Darrol Olsen alleges that Lockheed-Martin covered up problems with the stealth coatings on the F-22. (See also here.)
Considering this guy’s pedigree, he worked on stealth coatings for the F-117 and B-2, and the considerable problems that the F-22 has had with its stealth coatings, it’s readiness and maintenance requirements have underperformed, I’m inclined to believe that there is some merit in the lawsuit.
My guess is that LM will eventually settle with him, and we will hear no more of this.
I figure that he will be sworn in before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and lie about what he and his staff did, because he’s Goldman Sachs, and knows that there are no consequences for this if you are Goldman Sachs.
Felix Salmon looks at the response from “the top flack at Goldman Sach” (his words), and basically goes with Taibbi’s assessment.
Matt Taibbi’s response is even clearer: he notes that Goldman does not actually deny anything in their “denial”, and further notes that Goldman refused to respond ot his inquiries.
It appears that the Washington Post is selling access to, for sums in excess of $25,000.00, access to the “powerful few” in DC:
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few”: Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.
The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”
It appears that WaPo executive editor Marcus Brauchli has circulated a memo saying that members of the news department are prohibited from attending, which is unsurprising, since they got caught.
Normally, I wouldn’t expect journalists to turn down free food.
Pity Ruth Madoff. She’s going to have to live the rest of her life on just $2.5 million in cash:
Ruth will be left with just $2.5 million in cash by federal authorities under that deal.
“In the deal, she lost everything. She’s lost everything she holds dear,” said one source. “She’s lost her husband. She has no friends.”
“She’s persona non grata in Palm Beach, everywhere she cared about. She’s a beaten woman. There’s nothing left on the carcass to take,” the source said.
(emphasis mine)
$2½ million and PNG in Palm Beach!
The horror.
They pled no contest to battery.
Much better outcome than the attempted murder charges that were brought in response to a school fight on the “uppity n***er” theory.
The 6th member of the Jena 6 pled in juvenile court some time ago.
Representatives Travis Childers (D-Criminally Stupid)and Gary Miller (R-Stupid Criminal) have proposed an 18 month suspension of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), which is intended to reduce fraud in appraisals.
Unsurprisingly, in the world before politics, Childers and Miller were a realtor and a home builder respectively, and fraud=profits for that lot.
We know this bill sucks because of who supports it:
The National Association of Realtors’ Lawrence Yun says “stories of appraisal problems have been snowballing from across the country with many contracts falling through at the last moment.” The National Association of Mortgage Brokers proclaims, “Tens of thousands of consumers have already been robbed of their opportunity to enjoy historically low rates by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s rule.” The appraisal management companies, critics say, don’t seem to care if the appraisers they pick know anything about the neighborhoods in question.
This is a bad, bad bill.
Remember those bank warrants we got for TARP money?
Well Timothy Geithner and His Evil Minions™ want the banks themselves to set the price, at least initially:
The Treasury Department said the banks will make the first offer for the warrants. Treasury will then decide to sell at that price or make a counteroffer. If the government and a bank cannot agree on a fair price for the warrants, the two sides will have the right to use private appraisers.
If you want a fair price, put them out for public bid.
This is just another backdoor payout to the investment banks.
First, we overpay for the warrants, and now, we sell them back at less than their value.
The hole damn system is corrupt, and the bank bailout needs to be pursued as a criminal investigation, not as a crisis.
As near as I can figure out, the pity is that both sides cannot lose, see here, here, and here.
You have the corrupt land owning/political class in one corner, and a megalomaniac president in the other.
One waits to see what Obama will do beyond condemning this, because even if the President is a jerk, as it appears, this is a coup.
On the basis of prosecutorial misconduct including witness tampering.
Richard Scrushy’s legal, who was convicted in the same case, is asking the U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller, who originally heard the case, because, he participated in ex-parte discussions with the prosecution about juror misconduct, and so might be called as a witness.
I have little faith in anything here, except the Barak Obama and His Clueless Minions™, will do nothing to investigate the truth, because, hell, I don’t know why, but the misconduct here is far worse than what got Ted Stevens off.
On the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS, a bunch of us were discussing the fact that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s nookie run to Argentina was paid for by the taxpayers of the state, and Pickapeppa wrote, “I think it should be mandatory that all government officials be outfitted with GPS tracking chips.”
I think that the instrumentality suggested is not sufficient for the task envisioned.
*Seriously, just f@#$ing Google it.
Rolling Stone does not have it online, but you can find a copy of his latest, The Great American Bubble Machine in the Something Awful forums.
Basically, it’s a history of Goldman Sachs, and the intro says it all, “From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression – and they’re about to do it again.”
I don’t think that we will fix the banking system until we take those MoFo’s down.
Conyers’ Wife Pleads Guilty On Corruption Count
No idea what this means, but one wonders how this can not tangle Representative Conyers’ in this mess at some point.
Seriously, this guy is the best investigative reporter of my generation.
This time, he shows how the Bush administration leaked the fact that there was an investigation of Republican Congressman Rick Renzi the day after a wiretap warrant was approved:
In the fall of 2006, one day after the Justice Department granted permission to a U.S. attorney to place a wiretap on a Republican congressman suspected of corruption, existence of the investigation was leaked to the press — not only compromising the sensitive criminal probe but tipping the lawmaker off to the wiretap.
Career federal law enforcement officials who worked directly on a probe of former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) said they believe that word of the investigation was leaked by senior Bush administration political appointees in the Justice Department in an improper and perhaps illegal effort to affect the outcome of an election.
At the time of the leak, Renzi was locked in a razor-thin bid for reelection and unconfirmed reports of a criminal probe could have become politically damaging. The leaked stories — appearing 10 days before the election — falsely suggested that the investigation of Renzi was in its initial stages and unlikely to lead to criminal charges.
Note that if they had gotten permission to wire tap a Congressman, criminal charges are nearly a slam dunk, and the US attorney pursuing the investigation of the now-indicted Renzi was one of those purged by Bush and His Evil Minions™ for insufficient political loyalty.
BTW, it appear that the leaker may have been Alice Fisher, who was a recess appointment by President Bush as Assistant Attorney General in charge the Criminal Division of the DoJ.
She is the only assistant AG in that position who has never tried a criminal case.
Un-dirtyword-believable.
We are seeing an increase in senior executives are dumping shares in their firms.
It’s a pretty good indication that the recent run-up in share prices was a dead cat bounce, perhaps driven by accounting tricks to maximize profit this quarter.
When, in response to efforts in the real estate and mortgage industry to reign in appraisal reform, he says that, “I am beginning to suspect that the Realtor’s association and the Mortgage Broker’s association are pro-fraud.”
Well, duh.
Actually, it’s an interview with Wendell Potter, a former head of corporate communications for medical insurer CIGNA, but both positions involve causing death and sucking blood.
His interview shows a window to a very nasty place.
It’s not just Goldman, it’s a systemic thing, but their role in the collapse of AIG:
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA extracted about $11.4 billion from American International Group Inc. before the insurer’s collapse as the firms demanded to hold cash against losses on mortgage-linked securities, according to regulatory filings.
The problem with credit default swaps is that unlike short selling, which only effects a share price (though naked shorts should be banned, and the ban enforced), credit default swaps (CDS) can have the effect of bankrupting a company in a matter of hours, and frequently the holders of these securities have no interest in the survival of the underlying assets.
Yes, the masters of the universe are once again going to make obscenely huge bonuses to its senior staff:
Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm’s 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.
Of course the very next paragraph seems to indicate that the nominal reason for these bonuses, retention of skilled staff, is not operative:
A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.
Lack of competition for business implies lack of competition for employees, but the bonuses keep going up.