A: The "best little whorehouse on Wall Street"

Q: Where did some of these incompetent and corrupt bankers spend their time and the banks' money last year?

• an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who saw "Kelsey and Keely together" and later saw "Aria and Skyler at the same time"
• an investment banker at JP Morgan Securities who "loves Brooke" and spent $41,600
• an investment banker at Goldman Sachs who "only wanted all-American girls" and spent $27,000
• a managing director from Merrill Lynch who saw "Lana" using the name "Nataly"
• a managing director from Deutsche Bank "who called about seeing Nataly again"

Oh yeah... I guess these "corporate expenses" are very likely getting covered by "US" now.

"Some of these guys, I was invoicing on corporate credit cards," she said. "I was writing up monthly bills for computer consulting, construction expenses, all of these things, I was invoicing them monthly so they could get it by their accountants," Davis said.

C'mon an' say it with me: "FRAUD"

Of course, Kristen Davis was prosecuted, jailed and fined for her part... As for the nearly 10,000 high powered clients committing fraud to cover up their misdemeanor crimes, making these crimes a felony? Typically, the men remain untouched by these scandals.

How do you feel about bailing these people out?

Note to ABC news: We want names! All 10,000 of them.

Note to the White House Dress Code Police:

The Emperor Wears No Clothes...

More feigned outrage from the fake conservative side of the aisle.

One day after President Bush's former Chief of Staff Andrew Card blasted President Obama for breaking the Bush dress code, which reportedly required that a jacket be worn by anyone entering the Oval Office, we've unearthed a photo of, well, a jacketless President Bush in the Oval Office.

We have had our laugh... The GOP talking-pointy-heads can go back to getting Cheetos' crumbs on their PJs in their mama's basement now.

Ginsburg Hospitalized for Cancer...

NY Times has it...

The court announcement said the cancer is apparently in the early stages.

In 1999, Ginsburg had surgery for colon cancer and had chemotherapy and radiation treatment. The only woman on the court, she has been a justice since 1993.

The pancreatic cancer was discovered during a routine, annual exam late last month at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

DeLauro and Emanuel Involved in a Scandalous Affair?

I doubt it. And NO! Not that kind of affair. Gawker says that they are sharing a single dwelling in Washington, something that is very common among legislators trying to save a few bucks.

He's the cheapskate of staff. Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's right-hand man, lives in a basement apartment on Capitol Hill rented to him by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. Just one problem: He's not allowed to live there.

That's what private investigator Joseph Culligan discovered after asking questions of D.C. officials. A zoning administrator responded to Culligan's inquiry and told him that DeLauro's house at 816 E. Capitol St. NE was listed as a single-family dwelling, and as such, could not be rented out.

She rents a place and they share it. I am trying to figure out what the real scandal is? Empty space in newspapers and on Blogs that need to be filled?

Get back to me with pictures of them messing around in a hot tub together with some Playboy bunnies while some Chippendale guys are swinging from the chandeliers butt naked with their asses painted candy apple red and pissing pissing on the crowd. Then you might have have a real scandal.

Anyways... Emanuel is looking for new DC digs already.

I gotta say that I do find it interesting that one of the more lefty leaning members of the Democratic party, Rosa Delauro, and the brass knuckles more conservative type politician, Rahm Emanuel, are able to accomplish the feat of co-existance under the same roof without some kind of nuclear dust up? Sounds like "fly on the wall" type fun.

Republican strategy summed up...

Republicans are crapping in one hand and wishing in the other. Over here on the reality side, we really want you Republicans to get back to us on which hand fills up first?

Nevermind... You still don't get it. Obviously, you never did.

Here is an interesting post on soldiers, suicide and some health care issues that is well worth the read. The post is not all doom and gloom as The Political Cat also offers some humor to lighten up your day.

Daschle pulls his name...

