So Alex Rodriguez finally confessed to having used steroids. What a shocker. He had no choice, because he had so clearly lied previously when he absolutely denied using the muscle-enhancing drugs. But, then, they say that steroids can shrink your balls, so his previous lack of courage is really no surprise either.
And now the Yankee who will forever be known to New York sports fans as "Roidriguez" or "A-Roid" says he wants to "help kids." Here's an idea for this expectant Mother Teresa: He can plow back a large share of his $25 million a year salary into the country's economy.
Naturally, like most other athletes, he thinks primarily of going to schools and preaching to them about the evils of steroids. How about spending some of that ridiculous money to help keep libraries and rec centers open?
In other words, spare us the message and spend the cash — especially during what Barack Obama now calls the "winter of our hardship."
Aiding and abetting Roidriguez's bullshit performance was ESPN's Pete Gammons, who, befitting his role as one of the high priests of baseball, lobbed questions at the pampered jock on the subject of what is commonly called "giving back to the community."
This is where repentant athletes get to show themselves off as people who are just here to help the rest of us. This is how they seek their absolution — by continuing to seek the adoration of their fans during heavily promoted speaking tours instead of perhaps anonymously doing good works.
Did Gammons have to participate in this charade by throwing Roidriguez some fat ones right down the middle of the plate? No, but he did, because most baseball writers owe their first allegiance to the game, not to their readers. It's the rite of professional sports for jocksniffing writers to play Ed McMahon for these Johnny Carsonesque stars.
ESPN's Selena Roberts broke the story, and Roidriguez accused her of all sorts of nefarious, "stalking" behavior. But Pete Gammons is a powerful member of baseball's establishment, practically an adviser to Commissioner Bud Selig. Was Roidriguez expecting these softball questions from Gammons? No doubt; it's part of the ritual. Here are two such questions — and Roidriguez's bullshit answers:
PETER GAMMONS: Given the opportunity, would you like to go to Major League Baseball and say, "OK, what can I do to help kids across the country?"
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: 100 percent. I mean, that's what I've done with the Boys and Girls Club my whole life. You know, I was born in Washington Heights [N.Y.]. I would love to really get into that community and do things that are real, that are going to make a difference. And I have an opportunity here to help out a lot of kids. And I have nine years and the rest of my career to devote myself to children in the future and really bring awareness to, you know, where we need to head as a game. And I think we are headed in the right direction.
PETER GAMMONS: Would part of your message be that your best years were clean?
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: 100 percent. One message is that what you have is enough. Hard work is the most important thing, having a clear mind, and realizing that — you know, having certainty is the most important thing, believing in yourself. And I've proven that in my career, at 18 years old when I came to the big leagues, and at 20 being second to Juan Gonzalez being MVP, probably my best year of all time, you know, followed by my 2007 year. And, again, no peaks and valleys. I mean, there's some peaks and valleys, but my career overall has been very consistent, not only in games played, but being out there for my team and performing at a high level.
I will hang my hat on that. And I just ask the American public to look at those three years as something that — as an aberration. I screwed up in those years. I was stupid. I was naive. And ever since I've been doing the right thing and proud of.
His best years were clean? Not by the one measure that steroids seem to affect: home-run power. When it comes to Roidriguez's "peaks and valleys," he's still lying.
ESPN's "Tale of the Tape" info box shows that during the three seasons Roidriguez says he took steroids he averaged 52 home runs a year. In his 10 other seasons, apparently without the muscle-building drugs that helped him and other players hit unusual numbers of homers, he averaged 39.2 homers a year. In other words, steroids apparently helped him increase his home run production by 33 percent. At least we know the drugs do work.
Guess he'll have turn his higher-power lie over to a higher power, too — perhaps Gammons, one of the sportswriters who will decide whether Roidriguez will be blackballed from the Hall of Fame.
If Roidriguez continues to wear sackcloth and obediently go along with the sports establishment, maybe that'll buy him a ticket to Cooperstown.
Otherwise, he'll just have to settle for continuing to fuck Madonna. Advice to Roidriguez: Lay off the steroids.
The Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement chief is out as the agency faces anger over its handling of the Bernie Madoff alleged Ponzi scam.
The SEC said Monday that Linda Thomsen, its director of enforcement, was leaving to return to the private sector.
