*Written by Rob Rimes.

I was late watching this debate, as I had to check the replay. Unfortunately, I wasn’t home and I was unable to take serious notes on it. I was at my boss’ house due to it being the annual national sales meeting for my real job and between the alcohol and festivities, this thing was hard to watch in any serious sort of manner. I regret not being able to give it my full attention but the whiskey and wine were flowing, the girls were distracting to say the least and the copious amounts of food transplanted from several of the world’s most exotic regions somehow took precedence over watching the most recent episode of ‘Three Tyrants and a Wizard’. I do apologize as I have been trying to chronicle every damn one of these things but there are just so many, seven this month alone, and turning down a chance to literally spend the night at a party thrown at the mansion of the Indian version of Caligula is incredibly hard to pass up. Bourbon soaked tits are better to stare at than three dudes arguing over their dicks and the fourth shaking his head because America’s fallen so far that we’re literally having a debate about three dicks.

Now I did go back and read the transcripts from the debate and I did watch Ron Paul’s highlights – the only important parts, as the other three’s highlights would’ve put me to sleep in my hungover stupor. If it wasn’t for my boss’ brother handing me a Bloody Mary when I walked through the office door this morning, I’d probably be curled up in a ball under my desk hiding from the flickering power-draining headache-inducing fluorescent lights over my head. Needless to say, I am not a Bloody Mary fan by any stretch of the word, as it just conjures up the thought of drinking vodka with some ketchup spilled in it, but that fucking cocktail hit the spot today and I’m about 70 percent recovered from guest-starring in the Bollywood version of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’.

I know I’m rambling about my drunken escapades and that might disinterest you, as you came to this article to experience my certain style of critique on these things, so for that I’m sorry. I will do my best to give you the rundown of the debate, as I saw it between nude champagne showers and Chilean sea bass dodgeball.

So I’m just going to go down the line and analyze the candidates one-by-one starting with Rick Santorum. He started by talking about illegal immigration, border fences and telling the story about his immigrant family for the umpteenth time. He got into it with Ron Paul on foreign policy and failed miserably as he tried to cover up the fact that he’s a goddamned idiot on the affairs of Central and South America. I’ll write more on this when I get to Ron Paul, who owned Santorum like a twenty dollar prostitute. Santorum goes on to bitch about Fannie and Freddie and in turn blasts Newt and Mitt for playing personal politics and distracting everyone from discussing the real issues. On the subject of space, Santorum said that America is a frontier country and space is the next frontier to conquer. He calls for the private sector to be more involved with NASA but doesn’t fully support government being out of it. On health care he goes on and on about how awesome he is for trying to create health savings accounts. If you were so awesome, you would’ve got it done pal! He then gets into a health care argument with Romney that is neither interesting or worth writing about but what the hell, I’ll give you the nutshell version. Basically it went something like this:

Rick Santorum: “Fuck Romneycare”
Mitt Romney: “But it was only at the state level Ricky Baby!”
Rick Santorum: “I don’t care Mitt! You’re a bitch and you gave Obama the blueprints to evil!”
Mitt Romney: “Ricky Baby, you’re so silly!”
Rick Santorum: “Jesus Bible! No health care for the gays!”

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spent most of their time arguing about who was a bigger bastard while both looked like big bastards. Mittens talked about “self-deportation” again. If these guys believe in such a thing as an effective way of handling a situation, can we get them to believe in “self-governance”? If they trust those illegal immigrants to leave on their own accord after sneaking in here in an effort just to come back in a way that is much more difficult, they’ve got to believe that we’re all capable of managing every other aspect of our lives? I mean, they are putting blind faith into something so farfetched that they’ve got to be down with just saying “fuck it” and letting us run our own shit, right?

On the immigration subject, Newt says that Romney is the most anti-immigrant candidate out of the four. Romney gets all pissy and pulls his two Latino cards. The first he pulls is Marco Rubio, the Cuban American senator that came to his defense on immigration. The second card Mitt pulled was Mexico, as his father was born there. I was born in a hospital bro, that doesn’t make me a doctor!