On the heels of Killefer withdrawing her name to be the first chief performance officer... Obama accepts Daschle's withdrawal from consideration as health care Czar due to his tax embarrassment.

Good! We don't need junk like them. Geitner should offer his resignation, as well.

[update] Who will replace Daschle? As much as many in the left have put out this name... Don't make it Dean. He wants the Obama approach too:

Excusing the pun in light of the recent troubles in the auto industry, Dean said the reform doesn't have to be a Cadillac; it can start simply. "It's a false debate whether we should have a single payer or not. That's not the issue. What matters is, how [reform] evolves. We have to proceed at a pace of comfort for the American people."

Americans want single payer NOW!

I doubt it would be him, anyways, given the rift between him and Obama's inner circle. If Obama were really honest about a team of adversaries? Kucinich or Conyers comes to mind...

The Senate Stimulus Vote is in the Bag

Think about it. Obama just tapped Republican Senator Judd Gregg, who stood there at the press conference and said he supported the stimulus package, to be his Secretary of Commerce. If Obama was worried about it passing would he have pulled the one vote he needed to assure it passing in the Senate? If he did, he would have to be stupid. I doubt that is the case.

The only other reasoning there would be is if the Conservative Dems were trying to strip stuff or or the progressive caucus were holding it hostage to get more...

Someone get the video, please? lol

Side note: If anything needs to go from the stimulus, consideration for funding the mythical "clean coal" should be tossed. And the coal industry funded Obama local ads on TV aren't swaying me from that reality.

President Obama has been a longtime supporter of "clean coal," the still-illusory concept of coal-fired power plants that can capture and store the carbon emissions that they generate.

The environmental movement tends to view "clean coal" with skepticism at best and derision at worst -- and few projects epitomize the contentious debate over clean coal more than FutureGen, the $1.8 billion dollar plant slated to be built in the downstate town of Mattoon, Illinois.

The state's congressional delegation, including a pre-election Sen. Obama, has been pressing to restore government aid to FutureGen since the Bush administration abruptly cut off money for the project last year, citing excessive construction costs.

On Dodd's VIP Countrywide Mortgages

"I am not a crook!"

Senator Chris Dodd released the details of his Countrywide mortgages. In a statement released with it he said that he would refinance the loans. But, please, pay no attention to this fact:

"Jackie and Chris have "decided to refinance (their) homes", which seems unremarkable, given that they had an ARM that guaranteed their rates for 5 years and the rates re-set last July or so, I gather. Who wouldn't at least try to refinance?"

h/t to ctblogger and greenpeas, with more commentary, videos and documents available at the link.

On Judge Curtissa E. Cofield

With permission from Wayne Bennett, AKA: The Field Negro, a lawyering kind of guy sometimes seen running the streets of Philadelphia. A local Hartford Judge gets in trouble for a DUI, and then makes matters worse for herself:

Here Come Da Drunk.

Before I start this post, let me say congrats O man for getting your stimulus package passed in the house today. I know the rethugs are fit to be tied, but fuck em, they don't have a party anymore; they are totally irrelevant.

Okay now that I got that off my chest I want to talk about Judge Curtissa E. Cofield.

Honestly, I don't want to pile on the good judge, lord knows she has been getting it from all quarters, and rightfully so. Getting busted for DUI was bad inexcusable behavior for someone who sits in judgement of others, but what really set me off about this story was her behavior after she was arrested. This happened back in October, but this is the You Tube age, and the video of her little ep. recently went public.

Seriously folks, the self hatred that some Negroes display on a daily basis is astonishing to me. Now here is a supposedly educated woman calling out an African American police officer for doing his job. "Well, they got the head n----- in charge and he … Which one, the head n----- in charge?" Now Judge, was that really necessary? "Oh, no. We don't. We're ghetto Negroes. We don't have Triple-A." Well Judge, I hate to break it to you, but you are a serious "ghetto Negro". I don't care where you live, or what you do for a living. Being a "ghetto Negro" is a state of mind. And your state of mind is seriously fucked up. Ahh but come on field, this was black on black hate, what's the big deal? It's a huge deal. Because a lot of our problems as a community stem from black on black hate. And for a Judge, of all people, to be displaying these characteristics, just makes the story even more sad.