There have been reports that newly appointed SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro was talking to ex-federal prosecutor Robert Khuzami about replacing Thomsen. Khuzami is currently Deutsche Bank's chief counsel for the Americas.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday it obtained a partial settlement that will impose a permanent injunction against Bernard Madoff in its civil complaint for his alleged role in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
The judgment, submitted to a New York federal judge, makes permanent a temporary injunction imposed on Mr. Madoff in December that froze his assets and restrained him from violating the antifraud provisions of securities laws.
Mr. Madoff did not admit any wrongdoing under this partial settlement, but under its terms, he won't be able to challenge the allegations when it comes to determining fines and disgorgement.
...Great Neck appears to be the hardest hit area here, with about 600 accounts invested with Madoff, who is out on $10 million bail and under house arrest at his Upper East Side apartment. The losses overall have had a myriad of effects, ranging from the devastation Adele and her husband face to not as worrisome ones faced by more moneyed investors.
Even though his name and the names of his late parents appear on the 162-page list of purported Bernard Madoff investors, Ira Sorkin, Madoff's attorney, tells the Wall Street Journal: "I have never been an investor or customer of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. I'm not going to talk about my family members."
It's time to stop pinning the "news" tag on Gary Ackerman's angry outburst at the SEC yesterday for not stopping Bernie Madoff.
Perhaps the most entertaining part of the House hearing, yes. But while the New York Democrat yelled at the SEC, whistleblower Harry Markopolosspoke more softly but cut deeper the day before.
Ackerman's five minutes of fame passed the audio-visual test, but not the smell test.
The SEC deserves harsh criticism. But when it comes to the Madoff scandal — and the role of the SEC in trying to control Wall Street's conniving bankers — Congress stinks it up too by consistently undermining the SEC.
More on that in a minute, but first, more on Ackerman:
There are 14,000 brokerage accounts that make up the latest list of Madoff's victims — "Swindler's List," as L.A.'s Jewish Journal and others call it — and 2,000 of them are Long Island-based, Newsdayreports. That's one in seven, and the largest cluster of Long Island suckers — 600 of them — is in Great Neck. And Great Neck is one of the most influential towns in Ackerman's Congressional district, which stretches along Long Island Sound's "Gold Coast" of rich people. Nassau County itself is the nation's 10th-richest county.
Yesterday, I pointed out Ackerman's standing as an ardent loyalist of the Jewish lobby AIPAC loyalist (and a past recipient of campaign money from Madoff). And Madoff, as we well know, leaned heavily on his own Jewishness.
Philip Weiss (the former Observer columnist who got hounded out of there because he dared to write provocatively about Israel) noted that in December 2008 in "Madoff and the Israel lobby." Weiss quoted one of his readers as remarking that "the Madoff event may be the greatest example of intelligent people being blinded by ethnocentrism I've ever seen."
It's no wonder that Ackerman was so pissed off at the SEC. He couldn't blame Madoff's wealthy victims, who, after all, are his constituents. He may not have known that Madoff himself was a monumental goniff, but he and other Jewish Democrats knew very well who the prominent party fundraiser was. No-brainer that Ackerman put on a good TV show; no brains if you think it's consequential news.
Instead of looking at the cameras, Ackerman should be looking in the mirror, notes Seeking Alpha, the largest stock-market blog (and hailed in 2007 by Time as one of the top 50 websites).
It's far too easy to blame the SEC for the Bernie Madoff fiasco — or anything else. In fact, it's way too convenient. And, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) yesterday blaming the SEC for undermining the confidence Americans have in the financial markets is outrageous.
Mr. Ackerman, how dare you.
It is the SEC's job to investigate and enforce — yet they do so under, and within, the laws and regulations set forth by Congress. Period.
McDuffy is just getting warmed up. And I'm going to include a lengthy excerpt. Just as James Lieber's must-read "Up in Smoke: What Cooked the World's Economy?" in my own paper probed and poked at Wall Street's machinations, McDuffy jabs at Congress for its role in the fiasco.
The differing perspectives of the two pieces sketch a good portrait of the Wall Street crime scene. Ackerman's incredulity was phony, as McDuffy's credible screed points out. Hence, this long excerpt from McDuffy:
It is Congress that has allowed generations of Wall Street executives and lobbyists to operate, unchecked, within a culture of greed and arrogance — arrogance that allowed the monolithic investment firms to gamble with the taxpayers' money and lose billions due to incompetent trading and reckless investment decisions- only to then have these same firms come running back to the same taxpayers to be bailed out — and using their insider proxies on the Hill to do so.
It is Congress that, to this day, has never provided the SEC with sufficient funding and manpower to be able to effectively investigate and enforce the markets.
