the clandestine system. (See Maria Bartiromo and the Co-Branding of CNBC and Citigroup.)
The big Wall Street firms that taxpayers are bailing out even gobbled up some of the largest specialist firms. Those are the folks who are required to maintain fair and orderly markets on the regulated stock exchanges. But here’s what the specialists are really doing, according to charges disclosed on March 4, 2009 by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):

“…from 1999 through 2005, the firms violated their basic obligation as specialists to serve public customer orders over their own proprietary interests. As specialist member firms on one or more of the regional and options exchanges, the firms had a duty to match executable public customer or ‘agency’ buy and sell orders and not to fill customer orders through trades from the firm's own accounts when those customer orders could be matched with other customer orders. However, the firms violated this obligation by filling orders through proprietary trades rather than through other customer orders, thereby causing millions of dollars of customer harm.”

The $70 million in disgorgement and penalties the SEC charged 14 specialist firms (some of which are owned by Wall Street powerhouses like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup) is now effectively coming out of the taxpayers’ pocket since these are two firms enrolled in the taxpayer cash for toxic asset trash bailout bonanza. In other words, the public investor is now paying back the money that was stolen from the public investor in the continuing Wall Street saga of heads I win, tails you lose. Is it any wonder it takes a comedian to deal with this stuff.
The speed at which Congress begins daily sessions investigating trading of both toxic and non toxic securities will determine the speed at which this country begins to rebuild from the ashes.
After the 1929 crash and as the nation entered the Great Depression in the early 1930s, the Senate convened hearings by the Committee on Banking and Currency that peeled back month after month from 1932 to 1934 previously impenetrable layers of trading fraud. Each layer of fraud opened a window into the next layer. The hearings did not focus on assets, toxic or otherwise, it focused on the trading of assets: how Wall Street created dark pool operators (today’s hedge funds) to trade on inside information and manipulate prices; how some of the most respected men on Wall Street had participated in trading frauds; how some of the largest firms were secretly manipulating stock prices; how respected business columnists were taking bribes from Wall Street players to move trading prices.
I’ve often pondered just how it was that every large brokerage firm had the same idea at almost the same time in the early 1990s: to put a TV set airing CNBC in every stockbroker’s office. The managers came around and offered the broker a deal they couldn’t refuse: a deeply discounted price on the TV and the firm would install it hanging from the edge of the ceiling so it wouldn’t take up precious desk space. Out of 55 brokers in my office at the time, only myself and one other broker declined. Can you think of any other industry that wants its workers sitting around watching TV instead of working? Unless, of course, what CNBC is telling brokers to buy and sell is actually considered part of the work day by the Wall Street masters.
As you ponder that, consider this excerpt from testimony given at the Friday, June 3, 1932 Senate hearings:

William A. Gray, Counsel to the Committee: So that the committee may understand the matter which I am now going to present, permit me to say that I am going to show by Mr. Lion himself that he is a publicity man, and that for a period of three years he was acting for numerous brokerage houses in the city of New York, that he furnished through various journals, including radio speeches, publicity for certain stocks, pools which were then being operated by the brokerage houses, he being paid for such by cash and by being given calls on the particular stocks in questions, at prices that he could sell them to his advantage, the brokerage house of course giving him credit for same in an account which he carried and settling with him the same as they would settle with any other person who had actually bought and sold, he not being required to put up any cash at all. Now, Mr. Lion, please give us your full name.
Mr. Lion: David M. Lion…
Mr. Gray: What is your business?
Mr. Lion: Financial publicity.
Mr. Gray: How long have you been engaged in that business?
Mr. Lion: Five years or more.
Mr. Gray: Prior to engaging in that business and for the past five years have you at any time conducted a paper of your own?
Mr. Lion: Yes.
Mr. Gray: What was the name of that paper?
Mr. Lion: The Stock and Bond Reporter…
Mr. Gray: How long did you continue the use of the radio for the purpose of disseminating information about stocks?
Mr. Lion: I used it all of 1929…
Mr. Gray: Now, you did not do your own radio talking, did you?
Mr. Lion: No, sir.
Mr. Gray: What was the name of the man you employed to do your radio talking?
Mr. Lion: I employed William J. McMahon…
Mr. Gray: Who is he?
Mr. Lion: He was an economist…
Mr. Gray: Each of his talks was devoted to a particular stock, wasn’t it?
Mr. Lion: No.
Mr. Gray: Sometimes only one stock?
Mr. Lion: Yes, sir…
Mr. Gray: But when he ended up his talk as a usual thing he referred to a particular stock and boosted it. That is true, isn’t it?
Mr. Lion: Yes, sir.
Mr. Gray: And he was a salaried man on your staff for that purpose, wasn’t he?
Mr. Lion. Yes, sir.

