The case addressing this question, Standard Chartered v FINRA, has been appealed to the highest court in our land. As such, one might think that most Americans would care to learn if our nation’s top financial regulator did, in fact, engage in a fraud which had a monetary value of between $175-$350 MILLION plus. Not exactly chicken feed.

Why hasn’t this case received more attention? 

For the very simple reason that our major financial media have spent little to no time focused on it. If you don’t think our media is controlled in this country, then you may want to ask why this case has not received more meaningful coverage.

I first addressed this case in the fall of 2009. I personally believe it belongs on the front page of every business section in our country. Why? This case addresses the core of what I have long defined as the Wall Street-Washington incest. The $175-350 million which FINRA retained — rather than having appropriately distributed to its member firms — allowed the major firms on Wall Street and selected FINRA executives to benefit at the expense of smaller broker-dealers. Sound a little incestuous perhaps? You think?

More importantly, this case addresses the fact that Ms. Schapiro and her fellow FINRA colleagues signed a proxy statement used for the merger of the NASD with the regulatory arm of the NYSE to form FINRA that included misinformation. If utilizing a proxy statement which includes misinformation is not an abuse of capitalism and a fraud, I do not know what is.

My link above references several angles in this case and other FINRA and assorted partners’ ‘incestuous’ follies. I strongly recommend you review this wealth of material. You will be busy, but you certainly will not be bored.

Are you sufficiently intrigued to learn a little more about this situation? Let’s navigate and review a recent commentary written by Dan Jamieson of Investment News. Dan writes, B-D Wants Supreme Court to Rule on FINRA Suit:

The high court this month is expected to decide whether to take up a lawsuit brought against NASD by Standard Investment Chartered Inc. over the self-regulator’s 2007 merger with the regulatory unit of the New York Stock Exchange.

Standard, an investment banking boutique, insists that the proxy used by the NASD in soliciting member approval for the merger was fraudulent.

NASD since has been renamed the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc.

Government entities, including private organizations with government-delegated authority, generally enjoy absolute legal immunity in performing official duties. Court cases have granted protection specifically to securities self-regulatory organizations.

Absolute immunity covering a financial transaction? Sniff, sniff. Do you smell something? Me, too.

Standard argues that the merger was not a legally protected regulatory function of Finra.

The brokerage firm wants the Supreme Court justices to hear that case because it claims that lower courts have issued conflicting opinions on immunity for SROs and other state actors.

The Standard suit has already been thrown out twice by courts — in 2010 by a New York U.S. District Court judge and then again last year by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

But the Supreme Court could take a different view. In June 2010, it ruled that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a private oversight body set up under the Sarbanes-Oxley law, was unconstitutional because its members were not sufficiently overseen by the executive branch.

The Standard appeal has attracted an unlikely assortment of allies among business and consumer groups.

“The case presents a situation where a quasi-governmental entity is abusing its power,” said Ilya Shapiro, a constitutional lawyer at the libertarian Cato Institute, which joined with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in filing an amicus brief on behalf of Standard.

“Our legal interest is really to make government accountable,” he said.

There’s a larger principle at stake: to what extent state actors can be held accountable, said William Anderson, one of Standard’s lawyers at Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP. “That’s why the various groups have weighed in” with amicus briefs, he said.

“We’re concerned about the court’s overextension of immunity” to private organizations, said Scott Michelman, a staff attorney at the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which, together with Consumer Action, The Project On Government Oversight and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, also is urging the Supreme Court to take the case.

“In this case, immunity has been extended to private corporate actors … in a way that could prevent corporate accountability,” he said.

Standard and its supporters dispute the earlier court findings that NASD’s proxy and merger were “incident to” its regulatory activities and thus protected.

The Cato Institute argues that such a standard “would be the equivalent of shielding a judge who ran down a pedestrian on his way to the courthouse simply because his travel there eventually will lead to his exercising judicial power.”

Courts first gave SROs legal protection in 1985, and the breadth of that immunity has expanded ever since, according to Standard’s supporters.

“It seems to me that what [Finra was] doing was acting as a business entity rather than as a regulator,” Mr. Shapiro said.

Jack Norberg, chairman of Standard, did not return a call seeking comment.

For its part, Finra insists that there is no issue with immunity for SROs.

“Every court of appeals to consider the issue has agreed that SROs are absolutely immune from private lawsuits for money damages attacking conduct that falls within the scope of their regulatory functions,” Finra said in a filing with the Supreme Court.

While FINRA’s lawyers have continually embraced their position on immunity, NOT ONCE have I ever heard or seen these lawyers or Ms. Schapiro address and categorically deny the premise of a fraudulent proxy. What say you, Mary? Did you and your colleagues willingly and intentionally misrepresent, that is LIE, in regard to the facts presented in that proxy?

Finra spokeswoman Michelle Ong declined to comment.

No surprise there. No transparency there, either.

The 2007 merger required NASD members to approve bylaw changes that significantly reduced their voting power in the new organization.

NASD was able to get the changes approved with the help of a one-time $35,000 payment. Standard claims that NASD lied in its proxy and other communications when it claimed that $35,000 was the most it could pay under IRS rules.

An IRS opinion letter laying out permissible amounts that could be paid to broker-dealers to approve the merger has been subject to a court-ordered seal, but in a 2009 hearing, one of Standard’s attorneys said the letter indicated that member firms could have received an additional $35,000 to $76,000.

An additional $35-76k multiplied by 5100 member firms equates to a cool additional $175-350 MILLION plus!!

If the Supreme Court takes the case and rules for Standard, the dispute could go back to lower courts for rehearing, and member firms could possibly get a larger payout, Mr. Anderson said.

One would think a ruling for Standard would also expose Ms. Schapiro and the other defendants in this case for having perpetrated a fraud. What are the ramifications of that? Or is that potential too explosive and unseemly for our nation in its current state? Are we that weak and pathetic?

Where are America’s collective balls? Come on. How about we create some public pressure? Share this commentary as wide and far as possible. Our founding fathers would thank you.

But some doubt that the Supreme Court will let that happen.

“SROs are immune — that’s the law,” said Jonathan Kord Lagemann, a veteran industry defense attorney and founder of the Lagemann Law Offices.

“Whether it should be that way is another story.”

Of course it SHOULD NOT be that way. Providing the cover of absolute immunity for misrepresentations within proxy statements by senior financial regulators is no way to run a country.

Remember, absolute immunity without total transparency is a license to steal . . . perhaps even as much as $175 million.

Larry Doyle

Oh, wait. No, not really. None of those things have really happened. I was shocked to see The Hill, a site I read regularly for its impartiality, and whose Associate Editor, A.B. Stoddard, I have admired for her intellect. The premise of the article by Peter Schroeder is this:

President Obama, with his electoral fate tied to the economy, must be pleased with the momentum he’s getting.

Just months ago, the U.S. credit rating was downgraded and Democrats worried Obama was following in the footsteps of one-term President Jimmy Carter. Maybe he will, but reports in the last week suggest manufacturing and construction are humming, and Thanksgiving saw record-setting shopping by consumers.

The icing on the cake? A jobs report Friday shaved nearly half a point off the unemployment rate. The 8.6 percent rate was down from 9 percent in October and is the lowest unemployment has stood in two and a half years. (Emphasis mine.)

“Democrats have a very good chance in 2012 and if the economy gets better that’ll help us,” said Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.). “Things are looking a lot better. A lot better.”

“The icing on the cake?” Really? He is promoting this false meme that the artificially reduced Unemployment numbers put forth by the Obama Administration (and which Larry Johnson thoroughly debunks in this post, “Delusional America“)? Is it really good news for Obama that over 300,000 people have given up hope of ever finding a job again? That’s a GOOD thing? In what universe? ObamaMedia World? Evidently. I was just appalled to see a site like The Hill pushing this crock of BS for Obama and the Democrats. This wasn’t an opinion piece, after all, it was allegedly “reporting.” Reporting Democratic talking points, maybe, but not the facts, or reality. At the very BEST, the number is now at 8.9%, and even that is pushing it (according to Eric Bolling on “The Five”).

These kinds of machinations by the Democrats are really mind boggling. It wasn’t so long ago that I would have bought this crap they are selling, being a dyed in the wool Dem and all. But no longer. I simply cannot understand how the Party that claims to be SO compassionate is CELEBRATING people giving up out of despair. How is that good in ANYONE’S world?

