Kentucky Derby favorite Eskendereya out with swollen leg

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Associated Press

April 26, 2010 (LOUISVILLE, Ky.) -- Todd Pletcher thought he had more than a Kentucky Derby winner in Eskendereya.

The normally reserved Eclipse Award-winning trainer admits he believed the talented 3-year-old colt could become the first Triple Crown winner in more than 30 years.
"It's the first time I felt like we've got nearly the horse that could maybe withstand the three-race series," Pletcher said.

He'll never know.

Pletcher pulled Eskendereya (pronounced Es-ken-der-AE-ah) out of the Derby on Sunday due to swelling in his left front leg.

And while Pletcher could still send as many as six horses to the starting gate for next week's Derby as he tries to end his 0-for-24 streak in the Run for the Roses, he knows he lost something special.



"We've been fortunate to have some really, really good horses over the years," he said. "I don't think we ever had one at this stage of his development that's this good. ... He's special."

So special Pletcher and owner Ahmed Zayat figured it wasn't worth the risk once Pletcher noticed inflammation in the leg after Eskendereya's gallop over a sloppy track on Saturday.

The swelling grew worse overnight, and Pletcher sent Zayat a text at 4:30 a.m. Sunday morning expressing his concerns.

Two hours later, Eskendereya's Derby was over.

Pletcher said Zayat "took it better than I would have."

"He says the horse comes first," Pletcher said. "He loves Eskendereya. He's not going to do anything to take any chances. ... It's not a phone call I wanted to make."

Eskendereya had been so dominant in winning the Wood Memorial and Fountain of Youth Stakes by a combined 18 1/4 lengths he would have easily been the morning line favorite when the expected 20-horse field is set Wednesday afternoon.

Now the Derby is wide open and bettors are certain to have a field day.

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Do Special Interests Really Serve Special Interests?

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In this day of burgeoning special interest bureaucracies there are times when it seems the special interests have only one interest in mind and it is not what they proclaim. Oh yes they claim to address all those problems, perceived problems, and yet to be perceived problems of humanity and many even get a tax exemption for doing it under their banner. But does that mean it is their real purpose?

I wonder if some are more interested in survival, the old game of bureaucratic survival, than bringing a resolution to the causes they advocate. Take for example health care where there seem to be more special interests out to make America healthy than in practically any other endeavor.



Every disease has champions, most are non-profit groups fighting for the health of the public. Yet many are financed by the very pharmaceutical company who makes the drugs to control the disease. Clearly many of them want to prolong your treatment, in other words make you feel good while remaining sick, for the rest of your life, because curing you would be of no benefit to the drug company.

Did you ever notice those brainwashing commercials everywhere on television saying you can get rid of those pains if you just take a pill every day, or month, forever? You feel depressed, take a drug. It may not solve your depression but you will sure enjoy being depressed when you are legally stoned. No one seems to talk about curing you of your ailment. There is no profit in cures.



Yet not just the pharmaceutical companies are guilty of it. The alternative health care people, the ones who are supposed to keep you from getting hooked on all those pharmaceuticals, have their own addiction to pitch saying if you take certain vitamins or herbs forever you will stay well. How can you be well if you are addicted to the cure whether it is drugs, vitamins or herbs?



There is medicine, vitamins and herbs for heart burn, digestion problems, constipation and diarrhea, but none of them cure the problem, they only trick your intestines into thinking all is well. I have a sure cure that does not require addictions, stop eating the crap that made you sick in the first place.

American's over age 60 take an average of 8 drug prescriptions a day. That does not count the psychologically fragile who need drugs to sleep, wake up, get motivated and relax. I once knew a successful television producer who took two briefcases to work, one with scripts and one with legal drugs in order to face whatever came up that day. It is amazing there are not Michael Jackson cases every day, where people are killed from legal overdoses or lethal mixes of different prescriptions.



So one must wonder if the legions of special interests in America today are more interested in their own interest than the good of the people. Personally I think any special interest that has a lobbying arm of some type should not be tax exempt. Such exemptions should be limited to those benefitting all people and should be charitable in nature.



They should also not be allowed any tax benefit if their affiliated groups include a PAC, political action committee that gives money to candidates for office. This is another loophole in the federal campaign laws that helps make the whole campaign law a joke. Congress has legalized bribes in the forms of campaign contributions from PACs, corporate and union people, and special interests. It is time to bring this to an end.

My agenda, like Obama's agenda, is aggressive and given little chance to get approved. There is a big difference however between mine and Obama's. His costs trillions of dollars while mine will reduce the cost of government.



