I ran across this articl and I think it pretty well sums up what a lot of people are thinking and feeling.
ORIGINAL ARTICE HERE
Mr. President, where is the passion?
By Neal Gabler
December 20, 2009
WELL, THAT was fast. Though past presidential candidates were elected with a larger percentage of votes, it is fair to say that no modern president reached office with a greater outpouring of sentiment, enthusiasm, and passion than Barack Obama. Supporters felt this was a landmark election, not only because Obama was African-American but also because he promised a different kind of presidency. They actually believed he would make good on his campaign slogan. Finally, change that would matter.
It didn’t take long for the disillusion to set in, especially among those on the left who had been Obama’s most ardent admirers. Where they had expected a full-throttle presidency, undoing what George W. Bush had done, what they got instead is a timorous one. In 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis pronounced that the election was not about ideology but about competence. Now we have the presidency that Dukakis promised. It is cautious, deliberative, reasonable, experienced, not terribly ideological and entirely competent - very different from George W. Bush’s government of ideologues, cronies, and hacks.
But there is one big thing that the administration lacks: passion. It is hard to remember a presidency that was as passionless as this one is - a presidency that puts down no markers, draws no lines in the sand, makes no stand. That, even more than the compromises themselves, may be what really riles Obama’s old supporters. It is that he doesn’t seem tortured by the compromise. Simply put, Obama seems to be missing the passion gene...CONTINUED
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
AND THE FBI DOES IT AGAIN!
http://www.ocregister.com/news/monteilh-226317-says-fbi.html
Informant tells of role in FBI probes
By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ
2009-12-30 08:54:40
Since he was a teen, Craig Monteilh has pretended to be someone he wasn't – Russian, Muslim, a white supremacist.
It was a skill he learned early, says Monteilh, a 47-year-old Irvine man who, according to court records, provided information to the FBI.
He learned to gain people's trust – even while pretending to be someone else. It's a skill that FBI agents and police officers helped him hone, he says. It's a skill that he sharpened in his role as an informant in several investigations.
First recruited by narcotics investigators in late 2003, Monteilh says he gained the trust of law enforcement officials by giving information on bank robberies, murder-for-hire investigations and cases involving white-supremacist gangs.
His role as an informant in state prison provided early training, says Monteilh, who is African American, but light-skinned. After being arrested for grand theft in 2002, he was sentenced to state prisons in Tehachapi and Chino. There, he pretended to be Caucasian to blend in with white supremacists.
Six years later, he would be involved in the case of Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, a Tustin man arrested on suspicion of lying on immigration forms about ties to terrorist organizations. Monteilh's name and picture would appear in several news reports. In a court hearing, an FBI agent says that Niazi was recorded in a conversation calling Osama bin Laden "an angel" and that an informant had been behind the recording.
Days later, Monteilh emerged as that informant.
The revelation raised questions about the FBI's tactics. Muslim leaders said the bureau was planting informants who were inciting violent and jihadist conversations. Since then, relations between Muslim organizations and the FBI have soured, leaders say.
Meanwhile, the FBI has repeated that it does not profile suspects, and while it has refused to comment on specific allegations, Monteilh's role or investigative techniques, a spokeswoman has said the FBI has followed criminal leads when investigations lead them there.
In multiple interviews with The Orange County Register, Monteilh detailed cases on which he worked with federal investigators and how he went from informing on inmates he befriended in prison to being involved with counter-terrorism.
FROM THE BEGINNING
"What do you answer when someone asks you: 'What are you?'" Monteilh says he was asked as a teenager by his father. He sometimes told classmates he was white or another ethnicity in order to be accepted.
"It depends on who is asking," Monteilh replied.
It was a point of contention between him and his father, Monteilh says, but it was a pattern he would repeat in life.
"I knew I could be anything, and it sounds strange, but it's true," he says.
After being sent to prison in 2002, Monteilh says, he associated with white supremacist groups for protection and convenience: "I played along with it because I wanted to affiliate with that protection bracket. It put me in a certain stature, so it was wise for me to affiliate."
After he was released, Monteilh maintained his contacts, exchanging letters with some of the inmates.
"Bro, you have no idea how good it was to get this letter from you," wrote one inmate in June 27, 2003. "I know you were and are a man of your word. As I told you, I'm usually a good judge of character."
The two exchanged at least a dozen letters and the inmate asked him to collect money from criminal associates in the Los Angeles area – which Monteilh did.
But months later, Monteilh says he was contacted in a gym by investigators with the Westminster Police Department, members of the regional narcotics task force. Monteilh talked to them about the people he met in prison and he made his choice – he became an informant.