It is Congress that set up the rules for the mortgage market — and let their own mortgage children, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, wield havoc within the mortgage industry right under their noses.
It is Congress that let hedge funds run wild, manipulating every market on the planet. And continue to do so.
It is Congress that failed to regulate the un-Godly dark world of the derivatives market.
It is Congress that seems to only tackle any or all of the above once it becomes politically-correct to placate their tax-paying constituents — and only seems to even begin making a legitimate attempt at it — if there is a "TV-op" attached in the process.
And, it is Congress which loves to grand-stand on national television before taxpayers and levy blame on everyone but themselves for what is wrong.
You don't have to be Jewish to understand where much of the blame for the Madoff scandal and other Wall Street shenanigans should be levied.
Yeah, yeah, blah, blah: Ackerman at last shows interest in the SEC's operations.
Congressman Gary Ackerman's rip-snorting attack on the SEC for not catching Bernie Madoff's scam is good entertainment, but it's only bluster to impress his constituents who got took.
Still, it's not a bad dog-and-pony show from a congressman who used to take campaign contributions from Madoff, as federal records show.
Despite his spot as vice-chair of a subcommittee overseeing the SEC (which presupposes that he had an interest in Wall Street's functioning before he assumed that post), Ackerman showed practically no interest in the SEC's operations until the current Wall Street meltdown.
An examination of bills sponsored by the longtime but relatively low-ranking congressman reveals few measures relating to the SEC. Actually, I could find only one or two, and they were recent. (Please, Gary, correct me if I'm wrong.)
Who should really care what these House members say to the SEC? They're just posturing. The real can of whup-ass was opened yesterday by whistleblower Harry Markopolos.
Ackerman's own blistering attack on the sitting-duck SEC officials is easily explained: The congressman represents parts of Queens and Long Island, but he also represents conservative Jews across the country and in Israel as one of Jewish-hawk lobby AIPAC's most ardent loyalists. Madoff's scam deeply cut into that constituency of Ackerman's. Shouting "Shonda!" at the SEC should keep him in good stead with those folks.
He may not have been too active on the SEC front until recently, but Ackerman has over the years introduced a slew of bills at the behest of AIPAC and even the Israeli government.
Not to mention the fact (which I'll mention again) that, back in the '90s, Madoff himself (also a Democrat and ardent supporter of Israel's government) gave Ackerman $1,200 in campaign donations.
Known as a social-issues liberal but a firm friend of Israel's hawks, Ackerman did Israel's and AIPAC's bidding last May, as Ira Gluntsnoted last summer:
Ordinarily, the American Israel Policy Action Committee (AIPAC) has an influence on U.S. foreign policy which goes unchallenged. In the case of the current House resolution, H. Con. Res. 362, despite the intense pressure exerted by AIPAC, some members of the United States House of Representatives who initially were about to rubber stamp this reckless non-binding resolution promoted by the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, are having a change of heart. After receiving many thousands of messages which pointed out that the resolution could be interpreted as Congressional authorization for military action against Iran, some legislators began expressing their own reservations.
On May 19, 2008, a 12-member House delegation led by House Speaker Pelosi met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. At that lunch meeting, Olmert proposed that a naval blockade be imposed on Iran in order to stop its uranium enrichment program. Present at this meeting were: Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, and AIPAC loyalists Reps. Nita Lowey and Gary Ackerman. Three days after this meeting, Mr. Ackerman introduced the resolution H. Con. Res. 362 in the House....
Many people, already alarmed by U.S. and Israeli saber-rattling, were startled at the aggressive tone of the AIPAC resolution. They reacted especially adversely to the clause prohibiting imports of refined petroleum which appeared to demand a blockade. Even if a blockade did not materialize, passage of the resolution could be understood by the Bush administration as a Congressional authorization for the use of force against Iran.
At the very least, passage of H. Con. Res. 362 would indicate a lack of Congressional resolve to prevent the U.S. from expanding America's Middle East war to Iran. This is especially worrisome in light of the fact that, as Seymour Hersh has written in The New Yorker, a Congressional delegation led by Nancy Pelosi has already authorized 400 million dollars for covert operations in Iran aimed at arming dissident groups and subverting Iranian nuclear sites.
Ackerman's middling career in Congress has been dominated by his continual introduction of measures aggressively favorable to Israel. See the Jewish Daily Forward for a 2006 account of Ackerman's power as an extension of AIPAC in Congress. Too bad he wasn't focused more on the SEC back then.