Romney and Gingrich argue about immigration for awhile and then they argue about Fannie and Freddie and who is the biggest crook. Newt, once he gets away from the lame feud for a minute, goes on some tangent about making a moon base. Newt later said that Jacksonville was going to get big pimpin’ because the Panama Canal was widening and would bring them more boat traffic. Shortly after that we were treated to a Santorum-Gingrich-Romney three-way which was like stumbling upon a middle-aged homosexual version of Cinemax at three in the morning. It was a bitch and rant fuck fest that no one in their right mind needed to see, unless of course you’re into middle-aged gay men. If you are, I mean absolutely no disrespect. Do ya thang homegirl!

Fuck all these queens, let’s get to Ron Paul, the only adult in the room. On immigration, he says that if we had a working healthy economy we wouldn’t be so worried about the immigration issue as we’d be looking for workers to fill jobs. He adds that the way we are handling our borders is actually harming our economy. He points out that we don’t have the right amount of resources on the border and that we should pay more attention to our border instead of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On the Latin America issue, Ron Paul says, “Free trade is the answer.” He throws in the fact that we’d be a lot better off if we practiced free trade with Cuba. He adds that he doesn’t like the idea that America thinks that they can go down to Central and South America and try to dictate which kind of leaders they need down there, as it is none of our business. He says that the best way to influence other nations isn’t by telling them what to do, it is by practicing friendship and free trade. Paul then references Santorum who said that we have to stand up for these nations. Paul explains that standing up for nations often times comes with us imposing ourselves on the people of these countries while picking their dictators, undermining their government and sending them a lot of money. He warns that this sort of tactic always backfires and the people we are “supporting” end up hating us. Ron Paul calls Rick Santorum’s ideas on foreign policy the “bully way”. Paul adds that he knows a better to way to work with people other than using force. Santorum shakes his head, mumbles some stupid crap and then changes his tampon while wiping his bitch tears. Checkmate Paul!

Ron Paul is asked if Mitt and Newt should return the money they’ve made off of Fannie and Freddie and he responds to thunderous applause when he says, “That subject doesn’t interest me a lot.” Paul says that Fannie and Freddie should have been auctioned off right after the crash came. He said that if it was sold, the problem would’ve been “cleansed” by now. Ron Paul says that he’s been trying to prevent this stuff which is why we need to end the Federal Reserve.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asks says that Ron Paul, if elected, would be the oldest president ever. He asks Paul if he would make his medical records public to show the people that he is healthy. Blitzer basically wants to paint Ron Paul as a geezer who could croak tomorrow and I find the question to be repugnant, just as I found it distasteful when the same issue was brought up with Ronald Reagan years ago. Paul said that he’ll prove how healthy he is by delivering an open challenge to all the other candidates to face him in a 25 mile bike ride in the heat of Texas. Ron Paul face-palmed the shit out of Wolf Blitzer and the other candidates with that answer. He also took a shot at Wolf himself when he jokingly pointed out that there are laws against age discrimination and that Blitzer should be careful. Wolf, after getting bitchslapped, tries to cover up the stupid question by asking the other candidates if they’d release theirs. What a tool.

On space spending, Ron Paul says that he would only approve funding on stuff that fits under defense. He says that going to the Moon and Mars is fantastic but that it could be done better by the private sector if their hands weren’t tied. Ron Paul then takes a shot at Newt, saying that he has stretched the truth with all his “balanced budget” claims from the days when he was Speaker of the House. Ron Paul is taking solid shots backed by facts and there is nothing that can be done about it when he brings these guys a dose of the truth. Strangely, Newt Gingrich was very polite and gracious to Ron Paul all night and gave him props for his ideas in several areas.

