Free Republic

SEC readies report on credit rating agencies Stephanie Baum 23 Apr 2008 The US Securities and Exchange Commission will issue a report this summer following an examination of credit rating agencies and their roles in the credit crunch as they prepare new rules governing their behavior. SEC chairman Christopher Cox told the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs that the focus of the SEC’s research is to determine whether the ratings agencies violated their conflict of interest rules to determine their clients’ credit ratings. Cox told the committee that the SEC is looking at requiring more transparency...

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has released a list of $740 million in earmark requests he made in the past three years, and it includes $1 million for the hospital where his wife Michelle is a vice president. The request for $1 million for the University of Chicago Medical Center was to help pay for construction of a new pavilion. “I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Michelle Obama was not part of our lobbying over the request, not in any way,” Kelly Sullivan, another vice president at the medical center, told the New York Times. In any case,...

As American banks go hat in hand to foreign financial institutions and governments, begging for capital to help them get out of the mess into which their subprime loans have landed them, the question arises as to whether the United States should permit nations like China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the banks they control to acquire part ownership of our leading banks. The presidential candidates discussed this issue in their Nevada debate and Hillary was asked about it in an interview with Neil Cavuto on the FOX Business Network yesterday. She replied that she would not...

Link references article which can't be posted here. ~~~~~ As always in the liberal Beltway, no one's ever questioned Fitzgerald's unsupervised free ride and tenure as Special Prosecutor in the Plame/Libby case by his college summer roommate, James Comey, now legal counsel for the giant, Lockheed Martin.

In Wednesday’s edition of "Best of the Web Today" (BOTWT), James Taranto takes The Associated Press to task for its "accountability journalism" approach being a "departure from its old-fashioned just-the-facts style of journalism."Taranto also seizes upon this quote by Newsweek assistant managing editor Evan Thomas in an article published in American Journalism Review about coverage of the Duke "rape" case: "We just got the facts wrong. The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong." "The narrative was right, but the facts were wrong." This is reminiscent of the "fake but accurate" defense of CBS's Bush National Guard hoax. If...

James Taranto’s "Best of the Web Today" (BOTWT) on Thursday, July 5th, led off with an item about how the suspects in the failed London and Glasgow terror plots were depicted by The Associated Press ("[t]hey had diverse backgrounds, coming from countries around the globe, but all shared youth and worked in medicine"), which bent over backwards to sidestep the incontrovertible fact that the countries from which they immigrated to England are overwhelmingly Muslim.Then to buttress his case that it is disingenuous – and dangerous - to pretend that the terrorists aren’t all Muslim, Taranto adds: Why would that matter?...

It’s been a month since James Taranto and his wannabe pundit joined together in Best of the Web Today (BOTWT) to gangbang Harvard University terrorism expert Jessica Stern with erroneous accounts in the New York Sun and BOTWT about her remarks on religious extremism at a conference organized by security think tank EastWest institute.As of yet, Taranto has not seen fit to:† Correct the shoddy reporting he cited from , on which his shoddy analysis was based;† Disclose* to BOTWT and OpinionJournal readers why he did not verify the facts in the Sun article himself, instead of relying upon the...

James Taranto spotlights a piece about an EastWest Institute conference from the New York Sun in Friday’s edition of his "Best of the Web Today" column (curiously, he did not include this item in a new feature he calls "Wannabe Pundits" - but this is a whole ‘nother story that’s long and convoluted and has an expanding cast of characters, so The Stiletto must leave it for later). In a recent post, The Stiletto suggested that Taranto has been somewhat remiss in making disclosures ethical journalists typically make when they have a particular interest or stake in something they are...

In a classic example of misleading by omission, OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto’s bio states, "He attended California State University, Northridge." In a commentary about Marilee Jones, who had lied to her bosses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology about her educational credentials for 28 years, Taranto belatedly fills in the blanks: I left high school after my sophomore year; and although I spent several years in college, I never bothered to graduate. Noting that "[b]y all accounts Marilee Jones did an excellent job," Taranto brushes aside the central issue in her dismissal - "[o]stensibly Ms. Jones was forced out because she...

