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Guilty Bernie Madoff to go straight to jail – OPEN THREAD

By truthtelling007 on March 14, 2009 at 3:53 PM in Current Affairs

(Linda: *Bumped up* – this small tipping of the scale for the side of justice was long over due.)

Well, after getting what none of us would get if accused of the same crimes, Bernie Madoff is headed straight to jail to await sentencing.


What else is happening outside this news sucking headline?

  • texaslatina

    hopefully he will go straight to hell too!

    • Doc99

      Thanks … Bernie Madoff Going Straight to JailHell. There – fixed it.

  • kat in your hat

    Time for justice. People have committed suicide over this man’s greed. Let him rot in prison. He can live in his memories of once living a material life that almost no one else can imagine–guess that will sustain him until he;s gone from this planet.

  • Docelder

    The President’s Budget and Fiscal Preview on page 11 contains graphs by socialists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Joe the plumber is looking more like an “oracle” by the day. Yep, sounds like “socialism”.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123681860305802821.html

  • TeakwoodKite

    If wishes were horses and pigs could fly:

    Debka;

    09 Mar.: The Riyadh summit of the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Kuwait March 11may be the Obama administration’s first Middle East breakthrough. It is seen in Washington as ushering in the parting of the ways between Syria and Iran as a result of US diplomatic overtures to Damascus.

    From the regional perspective, it is meant to signal Syrian ruler Bashar Assad’s reacceptance by the moderate Arab camp. The Saudi King Abdullah and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak hope their meeting with Assad Wednesday will starting isolating Iran in the region and knock over the power bases it has built up in such places as the Gaza Strip.
    They are optimistic because Saturday, March 7 Hamas began commandeering the mosques and charities owned by Jihad Islami, the Palestinian terrorist militia created and funded by Tehran.

    Official circles in Washington, Cairo and Riyadh read this crackdown as evidence that Damascus is willing to begin wresting the control of Palestinian radical organizations from Iran.

    The partners cannot tell how far Assad is ready to move against Iran or even sure if he is not perpetrating a sting operation in collusion with Tehran.

  • TeakwoodKite

    State Department spokesman Richard Aker said the agency regrets that it issued these four passports.

    “The truth is that this was human error,” Aker said.

    He said the State Department plans to have facial recognition screening for all applicants in six months. The agency is also talking to states to see if passport officials can check states’ electronic databases to verify licenses and identification cards.

    Two members of the Senate Judiciary terrorism and homeland security subcommittee requested the investigation.

    “It’s very troubling that in the years since the September 11 attacks someone could use fraudulent documents to obtain a U.S. passport,” Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said in a statement.

    In six months? A day late and a dollar short. Especially since BO’s choice for CIO just got put on administrative leave.
    So what has law enforcement missed? Some guy speeding on the Jersey Turnpike?

  • PW

    Long may he rot.

    Horror and doubt distract his troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir the hell within him, for within him hell he brings, and round about him, nor from hell one step no more than from himself can fly.

    -Milton,John

    • elise

      Hell is empty and all of the devils are here.
      William Shakespeare

      Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison. He traded his golden years for thirty pieces of silver. I hope they take the hundreds of millions in his wife’s name and divide it among the people he stole from. It is unbelievable she didn’t know what was happening.

      • Judy L. NC

        I agree…these people need to PAY IT BACK….unlike Mrs. Ken Lay.

      • TeakwoodKite

        What payment can be made to repay the betrayal?

        Your quote hits home the use of the English launguage, as SusanUnPc pointed out in a recent post.

        I wonder what Hip-hop Shakespeare sounds like?

        Last night in the spirt of New “Hampster Detente”, mysane half started watching Bill Maher. I thought to myself, perhaps domestic tranquility was the better of the choices. As I watched the panel, one of the guests,Andrew Breitbart, made a lame attempt to make a valid point about how the race card is an albatrose to bear when accused of.

        Michael Eric Dyson then commenced to batter him verbally about the ears, as to the number of “blacks and hispanics” exposed to the race card and finished him of with a topping of “inner city” dust.