Jon Stewart has opened the floodgates. Let the hearings begin.
Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ozone levels raise respiratory death rate: study

BOSTON (Reuters) - People who live in areas with the most ozone pollution are 25 percent to 30 percent more likely to die from lung disease than those living in areas with the cleanest air, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sea-level rise poses new flood risk to California

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California's farms and cities may be left high and dry by prolonged drought, but climate change is expected to leave much of the state's fabled shoreline awash in excess seawater before too long.

Nearly 500,000 people and $100 billion worth of property in coastal California are at risk of severe flooding from rising sea levels this century unless new safeguards are put in place, researchers reported on Wednesday.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Iraq shoe thrower sentenced to three years jail

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Baghdad court sentenced an Iraqi reporter who hurled his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush to three years in prison on Thursday, a verdict critics said was politically motivated.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Palin's daughter Bristol splits from fiance: report

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska's governor and last year's Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, has split from her fiance Levi Johnston, celebrity magazine People reported on Wednesday.

The break-up happened "a few weeks ago," People reported, citing an unnamed source it said was close to the couple.

Bristol, whose pregnancy briefly occupied the headlines during her mother's vice presidential campaign last year, gave birth to a son named Tripp in December, fathered by Johnston.

The teenage pregnancy was an awkward moment for the vice presidential candidate, whose campaign supported sex education in public schools that encourages abstinence.

A representative from the Alaska governor's office declined comment on the matter.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

U.S. jobless claims up, continued claims hit record

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits rose 9,000 last week and so-called continued claims notched a fresh record as a year-long U.S. recession continued to slam the labor market, data on Thursday showed.

The Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits increased to a seasonally adjusted 654,000 in the week ended March 7 from a revised 645,000 the week before.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast 645,000 new claims versus a previously reported count of 639,000 the week before.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' Guzman makes Forbes' list of billionaires

By MARK STEVENSON | Associated Press Writer
9:37 PM EDT, March 11, 2009

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Who says crime doesn't pay? A suspected drug lord who is Mexico's most-wanted fugitive made the Forbes list of billionaires on Wednesday with a fortune described as "self made."

The magazine estimates Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's worth at $1 billion — No. 701 on the list, right between a Swiss oil-trading tycoon and a U.S. chemical heir. Dozens of other people were also tied for the spot.

It is unclear what Guzman thinks of the distinction. Forbes senior editor Luisa Kroll notes that "unfortunately ... Guzman could not be reached for comment."

Often described as Mexico's most powerful cartel kingpin, Guzman has been on the run with a $5 million reward on his head since 2001, when he escaped from prison apparently hidden in a laundry truck.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A petty thief, a teacher and a lawyer die in a plane crash and go up to Heaven's gates together.
When they get there they are stopped by St. Peter, who says: "Sorry, it's crowded up here, you need to answer a question correctly, or else you can't get in."
He looks at the teacher, and asks her: "What was the name of the famous ocean-liner that sank after hitting an iceberg?"
"Oh, that's easy," the teacher replies, "the Titanic."
So St. Peter lets her into Heaven.
Next he turns to the petty thief.
"How many people died on that ship?" St. Peter asks.
"Oooh, that's tough, but I saw the movie, and I think it was 1,500."
St. Peter steps away and the thief walks into Heaven.
Finally, St. Peter turns to the lawyer and says: "Name them."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — Staff Sgt. Jason Jonas says when he goes to bed at night, he is terrified his medication will cause him to oversleep and miss morning roll call again.