He told authorities of shipments, pickups and drug transactions, Monteilh says.
But his former friend from Tehachapi prison would prove vital in sensitive investigations, he says.
In 2005, the inmate told Monteilh he was looking to rob a bank, and Monteilh in turn told his FBI contact. When the former inmate attempted to rob a bank in South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, authorities were waiting for him.
"It was that case that my handler's supervisor thought: 'This guy can get information,'" he says.
In his role as an informant, Monteilh says, he was at first paid for each piece of information. Then it was a monthly payment. From 2003 to 2006, Monteilh claims, he made $72,000 to $144,000, income he got as an informant but listed on tax returns as being earned as a fitness instructor.
By July 2006, Monteilh says, he was working as an informant for the Orange County Joint Terrorism Task Force, pretending to be a man named Farouk al-Aziz. In that role, Monteilh says, he was instructed to infiltrate local mosques and gain the trust of local religious leaders.
BACK IN PRISON
He continued in that role until 2007, he says, when he was arrested on suspicion of grand theft in a case involving steroids – a case Monteilh maintains was related to a case he worked as an informant. While in jail, Monteilh continued to provide information to the FBI, he says.
"She knew, wherever I was, I would keep my ears open," Monteilh says.
That was the case with a man named Voicu Gheorghe Gruia, Monteilh says, a man arrested in 2007, who was charged with more than 50 counts of identity theft. Gruia was accused of using machines known as "skimmers" to copy sensitive credit card and debit card information from unsuspecting victims, then using the information to steal money from their accounts.
Monteilh met Gruia in Men's Central Jail, he says, and was asked by his FBI handler to find the "skimmers" that were alleged to have been used in Gruia's operation. According to court records, Gruia was held in lieu of $1 million bail, but had to prove the money was collected by legitimate means before being released.
In January 2008, Gruia is alleged to have contacted his wife and told her he met someone in prison who told him he could get him released, according to court records. In exchange, the other prisoner asked for a "skimmer." But when Gruia's wife, and an associate, drove to pick up the equipment on Jan. 28, 2008, they were arrested by local police and an agent with the FBI.
Jack Whitaker, a Tustin attorney who is now defending Gruia in a federal case, says an informant was involved in his client's case, though the identity that person remained unknown. Monteilh asserts that it was him.
When asked why he's decided to come forward about his involvement in criminal investigations, Monteilh does not deny he has an ax to grind. After admitting that he gave federal authorities information on people who attended local mosques, he has received threatening phone calls and been physically threatened.
Monteilh says he had an unwritten agreement with the FBI to receive a lump sum at the end of his work with them – which the agency reneged on. He filed a $10 million claim against the agency alleging that his civil liberties were violated – a claim that was denied by the agency. He and his attorney plan to file a lawsuit against the FBI.
Informant tells of role in FBI probes
By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ
2009-12-30 08:54:40
Since he was a teen, Craig Monteilh has pretended to be someone he wasn't – Russian, Muslim, a white supremacist.
It was a skill he learned early, says Monteilh, a 47-year-old Irvine man who, according to court records, provided information to the FBI.
He learned to gain people's trust – even while pretending to be someone else. It's a skill that FBI agents and police officers helped him hone, he says. It's a skill that he sharpened in his role as an informant in several investigations.
First recruited by narcotics investigators in late 2003, Monteilh says he gained the trust of law enforcement officials by giving information on bank robberies, murder-for-hire investigations and cases involving white-supremacist gangs.
His role as an informant in state prison provided early training, says Monteilh, who is African American, but light-skinned. After being arrested for grand theft in 2002, he was sentenced to state prisons in Tehachapi and Chino. There, he pretended to be Caucasian to blend in with white supremacists.
Six years later, he would be involved in the case of Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, a Tustin man arrested on suspicion of lying on immigration forms about ties to terrorist organizations. Monteilh's name and picture would appear in several news reports. In a court hearing, an FBI agent says that Niazi was recorded in a conversation calling Osama bin Laden "an angel" and that an informant had been behind the recording.
Days later, Monteilh emerged as that informant.
The revelation raised questions about the FBI's tactics. Muslim leaders said the bureau was planting informants who were inciting violent and jihadist conversations. Since then, relations between Muslim organizations and the FBI have soured, leaders say.
Meanwhile, the FBI has repeated that it does not profile suspects, and while it has refused to comment on specific allegations, Monteilh's role or investigative techniques, a spokeswoman has said the FBI has followed criminal leads when investigations lead them there.
