Biden and Pelosi on History and Jobs

Some old quotes that deserve attention again.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed, he said, 'Look, here's what happened.'" - Joe Biden

Other than the fact that Franklin Roosevelt was not president when the stock market crashed in 1929, and the fact that televisions were not in use, he got it right.

"Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose thier jobs." - Nancy Pelosi

Yikes. With there only being about 300 million Americans, I must have lost my job several times.

Biden's Stimulus Jolt

"The care with which we are carrying out the provisions of the Recovery Act has led some people to ask whether we are moving too slowly. But the act was intended to provide steady support for our economy over an extended period — not a jolt that would last only a few months." - Vice President Joe Biden New York Times, July 26, 2009.

"The Recovery Act, as we call it, provides a necessary jolt to our economy to implement what we refer as “shovel-ready” projects, meaning projects that were on the books that were needed in the municipalities and the states that would improve the quality of life for our constituents, the competitiveness of our businesses, but were unable to be funded." - Vice President Joe Biden, Remarks at The Progressive Governance Conference, March 28, 2009.

(Hattip Heritage)

Joe Biden Agnew: 20 cents gets you a Paradigm

We blogged about Joe Biden Agnew's connection to the Stanford Financial Group as well as the Scruggs Scandal back in February (Hat Tip to Y'all Politics for the Fox News story).

The story has surfaced again in Politico.

A hedge fund with some ties to Vice President Joe Biden's family was shuttered by the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday due to allegations of fraud.

The finance blogger John Hempton was the first to note that Biden family company, Paradigm Global Advisors, which is led by Biden's brother James and his son Hunter shares an address with the closed fund, Ponta Negra. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden company -- a fund of hedge funds -- also shares a marketing company with Ponta Negra -- a marketing company that also marketed funds for alleged Ponzi schemer Alan Sanford.

Paradigm lawyer Marc LoPresti said the relationship between Ponte Negra and Paradigm was limited.

"They were subtenants," he said, adding that marketer Jeff Schneider "who did some marketing for paradigm over the last couple of years introduced us to Ponte Negra, and we had some availale office space."

"That's 100% the extent of the relationship," he said.

"There's no smoke or fire as relates to this unfortunate Ponte Negra situation. There's nothing there at all," he said.

Biden spokespeople didn't immediately respond to an email with questions about the matter.

The Bidens appear to have purchased Paradigm in 2006, and Hempton posts an eyebrow-raising affidavit in which James Biden accused the manager from whom he and his nephew bought the fund of fraud and mismanagement.

LoPresti decliend to comment on pending litigation.

Nonetheless, according to Paradigm's website, "PARADIGM's portfolios of hedge funds have not suffered a down year since the firm's inception in 1991."

There's a lot to untangle in this complicated story, and Felix Salmon, now of Reuters, is also on the case, but it seems unlikely to go away.

The online snowball on Biden's connection continues to grow.

Zero Hedge asks "Is Joe Biden Associated With A Fund of Funds Feeder Scam?"

Beats and Pieces calls the story "Joe Biden, a blogger and a Ponzi hedge fund".

And the beat continues.

Biden Son and Brother Near Epicenter of Two Ponzi Schemes

Biden in a ponzi?

Is Biden Associated with a Hedge Fund Scandal?

[The Bidens, Paradigm and Ponta] The politics of Paradigm

Again, Hat Tip to Y'all for peaking our interest again on this yesterday.

Change we can spend

Congress's Porky Pols Pig Out on Fine $Wine: Big Bucks to Canoes & Tattoos

Congress went on a pork-a-palooza yesterday, approving a massive spending bill with big bucks for Hawaiian canoe trips, research into pig smells, and tattoo removal - all while the nation faces an economic crisis.

Among the recipients of federal largesse is the Polynesian Voyaging Society of Honolulu, which got a $238,000 "earmark" in the bill. The group organizes sea voyages in ancient-style sailing canoes like the ones that first brought settlers to Hawaii.

Top 10 Obama Blunders in Just One Month

Geithner, Daschle, Killefer, Solis. Can’t Obama find people who paid all their taxes?

Reality Check for Joe Biden

Wednesday morning on the CBS Early Show, Vice President Joe Biden asked, "But what I don't understand from Governor Jindal is what would he do? In Louisiana, there's 400 people a day losing their jobs. What's he doing?"

But that claim is wrong if you look at the numbers from the Louisiana Workforce Commission. "In December, Louisiana was the only state in the nation besides the District of Columbia, according to the national press release, that added employment over the month," said Patty Granier with the Louisiana Workforce Commission. "The state gained 3,700 jobs for the seasonally adjusted employment," Granier said of the most recent figures.

Those numbers are available on Louisiana's employment website, laworks.net. Also available on the site are the state's latest unemployment statistics, statistics that appear to directly contradict what the vice president said Wednesday morning.

It's unclear where the vice president got his unemployment figures from.

A call to the White House on the source of Mr. Biden's information has not been returned.

Joe Biden is making Sarah Palin look smarter and smarter every day.

Biden's Stanford Financial Connection not his first to questionable finances

Y'all Politics has this interesting item regarding Stanford Financial Group and a related hedge fund owned by Hunter Biden (son of Joe) and Jim Biden (brother of Joe).

This gives us pause to make a gratuitous response once again regarding Biden's connection to the Mississippi Scruggs shenanigans. Y'all Politics has been good at keeping us posted on this subject over the years, now.

The Mess in Mississippi, Redux: The Joe Biden Connection

While Biden divested himself of Dickie and Zach Scruggs contributions, there may have been some Scruggs, Patterson, Balducci money he missed divesting.

Y'all also has an invitation to a Joe Biden Fundraiser in 2007 hosted by Dickie Scruggs, Tim Balducci & Steve Patterson.

And who can forget the wiretaps of Patterson and Balducci discussing their work with Jim Biden. Or the AP story highlighting the wit and Mississippi connection of Joe Biden.

Oh, pardon me.

This is a classic image (hat tip to barneyfife by way of Y'all) of Joe Biden Agnew and Joey Cash Langston.

Biden Responds to Himself

From the debate transcript.

Biden on Change: "I'm not going to change. I have 35 years in public office. People can judge who I am. I haven't changed in that time."

Biden on Getting Involved in Ethnic Wars: "Look what we did in Bosnia. We took Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, being told by everyone, I was told by everyone that this would mean that they had been killing each other for a thousand years, it would never work. There's a relatively stable government there now as in Kosovo....Go look at joebiden.com, contemporaneously, held hearings in the summer before we went to war, saying if we went to war, we would not be greeted as liberator, we would have a fight between Sunnis and Shias, we would be tied down for a decade and cost us hundreds of billions of dollars."

Biden on Future Involvement in Ethnic Wars: "I don't have the stomach for genocide when it comes to Darfur. We can now impose a no-fly zone. It's within our capacity. We can lead NATO if we're willing to take a hard stand. We should rally the world to act and demonstrate it by our own movement to provide the helicopters to get the 21,000 forces of the African Union in there now to stop this genocide."

Biden on Going To War: "I indicated it would be a mistake to -- I gave the president the power. I voted for the power because he said he needed it not to go to war but to keep the United States, the UN in line, to keep sanctions on Iraq and not let them be lifted."