His commanders are fully aware the paratrooper wounded in Afghanistan has been diagnosed with a sleep disorder, because he is one of about 10,000 soldiers assigned to the Army's Warrior Transition units, created for troops recovering from injuries.

Instead of gingerly nursing them back to health, however, commanders at Fort Bragg's transition unit readily acknowledge holding them to the same standards as able-bodied soldiers in combat units, often assigning chores as punishment for minor infractions.

In fact, the unit has a discipline rate three times as high as Fort Bragg's main tenant, the 82nd Airborne Division, and transition units at two other bases punish their soldiers even more frequently than the one at Fort Bragg, according to an Associated Press review of records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

"In my 10 years of service I have often seen soldiers mistreated, abused or left hanging, but never have I seen an entire unit collectively mentally and physically break down its members," said Jonas, a 28-year-old from Tempe, Ariz.

Jonas is one of 11 current or former soldiers who have spent time in Fort Bragg's transition unit and say that its officers are either indifferent to their medical needs or trying to drive injured men and women from the military. Some complain they are being punished for the very injuries that landed them in the unit.

"It is the military's way of dealing with it: 'You're a fake. You need to go back to work,'" said Pfc. Roman Serpik, 25, who enlisted in Duluth, Ga. He said he injured his head and back in a practice parachute jump last April.

Jonas suffered a concussion on a jump in 1999 at Fort Bragg, and military doctors determined that that led him to develop narcolepsy, a disorder that causes people to fall asleep abruptly, he said. He provided copies of his medical profile to the AP to confirm he has the disorder.

He said medication for his condition made him miss formation five times, resulting in a demotion that cost him $400 a month.

Officers in the transition battalion at Fort Bragg's Womack Army Medical Center would not discuss individual soldiers' medical or disciplinary records, citing privacy laws. Speaking generally, they said the way to get soldiers back on their feet is discipline, not accepting excuses.

"Do we hold our capable warriors in transition accountable to these standards, to include the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the various Army regulations? Unapologetically, yes, we do," said Lt. Col. Jay Thornton, the unit's commander.

Thornton said soldiers are "helped, not harmed, by maintaining an appropriate level of structure and military discipline."

Advocates for wounded soldiers question whether the tough-love approach is an effort to get rid of soldiers considered unlikely to return to regular duty.

"It creates a hostile environment where soldiers buckle and take a low-balled disability rating and benefits just to get out when they can," said retired Army Lt. Col. Mike Parker.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

People convicted in the Abramoff influence-peddling investigation

By The Associated Press
4:24 PM EDT, March 10, 2009

Among the lawmakers, lobbyists, Bush administration officials, congressional staffers and businessmen caught up in the Jack Abramoff public corruption probe:

—Abramoff was sentenced in September 2008 to four years in prison on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion. Since pleading guilty in 2006, the once-powerful lobbyist has cooperated with the federal investigation of influence-peddling in Washington. He is nearly two years into a six-year prison sentence in a criminal case out of Florida, where he pleaded guilty in January 2006 to charges of conspiracy, honest services fraud and tax evasion in the purchase of gambling cruise boats.

—David Safavian, the government's former chief procurement officer, was found guilty for a second time in December 2008 for lying to investigators about his relationship with Abramoff, who provided gifts in return for information from Safavian about government property the lobbyist wanted to acquire. Safavian's 2006 conviction on similar charges was overturned on appeal. He is the only person to take his case to trial.