In many ways, Terri Hall was on a collision course with Texas toll road policies long before she and her family loaded up their van and drove from California to the Hill Country three years ago. A lifetime of volunteering, a hunger for staying on top of politics, and strong religious and moral convictions helped hone Hall's activist instincts. Her brains, drive, superb speaking skills, engaging personality and wholesome good looks — noted by friends and enemies alike — make Hall especially effective. They help explain why this 37-year-old mother of six is a leading force in a populist assault...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used her clout to get lawmakers to back a San Francisco redevelopment project near her multimillion-dollar rental properties, disclosure documents reveal. Pelosi got House members to authorize $25 million to improve the Embarcadero port area, clearing the way for cruise-ship-dock development and other improvements to aid the neighborhood's comeback. [Snip] "The appearance is obviously not good, and she needs to be forthcoming about how this impacts her financial interest," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) told The Post. [Snip] Pelosi is the ninth richest member of the House, according to last year's disclosure reports, with stocks and real-estate...

Federal investigators are reviewing the activities of 103 scientists who may have had improper links to pharmaceutical companies while they were employed at the National Institutes of Health, apparently resurrecting a conflict-of-interest inquiry that many in the agency thought was closed. In a letter sent to several members of Congress on March 23 and made public yesterday, Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, said his office is looking into the cases "to determine whether investigation is warranted." Levinson also wrote that his office is reviewing whether NIH is adequately monitoring potential conflicts of...

LOS ANGELES- The Los Angeles Times has decided to scrap a guest editor program in which prominent outsiders would have occasionally planned the Sunday opinion and editorial section, the paper reported Tuesday. Publisher David D. Hiller said the program, whose debut section was killed last week over the selection of the first editor, had become a distraction... Hiller spiked last week's section after revelations that the guest editor, Hollywood producer Brian Grazer, had a business relationship that might have suggested he had received favored treatment in landing the assignment. Grazer was represented by publicist Kelly Mullens, who dated Times Editorial...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein. As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects,...

Gov. Jon Corzine has acknowledged for the first time that, while a candidate for governor in 2005, he gave state workers union leader Carla Katz, his former girlfriend, substantial gifts beyond what he previously disclosed. The gifts were made to avoid "ongoing financial connections" after their serious, two-year relationship ended in the summer of 2004, Corzine told The Star-Ledger. Corzine previously said that he forgave a $470,000 mortgage on Katz's home in Hunterdon County, but he had not spoken publicly of other gifts. In an interview Friday he refused to provide the amounts or any other details, but indicated they...

Harry Reid says: “I believe in ensuring all facts come to light.” However, two years after $1.1 million was paid directly to Reid for the sale of land which he no longer personally owned, he announced he was amending his ethics reports to Congress… to more fully account for the Las Vegas land deal, which was reported last week in a story by the AP. [After initially refusing to discuss the matter - Reid reportedly hung up on the AP reporter when asked about it - he has since offered to amend his financial disclosures link] Reid labeled the AP...

Lee Hamilton (co-chair) of the 911 Commission is on the Board of Directors of Sandy Berger's company - Stonebridge International. I saw another freeper post this and thought it warranted its own vanity thread.

Michael J. Gerson, President George W. Bush's longtime speechwriter and adviser, joined the Council on Foreign Relations as senior fellow on July 31. He will author a book on the future of conservatism, and speak and write on issues such as global health and development, religion and foreign policy, and the democracy agenda. "I am thrilled to welcome Mike to the Council," said President Richard N. Haass. "It is not just that he is one of the country's great writers, which he most certainly is. It is also that he is one of this country's most important thinkers-someone in a...

  Courting Chaos: Senate Proposal Undermines Immigration Lawby Kris W. Kobach WebMemo #1083 May 17, 2006 |   | Once again, the Senate Judiciary Committee has rolled out a massive amnesty for more than 11 million illegal aliens. Rewarding aliens who have violated federal law is bad enough. However, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S.2611) does much more than that. Buried deep inside the bill—beginning at page 540—are provisions that would radically alter our immigration courts, making them far less likely to enforce and implement the law faithfully. Not surprisingly, these items have not caught the attention of...

LANCASTER - The local deputy alternate public defender has requested all judges serving the Michael D. Antonovich Antelope Valley Courthouse be disqualified from the case of a man charged with marijuana possession with the intent to sell, because of the supervisor's involvement in the courthouse and use of his office's money to support a task force responsible for his client's arrest. The defense attorney, Walter Katz, described his motion as a unique one "that could have far-reaching consequences" in the Los Angeles County legal community. In effect, because Antonovich's name is on the courthouse, and because his office provided funds...