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Muck tracker – IL governor seeks Burris resignation
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has called on Sen. Roland Burris to resign, USA Today reports. Burris was appointed to the post by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
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VW ‘an accident waiting to happen’September 26, 2015 at 7:53am
Experts on corporate governance tell the New York Times they’re not surprised by the troubles at Volkswagen.
Muck Tracker Madoff Never Bought Stock
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Antitrust Nominee Christine Varney Described Google As a Monopolist
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Muck Tracker Il Governor Seeks Burris Resignation
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Lawsuit against Skull and Bones renews mystery about Geronimo’s remains
The descendants of Geronimo, the Apache chieftain whose skull is rumored to be part of the initiation rite of Yale’s Skull and Bones Society, filed a lawsuit Tuesday demanding the return of his remains.
The lawsuit, which named Yale’s oldest and most powerful secret society, the university and the U.S. government, was brought by 20 members of the legendary warrior’s family on the 100th anniversary of his death.
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(requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Three members of Skull and Bones, including George W Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, are said to have dug up the remains when they were stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma during World War I, and taken them back to the society’s headquarters at Yale, called the Tomb.
The society, whose membership includes three U.S. presidents, including two Bushes, supposedly makes new members kiss the Chiricahua Apache’s skull as part of their induction.
“It’s been 100 years since the death of my great-grandfather in 1909. It’s been 100 years of imprisonment,” Harlyn Geronimo said outside of court in Washington D.C.
“The spirit is wandering until a proper burial has been performed. The only way to put this into closure is to release the remains, his spirit, so that he can be taken back to his homeland in the Gila Mountains, at the head of the Gila River.”
The suit contends that Geronimo’s descendants are entitled to his remains and funerary possessions under the 1990 American Indian Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
The Geronimo family is being represented by Ramsey Clark, who was attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson. “In this lawsuit, we’re going to find out if the bones are there or not,” Clark said.
The latest support for the claim that Geronimo’s remains had been swiped by members of the powerful clandestine society was uncovered two years ago by a researcher at Yale. It’s a June 1918 letter from one Bonesman, Winter Mead, to another, F. Trubee Davison:
“The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club . . . is now safe inside [the clubhouse] together with his well worn femurs, bit & saddle horn.”
Another account alleges that Prescott Bush was one of the grave robbers. But at least until now, no member of the society has ever come forward to answer questions.
We’ve written before about how Sen. John McCain tried to broker a meeting in the mid-1980s between George H.W. Bush and one of his Arizona constituents – a former Apache chieftain name Ned Anderson seeking the return of the remains.
Bush, however, wasn’t interested, and the matter was dropped, according to Alexandra Robbins, author of Secrets of the Tomb. A 2006 appeal for the skull’s return, this time to George W., from Harlyn Geronimo, also went unanswered, according to a report by the Associated Press.
For all the intrigue, some believe the whole thing is a story concocted by drunken frat boys.
“It’s all a bunch of poppycock,” said Towana Spivey, a Geronimo expert, a Chickasaw, and director of the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark Museum told the Washington Post. “He’s still buried where he was originally.”
Spivey says he is so certain because the Apaches deliberately misled outsiders as to the location of the grave, and a description of the tomb the Bonesmen allegedly found doesn’t match Geronimo’s.
Of course, Skull and Bones could clear up the controversy, if it wanted, by sending out its skull for forensic testing, said Garrick Bailey, professor of anthropology at the University of Tulsa and former member of the board that oversees the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
“You should be able to tell whether or not it’s that of an elderly Native American male,” Bailey told the Hartford Courant. “Geronimo was one of the great iconic figures of American Indian history, particularly as it relates to the spirit of resistance. If I was his descendant, I would be appalled that the question lingers.”
Yet those questions are what give a secret society its grasp on the imagination. The order, founded in 1832, has always been a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists because of its closely held secrets and its powerful membership.
In the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, both the Democratic and Republican nominees were members. George W. Bush wrote in his 1999 autobiography: “[In my] senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society; so secret, I can’t say anything more.”