In the end, the debate was lightyears better than the NBC debate a few days prior. CNN does the best job, in my opinion, and I’ve watched every single one of these debates. Kudos to Wolf for rocking the house, even with a few prickish questions. Ron Paul owned the motherfucker, Santorum did decent if you are into his religio-fascist bullshit while Newt and Mitt looked like a few bickering Tinas arguing over the last pack of Lee Press-On Nails at K-Mart.

And that’s all I got because I immediately returned to my whiskey-scented orgy on the south lawn.

Grading Scale:
Grade A+: Ron Paul
Grade C-: Rick Santorum
Grade D+: Newt Gingrich
Grade D: Mitt Romney

*Best debate moment in recent memory:

GOP candidate Newt Gingrich, who has said he never lobbied on behalf of his consulting clients, reported to a top lobbyist with Freddie Mac as part of a $25,000-a-month contract,according to records released late Monday.

The one-year contract overseen by Freddie Mac executive Craig Thomas represents only a portion of the former House speaker’s long relationship with the mortgage giant, which spanned eight years and resulted in at least $1.6 million in fees for Gingrich’s empire.

The partial documentation also appears unlikely to quell escalating demands from GOP rival Mitt Romney, who has sharply criticized Gingrich for his lucrative career collecting tens of millions of dollars in fees from Freddie Mac, health-care firms and other clients.

The attacks, repeated in Monday night’s presidential debate, are part of an attempt by Romney to blunt Gingrich’s momentum after a commanding primary victory in South Carolina on Saturday. A new ad from the Romney campaign alleges that Gingrich “cashed in” on the housing meltdown by taking money “from the scandal-ridden agency that helped create the crisis.”

The 15 pages of documents released late Monday consisted primarily of contractual boilerplate, along with signature pages laying out the $300,000 annual fee. The “scope of services and fees” consists of a single paragraph with no details.

The Gingrich campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether it planned to release any more Freddie Mac records.

Gingrich has offered varying explanations for his ties to the mortgage company, initially claiming he was hired as a “historian” and later characterizing himself as a strategic adviser. Gingrich and his supporters have repeatedly denied that he acted as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac or any other client.

“If you read the contract,” Gingrich said in Monday’s debate, “. . . I was supposed to do consulting work. There is no place in the contract that provides for lobbying.”

Thomas, who at the time was director of public policy at Freddie Mac, was identified as the “project director” in the Gingrich contract. Thomas was listed as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac in 2000, 2005 and 2006, according to disclosure records.

The Freddie Mac contract is part of a series of tit-for-tat releases between Gingrich and Romney, who is releasing his 2010 tax returns after withering attacks from Gingrich on the issue. Gingrich released records last week showing that he and his wife paid an effective federal tax rate of about 32 percent on income of $3.14 million.

Gingrich has been dogged for months by questions about his lucrative consulting contracts with Freddie Mac, a government-sponsored mortgage company that is viewed by many conservatives as a prime cause of the housing crisis. Gingrich has said he warned the company about its “insane” lending practices.

Bloomberg News reported that Gingrich had earned up to $1.8 million from Freddie Mac from 1999 to 2008 to build support among Republicans for its private-public business model. The Gingrich campaign disputed portions of the report, but resisted releasing any documents from the arrangement until now.

In an explanation on its Web site, the Gingrich campaign says that “at no time did Gingrich lobby for Freddie Mac,” nor did he “ever advocate against pending legislation affecting Freddie Mac.” The campaign said Gingrich “offered strategic advice” to Freddie Mac and a “very wide range of clients” through his consulting firm.

Gingrich also repeatedly sought to play down his personal role in the contract, suggesting in one interview that he only spent about an hour a month talking with Freddie Mac officials.

The Freddie Mac contracts were just a small part of a vast financial empire, often dubbedNewt Inc., assembled over the past decade. The private and nonprofit groups led by Gingrich brought in an estimated $150 million since he left Congress.

One entity, a think tank called the Center for Health Transformation, collected dues of up to $200,000 per year from insurers, hospitals and other health-care firms in exchange for “access to Newt Gingrich” and political advice, according to records and interviews.

