Apparently, ole Bernie played fast and loose not only with lucre, but with the ladies….in this case, the chief financial officer of the Hadassah (the Women’s Zionist Organization of America).
Sheryl Weinstein’s account, “Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me,” will be published Aug. 25 by St. Martin’s Press. Amazon.com Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. are accepting advance orders through Web site listings that disclose no details about the relationship and say that the author is “to be announced.” The author is Weinstein, said John Murphy, a spokesman for New York-based St. Martin’s.
Weinstein, 60, has denounced Madoff publicly at least four times this year, including at the June 29 court hearing where he was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison for masterminding the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Weinstein told the judge she met Madoff 21 years ago when she was chief financial officer at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America Inc……
In addition to details of the affair, the hardcover book will include photographs and intimate descriptions of Madoff, Murphy said.”
My Comment:
As if getting ‘taken’ financially and emotionally wasn’t enough, the imprudent Ms. Weinstein now wants to go public. And to be linked forever with her nemesis. What won’t a buck – even a rapidly depreciating, underweight buck – do to people’s good sense and self-respect.
Dear Ms. Weinstein, he was a creep. He screwed you over.
Put as much distance as possible between him and you, physically and virtually.
Unless you want us to start wondering about you too..
I mean, the sentencing within 6 months, the flurry of high-profile books…
lots of handkerchiefs and wands waving…..
Maybe we should check the sleeves and see what’s being disappeared in this story.
Here are some of the criteria the feds use for spotting your average domestic terrorist:
1. Referencing the New World Order and pointing out pro-Zionist domination of the media (it says Jewish, but I daresay they include critics of Zionism, even if the critics parse the racial issue carefully and without bigotry, as I believe I do) CHECK
2. Anger toward the Federal Reserve System
CHECK
3. Concern that assignment of US army personnel to Homeland Security functions could lead to dissidents being placed in FEMA concentration camps (their language, not mine)
CHECK
4.Anticipation that the economic collapse of the United States might lead to a declaration of martial law CHECK
5. Fear of universal conscription into military service
CHECK
6. Belief in support for gold-backed currency [interesting use of “belief in” — I wonder at myself…]
CHECK
7. Distrust toward the IRS, ATF, FBI, and FEMA
CHECK
8. Support for former Presidential candidate Ron Paul
CHECK
9. Sporting the Gadsden Flag (a picture of a rattle-snake with the logo, Don’t Tread on Me).
CHECK
Oops, me bad. I just thought it was, well, a picture of a rattle-snake with the logo, Don’t Tread on Me…..
[I don’t fly any flags…I just linked to it on facebook ‘cos I liked the spirit of it]
Who’s the Gadsden guy?
Nine counts of terrorism.
Not bad for a nerd who spent most of her time in the US in a library or at a computer terminal.
Now think what might have been, if I’d put my mind to it.
Rocha, a coastal province in Uruguay, is getting the most foreign investment in the country. Rocha’s beaches are spectacular and the countryside is dotted with olive groves and streams.
[The video clip features Rocha scenery as background behind a popular Uruguayan song, by singer-songwriter, Daniel Guerra]
An interesting clip on the way liberal-left blogs merge into the mainstream media:
My Comment:
Someone might counter this with the argument that Fox, Limbaugh, and right wing talk-radio more than make up for the mainstream bias. Now, there’s some truth in that, if you’re only thinking in terms of popular appeal. But no one thinks of Fox etc. as unbiased. The mainstream outlets claim objectivity and have the imprimatur of “news” – not “opinion”. Their responsibility is greater.
Also, it’s doubtful if conservative voices would be so shrill if mainstream news were more even-handed.
Who started the culture wars isn’t a useful question to raise at this point. More useful is, who’s going to end them?
In Argentina, the view from below is not nearly so pretty as the vineyards of Mendoza:
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the highest authority of the Catholic Church in Argentina, criticized the lack of action against poverty in Argentina and warned of a “dramatic situation” as he was leading the traditional San Cajetan mass, a day after the Church unveiled a statement from Pope Benedict XVI denouncing a state of “scandalous poverty.”