—John Albaugh, a one-time top aide to former Oklahoma Rep. Ernest Istook, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the House. Albaugh admitted in federal court in Washington that he accepted meals and sports and concert tickets, along with other perks, from lobbyists in exchange for official favors. He is cooperating with investigators.

—Robert E. Coughlin II, a Justice Department official, pleaded guilty to conflict of interest. He admitted in federal court in Washington that he accepted meals, concert tickets and luxury seats at Redskins and Wizards games from a former Abramoff associate, lobbyist Kevin Ring, while helping the lobbyist and his clients. Coughlin is cooperating with investigators.

—Italia Federici, co-founder of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, was sentenced to two months in a halfway house, four years on probation and a $74,000 fine after agreeing to help federal investigators. She pleaded guilty to tax evasion and obstruction of a Senate investigation into Abramoff's relationship with Interior Department officials.

—Former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, acknowledged taking bribes from Abramoff. Ney was in the traveling party on an Abramoff-sponsored golfing trip to Scotland at the heart of the case against former White House official David Safavian. Ney was released in August 2008 —a year early —after completing treatment for alcohol problems.

—Former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the scandal, was sentenced to 10 months in prison for obstructing justice. He admitted lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with Abramoff, who repeatedly sought Griles' intervention at Interior on behalf of Indian tribal clients.

—Tony Rudy, lobbyist and one-time aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, pleaded guilty in March 2006 to conspiring with Abramoff. He is cooperating with investigators.

—Michael Scanlon, a former Abramoff business partner and DeLay aide, pleaded guilty in November 2005 to conspiring to bribe public officials in connection with his lobbying work on behalf of Indian tribes and casino issues. He is cooperating with investigators.

—William Heaton, Ney's former chief of staff, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge involving a golf trip to Scotland, expensive meals, and tickets to sporting events between 2002 and 2004 as payoffs for helping Abramoff's clients. He cooperated with investigators and was sentenced to two years probation and a $5,000 fine.

—Neil Volz, a former chief of staff to Ney who left government to work for Abramoff, was sentenced to two years of probation, 100 hours of community service and a $2,000 fine after pleading guilty to conspiring to corrupt Ney and others with trips and other aid.

—Mark Zachares, former aide to Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, pleaded guilty to conspiracy. He acknowledged accepting tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and a golf trip to Scotland from Abramoff's team in exchange for official acts on the lobbyist's behalf.

—Trevor L. Blackann, a former aide to Missouri Republicans Sen. Kit Bond and Rep. Roy Blount, pleaded guilty to not reporting $4,100 in gifts from lobbyists in return for helping clients of Abramoff and his associates. Among the gifts were tickets to the World Series and concerts, plus meals and entertainment at a "gentleman's club."

—James Hirni, a former Republican Senate aide and one-time Abramoff associate, pleaded guilty to using wire communications to defraud taxpayers of congressional aides' honest services. Hirni acknowledged providing Blackann with meals, concert passes and tickets to the opening game of the 2003 World Series between the Florida Marlins and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

—Todd Boulanger, a former Abramoff deputy, pleaded guilty to lavishing congressional aides with meals and tickets to sporting events, concerts and the circus in exchange for help with legislation favorable to his clients.

—Ann Copland, a former aide to Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, pleaded guilty to taking more than $25,000 worth of concert and sporting event tickets in return for helping one of Abramoff's top clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

—Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, was sentenced to two years on probation in January 2007 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting hundreds of dollars worth of sports and concert tickets he received from Abramoff.