In the Islands we have an expression for Negroes like the good Judge: "Neva si cum si" Translated: Never had shit, but now they do. Mrs. Field calls these people "new". As in that Negro done got "new". This Judge obviously can't get over herself, and it only took a little alcohol in her system to bring out the.....well, "ghetto".

Oh well, here is hoping that the good Judge won't allegedly drink and drive anymore. It's a dangerous a deadly practice. Hopefully she will have learned a lesson, and here is hoping that she writes a long letter to that state trooper apologizing for her ignorant and crass behavior.

Apparently the Judicial Review Board might have the final say in this episode, and honestly, I am not from Hartford, so I don't know what type of jurist this woman is. But what I do know is that she might just want to do some serious soul searching.

"I'm not signing anything, because when it comes down to the bottom line, who's smarter — me or you? We'll figure it out, won't we?"

Judge, we already did, and it ain't you.

----------------------------
Well said, Wayne...

We have already established that the client is a fool,
she does not need a lawyer that is one.

While these actions and statements are reprehensible from someone in a position of authority, especially given Judge Cofield's unique position on the bench, I think that Helen Urbinas is beyond a little harsh in this Courant Blog post condemning the judge for taking the basic actions that any lawyer would be a fool not to suggest as the way to go for a client. In this case it would seem the lawyer has the herculean task of protecting the client from herself.

And as bad as what Judge Cofield did clearly was, she, like anyone else, deserves honest representation and a fair trial.

Class War coming to neighborhood near you?

How the heck can we fight for a better America in this very real class war when the evil and criminal CEO masterminds of America's failure turn tail and run like the weak-kneed American breed of foolish elitists that they are?

Don't they understand that there are going to be less and less places on this earth where they can hide? And if they find somewhere new to hide? We will take it to them there.

We are not amused by their actions.

The 1 percenters of the world, and their hired yes men, are so far removed from reality and will never get it until they are kicked around for real. They cause all of the problems and reap windfall profits from it. And playing on the other side of the street on TV for a week will never teach them what it is like to look at a child as a poor parent, a child wanting and needing just the basics in life. And knowing that child will not get that, the most basics, which, just as every other human being, they have a right to.

Food.

There is a hidden epidemic in the United States. All over this country it is striking Americans of every age group and ethnicity, whether they live in cities or rural areas. And so, despite the diversity of targets, those suffering in this silent epidemic have two things in common: they are poor or low-income, and they are increasingly going without enough food. Although politicians talk about “poverty in America,” decision-makers avoid specifically mentioning the growing, and often deadly problem of hunger. George McGovern said in 1972, “To admit the existence of hunger in America is to confess that we have failed in meeting the most sensitive and painful of human needs. To admit the existence of widespread hunger is to cast doubt on the efficacy of our whole system.” Three decades later, evidence indicates that the existing system is failing a vast number of Americans. This Fact Sheet documents the epidemic.

A home.

Although single men constitute about sixty percent of the homeless population, families constitute about one third of all homeless and are the fastest-growing group of homeless. The homeless elderly will also be an important group as America ages in the next decades (Rosenheck, Bassuk, and Salomon*; Burt, Aron, and Lee*). Although about seventy percent of the homeless live in central cities, rural homelessness is a hidden problem. The rural homeless are more likely to be families that are homeless for shorter periods of time, often as a result of domestic violence (Singleton et al.*). One of the hardest groups to reach, however, is the one fourth of homeless who have been homeless for at least five years (Burt*).

Some basic medical help when they are sick.