Finally, if special interest groups do not pursue in a real way solving the problem they were formed to solve, they should be abolished. We are sick and tired of all the foolish claims on TV about how we have to have this or that reform. Tell us how to get well and you might be taken serious.


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Local Legend Ray Hiebert Honored with Room in Maryland School of Journalism

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Ray Hiebert finally retired from the University of Maryland where he is a professor emeritus and was founding dean of the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. He was honored at the university the other night before the new school of journalism building was dedicated and a room inside was named after Ray. We don't believe it was the water closet but were told it was the new International Journalism room.

Ray, as he is known to locals, is yet another in the long line of international celebrities to seek asylum and solitude in Coltons Point, Maryland, the 365 year old little fishing village on the banks of the Potomac and home to the largest concentration of participants in the federal witness protection program in America.



A writer, editor, teacher, researcher, specialist in international communications and international chess champion, this master communicator and his wife, the renowned Sheila Gibbons. also an international journalism superstar, have taken their messages of freedom of the press and women's stuff on globe trotting careers.

Ray is a California native who gave up surfing to earn a BA, MS, MA and Phd in demanding schools like Stanford, Columbia University and the University of Maryland. Among other prominent jobs as a reporter he worked for the Washington Post back when they were the pride of American journalism. He left the Post and moved to the Watergate in Washington in time to allow Woodward and Bernstein to be hired and win a Pulitzer Prize for the Nixon shenanigans at the same Watergate.



An academic advisor to the Voice of America where he founded the International Communications Training Center, you might say he played a key role in helping to bring down the Soviet empire during the Reagan years by planting those seeds of freedom through the VOA in Eastern Europe.

His storied career and silver tongue took him to China, Africa (15 countries), Asia, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean (4 countries), Soviet Union, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Japan, South Korea, France, Philippines, Liberia, South Africa, Algiers, Amsterdam, Leipzig, Tehran, Iran, Dubai, Hong Kong and Southern Maryland to mention a few of his third world travels. Why he is so traveled you could spin the globe and wherever it stopped he's probably been there.



Often described as wiser than Solomon, smarter than Jefferson, wittier than Twain, more conciliatory than Lincoln, more philosophical than Plato and thinner than Franklin, this true renaissance man has earned a world of friends and tons of respect from some of the most respectable people in the world. That is a testament to the character, principles and qualities of Ray.

He is co-author of several important texts, including Mass Media (Longman, 6th edition, 1991) and Exploring Mass Media (Erlbaum, 2000). He is editor of Impact of Mass Media (Longman, 4th edition, 1998), Precision Public Relations (Longman, 1988) and The Press in Washington (Dodd, Mead, 1966). He is co-editor of Issues in International Communication (Longman, 1989), Media Now (Longman, 1985), Informing the People (Longman, 1979), Political Image Merchants (Acropolis, 2nd edition, 1976), and The Voice of Government (John Wiley & Sons, 1968).

He is also the author of four biographies, including Courtier to the Crowd: The Story of Ivy Lee (Iowa State University Press, 1966), and editor since 1975 of the Public Relations Review, a critical research journal.



Now a wily old captain of the high seas Ray runs around the world giving speeches, accepting awards and writing books and articles on history, biography, journalism, public relations, public affairs, and mass media. Recently he took the time to be the voice of history as narrator in the highly acclaimed video history of St. Clements Island and Lighthouse, a film that tells the true story of the founding of Maryland and religious freedom in America.



His ability to communicate with anybody anywhere was great preparation for his greatest communication challenge which is staying home and trying to communicate with the strange assortment of characters in Southern Maryland and researching how the 7th District has been able to reject government of any kind for 365 years while still remaining part of the USA.
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The Washington Press Corps - the New Age Idols and Idol Makers

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Have you ever heard the expression "you've lost your compass", meaning you have lost your way? Well when it comes to the news media corps in our nation's capitol it seems their compass is hopelessly lost in the Bermuda Triangle. That's where the needle of the compass just starts spinning.



I've worked in Washington for the Office of the President and for Congress and spent some time with different federal agencies. Then I worked in Washington with private corporations and not as a lobbyist which means I've lost a lot of potential revenue.

For the past couple of years I have been observing Washington and my focus has been on the news media and whether they really fulfill their role as the eyes and ears of America. Such a romantic thought, that the journalists in the news media were protecting the nation from the crooks in Washington and on Wall Street.

Let me tell you my conclusions. First, there are a few good journalists there who really try to act like the news media of the old days, seeking out truth and reporting objectively. Unfortunately they are few and far between.



There is a new standard for news media in our capitol just as there are new standards for politicians, Wall Street executives and special interest groups. Today's media seem to spend more time interviewing each other on the many news, talk and entertainment shows than they spend interviewing real news makers.