You may have seen the PDF version of the latest list of Bernie Madoff's human and corporate victims. If not, check it out.
See my colleague Roy Edroso's riff on the list. I'm trying to post a text version of the entire roster of willing suckers, but our server is gagging on the size. Anyone have a Bloomberg machine? May I borrow it? May the SEC borrow it?
Good for the New York Times! Always trying to take a broad view (even when one doesn't exist, as Jack Shafer often points out), the paper weighs in on how the plight of Bernie Madoff's white-haired victims gives us valuable insights about the global meltdown with this morning's "Fossils of Largest Snake Give Hint of Hot Earth."
Good info that the "prehistoric snake" was "a giant relative of today's boa constrictors." The elderly Madoff wasn't the first, nor will he be the last, snake to swallow your money. Wall Street is really is a dangerous place, even for celebrities — see the latest list of Madoff's victims.
Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos's testimony yesterday on Capitol wasn't quite as colorful, but the bookish-yet-tigerish accountant was pretty damn intense, as I previously noted.
Among other fascinating details, Markopolos told the dazed House members that he planned to deliver to the SEC today a "mini-Madoff." The agency is sure to accept this silver platter with respect and care.
President Barack Obama, on the other hand, is showing me no respect with his $500,000 limit on CEO pay ( VIDEO). To get a bailout, I have to limit my pay? I don't think so.
New York's top banking firms went on a multimillion lobbying spree late last year -- just as the feds were crafting a $700 billion rescue plan for struggling banks.
The banks got an extraordinary return on their investment, as they got federal cash injections that were thousands of times larger than what they spent trying to influence Congress and the administration - which doled out the cash.
In a high-profile reversal of the Bush administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said yesterday the government is scrapping the leases of 77 parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling in Utah's redrock country.
When President Barack Obama launches his version of the faith-based initiative Thursday, he will expand the mission to include abortion reduction and outreach to the Muslim world. He will also try to avoid the thorniest constitutional issues that beset the program for years under his predecessor.
Mr. Obama's approach to the federal faith office reflects his search for common ground on contentious social issues, and his willingness to dial back some of his campaign positions.
A federal judge charged with slapping his wife hired a big shot defense attorney as he faces a misdemeanor charge that could land him in the clink.
James Peck, 63, the bankruptcy judge overseeing the breakup of Lehman Brothers, hired Barry Bohrer, a prominent criminal defense lawyer whose clients have included Sam Israel, the hedge fund swindler who went on the lam last summer after faking his own suicide to avoid a 20-year jail term.
Peck, who was briefly assigned to handle the Bernard Madoff bankruptcy until he recused himself in December, told cops when they came to his Park Ave. apartment Saturday afternoon that "I was defending myself."
He said his wife, Judith Peck, 64, was late in returning to the city from their home in the Hamptons and then they argued over a ladder that she had put in his closet.
"I was moving the ladder out. She slapped me in the face," he told cops. "I put the ladder down and slapped her back. We slapped each other back and forth."
...Other victims were identified as Ground Zero developer Larry Silverstein, the estate of late singer John Denver, actor John Malkovich, former Mets second baseman Tim Teufel and even Madoff's lawyer Ira Sorkin. The 163-page list also includes hundreds of trust funds, charities, pension plans and unions, as well as entries for Madoff's grandchildren. [FULL LIST]
Two managers of the Massachusetts state pension fund have been fired for poor performances, including one who lost $12 million investing with accused Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff.
Chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon computed the Mets' 2009 payroll at $143 million when factors such as Freddy Garcia's probable salary with bonuses, the $1.6 million owed to the Diamondbacks for Scott Schoeneweis and $2.25 million owed to Willie Randolph are included. Wilpon handed Minaya that budget early in the offseason, before Wilpon learned his family had lost money in the Bernie Madoff scandal. Wilpon declared that the Mets had accomplished their winter objectives, mentioning the acquisitions of Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz and "addition by subtraction" with trades that shipped out players such as Aaron Heilman and Schoeneweis.
After only part of this morning's House hearing starring Harry Markopolos, there's little doubt that Bernie Madoff's true identity is Dr. Evil.
What else can one think when House members wondered aloud whether there are "mini-Madoffs" or "medium-size Madoffs" lurking in the Wall Street wastelands.
Markopolos answered in the affirmative and said he plans to "deliver a mini-Madoff to the SEC tomorrow," adding, "Hopefully they listen to me this time."
