May 2011 archive

Justice Department, SEC investigations often rely on companies’ internal probes



By David S. Hilzenrath, Monday, May 23

As the U.S. government steps up investigations of companies suspected of paying bribes overseas, law enforcement officials are leaving much of the detective work to the very corporations under suspicion.

The probes are so costly and wide-ranging that the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission often let the companies investigate themselves and then share the results.

The strategy is especially common in cases of foreign corruption but also extends to domestic investigations involving issues as varied as health-care fraud and shady accounting.

If only the US Attorney General had this agenda.

Accord With Comptroller Will Help Attorney General Pursue Corruption Cases

By Nicholas Confessore

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Thomas P. DiNapoli, the state comptroller, have entered into an agreement that will grant Mr. Schneiderman powers to criminally prosecute corruption involving taxpayer money, significantly expanding the attorney general’s authority to pursue public integrity cases.

Under the agreement, the comptroller and the attorney general will establish a joint task force on public integrity. Mr. Schneiderman’s prosecutors will work with Mr. DiNapoli’s investigators and auditors looking into legislative earmarks, state pensions and government contracts.

But in a twist, Mr. DiNapoli has also agreed to employ a little-known provision of state law to refer any findings from joint investigations to Mr. Schneiderman for criminal prosecution.

“We’ll coordinate our respective roles to uncover and prosecute government waste, fraud and abuse,” Mr. DiNapoli said in a statement. “This is a powerful message: New York’s two independently elected oversight officials are partnering together to ensure integrity and accountability to every level of government in New York State.

snip

“It could be a very effective approach,” said Eric R. Dinallo, who headed the securities bureau in the attorney general’s office under Eliot Spitzer and was later superintendent of the State Insurance Department. “If you can’t get legislative relief around ethics issues in government and you’re trying to get jurisdiction, sometimes the law has all the jurisdiction you need – if you look at it in a creative way.”

Good work, gentlemen, and much success.

Lyme Disease is a new condition in our infectious disease panoply.  It has only been suspected since 1975, and only in 1978 was it suspected to transmitted by ticks.  The causative agent was not identified until 1981.  This piece is intended only to be a very basic survey of the condition and some of the controversies surrounding it, not a comprehensive dissertation.  There is a very good group at Dailykos called Lyme Disease Awareness with contributors who have more personal information than I do.  However, do not take anything you read in this piece or in the group in general as a substitute for competent medical advise and treatment.

Let us think about that for a minute.  Western medicine had recognized most all serious infectious diseases since the time of Herodotus!   Certainly some exceptions are present, such as syphilis, with seems to be a New World import to Europe and certain, very long latent period virus diseases that we are just now discovering.

Lyme Disease is different, though.  It is caused by a bacterial agent, a specific spirochete called Borrelia burgdorferi, the species name from its discoverer, the brilliant Swiss-American biologist, Dr. Willy Burgdorfer.

Oh… wait.

Spain’s Governing Party Suffers Heavy Losses

By RAPHAEL MINDER, The New York Times

Published: May 22, 2011

MADRID – The governing Socialist Party suffered heavy losses on Sunday in regional and municipal elections, even as tens of thousands of Spaniards calling themselves the “indignant” said they would pursue their protests to force an overhaul of the country’s political system.

Conceding defeat on Sunday night, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said that his Socialist Party had been understandably punished by voters for overseeing an economic crisis that had left Spain with a 21 percent jobless rate, more than twice the European average.

…

Mr. Zapatero, who has been in office since 2004, announced in April that he would not seek a third term, and the extent of the Socialists’ loss suggests that, even with a new leader, the party will struggle to hold on to power in the general election, expected next March.

Never mind.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Militants storm Pakistan military base in Karachi

by Hasan Mansoor, AFP

28 mins ago

Thanks to Stephen Colbert, John Lithgow and Lawrence O’Donnell for this rendition of Newt Gingrich’s press release. If only the rest of politics were so entertaining.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

May 22 is the 142nd day of the year (143rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 223 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1843, the Great Emigration departs for Oregon

A massive wagon train, made up of 1,000 settlers and 1,000 head of cattle, sets off down the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri. Known as the “Great Emigration,” the expedition came two years after the first modest party of settlers made the long, overland journey to Oregon.

Great Migration of 1843

In what was dubbed “The Great Migration of 1843” or the “Wagon Train of 1843”, an estimated 700 to 1,000 emigrants left for Oregon. They were led initially by John Gantt, a former U.S. Army Captain and fur trader who was contracted to guide the train to Fort Hall for $1 per person. The winter before, Marcus Whitman had made a brutal mid-winter trip from Oregon to St. Louis to appeal a decision by his Mission backers to abandon several of the Oregon missions. He joined the wagon train at the Platte River for the return trip. When the pioneers were told at Fort Hall by agents from the Hudson’s Bay Company that they should abandon their wagons there and use pack animals the rest of the way, Whitman disagreed and volunteered to lead the wagons to Oregon. He believed the wagon trains were large enough that they could build whatever road improvements they needed to make the trip with their wagons. The biggest obstacle they faced was in the Blue Mountains of Oregon where they had to cut and clear a trail through heavy timber. The wagons were stopped at The Dalles, Oregon by the lack of a road around Mount Hood. The wagons had to be disassembled and floated down the treacherous Columbia River and the animals herded over the rough Lolo trail to get by Mt. Hood. Nearly all of the settlers in the 1843 wagon trains arrived in the Willamette Valley by early October. A passable wagon trail now existed from the Missouri River to The Dalles. In 1846, the Barlow Road was completed around Mount Hood, providing a rough but completely passable wagon trail from the Missouri river to the Willamette Valley-about 2,000 miles.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour:Exclusive guests this week are former Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell and King Abdullah II of Jordan, author of “Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril.”

The roundtable with George Will, political strategist Matthew Dowd, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Jonathan Karl will look at the GOP contenders.

Will will talk them to death

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Former House Speaker and GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich  will be Mr. Schieffer’s guest.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests Norah O’Donnell, MSNBC Chief Washington Correspondent, Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor, Michael Duffy, TIME  Magazine Assistant Managing Editor and Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent will discuss these questions:

Which leading GOP candidate has the political chops to conquer his flaw?

Is the cost of a college education still worth the price?

This line up could be wrong. Rachel Maddow said she would be a guest. I set my alarm to watch

Meet the Press with David Gregory: House budget chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) will be an exclusive guest.

The roundtable guests Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, Mike Murphy, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, WaPo’s Eugene Robinson, and NYT’s Andrew Ross Sorkin will discuss the Middles East and Newt Gingrich.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, member of the nearly defunct “Gang of 6 will discuss the consequences of defaulting on the debt.

Two members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Reps. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) will talk about intelligence gathering in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey and former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain, will talk about the GOP fiekd for 2012.

Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren will talk with Ms. Crowley about the President’s speech on the Middle East.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Mr. Zakaria will be reporting from Tahir Square in Cairo, Egypt on the latest developments and reactions to recent events. Some of his guests will be:

– Waleed Rashed, a spokesman for the April 6th youth movement, one of the key groups organizing protests in Tahrir Square.

– Sarah Abdelrahman, student activist and video blogger who was in Tahrir.

– Noor Ayman Nour, a law student active in the protests.

– Ragia Omran, a human rights activist and a lawyer helping defend the protestors against the military tribunals.

Joining him will also be Amr Moussa, the outgoing Secretary-General of the Arab League and former Foreign Minister of Egypt and Mohamed Elbaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel Laureate.