        I got madder and madder because it is hard to watch in the first place, but second, the underlying issue that was not being addressed was poverty.
        Poverty cares not for race or gender.

        My sane half was argueing that the stats Michael Eric Dyson was quouting were true which got me more aggitated because while they maybe accurate, the topic was “the race card”. Dyson’s response was playing “the race card by comparision”.

        I came to the conclusion they were all “bigots”, as all of them had chips on the table and had anted up.

        The detente withstood the assult, but left me wondering after why it was, my sane half could not ackowledge that a poor white kid in the hills of Kentucky was the same as a five year old walking home in Harlem, or a child in Palistine, Pakistan, Afghanistan or as recently pointed out by PM317, Mumbai.

        It was poverty that allowed Madoff to do what he did for so long.

  • Palm Tree

    Has anyone seen this?

    >>>Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It

    (CNSNews.com) – On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.

    http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44943

    • Peggy Sue

      He giveth and taketh away!

      This administration is such a joke. Does anyone “read” these bills before signing them?

      Of course not. What was I thinking? Obama wriggles out of taking a stand, again.

      • Ferd Berfle

        I do hope his crowd of worshipping bots are taking this all in stride and that their pinheads aren’t exploding over this.

        • meileen

          The pinheads don’t read this sort of drivel. If it’s not honoring the one, they pass it by.

          This news has my blood boiling. Not so much for what it means (that Obama doesn’t know what in the he** he’s doing) but because WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE OUR JOURNALISTS? No one caught this screw up in he MSM. Where is KO with his commentary? How about Jon Stewart? Why didn’t he cover it this week?

          This is a sad testament to both our government and our no longer existent fourth estate.

          • Ferd Berfle

            This is a sad testament to both our government and our no longer existent fourth estate.

            It’s an American idol idle world we now inhabit.

          • cynic

            Perhaps we “pinheads” understand that two different issues are involved.

            Bush had effectively banned research involving existing lines of stem-cells. That ban has now been lifted.

            SEC. 509 bans federal funding of research involving the deliberate destruction of human embryos, regardless of the manner in which they have been created. It’s a heavy-handed restriction, but it doesn’t take much imagination to understand the complex moral issues that could arrise once that particular line has been crossed. Personally I don’t believe we’re ready to deal with what might happen yet.

            I have the same concerns about the dangerous potential of transgenic organisms, which could soon lead us into uncertainty about at what point something should be considered human. What would we do about a transgenic chimpanzee having a higher intellectual capacity than many human beings on the low end of the human intelligence scale? This is no longer science fiction. It’s just another line we could cross, that’s far nearer than most people imagine.

            • Ferd Berfle

              Well cynic credulous, however finely you parse that crap, it is still crap. And thanks for admitting to being something I always knew you were, particularly when you gave that free pass to the Chinese.

              I have serious concerns about a group of people who one the one hand worry about science and the potential for dangerous experiments gone awry and on the other hand foist a dangerous experiment on the country being run by a hopeless, ignorant and arrogant slacker all in the name of the nebulous phrase hope and change.

            • Lyn

              Bush allowed funding for research on existing lines of stem cells http://www.nationalstemcellbank.org/
              The National Stem Cell Bank (NSCB) is a repository for the pluripotent stem cell lines listed on the NIH Stem Cell Registry. These cells were derived prior to August 2001 using excess IVF embryos and are therefore eligible for use in federally funded research in the United States. The goal of the National Stem Cell Bank is to grow, characterize and distribute the cell lines listed on the registry, and to provide comprehensive technical support to stem cell researchers around the world

              • cynic

                Yeah, I misstated that. Bush banned federal funding for research involving the creation of new embryonic stem cell lines. Lines established prior to 08/01 were unaffected.

  • Palm Tree

    Hey all – still made in the USA spread it around!!!

    http://www.stillmadeinusa.com/

    • http://noquarter foxyladi14

      thanks for the link..spreading it around.

    • Ferd Berfle

      Thanks for the link.