The House Financial Services Committee members agreed that this time the SEC will probably listen to Markopolos. There's no hint, however, of who Markopolos is talking about.
But speaking of Dr. Evil, Markopolos also pointed out (as I and some others have) that Wall Street's fraudsters couldn't pull off their schemes without Mayor Mike Bloomberg's proprietary sophisticated hardware/software machines.
There's no other way, many say, to conjure up the increasingly sophisticated financial instruments that ruined Wall Street and will no doubt ruin it again during the next bubble.
Bloomberg is supposedly the biggest philanthropist in America; he got the money from the sale of his machines on Wall Street.
Which leads to the question: How could Mayor Bloomberg not have known the various nefarious uses to which his machines could be put? Of course he knows.
Which leads to this: Wall Street's meltdown happened on his watch, and it was created by his pals — his customers — at the Street's big banks. So why didn't he stop it or at least see the signs of an impending disaster?
If not him, who? If not then, why not?
And now he wants another mayoral term to keep our streets supposedly safe when the only street he knows — Wall Street — has become the most dangerous stretch of pavement in the country?
Just wondering.
Markopolos didn't make that point, but he did say that the SEC operates at a tremendous disadvantage in trying to understand the complex schemes of the Street's white-shoed gangsters by not having nearly enough Bloomberg terminals. Give the SEC more Bloomberg terminals, he told the House panel, because the fraudsters and scamsters have them.
Wild-eyed Harry also has a beef with the press: He contended that a Wall Street Journal reporter (whom he didn't name) was very interested three years ago and was willing to fly to Boston to meet with Markopolos but that the reporter's editors were scared off by Madoff's power and reputation and nixed it. (For more on that, see Gary Weiss's post on Seeking Alpha.)
Treated with extreme deference, Markopolos is surely one of the most brash witnesses to testify on Capitol Hill in quite a while. And well-prepared — browse his lengthy (but entertaining) written testimony if you can't wait for the sound bites later today.
Of course, he can back it up, having warned a decade before Madoff confessed to his sons that Bernie was a fraudster.
At least, Markopolos can back it up for now. His hubris, his zealotry, his sense of certainty — they make you wonder whether Markopolos, like Madoff's scheme, is too good to be true.
Anyway, Markopolos's halo — or is it his intense eyes? — cast an eerie glow for now on the scene of perhaps capitalism's all-time worst disaster.
California Democrat Brad Sherman noted that Markopolos isn't just some "wild-eyed populist." Sherman was half-right. Markopolos is definitely wild-eyed — he has the look and tone of a zealot — but he's also the staunchest defender of capitalism one could imagine, and that includes Ayn Rand.
And imaginative, too. Markopolos raised the intriguing notion that retired Wall Street bigwigs, people with little or no hair, as he put it, should be hired by the SEC to replace the young whippersnappers who now infest the agency's lower ranks.
Markopolos reasons that veterans won't have to do it for the money, because they've already made theirs and that they would be foxes able to sniff out the rotten eggs in the henhouse.
This probably won't happen, unless these Wall Street veterans are suddenly imbued with that sense of civic responsibility that Barack Obama mentioned in his inaugural address.
Obama tells a surprisingly blunt Katie Couric, "I messed up."
Tom Daschle's quick exit from the health-care Cabinet job is just proof that he was a poor choice for the job.
If the guy can't get it together enough to wipe his nose clean after rubbing it against the rear of society schmuckettes like Catherine Reynolds, then he's not the person to tackle the extraordinarily tricky job of cleaning up the health-care mess.
He should just return to his destiny: playing off his former job in Congress to lobby his former Congress pals on behalf of rich clients. (See Muckety's quick read on Daschle's ties to Reynolds.)
Daschle wasn't a notable senator in the first place, despite his high post in the Democratic Party heirarchy. Teddy Kennedy or Paul Wellstone he wasn't.
Barack Obama did take responsibility for the Daschle embarrassment and did admit that he, the president, screwed up, but it was Daschle who screwed up his own nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
All he had to do was come clean to Obama or Obama's vetters, and this wouldn't have happened. Actually, he could have just paid his taxes in the first place. But hubris isn't exclusive to Wall Street bankers or pro athletes. Former senators often think that they, too, are above the law or the law's consequences.
Obama's screw-up came when he picked Daschle in the first place — unless Obama wanted a weak-sister guy like Daschle in there. All of this leaves murky the question of what exactly the Obama regime has in mind for health care.
