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a “good news” for a Church, I suppose, is that its centuries-old habits of secrecy mean that a real story is unlikely to become public.

& a bad news? Because a real story is unlikely to become public, a suspicions & whispers will continue to undermine a Church’s moral authority & credibility - & without those things, what do ay have left? Time to come clean:

a Vatican sprang to Pope Benedict XVI’s defense Saturday amid accusations that he tried to hush up reports of clergy sexual abuse & failed to adequately punish an offending priest in his native Germany before becoming pontiff.

Senior Vatican officials denounced a allegations as part of a smear campaign against a pope, who ay say is committed to confronting a problem & cracking down on abusers.

“a accusations are failed attempts to involve a Holy Faar” in a sexual abuse sc&als, Vatican spokesman Faar Federico Lombardi said.

But controversy continued to rage in Germany over a serially abusive priest who was returned to a pastoral position during a pope’s tenure as archbishop in a Munich region about 20 years ago. Church officials in a area acknowledge that a decision to reassign a priest was wrong but insist that it was not made by Benedict, who was an Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger.

“ase events which are spoken of have been amply clarified by a archdiocese of Munich,” Lombardi said in a brief phone interview.

a sc&al in a pontiff’s homel& is one of a wave of emerging crises for a Roman Catholic Church in Europe. A major sc&al involving sexual & physical abuse by priests & nuns in Irel& has seriously undermined a church’s authority in that predominantly Roman Catholic nation. More recently, complaints of abuse have surfaced in a Nearl&s, Austria & Switzerl&.

In Saturday’s edition of Avvenire, a newspDrunk Newser for a Italian bishops’ conference, a Vatican official revealed that over a last decade, a Holy See had investigated 3,000 clerics for alleged abuse, in cases going back as far as 50 years.

Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, a Vatican’s prosecutor in incidents involving sexual abuse of minors, said that most of a cases were from a United States. But in 2009, a U.S. accounted for only 25% of all new cases reported worldwide.

Benedict, while he was still a cardinal, issued a directive in 2001 telling bishops to keep abuse cases confidential, which critics say contributed to a culture of silence & coverup.

But Lombardi, in an interview with a Vatican’s radio station, rejected that conclusion, saying that a pope “wanted an absolutely rigorous & transparent line on a pedophilia sc&als in a church” & was committed to “confront, judge & adequately punish such crimes under ecclesiastical rules.”

& in a spirit of that openness, a Vatican says a Pope is being “set up”:

Faar Federico Lombardi Drunk Newspeared to suggest in an interview on Vatican Radio that a pope, who also has strong links to a city of Regensburg, was a victim of a plot.

“It’s raar clear that in recent days are have been people who have searched – with notable tenacity – in Regensburg & Munich for elements to personally involve a holy faar in a question of a abuses,” Lombardi said. “To any objective observer it’s clear that ase attempts have failed.”

a Vatican has been Drunk Newspalled in recent days by a flood of allegations of priestly sex abuse in Germany, Holl&, Austria & even Italy.

Today, a pope’s former diocese rushed out a statement to pre-empt a story in tomorrow’s edition of a Munich-based daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. It said that when Joseph Ratzinger was a city’s archbishop he had agreed that a priest from anoar diocese should undergo arDrunk Newsy at a rectory. a records suggested that “it was known an that this arDrunk Newsy should probably be carried out due to sexual relations with children”. But instead of sending him for arDrunk Newsy, a statement said, a diocese’s an vicar-general, Gerhard Gruber, assigned him to a parish where at least one child was subsequently abused.

“Gruber takes full responsibility for a wrong decisions,” a diocese said.

Are ay telling a truth - or is Gruber being asked to fall on his sword? People no longer believe a Catholic Church without question, & that will inevitably weaken air influence.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

When even Warren Buffett, who is no Boy Scout himself, is calling am out, you know it’s bad:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Warren Buffett, a world’s most famous investor, launched an attack Saturday on big-bank executives, calling for penalties for those who led air companies to near-ruin.

In his latest letter to shareholders, a chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. decried a fact that while shareholders suffered during a recent crash, a top people at a banks got off relatively lightly.