Source: the Washington Post.

Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romneyhas millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.

A spokesperson for the Romney campaign says Romney follows all tax laws and he would pay the same in taxes regardless of where the funds are based.

As the race for the Republican nomination heats up, Mitt Romney is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a shroud of secrecy around the details about his vast personal wealth, including, as ABC News has discovered, his investment in funds located offshore and his ability to pay a lower tax rate.

“His personal finances are a poster child of what’s wrong with the American tax system,” said Jack Blum, a Washington lawyer who is an authority on tax enforcement and offshore banking.

On Tuesday, Romney disclosed that he has been paying a far lower percentage in taxes than most Americans, around 15 percent of his annual earnings. It has been Romney’s Republican rivals who have driven the tax issue onto center stage. For weeks, Romney has cited a desire for privacy as his reason for not sharing his tax returns — a gesture of transparency that is now expected from presidential contenders.

“I can tell you we follow the tax laws,” he said recently while on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. “And if there’s an opportunity to save taxes, we like anybody else in this country will follow that opportunity.”

But tax experts tell ABC News there are other reasons Romney may not want the public viewing his returns. As one of the wealthiest candidates to run for president in recent times, Romney has used a variety of techniques to help minimize the taxes on his estimated $250 million fortune. In addition to paying the lower tax rate on his investment income, Romney has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry. Another investment, which Romney reports as being worth between $5 million and $25 million, shows up on securities records as having been domiciled in the Caymans.

Official documents reviewed by ABC News show that Bain Capital, the private equity partnership Romney once ran, has set up some 138 secretive offshore funds in the Caymans.

Romney campaign officials and those at Bain Capital tell ABC News that the purpose of setting up those accounts in the Cayman Islands is to help attract money from foreign investors, and that the accounts provide no tax advantage to American investors like Romney. Romney, the campaign said, has paid all U.S. taxes on income derived from those investments.

“The tax consequences to the Romneys are the very same whether the fund is domiciled here or another country,” a campaign official said in response to questions. “Gov. and Mrs. Romney have money invested in funds that the trustee has determined to be attractive investment opportunities, and those funds are domiciled wherever the fund sponsors happen to organize the funds.”

Bain officials called the decision to locate some funds offshore routine, and a benefit only to foreign investors who do not want to be subjected to U.S. taxes.

Tax experts agree that Romney remains subject to American taxes. But they say the offshore accounts have provided him — and Bain — with other potential financial benefits, such as higher management fees and greater foreign interest, all at the expense of the U.S. Treasury. Rebecca J. Wilkins, a tax policy expert with Citizens for Tax Justice, said the federal government loses an estimated $100 billion a year because of tax havens.

Blum, the D.C. tax lawyer, said working through an offshore investment vehicle allows the investor to “avoid a whole series of small traps in the tax code that ordinary people would face if they paid tax on an onshore basis.”

Wilkins agreed, saying the “primary advantage to setting those funds up in an offshore jurisdiction like the Cayman Islands or Bermuda is it helps the investors avoid tax.”

“It helps U.S. investors avoid U.S. tax,” said Wilkins, “it helps foreign investors avoid taxes in their home country, so it’s not illegal or improper to set those funds up in a foreign jurisdiction, but it makes it more attractive to investors because it helps them avoid paying taxes on that income.”

Bain Accounts in the Cayman Islands

Bain’s presence in the Cayman Islands is not something the firm advertises. The Los Angeles Times first disclosed Romney’s offshore accounts in 2007, during his initial run for the presidency. ABC News found references to the firm’s accounts in the Caymans in the footnotes of securities filings. When ABC News went to the office address listed for Romney’s Bain funds, lawyers in the Caymans were not eager to answer questions.

Asked if he could confirm the existence of the Bain accounts, David Byrne, the chief marketing officer for the law firm Walkers, listed on documents as Bain’s Caymans’ representative, said he could not. “No, I can’t at all,” said Byrne. “Unfortunately, I can’t comment at all on that.”

