Free Republic

Madison - The odds of Racine's recall recount winding up in court increased Tuesday, as Republican Sen. Van Wanggaard's campaign said it may challenge canvassers' decision to accept ballots from voters who did not sign the poll book. The recount is in its second week after Wanggaard's campaign requested canvassers review an 834-vote victory that favored Democratic challenger John Lehman in the June 5 recall. Republicans' latest contention of voting irregularities in Racine targets election workers who failed to ask voters to sign poll books as required by state law. The Wanggaard campaign also disputes the Government Accountability Board's recommendation...

MADISON — With suspicions growing over voter fraud, incumbent Republican state Sen. Van Wanggaard is asking for a recount of votes cast in the 21st Senate District recall election — an election in which Wanggaard’s Democratic challenger, John Lehman, narrowly won. Or so it appears. Lehman said he’s confident the results will stand and questioned the motives of the incumbent and his party. Earlier this week, in its canvassing of the June 5 election, Racine County elections officials found Lehman added 55 votes to his election night tally, apparently giving the Racine Democrat a victory by 834 votes. That’s a...

RACINE - The campaign for Racine Republican State Senator Van Wanggaard has not conceded victory to Democrat John Lehman in a recall election, but has said they are not yet asking for a recount.“We know that there are a number of outstanding absentee ballots, voting irregularities, and that there were problems across the county in the unofficial tally of ballots,” said Wanggaard in a statement. “People across the state and country have asked that I immediately ask for a recount. However, we all know that the best decisions are made when well-rested and after consideration of all options.”Lehman unofficially won the...

Democrats appeared to have assumed control of the state Senate with results posted early Wednesday showing former Sen. John Lehman (D-Racine) in a tight race defeating incumbent Van Wanggard, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is reporting...

Racine – If there’s a battleground within the battleground in Wisconsin’s recall wars, this is it – a political no man’s land where the two parties have spent a quarter-century trading control of the same tenuous turf. This is the only state Senate district in America whose voters have forced two recall elections. It’s a district unique in Wisconsin for its volatility and thirst for change. It has changed partisan hands five times in 22 years. It has re-elected its state senators only twice since 1990, and booted them four times, a tally that could rise to five on June...

Banking maven Chris Whalen has a must-read piece on the reckless real estate risk taking underway at Wells Fargo, the sanctimonious #4 bank. While I sometimes take issue with Chris on his readings on capital markets related businesses, he is solid on his knowledge of traditional banking and also has access to very good intelligence in that arena. Thanks to the crisis just past, we tend to think of banks as creating danger to bystanders via their over-the-counter trading operations: securitizations, CDOs, derivatives, all that stuff that is now loosely termed as “shadow banking.” But the US crisis prior to...

The Navy’s former top civilian has rocked the service in a military journal article by accusing officials of sinking the storied naval air branch into a sea of political correctness. Former Navy Secretary John Lehman, himself a former carrier-based aviator, wrote that the swagger and daring of yesterday’s culture has given way to a focus on integrating women and, this year, gays.

Gordon Brown: Euro Crisis Is Even Worse Than Lehman Nick Jardine Sep. 16, 2011, 4:34 PM Brown says things are worse now than they were in 2008. Former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown says that the current financial woes are worse than they were in 2008, reports the Telegraph. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China, Brown said he believes that the world's economy could fall into a 1930-like slump if matters continue in the same vein. He told the audience: "The European banks as a whole are grossly under-capitalised: they have liabilities far in excess of American...

President Obama spent last night the way he spends many nights: hustling for $30,000 and $50,000 checks from wealthy donors at a fancy hotel. CNN passed along this detail from the White House: helping to introduce Obama is Ernie Green, a member of the "Little Rock Nine," a group of African-Americans who in 1957 were the first black students ever to attend classes at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Truly impressive. But CNN didn't include other seemingly relevant facts about Ernie Green. He was a director at Wall St. giant Lehman Brothers, where he worked on...

Accounting firm Ernst & Young was sued by New York state prosecutors Tuesday, accused of helping to hide financial risks at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc before the Wall Street firm's 2008 collapse. The civil fraud case seeks $150 million in fees that the accounting firm collected, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. The lawsuit also seeks investor damages and other relief in what is one of the biggest government cases involving an accounting firm since Arthur Andersen was criminally indicted in 2002 over the Enron scandal. Ernst & Young was Lehman's outside auditor from 2001 until...

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck said Bank of America violated federal law when it "brazenly" seized the deposits after having taken advantage of Lehman's weakened condition in the summer of 2008 in obtaining the money. "It is difficult to understand how Bank of America could have thought that taking the money was the right thing to do without first seeking permission from the court," Peck wrote in a Tuesday opinion filed in Manhattan bankruptcy court. "The actions taken were surprising and, quite frankly, disappointing for a leading financial institution that should care a great deal about its reputation," he wrote....