This does seem to be the Democrats’ MO, though. This kind of hoodwinking, that is. This instance has to do with the economy, riding a wave of glee on the backs of those who have given up. My good friend, CindyIndie, sent me an article about an issue in Texas that highlights more of this double-speaking machination that seems to be SOP. This one deals with their “concern” for minority presence and leadership in politics. The title gives a hint, “Opportunity Lost To End The White-Guy Streak.” Yes, and that opportunity was lost due to an appeal by the Democrats:

For a while there, before a three-judge federal panel did some three-judge federal paneling, the good and progressive people of Travis County (long self-congratulatory about their goodness and progressivity) seemed en route to ballot-box ethnic history.

[...]

This, of course, was all about Republican self-interest and had nothing to do with wanting to break the white-man streak in Travis County. But facts are facts, and regardless of why it happened (largely to stick it to longtime U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, a longtime white man), the map offered a solid possibility of electing an African American and two Hispanics to a five-person (up from the current three) Travis County U.S. House delegation.

To jack with Doggett, the GOP drew a Hispanic-heavy San Antonio-Austin district in which state Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, had a solid shot at beating Doggett in the Democratic primary. The map also brought into Travis County a multicounty, northward meandering district now represented by Republican Bill Flores of Waco.

The Travis County map also included a greatly rejiggered multicounty district in which former Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, a black Republican, had a solid chance of winning. The other districts in the county (also multicounty districts) most likely would have continued to have been represented by Republicans Michael McCaul of Austin and Lamar Smith of San Antonio, who self-identify as white men.

So Travis County could have wound up with two white guys, two Hispanic guys and a black guy. Sure, only one of them (McCaul) now lives in the county, but hey, ethnic history is ethnic history — even if the black guy (Williams) and one of the Hispanics (Flores) are Republicans (a concept that irks some of the local good and progressive.) (Click here to read the rest.)

Well, of course it is obvious why the Democrats claimed this would affect minority representation – because we all know that Black Republicans aren’t really black, and I assume that extends to Hispanic Republicans, too. Much better to have a paternalist White Guy represent your interests – they do so well with that. Just look at Women’s Issues and how well our Congress has handled that (e.g., equal pay is still a dream).

Honestly, I don’t know how in the world the Democrats could have even made this argument to the Panel with straight faces. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe there were lots of winks, guffaws, and “dontcha knows” thrown in there. Beats me. But apparently, it is a mindset that allows them to say these things, much like this pronouncement from The Hill’s “Signs” article:

[snip] Democrats have felt the swing in momentum.

Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said the president’s chances for reelection have “improved” with the economy, while Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) says voters will see the president has things moving in the right direction.

“The economy is not where we want it to be, but it’s at least stable and slowly but surely going in the right direction,” Cummings told The Hill. (Click here to read the rest.)

Uh, yeah, just keep telling yourselves that. I suppose these folks also still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, which they are presumably counting on to help ease our massive debt, which is now 100% of our GDP. Yeah, sure, the economy is doing GREAT! Just peachy! Just tell all of those folks who are first time filers for Unemployment, those who dropped out, and those who have lost their homes. I am so certain they will all agree with Levin and Cummings, aren’t you? Cough, cough. Uh huh. Maybe it is time for them to take off their rose colored glasses, and try looking at reality for a change. Just a thought. What do you think?

There are the swelling numbers of unemployed now homeless, including military veterans. Now students are joining the ranks of the homeless. There is no government funding for homeless shelters. And existing shelters are swamped. Meanwhile, Obama’s administration is trying to shutter the Boeing plant in South Carolina. The Boeing story is becoming a major campaign issue, infuriating middle-class people who believe that the federal government shouldn’t mess with companies that want to hire Americans rather than get cheaper labor overseas. But Obama is more interested in keeping his Labor groupies happy and Labor’s campaign cash flowing.

Why did I post the photo of Michelle Obama — besides noticing that TOTUS is part of the group hug? Do you see the “cuff” bracelets she is wearing? Well, here we go: “Michelle Obama dazzles New York in $42,150 diamond bracelets“:

Michelle Obama dazzled in true First Lady style at the DNC fundraiser this week, her left wrist dripping with diamonds as she supported her husband at the party event.

In total, she sported an astonishing $42,150 worth of bracelets to the New York Democratic Party dinner.

Designed by Texas-based jeweller, Katie Decker, the three white gold cuffs glittered and sparkled, catching the spotlight as she spoke to the high-powered audience.

The First Lady, 47, chose to wear Miss Decker’s Lotus cuff, with 2.9 carats of diamonds, costing $15,000, the Gothic cuff with 2.17 carats of diamonds, costing $15,350, and the $11,800 Quatrefoil bracelet with 1.73 carats of diamonds to the Gotham Hall event.

According to Houston’s culturemap.com, Mrs Obama’s stylist found the sparkling cuffs in Miss Decker’s showroom at SoHo’s Fragments store. …

So Michelle has a stylist. Every woman needs one.

In Steve’s excellent post — “The Real Barack Obama” — we learn how the indolent, disinterested Obama spends his days — in shorts and flip-flops, watching sports on TV — while earning a $400,000 annual salary. About the only times we see Obama are when he is feigning concern for the nation’s unemployed while his real agenda is to raise money for his reelection campaign.

By the way, several months ago, Larry Johnson posted material that sounds eerily similar to what Steve posted. I wonder if the White House source is the same person. Maybe not — there are some differences in style and the person’s self-described access to the White House. Check out Larry’s post, “Is Barack Losing It?”

So if Obama doesn’t appear interested in the job of president, what does he do day after day? Well, he takes his meetings just like any other president would, though even then, he seems to lack a certain focus and on a few occasions, actually leaves with the directive that be given a summary of the meeting at a later date. I hear he plays a lot of golf, and watches a lot of television – ESPN mainly.

I’ll tell you this – if you want to see President Obama get excited about a conversation, turn it to sports. That gets him interested.

You start talking about Congress, or some policy, and he just kinda turns off. It’s really very strange. I mean, we were all led to believe that this guy was some kind of intellectual giant, right? Ivy League and all that. Well, that is not what I saw. Barack Obama doesn’t have a whole lot of intellectual curiosity.

When he is off script, he is what I call a real “slow talker”. Lots of ummms, and lots of time in between answers where you can almost see the little wheel in his head turning very slowly. I am not going to say the president is a dumb man, because he is not, but yeah, there was a definite letdown when you actually hear him talking without the script. . . .

You’ll also want to revisit Larry’s post to read about Obama’s serious problem with paranoia and his inappropriate behavior with staff (such as throwing temper tantrums).

Here we have it: A president who is utterly unconcerned about the jobs crisis and lives a lifestyle the rest of us can only dream of.

A $42,000 bracelet would keep a single mother and children in housing and food for over two years, if they budget carefully.

Just saying …

I AM FURIOUS.

Politico has a good article about the Boeing plant situation. From “South Carolina Boeing factory turns sour for Obama“:

“It’s like a lightning rod,” said Gary Chaison, an industrial relations professor at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. “The Boeing case is so dramatic. All the anti-union forces and all anti-Obama people are coalescing.”

At the same time the president was selling his American Jobs Act in the Rose Garden last week, Mitt Romney was visiting Boeing’s South Carolina factory. The former governor of Massachusetts drew loud cheers for suggesting that any stimulus package should include legislation telling the board to drop its complaint.

“It’s an egregious example of political payback where the president is able to pay back the unions for the hundreds of millions of dollars they have put into his campaigns at the expense of American workers,” Romney said.

Newt Gingrich toured the new plant and called for cutting the NLRB’s funding, while Jon Huntsman did his own swing through the manufacturing facility, advocating that the president step in before it scares business from South Carolina. Rick Perry has accused Obama of stacking the board with “anti-business cronies.”

Despite the assertions of his critics, Obama’s hands are tied — and the case could get dragged out for years with delays and appeals. Beyond vetoing any congressional proposals, if they make it to his desk, the president has little influence over the complaint or the board’s acting general counsel Lafe Solomon. [WHEW!]

P.S. That airplane that Boeing is building in South Carolina? It is “the world’s most fuel-efficient commercial jet.”

Wouldn’t that classify the positions held by the thousands of workers Boeing has hired in South Carolina as “green jobs”?

As state attorneys general prepare to pursue these Wall Street banks for the activity of forging these documents, I would raise the question whether this coordinated forging activity rose to the level of racketeering. Did these Wall Street banks violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act? Let’s navigate.

Before I delve into the questions surrounding the potential violation of the RICO Act, I STRONGLY encourage you to take the 5 minutes to review this summary video of the 60 Minutes’ piece:

For the overachievers in the crowd who care to watch the entire outstanding 14 minute piece, I am happy to provide the link here.

