Free Republic

WASHINGTON – The desperation of homebuilders was a running joke among top Federal Reserve officials during the waning phase of the housing bubble in 2006, according to transcripts released Thursday. They laughed about the cars that builders were giving to buyers. They laughed about efforts to make empty homes look occupied. They laughed at a report that one builder said inventory was rising “through the roof.”

8:40am PT (11:40am ET): During a break, Edmonds and the attorneys stepped outside. DoJ still a no-show, so the questioning has proceeded, and Edmonds has been able to say "everything that she hasn't been able to say so far, implicating many members of Congress in a criminal conspiracy," according to interviews with Fein and others. Edmonds' attorney, Michael Kohn said: "The Justice Department decided not to show. Therefore, the deposition has gone much more smoothly than we had anticipated." There are apparently a handful of mostly independent and foreign media outlets present outside the NWC. No corporate MSM, from the...

WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve deputy chairman Donald Kohn on Thursday defended the U.S. central bank's independence, saying congressional oversight could interfere with monetary policymaking. If the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, were authorized to audit the Fed, that "could cast a chill on monetary policy deliberations," Kohn told a House of Representatives committee. He acknowledged that the possibility of expanding the audit authority of the GAO over the Fed "has recently been discussed." "Although Federal Reserve officials regularly explain the rationale for their policy decisions in public venues, the process of vetting ideas and proposals, many...

US, UK and Austrian prosecutors are investigating former Austrian fund manager Sonja Kohn, chair of Austria's Bank Medici, they believe was paid more than $40M in kickbacks to funnel billions of dollars to Madoff via separate companies she controlled, according to affidavits reviewed by The WSJ. Ms. Kohn apparently turned three Bank Medici funds into "feeder funds" that supplied Madoff with an estimated $3.5B from European investors. Kohn, a 60-year-old Viennese former Wall Street penny-stock broker, has repeatedly denied prior knowledge of Madoff's fraud or any wrongdoing. According to an April affidavit from DOJ filed with Vienna prosecutors, Kohn is...

A proposal to make Major League Baseball's "Extra Innings" exclusive to DirecTV has drawn the ire of Sen. John Kerry. The Massachusetts Democrat said he plans to raise the matter with the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing Thursday. "I am opposed to anything that deprives people of reasonable choices," Kerry said in a statement. "In this day and age, consumers should have more choices - not fewer. I'd like to know how this serves the public -- a deal that will force fans to subscribe to DirecTV in order to tune in to their favorite players....

Excerpt:"She did not leak any classified information, and she did not have access to the information apparently attributed to her by some government officials," said Washington lawyer Ty Cobb, who is representing veteran CIA analyst Mary McCarthy. Government officials have linked her to the Post's story about the CIA's covert sites in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, used to hold terror suspects. The disclosure of the facilities caused an international clamor last fall because of the legal and ethical issues they raised. McCarthy was fired on Thursday for knowingly disclosing classified information. But Cobb said she hopes to find a way...

The White House search for a successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who is scheduled to retire in January, has intensified.... [T]he three candidates cited most frequently have been economists Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, Glenn Hubbard of Columbia University and Ben Bernanke, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. But the White House also is looking at other candidates, including former Bush adviser Lawrence Lindsey, said several people familiar with the process. They said the White House hasn't rejected the three main candidates but doesn't want to limit its choice prematurely. There appears to be no clear...

By the time John Kerry's father, Richard, published his only book, The Star-Spangled Mirror, in 1990, he should have been a mellow man. Nearly 30 years had passed since his retirement from the Foreign Service, where he'd filled mid-level posts in Washington, Berlin, and Oslo. His central issue, the cold war, had followed him into retirement with the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and rise of glasnost in Russia. When the 75-year-old Kerry wasn't working on his book, he could be found building model ships and sailing off Cape Cod. If he had any reasons for professional bitterness, they should...

From: "IHFF" Subject: [AUSTRIA-L] Senator Kerry´s ancestors in Austria Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 09:48:00 +0100 Senator John Kerry runs for President. Im Jänner 2003 entschloß sich der Demokrat Senator John Kerry (http://kerry.senate.gov/ ), für das Amerikanische Präsidentenamt zu kandidieren. Vom Boston Globe erhielt ich den Auftrag, die österreichischen Vorfahren von Senator Kerry zu erforschen. Ab dem 2.2.2003 wurden im Boston Globe laufend darüber berichtet (http://www.boston.com/globe/ ). Den kompletten Artikel finden Sie untenstehend. Andere Tageszeitungen übernahmen diesen Artikel: zB der New Republic http://www.tnr.com/ampc-preview.mhtml?pid=206#top oder die Tschechische Pravo http://www.pravo.cz/ Ing. Felix Gundacker professional genealogist for Austria, Bohemia and Moravia [snipped personal...