Al-Qaeda Threat in Philadelphia? Philadelphia, PA June 27, 2002 — David Henry reports from the Action Newsroom. An Action News investigation reveals that a chain of jewelry stores operating in the Delaware Valley is being investigated by the FBI for possible connections to the Al Qaeda terror network. A series of raids were carried out yesterday in Philadelphia and across the state of Pennsylvania. The stores are mostly kiosks in shopping malls operating under the name "Intrigue Jewelers." They are all owned by Pakistanis under franchise agreements with a company called Gold Concepts, based in Pennsacola, Florida. Intrigue operates stores...

It's been two years since Lehman Brothers failed (Sept. 15, 2008), and we still can't conclusively answer this question: What if the government had saved Lehman? Its bankruptcy was pivotal. Until then, deteriorating housing and mortgage markets had triggered what seemed a serious -- but not unprecedented -- recession. Once Lehman failed, the economy went into a frenzied free fall. It's hard not to wonder whether some of the ensuing turmoil could have been avoided. Consider what happened after Lehman: -- Credit tightened. Banks wouldn't lend to each other, except at exorbitant interest rates. Rates on high-quality corporate bonds went...

It's been two years since Lehman Bros. failed (Sept. 15, 2008) and we still can't conclusively answer this question: What if the government had saved Lehman? Its bankruptcy was pivotal. Until then, deteriorating housing and mortgage markets had triggered what seemed a serious — but not unprecedented — recession. Once Lehman failed, the economy went into a frenzied free fall. It's hard not to wonder whether some of the ensuing turmoil could have been avoided. Consider what happened after Lehman: • Credit tightened. Banks wouldn't lend to each other, except at exorbitant interest rates. Rates on high-quality corporate bonds went...

CRAMER: If You Don't Get A Lehman Brothers II In Europe In 48 Hours, Financial Stocks Will Go Up Joe Weisenthal May. 19, 2010, 2:41 PM Image: CNBC He just said to to Amanda Drury during his STOP TRADING segment. "The market is prepared for Lehman II... and if you don't get a Lehman II, and all you get is a slowdown, our stocks may not be so horrible." He specifically cited a 48-hour window for this to happen. Otherwise, it's time to buy the financial stocks. As for the risk from financial regulation, Jim Cramer says that's over. Dodd...

Ohio pensions took $480M hit after Lehman collapse By JULIE CARR SMYTH, AP Statehouse Correspondent Mon Apr 19, 7:13 pm ET COLUMBUS, Ohio – State records show that Ohio's public pension funds took a $480 million hit to investments managed by Lehman Brothers as the banking giant collapsed. Calculations on the shrinking values of the pension funds' Lehman-managed holdings were released to U.S. Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy of Columbus in advance of Tuesday hearings on the collapse. The Public Employees Retirement System saw the biggest impact to its portfolio of Lehman Brothers holdings. They declined in value from $441.4 million...

A FEW weeks ago, two Republican House members asked Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, whether the Fed knew — before Lehman’s bankruptcy examiner revealed it — about the bookkeeping scam at Lehman known as “Repo 105.” This scam allowed Lehman to disguise how much debt it was carrying, right up until it collapsed. Lehman got new loans to pay off old loans, pretended the new loans were “sales,” and through a complicated series of steps made both the old and new loans disappear just in time for its quarterly reports. Mr. Bernanke said the Fed had known...

* 3/17/10 at 10:58 AM Former Lehman Executives ‘Giggle’ at ‘Nonprofessionals’ Who Think Losing Billions of Dollars Is a Big Deal How do you think former Lehman Brothers executives felt about the recently released report on the firm's failure that reveals, among other things, the firm used a weird accounting practice known as "Repo 105" to move $50 billion of toxic mortgage assets off its books in order to make its balance sheet look healthier? Embarrassed? Regretful? Are they thinking to themselves Wow, in retrospect, that does look pretty bad. What were we thinking? Not really, no. This morning's Post...

March 19, 2010, 7:05 a.m. EDT Merrill staffers reportedly warned SEC over Lehman By Simon Kennedy, MarketWatch LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Former Merrill Lynch officials warned the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Reserve that Lehman Brothers was incorrectly calculating its liquidity position months before its collapse, according to a published media report. Separately, Lehman also reportedly renewed its efforts to have the sale of assets to Barclays (LSE:UK:BARC) (NYSE:BCS) reexamined by a court, claiming that the U.K. bank had earned a windfall of over $11 billion from the deal. Former staffers at Merrill, which was later acquired by Bank of...

Presenting a detailed look at "Repo 105" - the next soundbite sure to fill the airwaves over the next weeks and months, as more and more banks are uncovered to be using this borderline criminal accounting gimmick to make their leverage ratios look better. This is the first time we have heard this loophole abuse by a bank, be it defunct (Lehman) or existing (everyone else). There should be an immediate investigation into how many other banks are currently taking advantage of this artificial scheme to manipulate and misrepresent their cap ratio, and just why the New York Fed can...