I have long believed that a significant segment of the mortgage origination, securitization, and now foreclosure process was knowingly and actively engaged in a concerted fraud. The fraud encompassed not only those issuing and securitizing the mortgages but also those taking out the mortgages. While regulators and legal authorities have shown little willingness to pursue the obvious fraudulent activity, the blatant fraud involved in the forging of foreclosure documents is the ultimate insult to the indescribable injury.

I ask the following very simple question. Did this activity violate the RICO Act? In what manner might the the RICO Act have been violated? Try the following on for size:
1. Mail and wire fraud.
2. Extortionate credit transactions.
3. Obstruction of justice.
4. Interference of commerce.
5. Laundering of monetary instruments.
6. Monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activities.
7. Relating to trafficking in goods and services bearing counterfeit marks.
8. Fraud in the sale of securities.

Who within these Wall Street banks was aware of the fraudulent robo-signing of the mortgage documents? Who authorized the robo-signing? We need names!!

If Wall Street was so brazen to undertake such a blatantly obvious fraud in this robo-signing activity, where else did these banks engage in fraud? Remember, you never find just one rodent.

I am no lawyer but I am not so sure you need to be in order to connect the dots involved in this ongoing housing nightmare. On behalf of every citizen and taxpayer in our nation, I call upon each and every attorney general in our nation to ask the question at the head of this commentary.

For those who truly love capitalism and the never ending pursuit of truth, transparency, and integrity our nation deserves nothing less than a full and total exposition of the obvious fraud involved in this entire mortgage travesty.

Who amongst our attorneys general have got the balls and the character to raise the question as to whether Wall Street did violate the Racketeering Act?

Thank you again to the reader who prompted me regarding last evening’s episode of 60 Minutes.

Larry Doyle

I have no affiliation or business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. The opinions expressed are my own. I am a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.

And that would be this Bloomberg article, Saudi Women Inspired by Fall of Mubarak Step Up Equality Demand. Wow, right? Honestly, I did not see this as a potential change, primarily because of the influx of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and the very likely scenario that women who enjoyed more freedoms in Egypt, will soon be losing them (if they haven’t already). Sill, this is exciting:

Activists among Saudi Arabia’s women, who can’t drive or vote and need male approval to work and travel, are turning to the type of online organizing that helped topple Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to force change in a system they say treats them like children.

The “Baladi” or “My Country” campaign is focused on this year’s municipal elections, only the second nationwide ballot that the absolute monarchy has allowed. The election board yesterday said women will be excluded from the Sept. 22 vote. Another group, the Saudi Women’s Revolution, citing inspiration from the Arab activism that grew into revolts against Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, is pressing for equal treatment and urging international support.

The wave of anti-regime protests that spread from Tunisia and Egypt into some of Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf neighbors, such as Bahrain and Oman, hasn’t translated into mass street demonstrations in the kingdom that holds the world’s biggest oil reserves. Saudi rulers have taken steps to ensure it won’t, pledging almost $100 billion of spending on homes, jobs and benefits. They also deployed thousands of police in Riyadh on March 11, when a protest was planned by Internet organizers — a group that increasingly includes Saudi women.

“Women are raised to fear men and to fear speaking out,” said Mona al-Ahmed, a 25-year-old in the coastal city of Jeddah. She said she joined the Women’s Revolution campaign after her brother refused to let her take her dream job, as a biochemist, because it would involve working in a mixed-gender environment. “I opened my eyes one day and said, ‘This is not the life I want’,” al-Ahmed said in a phone interview.

Well, I suppose that is one way of keeping the people in place, right? Ahem.

But this is telling indeed of how women in Saudi Arabia, our ally, live. We may hear bits and pieces about it, but at this point, it seems we just take for granted women are treated like shit there.

Think I am being hyperbolic? Think again:

[snip] Like other opposition and protest groups in Saudi Arabia, the women’s movement faces a tough task. The kingdom ranked as the least democratic state in the Middle East, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2010 Democracy Index.

“Women will not participate in this session,” Abdul- Rahman al-Dahmash, director of the kingdom’s electoral commission, said at a press conference yesterday, referring to the municipal balloting. “There is a plan, though not with a definite time, to put in place a framework so that women can participate in upcoming elections.”

Baladi said on its Facebook page that Saudi women “are like other women in the world who have hopes and ambitions” and must be allowed to vote.

While Saudi Arabia was placed in the top one-third of nations in the United Nations 2010 Human Development Report — higher than European Union member Bulgaria — its score for gender equality was much lower. On that UN measure, which includes assessments of reproductive health and participation in politics and the labor market, the country ranked 128th of 138 nations, below Iran and Pakistan. [snip]

You know it is bad when you rank BELOW Iran and Pakistan on the treatment of women. Seriously. How bad must you be to be WORSE than Iran and Pakistan??

Let’s just pause for a moment and see how women are treated in Iran (I warn you, this is a difficult video to watch, contains violent images):

Women are worth half as much as men. They are culpable at the age of 9 for “crimes,” while boys aren’t until they are 16. Women cannot divorce their husbands. Men can have many wives. And that is but a minute amount of with what these women live.

Well, how about Pakistan, then? This video gives a good overview (again, difficult to watch):

“Considered to be the property of men.” Uh, yeah. Not allowed to leave the house. Infant girls killed. Slave girls trapped from other countries and sold every day. Education morally corrupts girls, thus they should not have it.

And Saudi Arabia is farther down the list than Pakistan in its treatment of women.

I’m sorry, I need a moment to compose myself.

Back to the reality facing women in Saudi Arabia:

[snip] Saudi Arabia enforces the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam and its clerics say that requires strict segregation of the sexes, including in government offices, workplaces and public spaces such as restaurants. Other areas of discontent highlighted by women writers and activists include family law. A Saudi man can end his marriage by telling his wife, “You are divorced,” while women must go to a court or an authorized cleric to get a dissolution. Custody of children above a certain age is usually granted to the father.

Saudi Arabia is also one of the few countries that has a high rate of executions for women, Amnesty International said in a 2008 report. (Emphasis mine.) Adultery is among the capital offenses.

[...]

Those are among the goals of the Women’s Revolution group, which began as an exchange of Twitter messages among likeminded women, and now has more than 2,000 Facebook supporters. “Women are treated like minors, except if they commit a crime,” the group said in a statement on Facebook. “Then they are equal.”

Alia al-Faqih, 19, said this year’s Arab revolts inspired her to join the group and demand change in her country.

“The protesters in Egypt and Tunisia did something that was almost impossible,” she said in a telephone interview from Jeddah. “If they could bring down two tough presidents, why can’t we demand our rights?”

Why, indeed? Women in Saudia Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and many countries around the world must do just that – demand their rights. Though as noted above, with the increased presence of the Sharia Law-loving Muslim Brotherhood rising up in Egypt, simply getting a change at the top does not mean a change throughout the country. And in the case of Egypt, it is a change for the worse for women.

And speaking of change, there has been some lip service paid to changing the plight of women in Saudi Arabia, but it is largely window dressing:

[snip] Saudi Arabia’s ruler, King Abdullah, who turns 87 this year, has pledged to improve the status of women. He opened the kingdom’s first co-educational university in 2009, appointed its first female deputy minister, Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, the same year, and has promised steps to improve access to jobs for women, who make up about 15 percent of the workforce. That would help improve productivity in the kingdom’s oil-dominated economy, say analysts including John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Banque Saudi Fransi.

A change of policy in 2008 allowed women to stay in hotels without male guardians, and an amendment to the Labor Law allowed women to work in all fields “suitable to their nature.” Women can now study law at university, without being allowed to practice as lawyers in courts.

At some companies, such as billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Co. (KINGDOM), women are permitted to work alongside men. That isn’t typical, though. Most companies that hire women must provide a women-only section that is off- limits to the male staff.

Human Rights Watch concluded in January that “reforms to date have involved largely symbolic steps to improve the visibility of women.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Yes, superficial reforms at best in Saudi Arabia, not the systemic changes in attitude and treatment of women that need to change.

I know I have asked this before, but how, how, in the Twenty-first century, are women around the globe still being treated as less than human, as chattel, as property, as worthless, as animals, as dirt? How do we, as a nation, not demand that the countries with whom we do business treat women as full human beings?

Lest anyone think this is a problem “over there,” I assure you, what happens to women there affects women here. When an 11 year old girl can be gang raped, by adult men, numerous times, right here in Texas, as well as California, we must acknowledge that what happens to women and girls here, in Saudi Arabia, around the world, matters.

It matters a lot. Just after I finished writing this, I received an email from MADRE about the kidnapping and torture of a youth activist in Iraq. This kind of treatment of women is happening day in and day out, sadly.