The last time a Democratic administration came to power, Bill Clinton turned the health-care issue over to Hillary Clinton, who, true to her conservative roots, immediately reneged on her vow to supporters and advisers to consider a national health-care plan. Instead, she relied on the inherently corrupt health-care industry — not the doctors, but the insurers — and any hope of a cleaner, fairer, more inclusive national health-care plan that wouldn't be controlled by the middlemen (the insurers) was doomed. (Click here for my February 2005 rant about this; you'll have to scroll down a little ways to get to it.)
In any case, good-bye, Daschle. Don't let the revolving door hit you on your way into and out of government offices.
The rest of you, however, are welcome to stay right here and click on the following items...
President Obama will announce a crackdown on Wall Street fat cats on Wednesday, setting a $500,000 cap on executive compensation for companies getting taxpayer bailouts, a senior administration official said Tuesday night.
...One of President Barack Obama's closest political confidants and early mentors, Mr. Daschle had been tapped to spearhead the effort to overhaul the nation's health-care system. But concerns arising from Mr. Daschle's failure to pay more than $100,000 in taxes on time, coupled with tax problems involving two other cabinet nominees, threatened both the administration's health-care agenda and the credibility of Mr. Obama's pledge to raise the ethical standards of Washington.
Mr. Daschle's sudden withdrawal came two weeks to the day after Mr. Obama took office, and 24 hours after the president told reporters that he "absolutely" stood by his nominee. The abrupt move stands to potentially dent the reputation for steadiness and managerial prowess that the 47-year-old president had cultivated over a smoothly run campaign and a transition to power that boasted of a swift vetting and nomination of top aides.
Federal immigration officials had repeatedly told Congress that among more than half a million immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, they would concentrate on rounding up the most threatening -- criminals and terrorism suspects.
Instead, newly available documents show, the agency changed the rules, and the program increasingly went after easier targets. A vast majority of those arrested had no criminal record, and many had no deportation orders against them, either.
President Barack Obama will announce today that he's imposing a cap of $500,000 on the compensation of top executives at companies that receive significant federal assistance in the future, responding to a public outcry over Wall Street excess.
Any additional compensation will be in restricted stock that won't vest until taxpayers have been paid back, according to an administration official, who requested anonymity. The rules will force greater transparency on the use of corporate jets, office renovations and holiday parties as well as golden parachutes offered to executives when they leave companies.
Senior U.S. commanders are finalizing plans to send tens of thousands of reinforcements to Afghanistan's main opium-producing region and its porous border with Pakistan, moves that will form the core of President Barack Obama's emerging Afghan war strategy....
Virtually none of the new troops heading to Afghanistan will go to Kabul or other major Afghan cities. By contrast, when the Bush administration dispatched 30,000 new troops to Iraq as part of the so-called surge, the bulk of the new forces went to Baghdad....
The deployments, part of a planned doubling of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, are almost certain to spark heavier casualties and push the war squarely onto the public agenda. "I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be [more U.S. casualties]," Vice President Joe Biden said on CBS Sunday. "There will be an uptick."
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and his Alliance for Climate Protection say clean-coal technology is a fantasy.
Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. coal producer, says another prominent Democrat has pledged to make the technology a reality: President Barack Obama.
The Gore-Obama split illustrates a growing debate in the U.S. as the new president attempts to deliver on his promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the country 80 percent by 2050. Depending on who's speaking, coal is either the villain or part of the solution.
Ayad Allawi, the first prime minister selected after the Americans handed power back to Iraqis in June 2004, has made a comeback in the provincial elections, unofficial preliminary returns indicate, setting himself up as a potential rival to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
Connecticut, the wealthiest U.S. state with per capita income of $54,117 in 2007, has profited from its proximity to Wall Street since rail lines from the city reached north to Fairfield County more than a century ago. According to Forbes magazine, the state's richest residents now are hedge fund managers including Steven Cohen and Paul Tudor Jones, who live and work in and around Greenwich. Cohen earned $900 million in 2007 while Jones made $300 million, according to Institutional Investor magazine's Alpha publication.
A one-man crime wave from Massachusetts road-tripped it to Columbia University every weekend for the past two months -- stealing wallets from gymnasium lockers and a dozen laptops, the Post has learned.
Fraud investigator Harry Markopolos blamed the Securities and Exchange Commission's "financial illiteracy" for failing to heed his warnings about money manager Bernard Madoff.