  • Peggy Sue

    Since this is an open thread, I caught a sobering but entertaining essay over at Real Clear Politics. Writer is Mark Steyn, entitled:

    “Welcome, kids, to the Brokest Generation.” This paragraph jumped out at me–

    “Because, as politicians like to say, it’s about “the future of all our children.” And the future of all our children is that they’ll be paying off the past of all their grandparents. At 12 percent of GDP, this year’s deficit is the highest since the Second World War, and prioritizes not economic vitality but massive expansion of government. But hey, it’s not our problem. As Lord Keynes observed, “In the long run we’re all dead.” Well, most of us will be. But not you youngsters, not for a while. So we’ve figured it out: You’re the ultimate credit market, and the rest of us are all preapproved!”

    Full article can be found here:

    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/old-percent-young-2334863-generation-year

    Hope the “Yes We Can” generation is prepared for what they so enthusiastically embraced.

    • truthorconsequences

      Hey, Peggy Sue, “It’s about the future of all our children”– Gives added meaning to the Biblical Scripture that speaks of the sins of the fathers, “————,visiting the iniquity of the fathers to the third and fourth generations—-”. Exodus 20;5

      “Welcome, kids, to the brokest generation(s)” sometimes the Bible may seem to be a little quaint to a lot of people , but on the other hand there is a lot of information in it that makes a lot of sense. ;)

  • Miss H

    Making Bernie Madoff face up to his actions and sending him to prison is a good start, at a low level, on the fraud totem pole.

    Those people, at the highest levels, responsible for the economic crisis should not be hailed as saviors and given more power to fix the problem that they created, but arrested and criminally prosecuted as well.

    Specifically, I believe a good place to start would be with Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve, and Goldman Sachs. There is a lot more awareness in Washington about the Fed’s contribution to the economic crisis.

    Congressman Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Fed is similar to another bill introduced by Bernie Sanders in the Senate which is aimed at getting the Fed to answer specific questions about where $2 trillion in bailout funds has gone, a subject that Bloomberg News sued the Fed simply to try and discover.

    Staggering scenes unfolded last week at a Senate budget Committee meeting when Bernanke arrogantly refused to state where any of the bailout money had gone despite repeated questioning by Sanders.

    Ben Shalom Bernanke is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve. He is ranked 4th most powerful person in the world in an annual ranking by Newsweek. In 2002, when the word “deflation” began appearing in the business news, Bernanke gave a speech about deflation. In that speech, he mentioned that the government in a fiat money system owns the physical means of creating money. Control of the means of production for money implies that the government can always avoid deflation by simply issuing more money. (He referred to a statement made by Milton Friedman about using a “helicopter drop” of money into the economy to fight deflation.) Bernanke’s critics have since referred to him as “Helicopter Ben” or to his “helicopter printing press.”

    The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global financial services firm providing investment banking, securities and investment management services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world. As a globalist corporation, Goldman Sachs will take all of the USA taxpayers money possible to back up its worldwide company, Americans can well be screwed for all they care.

    • http://www.sonicninjakitty.wordpress.com Sonic Ninja Kitty

      Excellent info, Miss H! We need to face the music and audit the Fed.

  • http://firefox AnnieCollier

    Evidently Bernie doesn’t like it in jail. After two days, he wants bail reinstated and be returned to his penthouse until sentencing. Boo Hoo.

    Any judge honoring this request should be thrown in jail with him.

    • candymarl

      Say Bernie? You don’t like it in jail? Maybe folks don’t like losing their life savings. Ya think?

      • TeakwoodKite

        The bulls of Shawshank have Bernie worried?

        Who’da thunk?

    • Ferd Berfle

      Old Bernie has a lot of unmitigated gall working for him, there. Wow. Maybe he’d like complete immersion in hot oil better.

  • http://firefox AnnieCollier

    While they’re at it, freeze Ruthie’s “assets” aka Bernie’s hidden assets and/or money launderer, make the relatives return all the jewelry and art she tried to hide, confiscate the penthouse and throw the whole family in the clink. Shame means nothing to these crooks only how much money they can steal.

    • sybilll

      I just can’t wrap my brain about one part of this story. Where exactly, did the $64 billion GO? I am not being facicious, sadly.

  • Sassy

    Madoff could have led a baton-twirling squad of skunks through the SEC and none of them would have caught a smell!
    This whole episode is despicable, and this thief, despite his age, is getting off light by going to prison!