When asked what it meant that both he and Bush were Bonesmen, former Presidential candidate John Kerry said, “Not much because it’s a secret.”
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Citigroup’s Pandit plays game of musical chairs with fedsFebruary 25, 2009 at 1:46pm
Vikram Pandit is still working out a rescue plan that would turn over as much as 40% of his bank to the U.S. government. The question is whether he will manage to hold onto his job – and whether he will want to.
Can Arthur G. Sulzberger III go from cub reporter to savior?
Following in his father’s footsteps, Arthur G. Sulzberger III reports to work Monday as a Metro desk reporter at The New York Times.
The 28-year-old son of publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. will start off as a contributor to the City Room, a local blog.
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Like his father before him, the younger Sulzberger begins at the Times after developing his reporting chops at The Oregonian and The Providence Journal. (His father began at The Raleigh Times and then reported for the Associated Press before taking a job in The Times’ Washington bureau and eventually moving over to the business side in preparation for his promotion to publisher in 1992 and then, company chairman in 1997).
Those who have worked with Arthur Gregg Sulzberger – his middle name is the maiden name of his mother, Gail Gregg, who separated from Arthur Jr. last year – give him high marks.
“He’s incredibly down-to-earth, modest and eager to learn the right way,” one Times newsroom source told the New York Observer. “If you look at his journalism, it’s journalism that people here would produce.
“When I looked at his clips, I said ‘Oooh! This guy ain’t bad!’” the source added. “I was actually very pleasantly surprised.”
While the younger Sulzberger was at The Oregonian, he wrote under the byline, Arthur Sulzberger, breaking a series of stories that led to the resignation of the sheriff of Oregon’s largest county.
“Sheriff Bernie Giusto was the longtime and greatly admired sheriff here, and there was a two-year investigation that was relentless, and Arthur’s work helped push Giusto from office,” said Sandy Rowe, editor of The Oregonian.
But at the start of the 21st century, being a dogged reporter and a decent guy may not cut it for the heir apparent to run a beleaguered multimedia company which faces competition not just from other media companies, but from Internet giants like Google.
As business blogger Henry Blodget noted yesterday, New York Times stock now costs less than the Sunday paper, and it’s getting cheaper all the time amid a stampede of readers and advertisers to the Internet.
And even with a $250 million cash infusion from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the Times’ debt is estimated at $1.1 billion and some investors are restless. On Thursday, the paper suspended dividend payments to shareholdersfor the first time in four decades as a publicly traded company.
Still, the Times’s family-controlled stock structure seems likely to protect the company from most challenges from outside investors. And few doubt that “Pinch” Sulzberger, as the Times’ chairman is nicknamed, would like to see his son take over.
In the 1992 book The Girls in the Balcony, which documented a sex-discrimination suit against the Times, author Nan Robertson quotes Sulzberger telling a female executive, “I want to leave my son a different newspaper from the one I’m inheriting.”(It wasn’t until later that the executive thought to point out that Sulzberger has a daughter as well.)
Annie Sulzberger shows little interest in the Times, however, pursuing a career in art preservation while “aspiring to be a Daily Show correspondent,” according to New York magazine’s description of her Friendster page (which also features a photo of her and her brother smoking a hookah while watching a Woody Allen film).
So Arthur Gregg Sulzberger III steps up to the plate, where he can expect to be scrutinized like virtually no other reporter.
That may be good preparation as he auditions for the daunting role of newspaper savior.Click here to sign up for the Muckety Newsletter
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Citigroup’s Pandit plays game of musical chairs with fedsFebruary 25, 2009 at 1:46pm
Vikram Pandit is still working out a rescue plan that would turn over as much as 40% of his bank to the U.S. government. The question is whether he will manage to hold onto his job – and whether he will want to.
Lawsuit Against Skull and Bones Renews Mystery About Geronimos Remains
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At 28 Arthur G Sulzberger Iii Takes His Place in the Family Shop
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Stanford accused in a scam ‘of shocking magnitude’
Anyone suffering from Madoff fatigue may have a new money manager to deplore.