In multiple interviews with The Orange County Register, Monteilh detailed cases on which he worked with federal investigators and how he went from informing on inmates he befriended in prison to being involved with counter-terrorism.
FROM THE BEGINNING
"What do you answer when someone asks you: 'What are you?'" Monteilh says he was asked as a teenager by his father. He sometimes told classmates he was white or another ethnicity in order to be accepted.
"It depends on who is asking," Monteilh replied.
It was a point of contention between him and his father, Monteilh says, but it was a pattern he would repeat in life.
"I knew I could be anything, and it sounds strange, but it's true," he says.
After being sent to prison in 2002, Monteilh says, he associated with white supremacist groups for protection and convenience: "I played along with it because I wanted to affiliate with that protection bracket. It put me in a certain stature, so it was wise for me to affiliate."
After he was released, Monteilh maintained his contacts, exchanging letters with some of the inmates.
"Bro, you have no idea how good it was to get this letter from you," wrote one inmate in June 27, 2003. "I know you were and are a man of your word. As I told you, I'm usually a good judge of character."
The two exchanged at least a dozen letters and the inmate asked him to collect money from criminal associates in the Los Angeles area – which Monteilh did.
But months later, Monteilh says he was contacted in a gym by investigators with the Westminster Police Department, members of the regional narcotics task force. Monteilh talked to them about the people he met in prison and he made his choice – he became an informant.
He told authorities of shipments, pickups and drug transactions, Monteilh says.
But his former friend from Tehachapi prison would prove vital in sensitive investigations, he says.
In 2005, the inmate told Monteilh he was looking to rob a bank, and Monteilh in turn told his FBI contact. When the former inmate attempted to rob a bank in South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, authorities were waiting for him.
"It was that case that my handler's supervisor thought: 'This guy can get information,'" he says.
In his role as an informant, Monteilh says, he was at first paid for each piece of information. Then it was a monthly payment. From 2003 to 2006, Monteilh claims, he made $72,000 to $144,000, income he got as an informant but listed on tax returns as being earned as a fitness instructor.
By July 2006, Monteilh says, he was working as an informant for the Orange County Joint Terrorism Task Force, pretending to be a man named Farouk al-Aziz. In that role, Monteilh says, he was instructed to infiltrate local mosques and gain the trust of local religious leaders.
BACK IN PRISON
He continued in that role until 2007, he says, when he was arrested on suspicion of grand theft in a case involving steroids – a case Monteilh maintains was related to a case he worked as an informant. While in jail, Monteilh continued to provide information to the FBI, he says.
"She knew, wherever I was, I would keep my ears open," Monteilh says.
That was the case with a man named Voicu Gheorghe Gruia, Monteilh says, a man arrested in 2007, who was charged with more than 50 counts of identity theft. Gruia was accused of using machines known as "skimmers" to copy sensitive credit card and debit card information from unsuspecting victims, then using the information to steal money from their accounts.
Monteilh met Gruia in Men's Central Jail, he says, and was asked by his FBI handler to find the "skimmers" that were alleged to have been used in Gruia's operation. According to court records, Gruia was held in lieu of $1 million bail, but had to prove the money was collected by legitimate means before being released.
In January 2008, Gruia is alleged to have contacted his wife and told her he met someone in prison who told him he could get him released, according to court records. In exchange, the other prisoner asked for a "skimmer." But when Gruia's wife, and an associate, drove to pick up the equipment on Jan. 28, 2008, they were arrested by local police and an agent with the FBI.
Jack Whitaker, a Tustin attorney who is now defending Gruia in a federal case, says an informant was involved in his client's case, though the identity that person remained unknown. Monteilh asserts that it was him.
When asked why he's decided to come forward about his involvement in criminal investigations, Monteilh does not deny he has an ax to grind. After admitting that he gave federal authorities information on people who attended local mosques, he has received threatening phone calls and been physically threatened.
Monteilh says he had an unwritten agreement with the FBI to receive a lump sum at the end of his work with them – which the agency reneged on. He filed a $10 million claim against the agency alleging that his civil liberties were violated – a claim that was denied by the agency. He and his attorney plan to file a lawsuit against the FBI.
Monday, December 28, 2009
THE BIG ZERO
CROSS POSTED FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
Op-Ed Columnist
The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.
It was a decade with basically zero job creation. O.K., the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.
It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.
It was a decade of zero gains for homeowners, even if they bought early: right now housing prices, adjusted for inflation, are roughly back to where they were at the beginning of the decade. And for those who bought in the decade’s middle years — when all the serious people ridiculed warnings that housing prices made no sense, that we were in the middle of a gigantic bubble — well, I feel your pain. Almost a quarter of all mortgages in America, and 45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth.