Mr. Markopolos had warned the SEC for nearly a decade that Mr. Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme. Mr. Markopolos is set to testify before a House committee Wednesday, and 311 pages of his written testimony became public Tuesday evening.
From the New Yorker's "Your Eustace, 2009," the mag's annual contest for the best new version of Rea Irvin's classic cover, this entry (one of 12 winners — and my favorite) is "Eustace, the Undead New Yorker," by David Cook of Suwanee, Georgia.
Further proof of the schizophrenic media culture: Despite the widespread political correctness that infects discourse on numerous topics, Governor David Paterson keeps getting hammered because his eyes don't work right.
Israel's ever-increasing crackdown on Arabs (the most ludicrous new idea is an Israeli-controlled 30-mile-long tunnel connecting Arab enclaves ) is the
apartheid that dares not speak its name — at least most of the U.S. media don't dare speak of it.
But Paterson continues to get blistered because of his bad eyesight, which he can't help and which, after all, doesn't make him a more hapless and mediocre accidental governor.
A hospital trade group and a health-care union yesterday released a bizarre new attack ad -- using a sightless man wearing sunglasses to slam legally blind Gov. Paterson for budget cuts.
"Why are you doing this to me?" the unidentified patient asks Paterson halfway through the 30-second spot, funded to the tune of $1 million a week by the Greater New York Hospital Association and Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union.
To some observers, the blind man's role in the statewide attack ad against Paterson's plan to cut health care by $3.5 billion seems too personal by even Albany's standards for no-holds-barred budget battles.
On the other hand, Paterson does seem to have blinders on when it comes to the outrageous Wall Street bonuses. As the Gothamist noted in mid-December, before Barack Obamascolded Wall Street:
In what continues to be a familiar story of cat and mouse in politicians pointing the finger as to where funds aren't coming from, Governor Paterson yesterday claimed the state lost hundreds of millions in tax revenue because less big Wall Street bonuses are being given out this year.
Nothing personal, but what Paterson fails to see is that the state loses far more gelt by not taxing hedge fund goniffs' pay.
New York City hedge funds earned $20 billion to $39 billion last year, far outstripping the profits of Wall Street banks and demonstrating how outdated the city's tax system risks becoming, a new study said on Tuesday.
A hospital trade group and a health-care union yesterday released a bizarre new attack ad - using a sightless man wearing sunglasses to slam legally blind Gov. Paterson for budget cuts.
"Why are you doing this to me?" the unidentified patient asks Paterson halfway through the 30-second spot, funded to the tune of $1 million a week by the Greater New York Hospital Association and Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union.
Gov. Paterson yesterday warned that the politically popular plan to impose higher income taxes on the wealthy would cost New York jobs and drive people out of the state.
The Obama administration is considering government guarantees for home loans modified by their servicers, seeking to stem the record surge of foreclosures that's hammering U.S. property values.
UBS AG, the Swiss bank under investigation for allegedly helping wealthy Americans evade taxes, hired more than 200 brokers in the U.S. in the fourth quarter as it sought to counter client defections.
Citigroup is considering the possibility of backing out of its marketing deal with the New York Mets amid concerns about how recipients are using TARP funds.
The relative calm in Iraq in recent months, combined with the drama of the US elections, has managed to distract attention from the catastrophe that is rapidly overwhelming Western interests in the part of the world that always should have been the focus of America's response to September 11: the al-Qaeda and Taliban heartlands on either side of the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday proposed the construction of a 30-mile tunnel that would connect the northern Gaza Strip with the southern West Bank, thus enabling freedom of movement between the two disjointed Palestinian territories.
While stumping on the campaign trail before students at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, Barak said it was possible to dig the tunnel, which would remain under Israeli sovereignty while the Palestinians would maintain authority over the corridor's traffic.
How can we navigate through the information landscape that is only beginning to come into view? The question is more urgent than ever following the recent settlement between Google and the authors and publishers who were suing it for alleged breach of copyright.
The ringleader of a gang of racist thugs that went on an election-night rampage on Staten Island pleaded guilty to federal charges yesterday and told a judge he was drunk and angry about President Obama's victory.
Israeli Arabs committed treason by protesting the country's offensive in the Gaza Strip last month. Hamas should be dealt with the way the U.S. handled Japan in the last days of World War II. Egypt, at peace with Israel since 1979, actually plans to attack.
These are just some of the recent comments made by Avigdor Lieberman, whose party could become the third-largest bloc in parliament following Israel's Feb. 10 elections, polls show.