  • truthorconsequences

    Neath the spreading chestnut tree the village idiot stands—the idiot, a mighty man is he –with the mightiest nation under his command

    • Ferd Berfle

      These villages that insist on letting their idiots go missing, where they end up in the White House, should be ashamed of themselves.

  • Al Kuds

    Madoff is only the tip of the iceberg.

  • BARB

    http://www.thebigmoney.com/
    articles/news/2008/12/18/madoff-mercy

    But when it comes to large-scale frauds involving public companies and their millions of shares, the guidelines’ grounding in mathematics sometimes results in sentences that are, quite literally, off the chart. They fall within the realm of prison terms usually reserved for mafia bosses, major international drug lords, cop killers, child molesters, and terrorists.

    Remember Jeffrey Skilling—losses to Enron shareholders of more than $1 billion largely determined his 24-year-plus sentence. Or consider WorldCom’s former chief, Bernie Ebbers. He got 25 years based principally on the $2.2 billion loss suffered by his company’s shareholders. Sure, these men destroyed enormous shareholder value, just as the targets of today’s criminal cases allegedly did. But it’s hard to contend that they deserved prison terms longer than the average sentence for murder (22 years), kidnapping (14), and sexual abuse (eight).

    Tying jail terms to the amount of money lost also puts way too much power in the hands of prosecutors. It gives them the muscle to threaten long prison stretches in order to coerce guilty pleas. If it weren’t for the risk of lengthy sentences if convicted, many defendants might opt to test the government’s evidence before a jury.

    • Ferd Berfle

      Tying jail terms to the amount of money lost also puts way too much power in the hands of prosecutors. It gives them the muscle to threaten long prison stretches in order to coerce guilty pleas. If it weren’t for the risk of lengthy sentences if convicted, many defendants might opt to test the government’s evidence before a jury.

      I disagree completely. These criminals need to have not just the book, but the entire law library, thrown at them. I’d like to see Madoff sentenced to making very tiny rocks out of really big ones for the rest of his natural life in a real prison and not a country club. Perhaps the example set would make others like him think twice before committing such acts and if not, they could be put right there beside Bernie on the rockpile.

  • Lyn

    Since this is an open thread
    I know Obama hasn’t found the time to pick nice gifts or I don’t know, maybe HIRE some people in the treasurey dept that has 18 major openings,
    BUt you should be happy to know they are able to meet with the socialites,
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/13/everyman-obama-hobnobs-socialites/
    While publicly identifying with the nation’s have-nots, the Obama administration has been cultivating the Beltway social elite behind the scenes.

    Earlier this year, the Obama administration invited top editors of three of Washington’s local luxury lifestyle magazines — Capitol File, DC magazine and Washington Life — to a meeting where they discussed, among other things, how President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama can embrace Washington’s glittery social scene.

    The White House is “identifying taste makers in order to help create grass-roots interest in some of the programs they are working on,” said Washington Life’s Michael Clements, who attended the meeting. “They wanted to introduce themselves. It was certainly a departure from previous administrations.”

    • Ferd Berfle

      It’s too bad That One and wife couldn’t concentrate a bit more on substance and a little less on style as their exterior is just a lousy veneer of paint hiding a really nasty interior.

      • Lyn

        Priorities..silly

        • Ferd Berfle

          Oh… I forgot. That was silly of me.
          Mea culpa.

          • Lyn

            IF the country wanted someone who would work hard they would have elected someone(anyone) with a history of working. But they rather have someone that looks nice and reads speeches.So of course that is their priority.

            • Ferd Berfle

              You’re spot on. So long as something looks good to the these idiots, it can be rotten at its core and they wouldn’t give it another thought. I’m going to enjoy watching though, as their slipshod world falls apart around their ears when That One proves to be the complete failure those with a functioning brain know him to be.

            • Ferd Berfle

              The comment shredder got another one.

              You’re spot on, Lyn.

              • Lyn

                thanks did you see my reply above about the stem cells?

                • Ferd Berfle

                  I did see it. Pesky facts, like those you posted, are a painful thorn in the backside of Obamabots.