There is now less secrecy than there was even two weeks ago surrounding Romney’s tax rate. The money he made through Bain investments was taxed as capital gains at a 15 percent rate, instead of the higher tax rates borne by most Americans. Newt Gingrich told reporters Wednesday that his income was taxed at 31 percent.

The so-called “carried interest” rule has been the source of extensive debate in Washington, with opponents criticizing the allowance to tax those earnings at 15 percent a glaring loophole that benefits only the wealthiest Americans. Under the carried interest rule, income that is determined to be capital gains – like the profit reaped by hedge fund managers — is subject to the lower 15 percent rate.

Wilkins said Romney’s arrangements reminded her of the now famous remarks by billionaire financier Warren Buffet, who revealed in 2007 that he was paying taxes at a lower rate than his receptionist.

“Well, I think it’s the issue that is sort of on the front page every day, when we look at the Occupy Wall Street movement and that people are really losing patience with the idea that a lot of multinational corporations have and a lot of wealthy people have that while they benefit from everything this country has to offer … they don’t seem to be willing to pay their fair share,” she said.

Romney, who left Bain in 1999, has confirmed that his earnings largely come from investments, and the tax rate he pays is consistent with that “because my last 10 years, my income comes overwhelmingly from some investments made in the past, whether ordinary income or earned annually. I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away. And then I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”

Source: ABC News. Video at link.

With last week’s Iowa Caucuses in the United States, we’re starting the long haul to November’s election day where we’ll be inundated by hundreds of advertisements and speeches filled with all kinds of promises. But how do you know whether those promises will be kept, or what the your member of Congress is really about? The truth is, a candidate can tell you a lot more about what they’re going to do via their actions and their associations than their advertisements and speeches. And thanks to the work of a lot of great watchdog groups, a lot of that information is now publicly available online.

So how do you get started digging underneath the rhetoric and into the good stuff?

First, let’s figure out who all your representatives are. Project VoteSmart makes this easy just type in your zip code, and they’ll tell you who all your representatives are from the state level on up. If you live in a relatively dense area, chances are you live in a five digit zip code that has more than one legislative district in it, so the chances are that you’ll need to know your Zip+4— you can figure that out courtesy of the USPS.

Now that you know who your rep is, it’s time to put on your private investigator hat on. Start local! — but I think that’s a much better place to start. Your local city council and state representatives impact your daily life far more frequently than your representative or even the president. If you live in California, Texas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Maryland or Minnesota, you’re really in luck, because OpenGovernment.org is pulling together a great website for you to see what’s happening in your area. For everyone else, Google for your state’s state legislative website, or if you’re a developer, check out the Sunlight Foundation’s OpenStates project, which has bulk data available for 44 states.

We’re still a little behind with county and municipality votes and websites. But search for yours, you may have something useful out there. The most important thing about local candidates is that they’re accessible. While you can (and should) try and meet with your federal representatives, sometimes the travel to Washington can be too burdensome. But local candidates are there and waiting for you to call them. Call their office, and ask for a meeting, and ask them what they’re about. You’ll be amazed at the reception you get.

There are two great tools for researching federal (President, Congress) office-holders:GovTrack.us and OpenCongress.org. If you live in the 7th Congressional District of Virginia, for instance, here’s Eric Cantor’s page in on GovTrack, and on OpenCongress. Take a look at the bills they’ve sponsored and co-sponsored, and what they’ve voted on, and see if they align with your issues. And if they don’t — well, you know what to do.

As important as the voting record is the company your member keeps. InfluenceExplorer.com, from the Sunlight Foundation is a great place to start. If you’re interested in Ron Paul for instance, you can see how much money he’s raised, as well as what his top Earmark requests are. Over on OpenSecrets.org you’re able to see what industries have Ron Paul as a top recipient of money, and even sort donors by zip code. At the state level, the National Institute on Money in State Politics offers the same service on FollowTheMoney.org.