“We’re noticing situation of dramatic poverty and unemployment,” said Bergoglio in Liniers. “More and more people are sleeping in the streets, and they have become disposable materials,” he added. Bergoglio, a critic of the Kirchner administration, echoed the word of the Pope and said the local church also noticed “scandalous poverty.”
Following on my own social media problems, I found this story compelling. An extraordinary cyber attack that silenced all Twitter users on Thursday turned out to have been intended for just one blogger…
“According to CNET News.com, which got its information from a Facebook security executive, it appears that Cyxymu’s Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Blogger accounts were attacked simultaneously in a massive denial-of-service attack. Facebook, LiveJournal and Blogger were able to ward off the attack for the most part, but the assault brought Twitter to its knees for much of Thursday.
The culprits still haven’t been identified, CNET reported, although an Internet traffic expert quoted by the New York Times said the attack came from Abkhazia, a territory along the eastern coast of the Black Sea that’s in dispute between Russia and the Republic of Georgia.
And why was Cyxymu—a pro-Georgian blogger who “has long been viewed as an antagonist by some Russian supporters,” according to The Register—targeted? “To keep his voice from being heard,” the Facebook exec told CNET.”
Here’s what I find so chilling about yesterday’s Twitter attack: that these guys, whoever they are, apparently thought nothing of taking down an entire communications network because they didn’t like what one person was saying.
Imagine if someone didn’t like what you were saying, and decided to shut you up by nuking your ISP, or your wireless carrier. Or heck, the entire phone system. All for you….”
So – no it’s not paranoia. If you happen to stumble on certain things and if your world view is not in synch with that of the powers that be, I can assure you, you will be targeted — but in such a way that you may pass it off as “random” or “happens to everyone..”
Now you know. There are people senseless and ruthless enough that they don’t mind how many people are affected so long as the voice they want to shut up, shuts up…
The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.”
I got a long critical response from a liberal reader to my Sarah Palin piece at Lew Rockwell (now also posted at Palin for 2012 website). I’ve added my responses below the salient points in the response, which you can find in full in the Comments to the post entitled Liberals Love to Hate Sarah Palin.
Here are my responses:
Bill:Quote: Standards of decency from ” journalists”?? you are kidding right?
Lila: Well, no, not really. If journalists want to consider themselves professionals, they should act with professional standards. I think journalists need to be restrained toward the private
lives of ALL politicians. If they aren’t – no one competent and half-way
decent will want to go into politics – especially not women.
Bill: Palin is a media whore and she dragged her family in front and center, and
now expresses shock and dismay when the media does what the media does. I don’t get it,
Lila: I don’t think she was a media whore. You have to be able to project
yourself in the media – that’s the job of politicians these days.
They can’t be called whores for doing what they have to do to get visibility
The media is supposed to be the 4th estate, not some tabloid trash..but
today there’s no distinction.
Bill: You do cause me some vertigo “defending” bill clinton, but your venial
tirade is relatively trivial IMO, particularly in the context of the
recent POTUS history of pursuit of excellence to the bottom. I prefer to use
body count and erosion of civil liberties as the litmus test, not the
Berlusconi
scale. **
Lila: I do too..but in Clinton’s case, it’s related. Berlusconi certainly used women he’d bedded in his political empire…and he used them to shut down critics – so there’s really no distinction between those two facets of his life.
Bill:Quote: *assaulted a couple of women, bit one on the lip until she bled,
Assault!.Are you sure of that?
Lila: Very sure. Two is a conservative number, I think.
Bill: * Quote: sodomized the barely-adult daughter of a loyal Democrat donor and then
tried to trash her as a stalker? Barely adult !?! you have got to be kidding.. Stalker, no doubt
Lila: Lewinsky was a very young, chubby intern with a history of emotional problems, in her early twenties. He’s fifty plus and the most powerful man in the world, with a history of wheeling and dealing in unsavory circles – you tell me who’s the player
Bill: *Quote: besides causing unaccountable career-implosions,... causing?, Arent
career implosions ultimately the stuff of free will
*gory suicides …innuendo, have any facts?