The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday accused R. Allen Stanford and three of his companies with “orchestrating a fraudulent, multi-billion dollar investment scheme.”
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A Texas judge has frozen Stanford’s assets to protect investors, according to an SEC statement.
“We are alleging a fraud of shocking magnitude that has spread its tentacles throughout the world,” said Rose Romero of the SEC’s Fort Worth office in the statement.
The New York Times reported on its website that police officers entered the Stanford Group’s offices in Houston yesterday.
Stanford, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Antigua and Barbuda and the billionaire chairman of Stanford Financial Group, allegedly used false data to lure investors.
The three Stanford Financial Group companies named in the complaint are: Stanford International Bank in St. John’s, Antigua, West Indies, Stanford Capital Management and Stanford Group Company of Houston.
According to the SEC, Stanford International Bank sold $8 billion in certificates of deposit by “promising improbable and unsubstantiated high interest rates.”
The commission’s complaint alleges that bank falsely claimed its investments lost only 1.3 percent in 2008 at a time when the S&P 500 lost 39 percent.
The complaint also points up the improbable coincidence that the bank reported identical earnings of 15.71 percent in 1995 and 1996.
And it alleges that only two people, Allen Stanford and James M. Davis, a director and CFO of Stanford Financial Group, are aware of the details of the bank’s investment portfolio.
Davis, Stanford’s roommate when they attended Baylor University, is also named in the complaint, as is Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of the bank and of Stanford Financial Group.
The complaint states that Stanford and Davis refused to testify in the investigation. Pendergest-Holt did testify.
According to The Wall Street Journal, word of investigations into Stanford International Bank had already sent investors rushing to Antigua to withdraw their money.
Allen Stanford had earlier told company employees that there would be a “temporary moratorium on early redemptions of CDs,” the paper reported.
A native of Texas, Stanford is the chairman and sole shareholder of the Stanford Investment Bank in Antigua.
According to the SEC, the bank claimed 50,000 clients in 2007. It does not loan money. Rather, it sells CDs through the Stanford Group Company.
Stanford became a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda 10 years ago. He was knighted there and is referred to as Sir Allen Stanford on his company’s website.
Stanford Financial Group sponsors a variety of sporting events, most recently a cricket tournament in Antigua with $20 million in prizes, reportedly the most lucrative in the history of the sport.
The Stanford International Bank had told investors in an earlier report that it had no exposure to funds controlled by Bernard L. Madoff, the investment manager who may have run a $50 million Ponzi scheme.
The Times reported, however, that the Stanford bank did lose $400,000 in an investment in a Madoff feeder fund.
According to federal records, Stanford has made extensive campaign contributions over the years.
Recipients of donations from Stanford, his companies or his employees include Democratic Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Charles Schumer of New York and Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas.
Contributions have also gone to several members of the House of Representatives, including Charles Rangel of New York, a Democrat, and Republican Rep. John Boehner of Ohio.
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Your headline said he as arrested.
WHERE, HOW ???
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The ‘SCAMSTER’ STANFORD’s friends in the US CONGRESS…
The latest ‘SCAMSTER’ on the WORLD FINANCIAL SCENE is
ALLEN STANFORD bilking people out of $8BILLIONS+[now of parts unknown cuz he has fled the US or made himself unavailable to authorities!] His ‘friends’ included among the top recipients and favorites getting the ‘SCAMSTERS’ illicit monies/favors: Senaturd Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), REPREHENSIBLE Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Senaturd John McCain (R-Ariz.), Senaturd Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Senaturd John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the members who took a trip to Antigua where he was entertained by Stanford. GREAT ROSTER OF SCUMMY SYCOPHANTS EH THESE US SENATURDS??? -
National Ponzi Scheme – Recovery.Gov – ARRA – Stimulus Plan
The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is an extention of the National Debt by $2580 for every man, woman, and child.