—Former Abramoff business partner Adam Kidan was sentenced in Florida in March 2006 to nearly six years in prison for conspiracy and fraud in the 2000 purchase of the Fort Lauderdale-based SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Former naval officer and wife on trial, charged with defrauding 9/11 fund by faking injuries
Mar 10, 2009 16:23 -0400

Updated: 4:23 p.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former naval commander cited for his service during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is standing trial on charges that he faked injuries to get money from the victims' compensation fund.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

IMF chief says global economy will shrink this year as world enters 'a Great Recession'

By Associated Press
1:31 PM EDT, March 10, 2009

PARIS (AP) — The global economy will shrink this year as the world enters "a Great Recession," the head of the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

Speaking in a taped interview with French television channel France 24, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said economic data has worsened since January, when the IMF forecast global growth in gross domestic product of 0.5 percent this year.

"Since then the news hasn't been good," Strauss-Kahn said. "I think that we can now say that we've entered a Great Recession."

Strauss-Kahn didn't make a precise forecast for global economic decline this year.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Police say Mass. woman gives birth, then steals another new mom's purse to buy crack cocaine

By Associated Press
8:19 AM EDT, March 10, 2009

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) — Police say a woman who gave birth at a Massachusetts hospital tried to leave the maternity ward with more than just a newborn.

Framingham police say Jennifer Morris stole another new mother's purse containing a cell phone and digital camera that she sold to get money for crack cocaine.

The 36-year-old Morris was arrested Sunday, the day after she allegedly snatched the purse from the mother of triplets at MetroWest Medical Center.

Lt. Paul Shastany told the MetroWest Daily News that Morris was caught on surveillance video taking the purse.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Texas ranks last nationally in child homelessness, report says

DALLAS (AP) — Larry Canady took his family to a homeless shelter three weeks ago, no longer able to make ends meet after he and his wife were laid off from their jobs.

The family of five was already living from paycheck-to paycheck. They went from renting a four-bedroom brick home in a south Dallas suburb to sharing one room in a dormitory-like shelter.

"No one knew the economy was going to crash so hard like it did," said Larry Canady, 38, now at the nonprofit Family Gateway facility in Dallas. "It caught us off guard."

The Canady family's story is a familiar one and in no place more so than Texas. A study by the National Center on Family Homelessness released Tuesday placed Texas 50th — last of all states — in how homeless children fare.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Abortion results in excommunication for mother, doctors in Brazil

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A top Vatican official agreed with a Brazilian archbishop's decision to excommunicate the mother of a nine-year-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather and the doctors who aborted the girl's twins.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America said, "It is a sad case, but the real problem is that the conceived twins were innocent people and they had a right to live and should not have been killed."

Excommunication against those responsible for the abortion was legitimate, he said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, March 7.

Doctors at a hospital in Recife, Brazil, performed the abortion March 4 during the girl's fourth month of pregnancy. Abortion in Brazil is illegal except in cases of rape or if the mother's life is in danger.

The girl, who weighed a little more than 66 pounds, reportedly had been raped repeatedly by her stepfather from the time she was six years old. The 23-year-old stepfather has been arrested and is also accused of raping the girl's 14-year-old handicapped sister.

Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife said the abortion was "a crime in the eyes of the church."

He told the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo that "it's true the doctor said the child ran (health) risks, but at any rate, the end does not justify the means. The good aim of saving her life can not justify the killing of two other lives."

According to canon law, anyone who procures a completed abortion incurs an automatic excommunication, meaning there is no need for an official decree from church authorities.

However, canon law indicates several conditions -- for example, not yet having turned 17 years old -- that would render an individual exempt from the penalty of excommunication.

Brazil's President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva criticized the church's decision, saying the doctors had to save the life of the nine-year-old girl and, "in this case, the medical profession was more right than the church."

Cardinal Re defended Archbishop Cardoso's decision to excommunicate the girl's mother and the doctors who were responsible for terminating the pregnancy.

"Life must always be safeguarded; therefore, the attack against the Brazilian church is unjustified," Cardinal Re said.

Father Piero Coda, a professor of theology at Rome's Pontifical Lateran University, deplored "the abominable crime the raped child has undergone."

He told La Stampa that the rapist must be "punished immediately and severely," but he also emphasized the sanctity of all human life.

