Lance Armstrong Investigation: Are Pro Athletes Being Harassed?

I read on a regular basis, sometimes from comments left on this blog, that the government shouldn't be harassing Lance Armstrong, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds or other pro athletes for using performance enhancing drugs or for lying to Congress. Others have said that the investigations are modern-day witch hunts. This editorial from the Rockland County Times expresses a well-reasoned response to that opinion.

Fraud and the Mortgage Meltdown

Charles Ferguson, the person who created the documentary on the mortgage meltdown "Inside Job," has written a book on the topic titled "Inside Job: The Financiers Who Pulled Off the Heist of the Century." I can only seem to find it on Amazon's UK website so I don't know if it will be available in the US. In any case, this article in the Guardian, written by Ferguson, has some interesting comments about the fact that the Obama administration and the US Justice Department is not prosecuting anyone. Ferguson also names several banks that he claims were complicit in the meltdown and committed various forms of fraud. He says that It's pretty disheartening to think this much corruption exists in the financial industry and the government isn't doing much to hold anyone accountable for it. Here are a few excerpts:

Imagine John Edwards on the US Supreme Court

Check out this article about former Senator John Edwards watching a video of himself lying about his affair. The article states that he was holding out hope to be a US Supreme Court Justice. Wow, that is scary...

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Will Perjury Charges Stick?

As soon as Jeffrey Novitzky started his investigation against Lance Armstrong, conventional wisdom has been that Novitzky's strategy will be to get Lance convicted on perjury. This is how he convicted other top athletes, such as Marion Jones, who were found to have perjured themselves in the Balco investigation.

Today, I read a very interesting transcript of a live chat with the author of the book: "Tangled Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff." The author, James B. Stewart, considers four fraudsters and their obvious perjuries including: Martha Stewart, Bernie Madoff, Barry Bonds and Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Here are some of the points that came out of the chat that suggest Novitzky has his work cut out for him when it comes to making a perjury charge stick: