Ethics // Current

Call for tests after sudden death

They say the DNA from such samples may reveal an unsuspected inherited condition and... more

LadybugLady
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3 days ago
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How Market Crash Helped Hedge Fund Operator

Before the financial crisis hit, John Paulson was just your run-of-the-mill hedge fund... more

atomiclegion
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4 days ago
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1 comment

The Agency of Albert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS2zU6YPl24 Albert's speech -the worthy cult-

remanns
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7 days ago
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3 comments

Leaked.....30 members of Congress under Ethics investigation

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g77OhUU3Qn8z1CXaKKobq-dq2q2gD9BLPVEG0... more

vincius
added this
11 days ago
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2 comments

Vitamin C - Episode 50 - "The Evil Kingdom?"

Well how about that?! Vitamin C: Your Daily Dose On China has just turned 50 years... more

gtowna
added this
12 days ago
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0 comments

Is monogamy realistic?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/10/28/monogamy.realistic.today/index.html If you were... more

singrrr
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13 days ago
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6 comments

Produce Brand Uses Barcodes and Transparency to Promote Social Change

We limit the combined total dollar amount of item-labeled produce that any single... more

TOP10PRODUCELLC
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15 days ago
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Spray Windex, Get Money. Clean smells promote moral behavior.

Would you like a pro tip for getting people to part with their money, promoting... more

ochreRobot
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17 days ago
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1 comment

Did Bush's Treasury Secretary, Former Chairman of Goldman Sachs, Break The Law?

Did Henry Paulson, George W. Bush's Treasury secretary, break the law?

According to a new book on the financial meltdown by New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, in June 2008, Paulson, who was the chairman of Goldman Sachs before joining the Bush administration, held a secret meeting in Moscow with the board of directors of his former employer. The problem for Paulson—then and possibly now—was that after he had been nominated in 2006 to the Treasury post he had signed an ethics letter vowing to stay clear of potential conflicts of interest with Goldman Sachs and promising not to take any action that might affect the firm's ability to cover his multimillion-dollar pension.

As Sorkin recounts the episode, Paulson and the Goldman Sachs board happened to be in Moscow at the same time. Learning of this coincidence, Paulson asked his chief of staff, Jim Wilkinson, to set up a meeting. Wilkinson was not happy about this. "For fuck's sake!" he thought, according to Sorkin. Paulson told him that the meeting could be considered a social gathering, but as Wilkinson worked out the details with the Goldman Sachs crowd, he asked that the session remain confidential. And the event was not placed on Paulson's official calendar.

When Paulson and the firm's execs got together at the Moscow Marriott Grand Hotel, the Treasury secretary gave the Goldman Sachs crew his read on what was happening with the economy and his department's effort to prepare for handling failed banks. He also previewed for them an important speech he would soon deliver. That is, he privately shared his views on matters of direct interest to his old firm. And as Sorkin points out, Paulson had at this point never provided such a briefing to any other company (except for once "briefly dropping by" a cocktail party for the board of BlackRock).

In September 2008, as the economy imploded, Paulson obtained an ethics waiver that would permit him to deal with Goldman Sachs. But at the time of the Moscow meeting, he was still covered by his original ethics agreement. And two government watchdog groups now say that Paulson seems to have broken ethics laws when he hobnobbed with his former firm's top brass. Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, tells Mother Jones:

"Henry Paulson’s meeting with the board of directors of his former employer, Goldman Sachs, appears to be a serious violation of ethics laws. Given that the meeting took place in the summer of 2008—months before he received an ethics waiver allowing him to participate in matters that would affect his Goldman pension—it was completely inappropriate for Paulson to discuss internal matters at the Treasury Department, and to preview an important speech he was about to deliver. This could potentially be a criminal or civil matter."Did Henry Paulson, George W. Bush's Treasury secretary, break the law? According to... more

WakeUpPeople
added this
21 days ago
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2 comments

See which of the country's largest food producers are behind your favorite Organic snacks.

This is a good chart, quickly viewable. I usually recommend: Read the label and... more

lookatmypix
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23 days ago
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16 comments

FBI Veteran Executive Calls For Special Counsel Investigation, Prosecutions in Sibel Edmonds Case

An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for a Special Counsel to be appointed to investigate the allegations of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. John M. Cole, who now works as an intelligence contractor for the Air Force, made his comments during an audio interview released late last week with radio journalist Peter B. Collins.

He also offered a detailed insider's look at the concerns among high-level officials inside the Bureau as Edmonds' disturbing allegations began coming to light back in 2002, before they would be quashed for seven long years by the Bush Administration's unprecedented use of the so-called "State Secrets Privilege" to gag her.