"One cannot respond to one tragedy with another tragedy. Abortion is the wrong answer and should be avoided in every way," he said.

Jesuit Father Clodoveo Piazza, a missionary in Brazil, told La Stampa that there are thousands of similar tragedies unfolding in the poorest regions of the South American nation.

He said where he works in the state of Bahia "about a third of all children are born to underage mothers; often they are only 11 or 12 years old."

The majority of these pregnancies among the young are unwanted and, out of shame, the girls "run even greater risks by aborting" in clandestine clinics, he said.

"The world has to wake up. We are killing childhood," he said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Text size: increase text sizedecrease text size
Library card left at crime scene leads Sheboygan police to alleged bar thief

By Associated Press
8:07 PM EDT, March 9, 2009

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) — Sheboygan police say they were able to track down a theft suspect because he left behind his library card, which he apparently used to try to unlock a tavern door. Thirty-four-year-old Kristopher G. Lehnhardt was charged Friday with misdemeanor counts of theft and property damage.

Prosecutors said a bartender called police in early-morning hours last month after finding the bar's lights on, a cooler open and a window screen slashed in the basement.

The criminal complaint said the bartender also found Lehnhardt's library card on the floor by a door.

More than four cases of beer were missing.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An Irishman who had a little too much to drink is driving home from the city one night and, of course, his car is weaving violently all over the road. A cop pulls him over.
"So," says the cop to the driver, "where have you been?"
"Why, I've been to the pub of course" slurs the drunk.
"Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few drinks this evening".
" I did all right," the drunk says with a smile.
"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms across his chest, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?"
"Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A man in a flowing white robe was seated next to an O'Malley on a flight from Boston. After the plane was airborne, drink orders were taken.
O'Malley asked for a double whiskey, which was promptly brought and placed before him.

The flight attendant then asked the man in the robe if he would like a drink.
He replied in disgust, 'I'd rather be savagely raped by a dozen wanton women than let liquor touch my lips.'

O'Malley quickly handed his drink back to the flight attendant and said, "Me, too, I didn't know we had a choice.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Report: Unemployment Near Depression Highs

Monday, March 9, 2009 10:38 AM

Article Font Size

The U.S. unemployment rate would be 19.1 percent, close to the level during the Great Depression, using the methodology that prevailed 80 years ago, according to Shadowstats.com.

According to the official Labor Department figures, the jobless rate jumped to a 25-year high of 8.1 percent in February.

However, John Williams, from ShadowStats, argues that measurement changes implemented over the years make it impossible to compare the current unemployment rate with that seen during the Great Depression, when unemployment peaked at 25 percent.

"Such would be my best estimate of a rate that would be comparable to the Great Depression readings," said Williams of the 19.1 percent reading.

Still, he noted that the Depression peak itself may have been underestimated because it was restricted to "non-farm" payrolls at a time when agricultural labor still represented more than a quarter of the economy

Unemployment

Chart of Unemployment Rate. U-3, U-6, SGS
The SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated "discouraged workers" defined away during the Clinton Administration added to the existing BLS estimates of level U-6 unemployment.

Last Updated: Mar 6, 2009

Employment Data Series

The SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated "discouraged workers" defined away during the Clinton Administration added to the existing BLS estimates of level U-6 unemployment.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

unemployment numbers just out

Unemployment number
Jan.
7.6%

Feb.
8.1%

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One afternoon Snidley Whiplash, a highly successful defense lawyer was riding in is stretch limousine en-route to his palatial
weekend home when he saw two men along the roadside eating grass.

Disturbed, he ordered his driver to stop,
and he got out to investigate.

He asked one of the men,
'Why are you eating grass? 'We don't
have any money for food,' the poor man replied. 'We have no choice. We have to eat grass.'

'Well, then, you can come with me to
my house and I'll feed you' the lawyer said.