And so, for those women in Saudi Arabia, may the ripples continue to widen. May they change the way women are treated, at home and abroad, may the treatment of women matter as much as the oil beneath the sands, and may women be treated as fully human around the globe. That is my prayer…

At the age of 75, Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run as a Vice Presidential candidate in 1984, died today (h/t Sara in Italy):

[snip] Ferraro died at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was being treated for blood cancer. She died just before 10 a.m., said Amanda Fuchs Miller, a family friend who worked for Ferraro in her 1998 Senate bid and was acting as a spokeswoman for the family.

A three-term congresswoman from the New York City borough of Queens, Ferraro catapulted to national prominence in 1984 when she was chosen by presidential nominee Walter Mondale to join his ticket against incumbents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

[...]

Palin paid tribute to Ferraro on her Facebook page on Saturday.

“She broke one huge barrier and then went on to break many more,” Palin wrote. “May her example of hard work and dedication to America continue to inspire all women.”

For his part, Mondale remembered his former running mate as “a remarkable woman and a dear human being.”

“She was a pioneer in our country for justice for women and a more open society. She broke a lot of molds and it’s a better country for what she did,” Mondale told The Associated Press. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

If you wish to read the entire statement from Sarah Palin, click here. You may recall that Sarah Palin and Geraldine Ferraro did appear together, the only two women to run as Vice Presidential candidates for the major parties. Here they are:

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Ferraro family. Ms. Ferraro broke a lot of barriers in this country, was an outspoken advocate for women, and she will have my undying gratitude. May she rest in peace.

Update: The Clintons issued a statement following the death of Ms. Ferraro, a staunch Hillary supporter:

[snip] “Gerry Ferraro was one of a kind — tough, brilliant, and never afraid to speak her mind or stand up for what she believed in — a New York icon and a true American original. She was a champion for women and children and for the idea that there should be no limits on what every American can achieve. The daughter of an Italian immigrant family, she rose to become the first woman ever nominated to the national ticket by a major political party. She paved the way for a generation of female leaders and put the first cracks in America’s political glass ceiling. She believed passionately that politics and public service was about making a difference for the people she represented as a congresswoman and Ambassador.

For us, Gerry was above all a friend and companion. From the rough-and-tumble of political campaigns to the important work of international diplomacy, we were honored to have her by our side. She was a tireless voice for human rights and helped lead the American delegation to the landmark Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Through it all, she was a loyal friend, trusted confidante, and valued colleague.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Gerry’s husband John, her children and grandchildren, and their entire family.”

Greta Van Susteran will be doing a tribute show to Geraldine Ferraro at 10:00pm Sunday night.

Just as a little reminder (and h/t to Allahpundit at Hot Air from the reminder), this was James Clapper’s response to a question from Diane Sawyer about a major, major bust in London of 12 in an anti-terrorism sting:

“Huh? Say what? London?” Holy cow, does this guy not watch the news or something? How could the Director of National Intelligence not know something of this magnitude? It was a bit telling that the other gentleman tried to cover for him. Wow.

Larry Johnson had a great post about the Director of “Clap On, Clap Off” Intelligence, “Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest: The Obama Security Team.” I think the title says it all.

As Allahpundit pointed out, the Washington Post had a piece by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fotouh (which is kind of screwed up of the Post from the get-go, if you think about it), as an apology for the Muslim Brotherhood, and how it really is a peaceful organization, “blah, blah, blah, ignore all of our writings, our website, our threats to destroy the United States from within, and our connections to organizations like Hamas, blah, blah blah, because we really aren’t that bad. No, really…” So, don’t be alarmed when you read statements like the following:

[snip] Because we are an Islamic movement and the vast majority of Egypt is Muslim, some will raise the issue of sharia law. While this is not on anyone’s immediate agenda, it is instructive to note that the concept of governance based on sharia is not a theocracy for Sunnis since we have no centralized clergy in Islam. For us, Islam is a way of life adhered to by one-fifth of the world’s population. Sharia is a means whereby justice is implemented, life is nurtured, the common welfare is provided for, and liberty and property are safeguarded. In any event, any transition to a sharia-based system will have to garner a consensus in Egyptian society. (Emphasis mine.)[snip] (Click here to read the rest of the apology.)

So, um, tell me again how that is a “secular” mindset, Director Clap Off?

No wonder FBI Director Robert Mueller tried to set the record straight on Clapped Off’s comments on the Muslim Brotherhood. Mueller testified that, uh, yeah, they do have some violent branches which “have supported terrorism,” and the rest of what he had to say about them would be in private chambers, thank you so much.

Wow. How is it that this man is so off-base? How could he be so unaware of statements by the Muslim Brotherhood? As one astute NQ reader, oowawa, queried, does he not get that the fact “Muslim” is part of the name, automatically means it is religious in nature?

Yep, Larry had it right: “Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest.” Maybe Intelligence Clapped Off Director should take a little look-see at The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report so that the next time has is asked about the Brotherhood, he doesn’t make a complete ass of himself.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to our videographer Truthtelling007 who has a great compilation of Larry Johnson’s appearances on television. (See a list, and the link to all, in the right column.)

With the closing down of Countdown, I can now say I have a fairly complete archive of the show. Regardless of the opinions people have against/favor of Keith Olbermann…it was the guests that I was looking for. Guests over those 8 years included Larry Johnson, Lawrence Wilkerson, Matthew Alexander, Malcolm Nance, The Wilsons, and many others that I think we can agree are valuable experienced voices. I don’t let hosts distract me if possible.

From the archive: Larry appeared on Countdown in April 2006 to discuss the attack on his former boss, Mary McCarthy and comments on Porter Goss, Valerie Plame and others:

COMMENT FROM LARRY–I enjoyed going on Keith’s show before he turned into a pompous parody of a serious newsman. It is one thing for Keith to rant at George W. Bush. Bush deserved every rant in my book. But Keith missed his chance to occupy the high ground in the middle. Instead he became (or always was) a venomous partisan. I stopped getting invites to appear on Keith’s show once I came out in favor of Hillary. In this aspect MSNBC and FOX are just alike. Fox put me on the persona non grata list after I had the audacity to speak out about the ideological influence guiding the Fox team behind the scenes.

One big difference between Fox and MSNBC. Fox is successful. I don’t know shat Olbermann plans to do next but like Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg we have seen his highwater mark. It is now clear that Keith is no Edward R. Murrow.

While Obama is be-bopping about (getting out of Dodge after the Mid-term Election), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been on her own trip. First, she went to New Zealand, where the Prime Minister referred to her as “President Clinton.” Secretary of State Clinton also made a visit to Papua, New Guinea, a ‘filip” for that country. In Cambodia, she was in the midst of a group hug of young women who were human trafficking victims.

And Secretary Clinton visited Australia, where she discussed a number of important issues, highlighting the US-Australia alliance over China. But the highlight has to be this interview with comedians Hamish and Andy:

That is the Hillary we know and love, the Hillary we so needed to take the reins of this country, especially in these difficult times.

Unbelievably, Chris Matthews who shoved Obama down our throats on MSNBC(O), and constantly belittled and demeaned Hillary Clinton throughout the primaries said this about her appearance with Hamish and Andy: “Had you seen this Hillary Clinton in 2008, she might be president.” Spare me, Mr. Matthews. You, personally, did so much to tarnish Hillary Clinton during the primaries that even Media Matters came after you for it. WE knew this is who we would get, but you and your network were hellbent on pushing Obama on us despite his thin resume. Just freakin’ spare me already.

Instead, we got Obama (thanks, Chris), much to the dismay of many of us, including SC State Senator, Robert Ford. Turns out, back in 2007, State Senator Ford, an African American, took some heat for his prophetic (as it turns out) statement that if Obama was elected, he would pull down the entire Democratic Party. Huh. Well, whaddya know. He was right, as the Mid-Terms have made abundantly clear.

And no, Obama, it isn’t your “failure to communicate“:

Um, no, it was your policies.

But Mr. Ford is not done with his projections, no sirree, as this Post and Courier article indicates:

[snip] Ford, a Charleston Democrat, said U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, should step out of a leadership role next year, or the whole party will go down in defeat. Ford said the same goes for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

Clyburn and Pelosi have offered themselves for leadership positions in next year’s Congress, when the Democrats fall back to the minority party. Clyburn will run for House minority whip and Pelosi will run for the role as minority leader.

“If they elect Nancy Pelosi or Jim Clyburn to leadership, the Democratic Party will be taken off life support,” Ford said. “That will be the end of the Democratic Party. They’re bad news right now.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Holy moley. Tell us how you really feel, Senator Ford! Well, you know, he was right once about Obama, and my bet is he’ll be right again should Pelosi and Clyburn prevail (Clyburn is now in a race with Steny Hoyer as the two battle for the Minority whip position).