Last and least for most Americans — but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV — it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like “Dow 36,000” predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.
So there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success. Funny how that happened.
For as the decade began, there was an overwhelming sense of economic triumphalism in America’s business and political establishments, a belief that we — more than anyone else in the world — knew what we were doing.
Let me quote from a speech that Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary (and now the Obama administration’s top economist), gave in 1999. “If you ask why the American financial system succeeds,” he said, “at least my reading of the history would be that there is no innovation more important than that of generally accepted accounting principles: it means that every investor gets to see information presented on a comparable basis; that there is discipline on company managements in the way they report and monitor their activities.” And he went on to declare that there is “an ongoing process that really is what makes our capital market work and work as stably as it does.”
So here’s what Mr. Summers — and, to be fair, just about everyone in a policy-making position at the time — believed in 1999: America has honest corporate accounting; this lets investors make good decisions, and also forces management to behave responsibly; and the result is a stable, well-functioning financial system.
What percentage of all this turned out to be true? Zero.
What was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.
Even as the dot-com bubble deflated, credulous bankers and investors began inflating a new bubble in housing. Even after famous, admired companies like Enron and WorldCom were revealed to have been Potemkin corporations with facades built out of creative accounting, analysts and investors believed banks’ claims about their own financial strength and bought into the hype about investments they didn’t understand. Even after triggering a global economic collapse, and having to be rescued at taxpayers’ expense, bankers wasted no time going right back to the culture of giant bonuses and excessive leverage.
Then there are the politicians. Even now, it’s hard to get Democrats, President Obama included, to deliver a full-throated critique of the practices that got us into the mess we’re in. And as for the Republicans: now that their policies of tax cuts and deregulation have led us into an economic quagmire, their prescription for recovery is — tax cuts and deregulation.
So let’s bid a not at all fond farewell to the Big Zero — the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing. Will the next decade be better? Stay tuned. Oh, and happy New Year.
Op-Ed Columnist
The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn’t begin until 2001. Do we really care?)
But from an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.
It was a decade with basically zero job creation. O.K., the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.
It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.
It was a decade of zero gains for homeowners, even if they bought early: right now housing prices, adjusted for inflation, are roughly back to where they were at the beginning of the decade. And for those who bought in the decade’s middle years — when all the serious people ridiculed warnings that housing prices made no sense, that we were in the middle of a gigantic bubble — well, I feel your pain. Almost a quarter of all mortgages in America, and 45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth.
Last and least for most Americans — but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV — it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like “Dow 36,000” predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.
So there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success. Funny how that happened.
For as the decade began, there was an overwhelming sense of economic triumphalism in America’s business and political establishments, a belief that we — more than anyone else in the world — knew what we were doing.
Let me quote from a speech that Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary (and now the Obama administration’s top economist), gave in 1999. “If you ask why the American financial system succeeds,” he said, “at least my reading of the history would be that there is no innovation more important than that of generally accepted accounting principles: it means that every investor gets to see information presented on a comparable basis; that there is discipline on company managements in the way they report and monitor their activities.” And he went on to declare that there is “an ongoing process that really is what makes our capital market work and work as stably as it does.”
So here’s what Mr. Summers — and, to be fair, just about everyone in a policy-making position at the time — believed in 1999: America has honest corporate accounting; this lets investors make good decisions, and also forces management to behave responsibly; and the result is a stable, well-functioning financial system.
What percentage of all this turned out to be true? Zero.
What was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.
Even as the dot-com bubble deflated, credulous bankers and investors began inflating a new bubble in housing. Even after famous, admired companies like Enron and WorldCom were revealed to have been Potemkin corporations with facades built out of creative accounting, analysts and investors believed banks’ claims about their own financial strength and bought into the hype about investments they didn’t understand. Even after triggering a global economic collapse, and having to be rescued at taxpayers’ expense, bankers wasted no time going right back to the culture of giant bonuses and excessive leverage.
Then there are the politicians. Even now, it’s hard to get Democrats, President Obama included, to deliver a full-throated critique of the practices that got us into the mess we’re in. And as for the Republicans: now that their policies of tax cuts and deregulation have led us into an economic quagmire, their prescription for recovery is — tax cuts and deregulation.
So let’s bid a not at all fond farewell to the Big Zero — the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing. Will the next decade be better? Stay tuned. Oh, and happy New Year.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Lessons In Life
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Lessons In Life
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