'But sir, I have a wife and two children
with me. They are over there, under that tree'

'Bring them along' the lawyer replied.
Turning to the other poor man he stated,
'You come with us also.'

The second man, in a pitiful voice then
said, 'But sir, I also have a wife and
three children with me!' They are over
there across the road, under that tree'

'Bring them all as well,' the lawyer answered.

They all entered the car, which was no easy
task, even for a car as large as the stretch limousine was.

Once underway, one of the poor fellows turned
to the lawyer and said, 'Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you.'

The lawyer replied, 'No problem, glad to do it
You'll really love my place.........'

The grass is almost a foot high.'

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Obama to reverse Bush's 8-year-old restrictions on federal funding for cell research

By BEN FELLER and LAURAN NEERGAARD | Associated Press Writers
6:19 AM EST, March 7, 2009

Barack Obama

President Barack Obama, accompanied by Secret Service agents, waves to a crowd gathered outside Sidwell Friends School in Bethesda, Md., where his daughter Sasha attends, after a parent teacher meeting, Friday, March 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (Charles Dharapak, AP / March 6, 2009)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Eight years of frustration are close to an end for scientists seeking ways to use embryonic stem cells to combat illness and injury.

On Monday, President Barack Obama plans to reverse limits imposed by President George W. Bush on using federal money for research with embryonic stem cells.

The long-promised move will allow a rush of research aimed at one day better treating, if not curing, ailments from diabetes to paralysis — research that is has drawn broad support, including from notables like Nancy Reagan, widow of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan, and the late Christopher Reeve.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

AP Business

*
British government takes controlling stake in Lloyds banking group
Updated: 6:26 a.m.
*
ArcelorMittal to suspend operations at Cleveland plant, leaving 950 steelworkers out of work
*
Former Qwest CEO Nacchio argues newly discovered evidence warrants new trial
*
Receiver orders bulk of workers from investment firm Stanford terminated without severance

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If bank failures multiply, as some knowledgeable observers have forecast, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which insures depositors funds could go broke.

This was the dire prediction of FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, writing in a letter to banking industry executives.

Due to "rapidly deteriorating economic conditions" a large number of bank failures are possible, wrote Bair.

If that happens, according to Bair, "...current projections indicate that the fund balance will approach zero or even become negative.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) may be the next subject of a federal bailout — if General Motors Corp. (GM) doesn't get its own speedy injection of Uncle Sam's cash.

GM's own auditors doubt the survival potential of the auto giant. What's more, GM concedes that on top of money to cover operations, it needs to make $12.3 billion in pension contributions by 2014. Is GM the looming iceberg that will sink the already swamped Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evans-Pritchard: Dow 4,000 by Summer

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Anheuser-Busch InBev 4Q profit down 95 percent as beer sales go flat or fall

By AOIFE WHITE | AP Business Writer
6:39 AM EST, March 5, 2009

LEUVEN, Belgium (AP) — Brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev's fourth quarter profit plunged 95 percent as it paid the costs of the takeover that formed it last year and as beer sales went flat or fell, the company said Thursday.

The world's largest brewer said it would now focus on reducing the massive debt from InBev's $52 billion takeover of Anheuser Busch — and would aggressively shave costs and sell off some $7 billion in assets.

AB InBev said profits fell to euro49 million ($61 million) from euro900 million a year earlier.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

General Dynamics cuts production of business jets, to lay off 1,200 workers; lowers guidance

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Factory orders fall for record sixth straight month in January although dip less than expected
Mar 05, 2009 10:30 -0500

Updated: 22 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Orders to U.S. factories fell for a record sixth straight month in January as demand declined across a wide cross-section of industries.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

2-week-old Ariz. girl dies after being mauled by family dog; parents are police officers

By Associated Press
10:39 AM EST, March 5, 2009

MESA, Ariz. (AP) — A 2-week-old Arizona girl has died after being attacked by the family's dog in their home.