Should it come to be that for Pelosi and Clyburn to keep leadership positions does take down the Democratic Party as Senator Ford fears, then Secretary Clinton may feel free to embrace other opportunities. Like a move to Australia, for instance. Hey, if she gets wind that the people of Australia would appreciate and welcome her leadership, she just might take them up on it.

And if that happens, I’m outta here. Australia, here I come, to the land of koala bears, kangaroos, and didgeridoos. Hey, I’m all set. Check it out: “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi!” Here, we can all practice together:

Just when you thought it was safe to

watch TV free of BP’s ads …

BEWARE,

Just when you thought it was safe for

kids to go to school and learn about math and science…

BEWARE,

Just when you thought it was safe to

eat seafood again…

BEWARE,

Just when you thought it was safe to

walk on the beach…

Fun World Costume via AOL News

BEWARE,

AND BE VERY AFRAID…

The BP STALKER* –

He’s not just for Halloween …

*dead fish and oily wrench not included

___
.

The Wall Street-Washington incest MUST end.

This coming Tuesday, America has a chance to ring that bell, expose that incest, cleanse the system, and deliver the message loud and clear. The peal of that bell must emanate from the 4th District in the state of Massachusetts.

You do not need to read Sense on Cents to appreciate that many politicians from both sides of the aisle have badly forsaken our nation’s future with misguided and ill-advised policies over the last few decades. Many of these politicians now look to save their skins– if not their souls– by professing a newly found religion with an anti-Wall Street mantel. America, and the residents of the 4th District in Massachusetts, should not be so easily hoodwinked. These politicians, especially Barney Frank, must be held accountable and sent home.

I implore the voters of the 4th District to think long and hard and appreciate that their longstanding elected representative Barney Frank embraced the people and the policies which continue to crush our nation. Which people? What policies? Those which were centered in America’s great financial sinkhole known as Fannie Mae then led by its former CEO Franklin Raines. During my own career on Wall Street, I witnessed Barney’s bear hug of Fannie and Franklin from up close. Do not forget Barney’s desire to ‘roll the dice’ with sub-prime mortgage financing.

Many media outlets will look the other way in holding Barney accountable; I have no interest in that.

In my strong opinion, Fannie Mae was nothing more than a Washington sponsored “Enron on steroids.” Who led the charge on Capitol Hill for the ‘private profit, social loss’ housing monster? Many Democrat and Republican politicos gladly stuck their hands in the Fannie Mae gift bag, but no politician more stridently promoted the programs of Fannie Mae than Barney Frank. Recalling Barney’s work on behalf of Fannie over the years, it was readily apparent to me that he had no understanding of the risks of mispricing capital. For those involved in the private sector and focused on properly pricing risk, the reality of a career politician not appreciating the proper price of capital is not difficult to understand. Regrettably, all of America now pays the price for Barney’s shortcoming and that of so many of his colleagues. While we pay that price, we do not need to and must not suffer from that shortcoming any longer.

I am not endorsing Sean Bielat simply because Barney ran interference for Fannie Mae and its failed socialized housing program for the last few decades. No, my interest in seeing the voters of the 4th District in Massachusetts “retire Barney” is also predicated on events of the last twelve months as well. How so? Where else did Barney fail us? Let’s continue to navigate.

Barney Frank is the chair of the House Financial Services Committee. In that role, he led the charge to supposedly re-regulate Wall Street via the Dodd-Frank Financial Regulatory Reform legislation. Say what you want about that legislation, but let me remind all of America that our pal Barney did not venture close to ‘ground zero’ during this process. Really? How so? As I wrote last March 22nd in my commentary, The BIG Hole in Financial Regulatory Reform:

Why am I so skeptical that Senator Chris Dodd’s proposed Financial Regulatory Reform (for overachievers in the audience, the link connects to the 89-page proposal) will truly change behaviors on Wall Street? For the very simple reason that I have seen no highlighting of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority within the proposed Financial Regulatory Reform. Strike you as a little odd? It strikes me that the Wall Street lobby is hard at work keeping its self-regulator, that being FINRA, right where they want it.

The fact that FINRA is not singled out by name in Dodd’s report is a HUGE red flag. Over and above that, Dodd’s proposal is nothing more than a review of the SEC’s oversight of FINRA. Why only once every three years? A review of the reviewer? That’s accountability? That’s transparency? Not in my book. In my opinion, that’s both a joke and a confirmation that the Wall Street lobby was hard at work to keep the wolves at bay!!

While my commentary last March focused specifically on Chris Dodd, the simple fact is Barney Frank walked very much in lock step with Dodd on this reform. The ultimate 2000-plus page Dodd-Frank Financial Regulatory Reform legislation barely makes mention of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Strike you as a little odd? Yes, me too. Very odd!!

Regrettably, America has come to understand that most political and financial reform is ultimately that in name only.

Neither Dodd nor Frank can say that they were not FULLY apprised of ALL the issues within FINRA. I shared all of my concerns regarding FINRA with the Project on Government Oversight early this year. POGO itself was also looking hard at the structural and practical failings of FINRA. Regular readers of Sense on Cents are well aware of my calls for increased transparency for FINRA. Those calls were echoed by POGO but they fell upon deaf ears in Washington. I wrote in my March commentary:

Perhaps Senator Dodd and his colleagues may want to review the Project on Government Oversight’s thoughts on FINRA in which they call the very concept of self-regulation for Wall Street into question. POGO’s letter to four separate Congressional sub-committees can be found here.

Neither Dodd, Frank, nor anybody else on Capitol Hill ever addressed POGO’s letter and grave concerns. That fact should be the final nail in Barney Frank’s political coffin.

Chris Dodd’s political career is over.

I implore the citizens of the 4th District in Massachusetts to do our nation an enormous service and end Barney Frank’s political career this coming Tuesday.

Sense on Cents strongly endorses Sean Bielat!!

Larry Doyle

P.S. I typically shun from this type of commentary. That said,  given the historic nature of this election and this specific race, I believe it is my civic responsibility to share my feelings and a link to my March commentary. Comments, questions, and constructive criticisms are encouraged and appreciated.

Please subscribe to all my work via e-mail, an RSS feed, on Twitter or Facebook.

I have no affiliation or business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. As President of Greenwich Investment Management, an SEC regulated privately held registered investment adviser, I am merely a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.

Readers of NQ might recall a previous Youtube video of mine called “The Cultural Revolution Starts Here”. I have used some of the themes I mentioned in that video in a play I have just completed.

The play is partly inspired by the Tennyson poem, “The Lady of Shalott” (a reading of which I offer in my latest Youtube video). It is about two people trapped in an academic ivory tower, but on a deeper level it is about the way that creativity and general perceptions can be stultified by academic and political fashions.

Here are two extracts from the play:

EXTRACT ONE:

LLOYD: I did hear about it from Helen, about how you believed that academics were by and large less concerned about the truth and more concerned about preserving their theories and their academic territory…
ELLIOTT: Right. Because that is the source of their income, their power and influence.
HELEN: Yes, and you claimed that many were trying to hold onto their power and influence by bludgeoning their students and everyone else into subscribing to their narrow theoretical models.
ELLIOTT: Like the high priests of bygone centuries who used Latin to elevate themselves above the masses and maintain their power.
LLOYD: So you see faculty leaders as the new high priests of society?
ELLIOTT: Mainly the more pretentious of them, who unfortunately are the ones who get most of the attention. Now I know I have thrown out some sweeping generalizations, but the evidence is all there for those who care to look for it. Particularly in the arts and humanities, where so many people remain slaves to theories long after they have proved to be fundamentally flawed. In the music world you have the slaves of Arnold Schonberg, who churn out music nobody wants to hear. In theatre you have the slaves of Stanislavski, with a bit of Marx mixed in, who forget that the primary function of theatre is to entertain rather than to send people out into the streets to start the next revolution. In almost every field you have people latching onto all kinds of shaky theories and trying to build on them as a way of establishing their academic strongholds.

EXTRACT TWO:

ELLIOTT: I’ve recently been writing about the universal trauma of the first and second world wars, and the effect it had on the arts and humanities. How it led to a shutting down of the senses, because people became so afraid of any emotion or sentiment leading to another holocaust. How everything became stripped of passion or embellishment.
HELEN: That sounds interesting.
ELLIOTT: I’ve been looking at the way so-called serious music became largely a mathematical exercise, with some composers actually proclaiming that their music could only be properly appreciated by reading their scores, rather than by listening to them. Imagine that. Music you can only read. Total madness, with an increasingly discordant and meaningless sound track.
HELEN: Yes, I have to agree with you there. I can’t stand most of the music that’s been produced since before Schonberg.
ELLIOTT: And then you had architecture beginning to lose all ornamentation and becoming an exercise in people packaging. In literature you had the stripped down and unsentimental prose of Hemingway being favoured over the poetic richness of Scott Fitzgerald and other writers who brought more flourish and colour into their work. You had style taking precedence over substance.
HELEN: Of course those are generalizations again but I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with your conclusions.
ELLIOTT: What it boiled to in essence was a closing down of all senses and all thought outside of a few purely intellectual and heavily circumscribed exercises.