Another interesting thing to look at is how politicians invest their money. OpenSecrets also has the neat feature of being able to see the kinds of investments that your member of Congress makes — they’ve catalogued each member of Congress’ “Personal Financial Disclosure” form — the form all high-level government employees have to fill out when they get their job. What’s the top asset held by a member of Congress you ask? That’d be the Milwaukee Bucks, owned entirely by U.S. Senator Herb Kohl.

If you want to dig deeper, *all* of this data is generally a hard-working non-profit compiling and delivering government data in a usable format. The federal financial contribution stuff comes from fec.gov, laws come from Thomas.gov (which celebrates its 17th birthday this week), and state official information comes from elections, ethics, and secretaries of state websites across the country. With a little sleuthing, you can figure out whether or not your politicians are right for you and make a little more sense out of how your government works.

In 2012, don’t just listen to what the candidates have to say, or even listen to what everybody else has to say about them. Part of a healthy information diet means getting closer to the source: watch what they do, instead. If you can, meet directly with them, too. In my 10 years working in Washington, I’ve yet to hear a scheduler complain that their member has too many meetings with their constituents. Book some travel to Washington (April is a great time to visit, for the Cherry Blossoms), meet with your member of Congress, and participate in democracy.

Source: Lifehacker.

Regulators now have a more complete picture of money transfers in the final days of bankrupt brokerage MF Global, but must sort out which transactions were legitimate before more money can be released to customers, a top official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Jill Sommers, who is heading the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s review of MF Global, said regulators “are far enough along the trail” that they know where the money went.

“Now it’s just finding out which ones of those transactions are legitimate and which ones of them are illegitimate,” Sommers said.

The CFTC and the trustee liquidating the firm are under intense pressure from lawmakers and customers to provide answers about what happened to hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money that went missing as the firm collapsed.

MF Global officials, including former Chief Executive Jon Corzine, have told lawmakers they simply do not know where the money is, and deny authorizing any misuse of customer money.

“We certainly don’t want to lead anyone to believe we don’t know what happened. We do know, and we see where all the transactions went,” said Sommers, a Republican commissioner, in an interview on Wednesday.

She declined to reveal details on the fund transfers until investigators have determined the purpose of all the transactions. Sommers could not estimate when regulators will complete their investigation, but said “really good progress” is being made.

Fellow CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton, a Democrat, tempered expectations. Chilton said in a statement after Sommers’ remarks were published that a thorough accounting of all customer funds remains a work in progress.

CONTINUED at Reuters.

Jon Corzine told the House Agriculture Committee, “I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date.” The public is outraged that the former CEO of bankrupt global financial-derivatives broker and prime dealer in US Treasury securities MF Global doesn’t know where the missing $1.2 billion in client funds went.

Corzine is the member a few exclusive clubs: he is a Goldman Sachs alum, former US senator, and former New Jersey governor. After the incumbent Corzine was beat by Chris Christie in the 2009 New Jersey gubernatorial race, the MF board probably rejoiced, believing the guy to fix their problems was suddenly available. Now he’s in the club of taking a mere 20 months to create the eighth largest bankruptcy in history.

As a stand-alone entity, MF Global was born in 2007 when it was spun off from UK hedge-fund giant, Man Group. MF booked revenues of $4 billion that year from interest earned by using its customers’ funds, an operation that sounds like fractionized banking: short-term embezzlement used to make profits.

For banks, the practice was sealed in English common law in 1811 in the court case of Carr vs. Carr, where Master of the Rolls Sir William Grant ruled that debts mentioned in a will included bank accounts since the money had been deposited into the bank and wasn’t earmarked in a sealed bag. The deposit was thus a loan rather than a bailment.

The same Judge Grant ruled the same way five years later in Devaynes vs. Noble, despite an attorney’s argument that “a banker is rather a bailee of his customer’s funds than his debtor … because the money in … [his] hands is rather a deposit than a debt, and may therefore be instantly demanded and taken up.”