Lila: Vince Foster’s suicide was very odd and there were several others among less-known figures
Bill: *Quote: causing.. jail time... facts? did you mean elective jail time?
Lila: That woman who covered for him – Susan McDougal, for one
Bill: Ultimately what is your point? The liberal media gave Clinton a pass?? You
have got to be kidding..
Lila: No, I said the opposite. I said the media could have been more responsible and sensitive toward Clinton too..but the trashing of Clinton shouldn’t be the reason liberals use to go after conservatives on minor issues.
Bill: The whole time honored canard of the “liberal
media” unjustly persecuting conservative stalwarts has gotten pretty
threadbare. Liberal media, conservative media, I think you mean to imply
Corporate media. Corporate media goes after easy red meat irrespective of> affiliation and sells it to the superficial ADD public that laps it up.
Lila: The media is corporatist and reflexively liberal – since when are these two things opposed?
Bill: Quote: And that wouldn’t be something ever committed by Barack Obama now, would
it – he with the near-halo on every magazine cover,> are you forgetting the
evangelical canonization of Bush???
Lila: No, not at all. It’s all bad. I criticized Bush on the same grounds. Check it out.
Bill:Quote:Todd was the Palin they should have picked. Have you have taken leave of
your senses? BTW, in debate 101 that would be called Fallacy of False
Choice..
Lila: That was a cute line expressing the idea that real feminism would involved more concern for the family and less for a power career. By the way, it’s not a false choice. The unspoken implication of the line is if they had to have a Palin, Todd was the one they should have picked…
Bill:
*Quote*insiders who dragged America through the mud over the last two decades>> Once someone is elevated to be the Establishment throne POTUS, they are by
default the new insider by definition, don’t you get that? Was Clinton was
an insider when he was living larger than he ever expected in his wildest
dreams as gov. of AK?
Lila: Palin barely got into office in a remote state.
Bill:Quote* The persistent trashing of Sarah Palin is a trashing of ordinary
Americans. If Palin represents “ordinary americans” come and shoot me now
Lila: Yes, she does. She stands for a large part of America.
Bill: Perhaps BHO really sucks, but having Palin a heart attack away from POTUS
would have been in the realm of fantastic reality to take a line from
Richard Burton in the Night of the Iguana..
Lila: Agreed, she was a bad choice for Veep. I said I wasn’t a fan..
As reported in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner called fellow bank regulators, included Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, over for an obscenity-laced rant about their audacity in raising questions about his scheme to fix our financial system.
Reportedly the Secretary told regulators that “enough is enough” and that they’ve been heard, so the time for debate is over. This sounds eerily like the President’s previous comments about including Republicans in the talks over the stimulus – you’ve been heard, so you were “included,” now shut up. The shouting down of debate is becoming all too much a signature of this Administration.
The Secretary apparently also told the regulators in attendance that it was the administration and the Congress that sets policy. Perhaps next he’ll tell us that the power of the purse lies with the Treasury and the Congress. Secretary Geithner has no more constitutional authority to set policy than do any of the bank regulators. It is the job of Congress to make laws, not the Treasury Secretary’s. He can offer his opinion, just as they can, and should, offer theirs.
Of course, Secretary Geithner’s frustrations are understandable, given that his regulatory proposals have hit a brick-wall with both Congress and the Public. He has made no effort to explain to either Congress or the public how exactly his plan will stop future bailouts. Instead, any reasonable read of his proposal would lead to the conclusion that we will have more bailouts, rather than less, under the Obama-Geithner plan. Instead of directing his energies at anger, he should put them toward coming up with solutions that actually increase the stability of our financial system.
We were all told during his confirmation process that we must overlook such facts as his failure to pay taxes, because Tim Geithner was the “boy-wonder” who would save our financial system. As his recent out-bursts demonstrate, “boy-wonder” is only half-right.