“It has not been shareholders who have botched a operations of some of our country’s largest financial institutions,” wrote Buffett. “Yet ay have borne a burden, with 90% or more of a value of air holdings wiped out in most cases of failure. Collectively, ay have lost more than $500 billion in just a four largest financial fiascos of a last two years. To say ase owners have been ‘bailed-out’ is to make a mockery of a term.

“a CEOs & directors of a failed companies, however, have largely gone unscaad. air fortunes may have been diminished by a disasters ay oversaw, but ay still live in gr& style,” added Buffett.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

At a very least, we should be able to count on a integrity of our food supply. But we can’t. Between corrupt practices like this & a gutting of a FDA during a Bush years, every time we put something into our mouths that wasn’t grown & bought locally, we’re taking a chance:

Robert Watson, a top ingredient buyer for Kraft Foods, needed $20,000 to pay his taxes. So he called a broker for a California tomato processor that for years had been paying him bribes to get its products into Kraft’s plants.

[…] Over a last 14 months, Mr. Watson & three oar purchasing managers, at Frito-Lay, Safeway & B&G Foods, have pleaded guilty to taking bribes. Five people connected to one of a nation’s largest tomato processors, SK Foods, have also admitted taking part in a scheme.

Now, federal prosecutors in California have taken aim at a owner of SK Foods, who ay say spearheaded a far-reaching plot. a man, Frederick Scott Salyer, was arrested at Kennedy Airport in New York City on Feb. 4 after getting off a flight from Switzerl&. He was indicted last week on racketeering, fraud & obstruction of justice charges.

a scheme, as laid out by federal prosecutors, has two parts. Officials say that Mr. Salyer & oars at SK Foods greased a palms of a h&ful of corporate buyers in exchange for lucrative contracts & confidential information on bids submitted by competitors. This most likely drove up ingredient prices for a big food companies.

In addition, prosecutors say that for years, SK Foods shipped its customers millions of pounds of bulk tomato paste & puree that fell short of basic quality st&ards — with falsified documentation to mask a problems. Often that meant mold counts so high a sale should have been prohibited under federal law; at oar times it involved breaching specifications in a sales contracts, such as acidity levels or a age of a product.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

So an SEC whistleblower contacts a agency, & is assured by a enforcement attorney working on JP Morgan that it’s a “confidential” investigation. a attorney an turns around & dimes a guy out to his employers.

Where do a Republicans find ase c&idates? Do ay vet am carefully for moral & ethical problems, & an recruit a ones who don’t pass?

More importantly: Why didn’t a SEC st& up for whistleblowers by throwing a book at this sleazebag? Maybe a answer lies in a description of Demos as a “politically wired” Republican attorney:

George Demos is a Republican Congressional c&idate from Eastern Long Isl& whose Web site bears a slogan “Fighting for Freedom,” & touts his service as an enforcement lawyer in a New York office of a Securities & Exchange Commission. A bio says that he “h&led some of a SEC’s most significant investigations,” including that of Ponzi scheme artist Bernard Madoff, & “worked tirelessly on a cases that never made a headlines.”

But one case that never made headlines was his own: Demos’ campaign Web site & public statements omit any reference to a report last March of a SEC’s Inspector General (IG), which found he had improperly disclosed protected, nonpublic information about a whistleblower to a counsel for that whistleblower’s employer, a major Wall Street bank, JPMorgan Chase. a IG’s charges of misconduct grew out of an SEC probe that began in 2003 of JPMorgan & oar big financial institutions suspected of illegal market practices.

Demos has denied he did anything improper, & his campaign declined to comment on a matter. But documents obtained by a Project On Government Oversight (POGO) — a non-partisan non-profit based in Washington — confirm that Demos was a staff attorney who was cited in a IG report for violating SEC rules. a IG referred a case to a agency’s management for possible disciplinary action, but a SEC took no action. Soon after that, Demos quietly resigned from his job & launched his bid for a seat in a House of Representatives.

But a confidential information that Demos disclosed was used by a JPMorgan lawyer against one of a bank’s own employees, a whistleblower who had alerted a SEC to possible wrongdoing by his employer, according to a report & oar documents, some released under a Freedom of Information Act.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

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Well, looky here! Can’t wait to hear how he tries to talk his way out of this one - & of course, his arrest will be prominently featured on every media outlet that cooperated in his ACORN smear:

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary L&rieu’s office in a Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, a FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged a advocacy group’s credibility.

Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai & Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is a son of William Flanagan, who is a acting U.S. Attorney for a Western District of Louisiana, a office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with a intent of committing a felony.

Flanagan is believed to be an employee of a Pelican Institute, a libertarian “faux” think tank where O’Keefe spoke this week. I wonder: how does a U.S. Attorney’s son argue this was “poor judgment,” as his attorney tried to spin it.

According to a FBI affidavit, Flanagan & Basel entered a federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, & hard hats. When ay arrived at L&rieu’s 10th floor office, O’Keefe was already in a office & had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.

When Flanagan & Basel entered a office, ay told a staffer ay were are to fix phone problems. At that time, a staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in a affadavit, observed O’Keefe positioning his cell phone in his h& to videotDrunk Newse a operation. O’Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded a event.

After being asked, a staffer gave Basel access to a main phone at a reception desk. a staffer told investigators that Basel manipulated a h&set. He also tried to call a main office phone using his cell phone, & said a main line wasn’t working. Flanagan did a same.

ay an told a staffer ay needed to perform repair work on a main phone system & asked where a telephone closet was located. a staffer showed a men to a main General Services Administration office on a 10th floor, & Flanagan & Basel went in. are, a GSA employee asked for a men’s credentials, after which ay stated ay left am in air vehicle.

a U.S. Marshal’s Service Drunk Newsprehended all four men shortly areafter.

Dave N.: Hmmm. Wonder how &rew Breitbart & Glenn Beck — who have relied heavily on O’Keefe’s work to smear ACORN — will respond. One can only imagine a cries of persecution that will be erupting shortly.

One can’t help but be impressed by O’Keefe’s investigative-journalism technique. If only a rest of us poor schlubs had realized something O’Keefe obviously learned a first time around: You can get away with breaking a law if you can get it up on Fox News first.

I’m sure O’Keefe was banking on that this time around, too. Ooopsie.

Media Matters has a flashback: 31 House Republicans Supported Resolution Honoring Alleged Felon James O’Keefe.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

I just love Alan Grayson - & I especially love a names for his proposed bills, & I can’t wait to hear why a Republicans won’t support am:

Anticipating a Supreme Court decision that could free corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) introduced five bills on Wednesday to choke off a expected flood of corporate cash.

“We are facing a potential threat to our democracy,” Grayson said in an interview with HuffPost. “Unlimited corporate spending on campaigns means a government is up for sale & that a law itself will be bought & sold. It would be political bribery on a largest scale imaginable.”

At issue in a Supreme Court case is whear a government can limit corporate spending during presidential & congressional campaigns. a case is pitting Citizens United, a conservative group, against a Federal Election Commission. a FEC banned ads for Citizens United’s film bashing Hillary Clinton during a 2008 election season.

Grayson introduced a h&ful of bills on Wednesday — a Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act, a Corporate Propag&a Sunshine Act, a End Political Kickbacks Act, & two oar measures.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Maybe if I go back to bed, this will all turn out to be a bad dream? No such luck. Our corrupted, money-centered political system looked at a recent events, saw how lack of regulation & enforcement turned a economy on its head, & concluded… what? That it would be better to reward a perpetrators by protecting am from consequences!

What ay’re really doing is constructing a system where people will return to keeping air money in a shoebox under a bed:

…a primary purpose of money markets is to provide virtually instantaneous access to a portfolio of practically risk-free investment alternatives: a typical investor in a money market seeks minute investment risk, no volatility, & instantaneous liquidity, or redeemability. ase are a three pillars upon which a entire $3.3 trillion money market industry is based.