In 1848, in Foley vs. Hill and Others, Lord Cottenham ruled,

Money, when paid into a bank, ceases altogether to be the money of the principal; it is then the money of the banker, who is bound to an equivalent by paying a similar sum to that deposited with him when he is asked for it.… The money placed in the custody of a banker to do with it as he pleases.

CONTINUED at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Written by Doug French.

Appearing on the Alex Jones Show today, Texas Rep. and presidential candidate Ron Paul said Attorney General Eric Holder should be fired immediately and Congress should investigate his role in the Fast and Furious operation run by the ATF and the Justice Department.

“He should be immediately fired,” Paul told Alex Jones, “and then there should be an investigation and find out if charges should be made.” He specifically criticized the government for continuously engaging in politically motivated and criminal behavior he characterized as false flag operations.

Documents released by CBS News reveal Fast and Furious was exploited to demonize the Second Amendment.

“Emails obtained by the network show ATF agents discussing how they could tie guns involved in Mexican violence to gun dealers based in the U.S. to justify the implementation of Demand Letter 3, a regulation that would require U.S. gun stores to report the sale of multiple rifles,” Paul Joseph Watsonwrote on December 7.

Paul said the government “constantly” engages in such criminal behavior. He cited the example of an allegation made in October by the United States that Iran was involved in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Paul characterized the incident as a “propaganda stunt.”

Following the arrest of a suspect it was discovered the plot was concocted by the FBI. An undercover DEA informant had “strongly pushed” the assassination idea on Mansour J. Arbabsiar, an Iranian-American used-car salesman who was “perennially disheveled” and “hopelessly disorganized,” according to news reports.

Source: Prison Planet. Written by Kurt Nimmo.

Jon S. Corzine, the former U.S. senator and New Jersey governor who presided over the collapse of the commodities brokerage MF Global, says he cannot explain what happened to “many hundreds of millions of dollars” that the firm was holding for customers.

In testimony prepared for delivery to Congress on Thursday, Corzine says he was “stunned” to learn shortly before the firm sought bankruptcy protection at the end of October that MF Global could not account for the money.

“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” the former MF Global chief executive says, according to the testimony.

Regulators pushed MF Global into bankruptcy court on Halloween after an effort to sell the troubled firm unraveled. The firm is now in liquidation.

The firm was required to keep clients’ money separated from its own. But more than $1.2 billion might be missing, the trustee overseeing the firm’s liquidation said last month. An attorney for the trustee reiterates that assessment in testimony submitted for Thursday’s hearing.

The FBI, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other authorities are investigating and have had difficulty figuring out what happened to the missing funds.

Meanwhile, the firm’s collapse has become a major disruption for customers and others who depended on MF Global.

The House Agriculture Committee, whose jurisdiction includes agricultural commodities and one of the federal agencies that regulates MF Global, subpoenaed Corzine to appear at a hearing Thursday on the firm’s bankruptcy. The committee turned down Corzine’s request to testify voluntarily in January, he says.

CONTINUED at the Washington Post.

*Taken from the Weekly Standard.

And to think thatAttorney General Eric Holder is getting testy about congressional calls for his resignation. After all, the Justice Department has nothing to hide, right?:

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

The murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent is related to a Justice Department willingly turning over thousands of guns to Mexican criminal gangs, and Obama administration is hiding information about his death from the public. Amazing.

*Taken from Deal Book.

The amount of customer money missing from the collapsed trading firm MF Global may be more than $1.2 billion — double previous estimates — the trustee dismantling the firm’s brokerage unit said on Monday.

But the surprise finding, which caught regulators off guard, may be overstated, according to a person briefed on the investigation. Some regulators say they believe that the trustee double-counted $220 million that had been transferred between units of MF Global, this person said.

Still, the much higher number highlights the disarray of MF Global’s records and raises significantly the hurdle for tens of thousands of customers seeking to get their money back. The trustee’s estimate represents a significant portion of customer funds held by MF Global.

CONTINUED..