Dodd and Larson Get an Earful on Healthcare

Via Mark Pazniokas of the Hartford Courant, 675 angry and frustrated people showed up to this healthcare forum at Goodwin College:

On the first day of a listening tour on health care, an issue pivotal to the new Congress and his own re-election, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd got an earful Friday.

The first comment came from a furious homeless shelter manager: He and his clients have no coverage, yet insurance giant American International Group got an $85 billion federal loan.

Over 90 minutes, the Democratic senator heard from a string of constituents, who waved their hands, hoping for a chance to describe a struggle to hang onto middle-class lives after losing jobs and affordable health care. A few were angry, others just scared.

On the way out, Dodd embraced one woman who burst into tears as she described losing health coverage for her disabled 2-year-old. Dodd held her until she stopped sobbing.

Dodd says that Tom Daschle, Obama's pick to guide healthcare reform, will be coming to Connecticut to discuss the issue. I say that they better be prepared to get another earful because the incremental changes being proposed will not answer the massive problems we are facing.

Problems like this:

"[the forum] included the president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, a reassuring signal to Connecticut's insurance industry."

Yep! Dodd and Larson think that these people are supposed to be our allies on this issue.

MA regulators: Did Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Partners HealthCare collude to fix prices and raise rates 75%?

Partners, insurer under scrutiny

Attorney General Martha Coakley has launched an investigation into whether the state's largest health insurance company and its largest healthcare provider may have illegally colluded to increase the price of health insurance statewide over the last nine years, according to several legal and government sources.

The attorney general sent formal demands for information to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Partners HealthCare late last week, the sources say, calling for a detailed account of their contract negotiations in recent years.

Since 2000, Blue Cross has boosted the rate it pays for medical care by Partners doctors and hospitals by 75 percent, dramatically more than the increases given to most other Massachusetts hospitals. Blue Cross now pays $2 billion a year to Partners, parent company of Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's hospitals.

Why do we put up with this?

I don't want these insurance industries' input into my healthcare in any way, shape or form. This is the kind of health care the insurance giants have provided us thus far:



H/t nyceve for the video, where I encourage you to go read the entire piece and watch all the videos:

We all know that during the Bush regime, American citizens never saw the coffins of our fallen heroes coming back from Iraq.

Americans are also shielded from the brutal ugliness of our collapsed healthcare system. The traditional media is ill-informed (what else is new?), and rarely, if ever, give us frank and candid reporting about the grotesque realities of the U.S. healthcare catastrophe. So the BBC picks up the slack.

One last quote from Dodd:

"I hear people talking about a single-payer plan and the like," Dodd said. "That isn't going to happen. It's going to be a combination of public, private."

Why might Dodd hold the view of "hearing" what we are saying but not listening?

Jackie M. Clegg Dodd serves on the board of health care, pharmaceutical, and financial services companies.

Here's a list:

Director , Brookdale Senior Living Incorporated
Brentwood , TN
Sector: HEALTHCARE / Long-Term Care Facilities

Director , Cardiome Pharma Corporation
Vancouver, B.C. , CN
Sector: HEALTHCARE / Drug Manufacturers

Director , CME Group, Incorporated
Chicago , IL
Sector: FINANCIAL / Diversified Investments

Director , Javelin Pharmaceuticals, Incorporated
Cambridge , MA
Sector: HEALTHCARE / Drug Manufacturers

Through these directorships she's earned more than $1 million for the Dodd family.

You want to stay in Congress with these kinds of answers, Senator Dodd?

"That isn't going to happen."

Not only will all of you hear us, but you will start to listen...

Are you starting to get the picture concerning exactly what we are up against? And it goes beyond just the little people that are really losing this war.

As the one percent of the planet that holds the preponderance of wealth and the other 99% of the planet wake up to the fact that we ARE in a Class War, things are about to get interesting. Especially IF the 99% wake up to the fact that the 1% is killing the planet we all share ...unnecessarily... just so that they can make even more money.

As if money will save them.