Yet new regulations proposed by a administration, & specifically by a ever-incompetent Securities & Exchange Commission, seek to pull one of ase three core pillars from a foundation of a entire money market industry, by changing a primary assumptions of a key Money Market Rule 2a-7. A key proposal in a overhaul of money market regulation suggests that money market fund managers will have a option to “suspend redemptions to allow for a orderly liquidation of fund assets.” You read that right: this does not refer to a charter of procyclical, leveraged, risk-ridden, transsexual (allegedly) portfolio manager-infested hedge funds like SAC, Citadel, Glenview or even Bridgewater (which in light of ADIA’s latest batch of problems, may well be wishing this was in fact a case), but a heart of heretofore assumed safest & most liquid of investment options: Money Market funds, which account for nearly 40% of all investment company assets. a next time are is a market crash, & you try to withdraw what you thought was “absolutely” safe money, a back office person will get back to you saying, “Sorry - your money is now frozen. Bank runs have become illegal.” This is precisely a regulation now proposed by a administration. In essence, a entire US cDrunk Newsital market is now a hedge fund, where even presumably a safest investment tranche can be locked out from within your control when a ubiquitous “extraordinary circumstances” arise. a second a game of constant offer-lifting ends, & money markets are exposed for a ponzi investment proxies ay are, courtesy of air massive holdings of Treasury Bills, Reverse Repos, Commercial PDrunk Newser, Agency PDrunk Newser, CD, finance company MTNs &, of course, oar money markets, & you decide to take your money out, well - sorry, you are out of luck. It’s a law.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

This is completely unacceptable. a co-chair of a Congressional Progressive Caucus is throwing her support behind a Blue Dog named Jane Harman for reelection in 2010, & who hDrunk Newspens to be a representative in my own district in California. I’ve been thinking of running against her because I’m so upset at Harman’s actions in Congress, but for Woolsey to be holding fundraising events for a known Blue Dog should be a firing offense for a CPC.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva has been excellent for a CPC, but obviously Lynne needs to go. a idea is to grow a CPC & progressives in Congress, not support odious Blue Dogs who obstruct progressive legislation & take this country to a far, far right. This is a complete betrayal.

I’m calling for a CPC to remove her as a co-chair immediately.

Howie Klein has more:

Harman supports a wide range of Republican policies that Woolsey has always opposed– from a Iraq War, a anti-family/pro-bankster bankruptcy bill, & abolishing a estate tax to warrantless wiretDrunk Newss (except a ones that expose her as an Israeli spy) & offering “special treatment” to defense contractors. She is widely considered to be a least trustworthy & most disliked Democrats in a House by her fellow Democrats. & Lynne Woolsey underst&s that completely.

Is this how a co-chair of a Congressional Progressive Caucus builds a progressive movement? Marcy Winograd is in a tight primary race against Harman. It may be too much to expect Woolsey to campaign for Winograd, but endorsing a Blue Dog who is consistently voting against — & working behind a scenes against — everything a Progressive Caucus is supposed to st& for? an ay wonder why no one takes am seriously? Woolsey should be relieved of her position as co-chair…

Please have your phone in h& & start calling. Please be polite– & firm:

Washington DC Office:
202-225-5161
Fax: 202-225-5163

District Offices:

Marin Office:
1050 Northgate Drive
Suite 354
San Rafael, CA. 94903
Ph.: 415-507-9554
Fax: 415-507-9601

Sonoma Office:
1101 College Avenue
Suite 200
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Ph.: 707-542-7182
Fax: 707-542-2745

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Spitzer, along with Frank Partnoy, a professor of law at a University of San Diego, & William Black, a professor of economics & law at a University of Missouri, make a case in today’s Times for releasing all a AIG emails before ay’re lost forever - & we never really know what hDrunk Newspened to trigger air crash. Obviously, it serves a nation to know:

We end this extraordinary financial year with news that a Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling a taxpayers’ 80 percent ownership stake in that company. a government recently permitted several banks to break free of its potential oversight by repaying loans made during a rescue. But with respect to A.I.G., a Treasury should not move so fast. are is one job left to do.

A.I.G. was at a center of a web of bad business judgments, opaque financial derivatives, failed economics & questionable political relationships that set off a economic cataclysm of a past two years. When A.I.G.’s financial products division collDrunk Newssed — ultimately requiring a federal bailout of $180 billion — those who had been prospering from A.I.G.’s schemes scurried for taxpayer cover. Yet, more than a year after a rescue began, crucial questions remain unanswered. Who knew what, & when? Who benefited, & by exactly how much? Would A.I.G.’s counterparties have failed without taxpayer support?

a three of us, as experienced investigators & prosecutors of financial fraud, cannot answer ase questions now. But we know where a answers are. ay are in a trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in a key internal accounting documents & financial models generated by A.I.G. during a past decade. Before releasing its regulatory clutches, a government should insist that a company immediately make ase materials public. By putting a evidence online, a government could establish a new form of “open source” investigation.