Of that, President Obama claims $288 billion is “Tax Relief,” or $944 per person. Then, he claims the “Tax Relief” includes $15 billion for infrastructure and science, $61 billion for “protecting the vulnerable,” $25 billion for education and training, and $22 billion for “Energy.”
So, after all those special tax cut programs are removed, that leaves $165 billion of more general “Tax Relief,” for all of us not in those categories, or $540 per person. So, you are going into debt for investing $2580 for $540 in tax relief.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from profit. Is the ARRA any less of a Ponzi Scheme when the Federal Government does this than when Charles Ponzi or Bernard Madoff does this? Does it matter whether Nicolas Cosmo, Allen Stanford, or Barack Obama does this?
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Antitrust nominee Christine Varney described Google as a monopolistFebruary 20, 2009 at 10:24am
New legal challenges for search giant Google Inc. may be looming – and from chief executive Eric Schmidt’s new BFF Barack Obama, of all people.
Muck tracker – Greenspan backs nationalization of banks
Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan says the U.S. may have to nationalize some banks temporarily to get credit flowing again, arguing it’s the least bad option for policymakers, reports the Financial Times.
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Monsanto’s lobbying cloutJuly 25, 2015 at 8:16am
Central to the argument over labeling genetically modified food is the point raised by opponents, who say that government regulators have declared the practice safe.
Muck tracker – Sebelius for HHS
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is President Obama’s top choice to lead Health and Human Services, The New York Times reports. Former nominee Tom Daschle withdrew because of tax problems.
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The relationship map to the left is interactive.• Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations.• Expand items with + signs by double-clicking or by selecting multiple items in the map and pressing the “e” key.• Move an item in the map by clicking and dragging.• You can also delete items, separate boxes and save maps. Right-click on the map or select Map Tools for these options.• Find out more about an item in the map by right-clicking on the item and choosing Information about…• View map color key.• This interactive map requires Flash player.
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The well-connected Bennet familyApril 14, 2016 at 11:50am
When the New York Times announced last month that James Bennet would become the new editorial page editor, it noted that the departing editor, Andrew M. Rosenthal, was the son of the legendary A.M. Rosenthal, editor of the newspaper.
Stanford Arrested in a Scam of Shocking Magnitude
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Top Google Exec Funds Local News Startup
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Stanford Accused in a Scam of Shocking Magnitude
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Muck Tracker Greenspan Backs Nationalization of Banks
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Stanford Accused in Scam of Shocking Magnitude
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Muck Tracker Sebelius for Hhs
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Martha Stewart’s pay package – plenty of ‘good things’
Not everyone is feeling squeezed by the economic downturn.
Television host, publisher and corporate mogul Martha Stewart is still the epitome of the elegant lifestyle her diversified media and merchandising company promotes.
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The details of her compensation package may upset some MSLO investors, however, who are not faring quite as well as the majority shareholder.
Company spokesperson Elizabeth Estroff told FishbowlNY in December that the company had eliminated about 100 jobs over the course of the year, as MSLO was “streamlining costs at the corporate and business unit levels.”
Moreover, while MSLO won’t announce fourth-quarter results for another week, its third-quarter results were disappointing. And the stock has been trading at under $5 a share since mid-November.
Perhaps because of her personal insulation, or perhaps because of her comeback since March 2005, when she completed a prison sentence for lying about a stock sale, Stewart has sounded relentlessly upbeat in interviews.
While on a tour promoting her latest book last October, she told CNBC: “The customer is there, and the customer wants good value. . . . They want products that fit their lifestyle at the present time when they are on, actually, some serious budgets.”
Perhaps. But after reading MSLO’s financial reports, one can’t help wondering what Stewart knows about “serious budgets.”
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Antitrust nominee Christine Varney described Google as a monopolistFebruary 20, 2009 at 10:24am
New legal challenges for search giant Google Inc. may be looming – and from chief executive Eric Schmidt’s new BFF Barack Obama, of all people.
Christine A. Varney, nominated by Obama to be the U.S.’s next antitrust chief, has described Google Inc. as a monopolist that will dominate online computing services the way Microsoft Corp. ruled […]
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