Sir Allen Stanford’s criminal defense lawyer, the famed Dick DeGuerin of Houston, tells TPMmuckraker that his client is a victim of Bernie Madoff’s scam, too, albeit indirectly:
“They got egg all over their faces when they failed to sufficiently oversee the Madoff Ponzi scheme. What the SEC is trying to do is make up for their embarrassment over Madoff.”
A sampling of the reaction to the House GOP’s “there’s nothing to see here” budget announcement. From Gibbs’ mocking to Contessa Brewer’s rant to Norah O’Donnell’s skewering of Rep. Mike Pence for specifics:
Late Update: Ezra Klein calls it his favorite “budget” ever:
If you’re having a bad day, I highly encourage you to spend some quality time with the Republican budget proposal. It’s reads like what would happen if The Onion put together a budget. “Area Man Releases Proposal for 2010 Federal Spending Priorities.” (Though, to paraphrase William F. Buckley, it turns out that I’d prefer a federal budget written by an area man than the first six names on the House Republican Leadership roster.) …
The threat going around the Capitol is that some impish Democratic chairman will ask the CBO to try and score the Republican proposal.
McCain camp attacks Palin for saying they don’t talk to God.
Fresh off trying to keep the world economy from exploding, ex-Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s going to write a tell-all credit-default-swap, Bush tell-all.
“America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace,” said Senator Webb. “With five percent of the world’s population, our country houses twenty-five percent of the world’s prison population. Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980. And four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals. We should be devoting precious law enforcement capabilities toward making our communities safer. Our neighborhoods are at risk from gang violence, including transnational gang violence. There is great appreciation from most in this country that we are doing something drastically wrong. And, I am gratified that Senator Specter has joined me as the lead Republican cosponsor of this effort. We are committed to getting this legislation passed and enacted into law this year.”
Those are Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) words on introducing the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.
Read more about it here.
Obama announces his strategy for Afghanistan this morning. That and the day’s other news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.