Mesa police detective Steve Berry says police were called Wednesday night by a woman who said her daughter had been bitten by a family dog.

Berry says officers found the infant in the living room with bite wounds on her head. The baby was pronounced dead at the scene.

Berry says the mother had placed her daughter in a low-lying bassinet or crib and discovered the attack when she returned a few moments later.

The parents' names weren't released. However, Berry says the father is a Mesa police officer who was at work at the time. The mother is an officer for the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Senate votes to preserve controversial earmarks in 1,000-page plus spending bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats on Wednesday preserved pet projects sought by a lobbying firm under federal investigation and tried to nail down support for big domestic spending increases in hopes of passing a wrap-up budget bill by week's end. Democrats defeated, by a 52-43 vote, an amendment to strip 13 projects that the PMA Group has pressed for. The firm, now disbanded, is accused of illegally using straw donors to funnel campaign cash to lawmakers.

At the same time, Democrats sought a few GOP votes for the $410 billion bill after two Democrats came out against it over the cost and two more threatened to withhold support over changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba.

Democrats and their allies control 58 seats in the Senate, but 60 votes will be needed to close debate and free the measure so President Barack Obama can sign it. Democrats probably will need votes from perhaps five or six Republicans if the measure is to pass Thursday night or Friday.

Democratic leaders were cautiously optimistic Wednesday night they could do just that. Passage would allow lawmakers in both parties to get the thousands of pet projects they crave and award above-inflation budget increases for education, nutrition programs, transportation and foreign aid.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wartime troops brain injuries could be up to 360,000, put more focus on civilian injuries

By PAULINE JELINEK | Associated Press Writer
2:57 PM EST, March 4, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of U.S. troops who have suffered wartime brain injuries may be as high as 360,000 and could cast more attention on such injuries among civilians, Defense Department doctors said Wednesday.

The estimate of the number injured — the vast majority of them suffering concussions — represents 20 percent of the roughly 1.8 million men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, where blast injuries are common from roadside bombs and other explosives, the doctors said.

The estimate came in a Pentagon news conference on activities planned this month to bring attention to brain injuries. The doctors said the number could be as low as 180,000, based on estimates that between 10 percent and 20 percent of troops might have received such injuries.

The previous high estimate offered publicly was 320,000 in a study released a year ago by the private Rand Corp. It was based on about 1.6 million who had done tours of duty in the wars from late 2001.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Former first lady Barbara Bush in good condition after successful heart surgery in Texas

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Stewart Turns CNBC Into A Pile of Steaming Goo
by Edgewater Joe
Wed Mar 04, 2009 at 08:45:50 PM PST
You see THE DAILY SHOW tonight?
Oh, man, you HAD to see THE DAILY SHOW tonight, above all nights.
If the Emmys gave an award for balls, truth, and hilarity, they'll retire the award after tonight.
If you hadn't heard, CNBC blowhard Rick Santelli was supposed to be Stewart's guest - but was pulled, apparently at the behest of his bosses.

Bad decision. Really bad decision. REALLY bad decision.

* Because that is where Jon Stewart and his writers drew their knives, measured up CNBC, and proceeded in a series of bits through the entire show to expose CNBC as the empty, dumbassed shills for corporate power and Wall Street that we all knew they were.

From showing report after report about rosy scenarios at Bear Stearns and AIG to the absurdity of using the Dow Jones as a reliable barometer of what the Obama Presidency was all about, to a simple but devastating slam of Ponzi schemer Alan Stafford, THE DAILY SHOW was in rare, angry, truth-telling form.

If you didn't see it, you MUST. And when it goes viral, show it to your friends. It'll be cathartic and it will be funny, and once again Jon Stewart proves why he is not only one of the funniest men on the planet, but has more journalistic cajones than pretty much all of cable newsdom.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

within the next two years the federal gov't will have to bail out the pension funds of the automakers as well as many other companies.......mo money mo money mo money

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)