Earlier last week, following the publication of a remarkable American Conservative magazine cover story interview with Edmonds --- detailing a broad bribery, blackmail, and espionage conspiracy said to have been carried out between current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and covert operatives from Turkey and Israel, resulting in the theft and sale of nuclear weapons technology on the foreign black market --- Cole had been quoted by the magazine confirming one of Edmonds' key allegations.

"I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of" Marc Grossman, he said in response to the AmCon article/interview. Grossman had served as the third-highest ranking official in the Bush State Department and was alleged by Edmonds in the interview, and in a sworn, video-taped deposition a month earlier, to have been the U.S. ringleader for a massive Turkish espionage scandal reaching through the halls of power and into top-secret nuclear facilities around the country to the benefit of allies and enemies alike. Cole said that the FBI's counterintelligence probe "ultimately was buried and covered up," and that he believes it is "long past time" for an investigation of the case to "bring about accountability."

In his subsequent interview with Collins last week (audio and text excerpts posted below) Cole elaborated on those comments in much greater detail, noting that Edmonds has been "one hundred percent right on the money, on the mark" and confirming the existence of an "ongoing and detailed effort by Turkey to develop influence in the United States" through various illegal activities.

"Yes, I can confirm that," Cole told Collins, "That's true."

The FBI veteran executive also offered an insider's account of the panic that ensued inside the highest echelons of the bureau following Edmonds' first disclosure of information in 2002, recounting how an executive assistant director admitted to him at the time, just after the story first broke, "Well, all I know is that everything that Sibel is stating is true. I read her file. Everything she stated is, in fact, accurate."
Cole further describes how the concerns about Edmonds ultimately led to the Bush Administration's two-time use of the Draconian "State Secrets Privilege" in hopes of keeping her extraordinary information from becoming public. "Everybody at headquarters level at the bureau knew that what she was saying was extremely accurate."

"I know they didn't want her to go out and speak about it at all," Cole revealed, "and I know they were trying to figure out ways of keeping this whole thing quiet, because they didn't want Sibel to come out."

He also offered information which directly counters one of the criticisms of Edmonds' allegations as frequently offered by skeptics. Namely, that as a short time FBI contract translator --- even though she was tasked to review some seven years of counterintelligence wiretaps made from 1996 to 2002 --- she couldn't have had enough understanding of the full scope of the investigations to understand what was really going on.
More...An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for... more

RFIDemocracy
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1 month ago
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7 comments

Dianne Feinstein: War Profiteer

As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations... more

Mulcahey
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29 days ago
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Going chemical-free in your clothing is getting easier

Your clothes may have a chemical-dependency problem. The cotton in your shirt was... more

julesrs007
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1 month ago
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3 comments

Ethiopia suffers from Middle East animal smuggling

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia should take urgent steps to curb animal smuggling to... more

julesrs007
added this
1 month ago
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0 comments

Politico misquote of Perriello: sorry, but an apology just isn’t enough

Once upon a time most respectable dailies would probably have fired a reporter on the... more

hoosierdaddy
added this
1 month ago
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Justice Scalia: Champion of the "Right" to Torture Animals

Antonin Scalia thinks people's "right" to giddily watch animals rip each other apart is more important than those animals' right not to be ripped apart. http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/animal_torture_the_supreme_court_and_absurdity_from_the_nyt_and_lat

From Reuters:

Justice Antonin Scalia said the court needed to consider "the right of people who like cockfighting, who like dogfighting and who like bullfighting to present their side of the debate."

From AP:

Justice Antonin Scalia was having none of it. In the area of free speech, Scalia said, "it's not up to the government to decide what are people's worst instincts."

Scalia also pointed out that opponents of animal fighting may feel more free to use the images to express their views than proponents. "People who like bull fighting, who like dog fighting, who like cock fighting ... that side of the debate is entitled to make its point as forcefully as possible," he said.

Their "side of the debate"? "Entitled to make its point as forcefully as possible"? A Supreme Court justice thinks there's a debate about whether humans should be sadistically training animals to maim and kill each other for humans' amusement, about whether we should pit animals against each other and cheer and bet money on their suffering and gruesome, violent deaths.

A Supreme Court justice thinks that those who enjoy encouraging violence and inflicting extreme suffering on those more vulnerable are "entitled to make [their] point as forcefully as possible" by selling videos of that violence, to show how fun it really is.

You know what, Scalia? There are also people who truly believe that acts of pedophilia don't really hurt children. Should they be able to make their point "as forcefully as possible" too? Are their "rights" as people who like molesting children something we should consider when we make laws meant to protect children?

But according to these initial reports, it doesn't appear the other justices are falling all over themselves to stand up for animals either. No decision is expected until next year, but it doesn't look good. I'll be interested to read (and will pass along) the more detailed accounts of, and reactions to, what went on today later...Antonin Scalia thinks people's "right" to giddily watch animals rip each other apart... more