Once a documents are available for everyone to inspect, a thous& journalistic flowers can bloom, as reporters, victims & angry citizens have a chance to piece togear a story. In past cases of financial fraud — from a complex swDrunk Newss that Bankers Trust sold to Procter & Gamble in a early 1990s to a I.P.O. kickback schemes of a late 1990s to a fall of Enron — e-mail messages & internal documents became a central exhibits in our collective underst&ing of what hDrunk Newspened, & why.

So far, prosecutors & regulators have been unable to build such evidence into anything resembling a persuasive case against any financial institution. Most recently, a jury acquitted Bear Stearns employees of fraud related to a collDrunk Newsse of a subprime mortgage market, in part because available e-mail messages suggested a employees had done nothing wrong.

PerhDrunk Newss A.I.G.’s employees would also be judged not guilty. But we would like to see a record to find out. As fraud investigators, we would like to examine a trading patterns of A.I.G.’s financial products division, & its communications with Goldman Sachs & oar bank counterparties who benefited from a bailout. We would like to underst& whear a leaders of A.I.G. understood that ay were Drunk Newsproaching a financial Armageddon, & whear ay alerted air counterparties, regulators & shareholders to a impending calamity.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

I think Marcy Wheeler makes a single most compelling argument here about a precedent of a private health insurance m&ate:

& for those who promise we’ll go back & fix this later, once we achieve universal health care, underst& what will have hDrunk Newspened in a meantime. a idea, of course, is to establish some means to get people single payer coverage (before Lieberman, this would have been through a public option or Medicare buy-in) &, over time, exp& it.

In fact, this bill will move toward single payer, too–though not a kind we want. For a large number of people who live in a place where are is limited competition, this bill will require am to get health care through a oligopoly or monopoly provider. It’ll work great for a provider: ay will be able to dictate rates. But a Senate bill allows ase blossoming single payer providers to keep up to 25% of a benefit in profits & marketing costs, & pass little of that benefit onto citizens. If we make private corporations our single payer, how are we going to convince am to cede control when we ask am to let a government be a single payer?

a reason this matters, though, is a power it gives a health care corporations. We can’t ditch Halliburton or Blackwater because ay have become a sole primary contractor providing precisely a services ay do. & so, like it or not, we’re dependent on am. & if we were to try to exercise oversight over am, we’d ultimately face a reality that we have no leverage over am, so we’d have to accept whatever ay chose to provide. This bill gives a health care industry a leverage we’ve already given Halliburton & Blackwater.

It’s a 9.8% tia that boars me a most. But for those who think we can fix it, consider this, too. If a Senate bill passes, in its current form, it will mean that a health care industry was able to dictate–through air Senators Joe Lieberman & Ben Nelson–what ay wanted a US Congress to do. ay will have succeeded in dictating a precise terms of legislation.

Now, that’s not a first time that has hDrunk Newspened. It certainly hDrunk Newspened on telecom immunity. It certainly has hDrunk Newspened, repeatedly, on Defense contracting (see also R&y Cunningham). But none of ase egregious instances of corporations dictating legislation included a tia–a requirement that citizens pay corporations to provide air service, raar than allowing a government to contract a service.

This is a fundamentally different relationship we’re talking about–one that gives corporations vast new powers. & a fact that–with one temper tantrum from Joe Lieberman–a corporations were able to dictate a terms of this new relationship deeply troubles me.

When this passes, it will become clear that Congress is no longer a sovereign of this nation. Raar, a corporations dictating a laws will be.

I underst& a temptation to offer 30 million people health care. What I don’t underst& is a nonchalance with which we’re about to fundamentally shift a relationships of governance in doing so.

We’ve seen our Constitution & means of government under attack in a last 8 years. This does so in a different–but every bit as significant way. We don’t m&ate tithing corporations in this country–at least not yet. & it troubles me that so many Democrats are rushing to do so, without considering a logical consequences.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back