P.S. See my other recent post, “The soundtrack of our lives.”

1. Can we now declare the HAMP (Making Home Affordable) program to be totally futile? How is it that everybody on Wall Street and in Washington is now promoting that the economy will be harmed if we forestall the mortgage foreclosure process? What the hell have the wizards in Washington been doing via HAMP and through Freddie and Fannie for the last 18 months? The simple fact is our policy makers have done everything in their power to inhibit the markets from working. Now, all of a sudden, they become proponents of free market principles? Were we born yesterday? Not here at NoQuarter.

I have continually harangued our Washington politicos for not allowing the housing market to clear, and highlighted how forestalling that process would only prolong our economic pain. We’re feeling that pain now and will be for the foreseeable future.

2. Where are we going with this moratorium?

Do the banks, mortgage servicers, and originators run significant  litigation risks for improperly foreclosing on selected mortgages? Perhaps, BUT I personally believe the smokescreen created by this process is a precursor to having Uncle Sam impose mortgage principal forgiveness as the price for settling the potential legal fiasco of improper mortgage foreclosures. Am I being overly cynical, if not outright conspiratorial, in my line of reasoning? The fact is I believe the White House has always wanted to write down mortgage principal as the mechanism to support housing. Does crafting principal forgiveness as the ‘settlement’ for alleged improprieties by the aforementioned mortgage originators become a convenient way to subvert the courts on the issue of contract law? I am not an attorney, but my gut instincts tell me we are headed in this direction. Who gets hurt under this scenario? Mortgage investors who hold the mortgages which will have some form of principal forgiven. On that note, let’s navigate further.

3. The imposition of principal forgiveness may actually be less expensive for banks and servicers than addressing the real root problem behind many mortgages. What is that problem? The fact that a lot of mortgages in our nation today were fraudulently underwritten from point of origination and were then fraudulently conveyed via mortgage securitizations. A handful of investors (including some FHLBS and Freddie/Fannie) have pursued legal actions to have these frauds unearthed and adjudicated in their favor. How would that work? The banks and originators would have to purchase the fraudulently underwritten mortgages back at par. That cost would be enormous. Forgiving principal on an original fraud will not necessarily cure the problem, BUT it does become a means of buying time or ‘kicking the can down the road.’ That, my friends, is all we have been doing for the last few years anyway, so why stop now?

In less polite terms, Wall Street and Washington have been and continue to be hard at work to continue to disguise the massive Ponzi scheme that was our nation’s economy. The moratorium on foreclosures may seem like the principals are trying to be good citizens. I view it in a decidedly different light. The principals on Wall Street and their cronies in Washington are looking for a means to write off the stranglehold of massive mortgage debt that continues to cripple our economy. These developments are merely the next leg in the great financial experiment playing out on our national stage and economic landscape.

Navigate accordingly.

Larry Doyle

I have no affiliation or business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. As President of Greenwich Investment Management, an SEC regulated privately held registered investment adviser, I am merely a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.

Politics is clearly a contact sport. No doubt not all of the punches are above the belt.

I first referenced the Obama White House use of intimidation in the case of Tom Lauria, then lawyer for a group of Chrysler creditors. I wrote in early May 2009, Is Barack Obama Going Tony Soprano? How uncanny that the same reference is utilized today in an article centered on the impact of ObamaCare and the pending sale of three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals. American Spectator writes in regard to ObamaCare:

….the White House is confronted with a rapidly accelerating set of unintended consequences spreading across the country. As listed by theWall Street Journal, those unintended consequences included 2011 premium increases shooting up as high as 9%; “multibillion-dollar corporate writedowns by Verizon, AT&T, Caterpillar and others”; the disruption of insurance markets, a show-down with McDonald’s, the imposition of price controls on premiums, insurers withdrawing from Medicare Advantage.

In what appears to have become a pattern, the response from the Obama Administration has been repeatedly swift and harsh –compared by one critic as an episode straight out of the Sopranos, the famous HBO mobster series.

While the reference to intimidation tactics by the White House in a commentary may grab attention, the simple ‘sense on cents’ embodied in this story has to do with the implication of lessened revenues for hospitals as a result of Obamacare leading to their sale. That reality is absolutely referenced as a primary reason for the sale of three Mercy County, PA hospitals by CEO Kevin Cook.

While the attached story is lengthy, I strongly encourage people to read it because it has major implications for your health care going forward. It also shines a light into the rough and tumble world of national politics. I have no problem with playing hard. I have major problems with those who may look to stifle freedom of speech. This commentary may take ten minutes. Might a version soon be coming to a hospital near you? Read on as American Spectator writes, The President’s Nun: Obamacare Scranton Scandal Explodes:

Can you say “October Surprise”?

A mushrooming political battle over ObamaCare involving the White House, two incumbent Pennsylvania congressmen, three Catholic hospitals and a nun has just exploded in, of all places, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Charges from the Scranton medical community of intimidation by the Obama White House and its allies are filling the air.

All of this just as Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Scranton today to raise money for one of the participants.

There are two issues at the core of the controversy.

1. ObamaCare and the sale of three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals.

2. The re-election prospects of the two House members, Democrats Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney, both of whom cast key votes to pass ObamaCare.

Here’s the list of players — major and minor — so far.
• The President of the United States.
• The Vice President of the United States.
• Three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals suddenly for sale.
• The CEO of the three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals for sale.
• ObamaCare, otherwise known as “health care reform” or the “Affordable Care Act.”
• A Catholic nun.
• Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak.
• A pen.
• Victoria Reggie Kennedy, widow of the late Senator Ted Kennedy.
• Time magazine.
• The Scranton Times
• The two Scranton-area House members Kanjorski and Carney, both losing in the polls.
• U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr., a native and resident of Scranton.
• Congressman Joe Sestak, the Democrats’ nominee for the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat.

Where to start? That would be….

March 22, 2010: President Obama signs the Affordable Care Act (aka “ObamaCare”) into law in front of live television cameras and a packed East Room of the White House. According to news accounts, the President uses 21 different pens to sign his name, the highly prized souvenirs of the historic moment given to Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the wife of the late Senator Ted Kennedy along with a very select handful of others.

The President, after being introduced by an exuberant Vice President Biden (who whispers “this is a big f…g deal” into the President’s ear and is picked up by a live microphone) says:

“I heard one of the Republican leaders say this was going to be Armageddon. Well, two months from now, six months from now, you can check it out. We’ll look around and we’ll see.”

Almost immediately — it didn’t take two months much less six — the White House is confronted with a rapidly accelerating set of unintended consequences spreading across the country. As listed by theWall Street Journal, those unintended consequences included 2011 premium increases shooting up as high as 9%; “multibillion-dollar corporate writedowns by Verizon, AT&T, Caterpillar and others”; the disruption of insurance markets, a show-down with McDonald’s, the imposition of price controls on premiums, insurers withdrawing from Medicare Advantage.

In what appears to have become a pattern, the response from the Obama Administration has been repeatedly swift and harsh –compared by one critic as an episode straight out of the Sopranos, the famous HBO mobster series.

The corporate writedowns — done in compliance with federal law — resulted in angry phone calls from then-Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and colleague Valerie Jarrett to corporate CEO’s and the heads of the Washington corporate offices of those involved. Congressman Henry Waxman threatened a congressional investigation into those companies whose obedience to the law put them at odds with the actual results of ObamaCare. Notification by insurers that rates were being forced up by ObamaCare resulted in a threatening letter from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to insurers warning that such candor would not be tolerated — at risk of not being allowed to participate in a future government-run health care exchange for insurers.

Then, suddenly, on October 6 — five days ago — the fuse to what is becoming a huge political explosion was lit.

In the unlikely location of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THESE two hotly contested re-election races for a pair of Pennsylvania Democratic congressmen, the controversy first erupted over the suddenly announced sale of three Catholic Hospitals spread out between Paul Kanjorski’s and Chris Carney’s two adjoining congressional districts.

The initial announcement was made by Mercy Health Partners CEO Kevin Cook.