    • TeakwoodKite

      I recall reading that President Carter was not welcome in these circles and there was considerable animosity surrounding his “acceptance” in the upper altitutdes of Washington Scociety.

      In BO and MO’s case, it is a bad case of social vertigo.

      Funny Lyn, that we are back to “the condition of anonymity”.
      Sad a that a “notion was dissmed” Real change eh Axelrod?

      A White House aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity dismissed the notion that a publicly populist Obama White House is privately courting socialites, contending that the meeting was held to explore how the Obamas can “engage in the community.” The aide also pointed out that similar meetings were held with representatives of sports, entertainment and philanthropic organizations in Washington.

      .

      • Lyn

        it is going to be a long, sad 4 years

      • Ferd Berfle

        contending that the meeting was held to explore how the Obamas can “engage in the community

        As if the socialite community needs to be engaged. Frankly, I’d rather they disengage.

        • TeakwoodKite
          • Lyn

            Is it a rerun? During the elections, I thought I was safe, plunking my butt down on Sat night watching the food channel, when the show started I couldn’t grab my remote fast enough.

            • TeakwoodKite

              In the voice of Gomer Pile; “Surprise, surprise!”

              • Ferd Berfle

                Go-o-o–lly

          • Ferd Berfle

            Yuck.

          • http://firefox AnnieCollier

            Oh, dear. This is not good news. One more channel to monitor with the Program Guide. Thank goodness for Cable.

            • Lyn

              The worst was the Coronation Day. I figured I’d watch QVC to avoid it and darn if even they weren’t showing it live (of course selling their coins, “inauguration purse” and other crap people will throw out in a couple years.

        • http://firefox Conan The Grammarian

          They’re just a bunch of “community organizers” doncha know?

    • http://firefox Conan The Grammarian

      I suppose Bernie and Ruthie were once considered “taste makers”. The Obama’s though wouldn’t know taste (anymore than their pals Jayzee and Beyonce)if it smacked them in the face.

    • lorac

      Can people who buy luxury magazines EVER form something that could be termed “grassroots”? Grassroots movements are formed by people who have no power, it’s movement from the bottom up!

      And I think it’s horrifying – they want to get help to fit into fancy social circles, but couldn’t even walk down the hall in the White House to consult with the Protocol Office about how to handle foreign dignitaries.

      Man, it’s really all about them.

  • Doc99

    HT – Glenn Reynolds

    Ballad of Tim Geithner.

  • Doc99

    Medical Profession Speaks Out on the Financial Bail-Out Package

    The Medical Profession Speaks out on the Financial Bail-Out Package

    The allergists voted to scratch it, and the dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves.

    The gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the neurologists thought the administration had a lot of nerve, and the obstetricians felt they were all laboring under a misconception.

    The ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted; the pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body!” while the pediatricians said, ‘Oh, Grow up!’

    The psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, the radiologists could see right through it, and the surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing.

    The internists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the plastic surgeons said, “This puts a whole new face on the matter.”

    The podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the urologists felt the scheme wouldn’t hold water.

    The anesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas; and the cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.

    The audiologists don’t want to hear another word about it!

    The coroners are dead set against it.

    In the end, the proctologists left the decision up to the ass.holes in Washington ..

    http://forums.obgyn.net/ob-gyn-l/OBGYNL.0903/0125.html

    • TeakwoodKite

      Good one Doc99, just one question…

      Who got the bill? :)

  • lightacandle

    Where was the SEC all the years Madoff was ripping people off?

    It is the job of the SEC to prevent this sort of swindle.

    Are the enforcement officers at the SEC just stupid or are they crooked?

    And where was SEC chairman Chris Cox while all of this was going on?

    Asleep at the wheel or paid to look the other way?

    Just asking.

  • Sassy

    Funny!!!

  • JustMe~~
  • Judy L. NC

    On to the even more absurd….Donald Trump is quoted in a Vanity Fair article as saying that in all the hundreds of rounds of golf Madoff played at Trump’s club in FL, he scored between 80 and 89. Either Madoff was the most consistent golfer in the history of the sport or he lied about that too.