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When someone makes a promise that seems too good to be true: like saying you’ll be “stinkin’, filthy rich” if you invest in their green energy technology, it’s a good idea to look into that proposition with a little more scrutiny. That kind of attractive, yet ultimately worthless deal cost consumers nearly $54.5 million, federal prosecutors say. The Department of Justice announced today that federal prosecutors filed fraud and conspiracy charges against the three co-founders of Pennsylvania-based Mantria Corporation for their part in bilking millions of dollars from unsuspecting consumers. Under the scheme, from 2005 to 2009 the group encouraged...

(CNSNews.com) - Jeb Bush says he would considering pushing back the Social Security retirement age by as many as five years and scaling back benefits for Americans who paid into the system but who also have accumulated wealth. "We need to look over the horizon and begin to phase in, over an extended period of time, going from (age) 65 to 68 or 70. And that by itself will help sustain the retirement system for anybody under the age of 40," Bush, a potential contender for the Republican presidential nomination, told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. Bush also wants...

“When people tell you Social Security is going broke, you look them in the eye and tell them they’re not telling you the truth,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at an event on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to petition Congress not to cut Social Security or Medicare. “Today, the Social Security Trust Fund has a $2.8 trillion surplus,” Sanders said. […] As CNSNews.com previously reported, however, the Social Security program ran a $47.8 billion deficit in fiscal 2012 as the program brought in $725.429 billion in cash and paid $773.247 billion for benefits and overhead expenses, according...

Islam’s Self-Destructive SeedPosted By Nonie Darwish On January 23, 2015 @ 12:21 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 5 Comments Within the DNA of Islam is a self-destructive element: a prophecy by Mohammed in which he said that Islam will eventually be rejected by the world and would return back to where it came from. Ask your local imam, and he’ll tell you: Mohammed doesn’t lie.Incredibly, Mohammed himself was not optimistic about his own message and the future of Islam and Muslims: [T]he Messenger of Allah (Mohammed) observed: Verily Islam started as something strange and it would again revert (to its old...

The incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee says raising the federal fuel taxes is among the options under consideration to replenish the dwindling Highway Trust Fund. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota says all options must be looked at to fill an enormous shortfall when the existing highway legislation expires in May. …

Meet Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky’s Dad, Marc Mezvinsky By Erin Dooley Sep 27, 2014 Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky has been dubbed “the Clinton baby,” but Chelsea’s new bundle of joy is also part of the Mezvinsky family – and Bill and Hillary Clinton aren’t her only interesting grandparents. Chelsea’s husband, Marc Mezvinsky, is heir to a once-powerful political dynasty. His father, Ed Mezvinsky, was a two-term Democratic congressman, representing Iowa’s first congressional district from 1973 to 1977. But in 2002, the former congressman pleaded guilty to swindling more than $10 million from family and friends in a Ponzi-esque scheme. Ed Mezvinsky himself...

On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs into law the Social Security Act. Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by ranking members of Congress, signed into law the historic act, which guaranteed an income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be a "patriotic" act. Roosevelt had taken the helm of the country in 1932 in the midst of the Great Depression, the nation's worst economic crisis. The Social Security Act (SSA) was in keeping with his other "New Deal" programs, including the establishment of the Works Progress Administration and...

After six tumultuous months, open enrollment on the new Obamacare marketplaces comes to a close. Once enrollment is over, a look at the marketplaces will give the nation a better picture of how well the Affordable Care Act is functioning. It's already perfectly clear, though -- to voters and lawmakers alike -- that the law is a work in progress. The first few months of open enrollment were disastrous, after HealthCare.gov -- the site that serves as the Obamacare portal for 36 states -- was launched with major technical problems. Still, the administration says it has largely recovered, with more...

More than a dozen members of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church have managed to recoup some of their losses, originally totaling nearly $1 million, in a civil suit involving Bishop Eddie Long and alleged Ponzi scheme mastermind Ephren Taylor. Thirteen former members of Long's Lithonia, Ga., megachurch recently reached a confidential financial settlement with the Christian minister, although neither he nor Taylor have admitted to any wrongdoing. "I somewhat blame New Birth, because when this happened, instead of really showing us love, we were kind of looked at as outcasts," J.B. Bailey, one of the 13 victims who has recouped...

WEST PALM BEACH — Wooing politicians like Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Sen. John McCain was a key to the success of his $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme, convicted fraudster Scott Rothstein testified Wednesday in federal court.In a wide-ranging discussion of how he built the scheme and how it imploded in October 2009 that came during his testimony in the trial of lawyer Christina Kitterman, Rothstein was both confident and contrite.

You’ve all heard about Bitcoin. No one knows who created it, although some writers have made very educated guesses about the identity of the pseudonymous creator. I have sometimes wondered whether Bitcoin is the product of some transnational criminal organization or rogue state that wants to undermine developed economies by casting their payment systems into doubt. I am less concerned with Bitcoin’s origin than with its flaws. I shall enumerate those flaws forthwith. Bitcoin enables fraud and other criminal activities. This is absolutely the single most salient feature of Bitcoin’s anonymity. Conventional currencies are indeed subject to laundering and counterfeit....

Bitcoin is the name of a group of peer-to-peer payment networks that serve as an open-source form of digital currency that was originally introduced in 2009 by a software developer with the alias of 'Satoshi Nakamoto." Bitcoin currency is created as rewards to "miners" for providing the computing power to solve difficult math problems to maintain the "blockchain" of internet transactions in the currency. Unlike online credit cards and PayPal systems that allow buyers to claim their money back, bitcoin permanently transfers value. The bitcoin cyber-economy compassed of merchants, users, service providers, and startup enterprises has flourished for the past...

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), is holding the first congressional hearing on the future of Bitcoin. The first panel features senior figures from the Obama administration. And their comments about Bitcoin have been remarkably positive.

Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson lost $18 million in a scheme by a Virginia man that involved over a 100 victims, the congressman’s office confirmed Monday. [Snip] The scheme worked like this: clients would turn over their stocks to Chapman as collateral for a loan, and Chapman would let customers borrow about 90 percent of the stocks' value. If the stocks did badly, borrowers could walk away and keep the money they were loaned. But if the borrowers' stocks did well, they would repay the loan with interest, and Chapman was supposed to return the stocks to the investor at...

That was quick. Earlier today NBC Investigative journalists released a report where they claimed the Obama administration knew Americans would lose their insurance due to Obamacare back in 2010. Drudge linked to the article But suddenly the story is gone… Vanished. It was there all evening. It even made their top story list. But now it’s gone. The story is listed on Google – but it links to a dead ink. Weird.

When Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew testified in the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, urging Congress to enact a new law allowing the administration to increase the federal debt, his description of how the Treasury handles that debt mirrored the Securities and Exchange Commission’s definition of a Ponzi Scheme. “A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission. … On Thursday, Lew candidly told the Finance Committee that the U.S. Treasury will not be able to pay off current government debt-holders...

The same day that the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee announced last week that the Fed would continue to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and $45 billion in U.S. Treasury securities per month, the Fed also released its latest weekly accounting sheet indicating that it had already accumulated more Treasuries and MBS than the total value of the publicly held U.S. government debt amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington though Bill Clinton. Since the beginning of September 2008, in fact, the Fed’s ownership of Treasury securities and MBS has increased sevenfold. As of the close...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina is joining a growing number of states exploring new fees for hybrid and electric car owners to help make up for revenue those drivers aren’t paying in gas taxes on their fuel-efficient vehicles.

Edward "Ed" Mezvinsky born January 17, 1937, is a former Democrat congressman. As a Democrat, he represented Iowa 's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives for two terms, from 1973 to 1977. He sat on the House Judiciary Committee that decided the fate of Richard Nixon. He and the Clinton's were very politically intertwined for years. In March 2001, Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 charges of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He was sentenced to 80 months in (Federal) prison. Ed Mezvinsky embezzled more than $10 million...