Cook is based in Scranton, while Mercy Partners and the three hospitals up for sale are in fact a subsidiary of the larger Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP) based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The three Catholic hospitals involved are: Mercy Hospital in Scranton; Mercy Special Care Hospital in Nanticoke, both in Kanjorski’s 11th District. And the Mercy Tyler Hospital in Tunkhannock, located in Carney’s adjacent 10th District.

The Cook announcement was big news in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The Sisters of Mercy had opened Mercy Hospital in Scranton, a major facility for the city, in 1917 — 93 years earlier. Inevitably it drew media attention. Which is where the plot thickens.

WNEP TV (Channel 16) reporter Jon Meyer filed a story about the sale at 4:40 pm. that afternoon. WNEP TV anchor Paula Giangiacomo led the story on the air by saying that “one big” reason for the sale “is the health care reform bill signed into law this year.” Mercy Health Partners CEO Cook was interviewed on camera along with Sister Marie Parker. When Meyer asked Cook if ObamaCare had anything at all to do with the sale, the CEO replied:

“Health care reform is absolutely playing a role. Was it the precipitating factor in this decision? No, but was it a factor in our planning over the next five years? Absolutely.”

Notice the use — twice — of the word “absolutely” by Cook, leaving no doubt with viewers that while ObamaCare wasn’t the “precipitating factor” it was “absolutely playing a role…Absolutely” in the decision by Mercy Health Care Partners to put the three hospitals up for sale.

Then, on Friday October 8, only 48 hours after the story hit the local news on WNEP, the executive changed his story. Sort of. A second statement came out over Mr. Cook’s name as CEO. Headlined on the PR Newswire-US Newswire services, the statement was headed: “Mercy Reiterates Rationale for Sale Exploration.”

Gone was any reference to the subject discussed in the WNEP-TV story. ObamaCare playing a role in the sale of the three hospitals? Where would an idea like that ever come from? Not from this second statement. There is not a word of Cook’s videotaped certainty that ObamaCare is responsible in some measure for this proposed sale. Yet curiously, there is no out-and-out retraction of Cook’s comments to WNEP either. The subject of ObamaCare bearing responsibility for this sale in any fashion is disappeared. Completely missing. The second statement just has Mr. Cook saying that sale discussions were being conducted “long before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. The decision was due to many factors.”

But there appears to have been something else at work here behind the scenes that necessitated this second statement from Cook.

Mysteriously, the very same day, came this statement, also released on the PR Newswire services. Out of the blue, suddenly released by Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), the headline was sharp and pointed. The headline?

Alarmist News Reports About Catholic Hospitals Are False; CHA Supports Difficult Decision by Mercy Health Partners.

In a fury that fairly leaps from the page, Sister Carol says immediately that “false motives” have been assigned to the proposed sale of the three Mercy hospitals. Says the good Sister: “Reports that health reform is the primary motive behind the sale are completely false, misleading and politically motivated. Deliberations to sell the facilities began well before the Affordable Care Act became law and did not hinge on enactment of the legislation.”

In other words, Mr. Cook — he the CEO of the hospitals who said flatly that ObamaCare was in fact “absolutely” and yet again “absolutely” playing a role in the sale of the three hospitals — was, in the polite language of a Catholic nun, in essence being called a liar.

By Sunday, there was a third Cook statement, this one posted on the website of Mercy Health Partners. Cook statement # 3 was no longer as benign as statement # 2. The third Cook statement used some of the original language from statement #2, but its lead paragraph was now saying something else entirely. I have marked the change in bold print:

Mercy Health Partners recently announced our intention to explore the sale of our facilities in Northeastern Pennsylvania.The rationale for our initiative has been mischaracterized by certain politicized media outlets and severely distorted by some special interest groups.

In other words, Cook statement #3 has picked up a flavor of the statement from Sister Carol. Now saying without saying it that Cook’s original WNEP answer about the role ObamaCare “absolutely…absolutely” played in the decision to sell the hospitals has been “severely distorted.”

Curious, no? Very.

WHY IN THE WORLD would a Catholic nun be so revved up as to denounce in such strong language what Mr. Cook insisted was a fact — that ObamaCare was “absolutely” and yet again “absolutely” playing a role in the hospital sale? Why the hair-trigger fire-breathing response. From a simple Catholic nun named Sister Carol?

And why in the world would Mr. Cook feel compelled to issue not one but two re-statements of the rationale behind the sale of the three Mercy hospitals?

One doctor in Scranton — who was deeply disturbed by the announcement — is certain he knows the answer. That answer? Mr. Cook was absolutely right the very first time he spoke to WNEP on camera. Hospitals, said this doctor — frequently run a debt. “What’s different? Why now?” he said in terms of the rationale for selling the Mercy hospitals. The reason is exactly as CEO Cook originally said it was. ObamaCare cuts in Medicare reimbursement have changed the rules so drastically for hospitals “you [Mercy Health Partners] are in an untenable situation,” said this physician. Most hospitals have accumulating debt because of capital investments, says the doctor. But they can’t deal with that debt if in fact their ability to earn money is cut off or drastically reduced over time.

Alarmingly, the doctor, with a lifetime of practice in hand, says that “hospitals close in clusters where there is decreased income in terms of relatively low Medicare reimbursement…because they are the most vulnerable.” He adds that what is happening in Scranton, Nanticoke, and Tunkhannock with the Mercy hospitals “is just the beginning. It will happen everywhere because reimbursements will be reduced” under ObamaCare. Particularly, he adds, in areas where you have a high elderly population.

If the doctor is right, and he is not alone in saying this, the proposed sale of the three Mercy hospitals becomes a harbinger of what will happen nationally as a result of ObamaCare slowly tightening its government tentacles over the private health care system. Which means the sale of the three Mercy hospitals has added Scranton to what the Wall Street Journal has already called ObamaCare’s “trail of destruction.”

Ahhhh. But who is Sister Carol Keehan? What’s the big deal here with her? Why would a statement from simple Catholic nun appear to cause so much consternation with Mercy Health Partner CEO Kevin Cook in Scranton, Pennsylvania?

LET’S GO BACK to that presidential signing of the health care reform law. There were 21 very powerful people in that little group who received signing pens from the President. As mentioned that included the Vice President, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy’s widow Victoria Reggie Kennedy. And someone else.

That would be Sister Carol Keehan.

Impressive, no? The Catholic News Agency thought so, and prominently noted the story here. It also noted that Sister Carol was receiving her presidential pen from the President himself because she had been “supporting health care despite bishops’ objections.” The story even pictured the pen itself alongside the presidential seal on the box in which it came, with “Barack Obama” clearly visible scrawled along the side. Meaning, Sister Carol had enough clout to take on the Catholic Bishops on the President’s behalf — and win.

Does the name Bart Stupak ring a bell? The much ballyhooed pro-life Democrat Congressman from Michigan? The Catholic Congressman Bart Stupak who was said to be such a sturdy obstacle to passage of ObamaCare because it would allow abortions? In the aftermath of the ObamaCare passage, Slate came forward to note that a letter signed by “representatives” of Catholic nuns finally swayed Stupak to break his staunch anti-abortion pledge and sign on for ObamaCare with a simple promise of an executive order on abortion, executive orders being overturned by successor presidents with the rapidity of rabbits doing the breeding thing. Wait! Stupak was persuaded by Catholic nuns? Isn’t Sister Carol a …nun? How about that? What a coincidence? Yes indeed, the letter in question was signed — solo — by Sister Carol.

In other words, Sister Carol is not just some kindly nun who reminds you of the nun whacking your knuckles in grade school for this or that offense. No, in the world of Washington Sister Carol is a powerhouse lobbyist — make that a liberal social justice lobbyist — with a clear set of political skills and a very, very high-powered set of very elite friends. She is quite decidedly not just the neighborhood nun. Sister Carol is the Washington voice of the Catholic Health Association, once called the Catholic Hospital Association, which means her clout with Catholic hospitals around America — like the Mercy Hospital in Scranton and its siblings in Nanticoke and Tunkhannock, all run by CEO Cook — is considerable. Not to mention her clout with the parent company located in Cincinnati — and not to mention with Congressman Bart Stupak.

Selected as one of Time magazine’s “2010 Time 100″ most influential people, Sister Carol’s social justice passions were written up glowingly for Time by one of the other Obama 21 pen-receivers at the health care signing: Victoria Reggie Kennedy. AKA, Mrs. Ted Kennedy. Sister Carol, as demonstrated by her status as the receiver of a presidential signing pen, is clearly the President’s favorite nun.