Lieberman's jump in popularity may boost the coalition- building efforts of front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, while undermining prospects for peace with the Palestinians. Netanyahu's lead over Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's ruling Kadima party has grown as Israel's war in Gaza raised voter concern about security.
Harry Markopolos, the Boston-based investor-turned-investigator who for years warned regulators that Bernard Madoff was running a huge Ponzi scheme, has received pitches to appear on television shows, make movies and write books elaborating on his experience.
But rather than enjoy a sense of vindication, Mr. Markopolos says he is miserable. He has trouble sleeping and is haunted by the apparent suicide of Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, a French money manager found dead shortly after Mr. Madoff's Dec. 11 arrest on fraud allegations.
Although a colleague of Mr. de La Villehuchet's says he doesn't know of any warning, Mr. Markopolos says he told Mr. de La Villehuchet as well as investors at other firms that he thought Mr. Madoff was a fraud. He regrets that he couldn't persuade many of them.
Part of the reason he didn't press his warnings: Fear of retribution by Mr. Madoff, says Mr. Markopolos. A lawyer for Mr. Madoff declined to comment.
You won't see edgy Bernie Madoff-related work like this in U.S. mainstream papers, but New York's own Jewish Daily Forward, as always, is up to the task of covering Jewish politics and news with a minimum of politically correct tiptoeing.
Above, an excerpt from Eli Valley's "The Shonda!" in the Forward.
Valley, sort of the Jewish version of R. Crumb, touts his work as "Ethnocentric Parochialism for the Whole Family!"
See Valley's profile on Jewcy.com, where I just discovered that, like me, he's a huge fan of noir-era cinematographer John Alton. No wonder I like Valley's work so much.
For more Madoff-related news that's not of the cartoonish persuasion, go to the end of this post for my daily Gelt Trip aggregation.
But first, please note that Barack Obama isn't being so politically correct either. Now in charge of a generally conservative country long dominated by profligate financiopaths, the nation's first black president is chewing out Wall Street bankers and generally acting like some kind of goldurned liberal.
Watch your back, my brother. And tell the Secret Service to do the same.
Top economic officials are discussing new efforts to help banks while trying to mitigate the cost to taxpayers. Obama stepped up his attacks on these banks, calling Wall Street bonuses "shameful."
Three decades ago, engineer Peter Fraenkel created an underwater turbine to use river power to pump water in Sudan, where he worked for a charity. Civil war and a lack of funding stymied his plans. Now, his modified design generates electricity from tides off Northern Ireland.
At least 128 soldiers killed themselves last year, as the Army suicide rate surpassed that for civilians for the first time since the Vietnam War, according to Army statistics.
A former cop seeking line-of-doody disability pay for breaking a finger on an overflowing toilet is spit out of luck, an appeals court ruled yesterday.
Three workers accused of raping underage girls at an acclaimed upper Manhattan psychiatric treatment center have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor endangering charges and will do no prison time...
He chased down a lunatic serial stabber in Times Square, and lived to tell a jury about it yesterday.
"I don't know if it was more heroic or stupid," former W Hotel doorman Adam Szpiler, 32, said of his bravery after testifying against accused knifeman Kenny Alexis, charged with attempting to murder three tourists and a cook in a 13-hour rampage in the summer of 2006.
U.S. government guarantees on securities totaling $419 billion for bank bailouts provide an early test of President Barack Obama's pledge to be open with taxpayers about what they have at risk in the credit crisis.
The M.T.A. expects to spend $497 million in federal stimulus money to complete the stalled and over-budget Fulton Street Transit Center in Lower Manhattan.
Add another voice to the chorus of city officials who say that the city should renegotiate its deal with developer Bruce Ratner, whose Atlantic Yards mega-project is in jeopardy due to the economic crisis.
Accused Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff's luxurious penthouse apartment -- where he currently whiles away the hours under house arrest -- could soon be up for sale, the Post has learned....
[Real-estate] brokers have been invited by lawyers working for Irving Picard, the trustee appointed by a federal bankruptcy-court judge to oversee the liquidation of Madoff's Manhattan investment firm.
Picard presumably would use any sale proceeds to help pay back, at least somewhat, Madoff's creditors.
Because he must remain inside the two-story apartment as a condition of his $10 million bail, Madoff will be in awkward proximity to brokers when they eyeball its four bedrooms, at least five bathrooms, kitchen and library.
Notz, Stucki & Cie., a Swiss money manager, probed and later dismissed concerns about Bernard Madoff investments, which offered "dull but steady" returns.
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