Thus her abilities to whack Mercy CEO Kevin Cook’s knuckles for speaking out of turn on what in fact he “absolutely” and “absolutely” saw a mere two days earlier as the impact of ObamaCare on his hospitals were considerable. And when the Cook statement #2 didn’t pass muster, he apparently was whacked again. After reining in a sitting Congressman Stupak and getting him to, in the yes of many pro-lifers, abandon his anti-abortion stance and pass ObamaCare, what’s a mere hospital executive like Kevin Cook to Sister Carol? It is safe to say that there are doctors in Scranton, furious at what they are seeing as happening to the local health care system, who believe Sister Carol — or someone else connected to the Obama White House if not the someone inside the White House itself — was behind the knuckle rapping of Kevin Cook.

With the White House already on record for having senior staff making angry phone calls to CEO’s over corporate writedowns, having the Secretary of HHS send threatening Soprano-style letters to insurers not to blame ObamaCare for premium increases — the question in Scranton is why wouldn’t the same White House enlist the President’s favorite nun to intimidate Mr. Cook and the company he represents?

Protecting ObamaCare turns out to be but one reason — albeit that alone is a big one with national consequences for this White House.

THE OTHER REVOLVES around the struggling campaigns of Representatives Kanjorski and Carney. And the larger political picture in Pennsylvania. U.S. Senator Robert P. Casey Jr. is a Scranton resident. Indeed, one Scranton source pointed out that the Casey home is within walking distance of Mercy Hospital in Scranton. Casey and his father before him have succeeded in part by creating the image of the old-fashioned FDR-JFK working class Democrat whose values are revered in Scranton. This is the city that is the hometown of Vice President Biden. For Scrantonians and their fellow Pennsylvanians in neighboring communities to suddenly see a Catholic hospital that has been a mainstay for 93 years suddenly slip away has caused considerable upset.

And notably, in a town that is heavily Catholic, the realization that three hospitals that did not perform abortions could be sold to owners who would allow the procedure is infuriating.

Both Kanjorski and Carney have been under fire for their ObamaCare votes from GOP opponents Lou Barletta and Tom Marino respectively. The startling news of the Mercy sale was barely 24 hours old when State Republican Chairman Robert P. Gleason picked up on it, issuing statements tying the ObamaCare votes of the pair to the prospective loss of Mercy.

And at that, Sister Carol, presumably not having the comings and goings of Pennsylvania politics on her mind, suddenly launched herself into the Scranton hospital debacle, presumably finally forcing a tougher stance from Mercy’s CEO Cook in statement #3.

The explosion, all recent with its implications of White House pressure and lost Catholic hospitals, is about to bring in media ads from CatholicVote.org. Says Communications Director Joshua Mercer: “Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney are Catholic and they both voted for ObamaCare.” Citing the sale of the three Mercy hospitals, Mercer says that the pro-ObamaCare votes of the two “has had a real impact on the community.” Mercer added a sentiment voiced as well by the Scranton doctor: “There are a lot of Kevin Cooks across the country…the CEO’s of small Catholic hospitals are all facing the same realities of more [ObamaCare] mandates and regulations.”

Interestingly, a Scranton medical source notes the lack of coverage of the growing Mercy hospital sales controversy in the local Scranton Times. “It’s a Democratic paper,” the source said, mentioning that he listens to talk radio to get a better picture of the news. “I listen to Rush, to Sean, Fox News and local talk radio. But with a Democratic paper you have to listen to national talk radio to get another perspective.”

Today, Vice President Biden arrives in Scranton to campaign for Congressman Carney.

A Capitol Hill aide to a Republican U.S. Senator says of the Scranton controversy the Obama White House is terrified the Mercy Hospital sales story will “get legs” as a national story — further intensifying the anti-Obama vote pollsters are recording in potentially record numbers. And leading to the defeat of not only Kanjorski and Carney but another Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman who voted for ObamaCare: U.S. Senate nominee Joe Sestak. Sestak is trailing his own opponent, conservative anti-ObamaCare GOP nominee Pat Toomey.

With less than a month to go until election day, one thing is certain.

The story of the President’s nun and charges of possible intimidation of a hospital executive over ObamaCare will ensure the Scranton hospital sale isn’t going away anytime soon.

Growing up in an Irish Catholic household and attending a local Catholic school, I am very familiar with getting knuckles rapped. A few of my brothers were even more familiar with that reality than I. That said, we probably deserved it. In fact, we definitely deserved it. Speaking your mind and freedom of speech in America is a prized virtue. That freedom is critically important for the pursuit of real truth, total transparency, and unbridled integrity. I say we absolutely stand up for it. Who’s absolutely with me?

Larry Doyle

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I have no affiliation or business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. As President of Greenwich Investment Management, an SEC regulated privately held registered investment adviser, I am merely a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.

I believe that a society’s musical soundtrack is a good indicator of its cultural health. While a lot of good and exciting music can still be heard in some of the better movies, I am depressed by the banality of most of the music being pumped out by radio stations and also on Broadway. Its banality is on a par with Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton with a lot of aggression thrown in. And it’s not just nostalgia for “the good old days” that makes me feel this way. It’s about human values.

Apart from a very few Public Radio stations, you hear very little music from the great composers of the past. “Narrowcasting” in radio means that radio stations stick to a very narrow playlist. Yet when the general public is given the chance to hear the great classics, the results can be amazing. One example of this was during the soccer World Cup in the 1990. British television adopted Luciano Pavarotti’s version of “Nessun Dorma” as their theme for the world cup coverage and it became the most often played football anthem for the next 18 years. It also reached number one on the pop charts.

Which just shows what a little exposure to the classics can do.

I am now glad to say that I have become the center of an international initiative that aims to bring the music of the great classical composers to a wider audience through a series of stage musicals designed to appeal to a wide demographic. I have been working closely with Opera Manhattan in New York and the theater department at Ashland Community and Technical College in Kentucky in developing four new shows that feature the music of Mozart, Beethoven and many other classical composers, as well as Gilbert and Sullivan. These works are also being promoted in England, Ireland, Australia, Germany and Japan.

“Snow White and The vil Queen”, which I have just finished recording in Kentucky (scenes from which are in the accompanying video) has generated a lot of interest and it was great to see the enthusiasm with which this cross-section of the community (ranging in age from 14 to over 60) embraced the music.

“The show is hilarious, creepy, brilliant, with great characters and great lyrics. Beethoven’s music works so well with the libretto,” says Lindsay Saltsman Taylor (no relation) who sings the role of Malexandria (the Evil Queen) on the CD recording of the show.

The show will open with a production by Opera Manhattan near Times Square in New York in February and my German agent is hiring the country’s top opera translator to do the German translation (see http://att-agentur.de/_temp/_pages/newsletter.php).

The musicals are all based on well known stories and are sung in English.Three of four new works have so far been completed – “The Marsh King’s Daughter”, based on the Hans Christian Anderson story with music by Mozart, “Snow White and The Evil Queen” with music by Beethoven, and “The Corporate Pirate of Penzance”, a modern story based on the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.

I am now half-way through a fourth new musical, based on the Cinderella story and featuring works by a variety of classical composers as well as songs, with input from Professor Edward Figgins, Associate Professor of Theatre and Communications and Director of Theater at Ashland.

Each show has a totally revamped story. For example, the Snow White musical borrows elements from different traditional fairy tales – including The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “The Briar Rose” – and gives a bigger role to he Evil Queen, who steals the show with her villainous ways and songs like “So Insipid” and “Snow White Must Die!”. Instead of a “Mirror Mirror on the wall”, she has a personal stylist, Cedric the Hairdresser, who acts as her vanity mirror.

In the Cinderella story, the fairy godmother is replaced by a talent scout who gives Cinderella a makeover for a reality show. She is then taken to a ball where she meets Prince Nicholas, who is smitten by her. But Cinderella is disturbed by his obsession with a glass slipper and she ends up with a courtier who rescues her after she is sold by her stepmother to slave traders.

My inspiration for these shows arises partly from the fact that while I love a lot of operatic music, I have never been a great fan of opera in general. Half of the reason is that they are usually based on obscure stories and are sung in languages I don’t understand. For example, take Mozart’s most popular opera, the Magic Flute. It’s based on an obscure story rooted in 18th Century German Masonic mythology. I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to relate to 18th Century German Masonic mythology. Particularly if I don’t understand the language.

The other half of the reason is that opera in general tends to have one or two good numbers while the rest of the music is not all that inspiring. Particularly recitative. I have always hated recitative – where they sing dialogue in a very mannered and, to me, rather boring way.

I have long thought how wonderful it would be to have an opera packed with some of the great composers’ most beautiful and memorable pieces, so I decided to have a go at it myself. I was then greatly encouraged by the reactions I got from Opera Manhattan, Professor Figgins and my British publisher Stagescripts UK (who will be promoting the works in Britain and Ireland) and my German and Australian agents.