What is with that? Since when did the reporters become the stars? At what point did they acquire the audacity to believe they were the news makers? Fox, MSNBC, CNN and even the network news shows have far more so called reporters as guests than real opinion makers.



And speaking of objectivity, when reporters speculate on what is going to happen in the future, like Chuck Todd, White House correspondent for NBC and MSNBC did recently when he said what would happen in the Florida Senate race that is not over until November, it makes you wonder at what point did the news corps become their own source for information.



Just how objective can Chuck Todd be if he is predicting the outcome of a story? Wouldn't that influence him to report the story in a way that makes him look right? Far worse, of course, are the many made for television reporters whose liberal or conservative views dominate anything they report on. If partisanship is bad for politics as Obama likes to say, then ideologically slanted reporting is the death knell for news journalism because almost every reporter who is leaning to the right or left has lost their ability to be objective.



I often wonder if the current courses for journalism in college might not include classes like make up, camera awareness, how to write a book with no experience and nothing to say, battling for the anchor's seat, charisma and charm and of course, finding the right dentist for maximum whiteness. Come to think of it, with the time today's reporters spend on camera they might need acting courses as well.



Then there are the editorial journalists, the self-proclaimed sergeant in arms for discipline of the ranks, the self-perceived "Chosen One" to keep the people's philosophy in line. Truth has little to do with the field of ideological warfare. More entertainer than journalist, at least these types seldom claim objectivity.



While the TV journalist is required to write and possibly sell books, the editorial journalist is expected to crank out books, coffee mugs, do live, stand up on stage appearances, and generally whatever it takes to whip the true believers into a frenzy. They are also required to complete basic evangelizing courses.



Those claiming to be reporters who do television interviews, not of news makers but them being interviewed by the many so called news and opinion shows who can't get quality guests, also seem to belong to the club of "longing to be loved by celebrities and politicians".

As professional name droppers whose standing is measured by whether they are on a first name basis with the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, they are sent into long periods of depression if they aren't invited to the most expensive affairs of the Washington elite. To them success is measured not by winning a Pulitzer prize but by Obama knowing their name or a backstage pass to meet Sting.



If the journalists were doing their jobs the economic collapse would have been known ahead of time, the crooks who caused it would have been exposed, politicians would no longer be able to lie to the press, illegal influence of special interests would have been exposed long ago, and perhaps we would have known the truth. As it is, the only truth we may find is with the citizen journalists blogging their stories while the paid news media is getting smashed at the latest White House gala.

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Day After Earth Day Update

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Now that we have honored Earth Day it is time to take a look back at our non-earth activity. First, we reported in an earlier issue of CPT about the strange sky circle that I photographed from my front porch here at Coltons Point. The pictures looked like this.





Well I was not alone as there were other sky circles seen around the world. Here are video reports from YouTube.com of ones in Moscow, Russia and Syracuse, Utah.





So what does it all mean? Who knows? But I also showed the zoom
on one of the contrails that cut through the sky circle and there was a silver ball, not a plane causing the trail. This is what it looked like.



In my earlier report I told about the greatest flurry of UFO sightings in America that took place along the Potomac south of Washington, DC in 1952 and it was well documented by the Air Force and Andrews Air Force Base just up the road from me. The military reports talked of silver spheres shaped like balls.

Now take a look at recent NASA video of the sun, using some of the new camera technology. Hummm, there appears to be silver balls observing the sun where it should be too hot for anything to exist.



Maybe we should add an Unearth Day the day after Earth day. At a minimum it is a rather humbling thought. Finally I have been writing about increased sun spot activity and the changes in our weather. Yesterday NASA released the newest camera shots of the sun and we are finally getting exceptional shots of the sun spots.



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Earth Day Today - 40th Anniversary - Americans Do Care

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It is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day when attention is focused on what needs to be done to protect the environment but we should not lose track of what has been done already even before Earth Day became popular. The reason I say that is much of the environmental progress in America has not come from federal government initiatives but the creative genius of local states, cities and people.



I can remember back about 50 years ago when my high school class in Iowa decided to transform an island overgrown with weeds that had been used as a dump site for decades into our own private beach and boating area. We spent two years cleaning, clearing and moving the tons of debris from the woods and water to make it a place we could go to get away from it all. To this day it remains a centerpiece for the city.



Later in Omaha, Nebraska I worked with the Mayor's Office on nationally recognized programs to Keep Nebraska Beautiful, a riverfront development program that transformed former warehouse districts, contaminated railroad yards, former metal plants and stockyards into nationally recognized projects that helped transform Omaha into a model and vibrant city today where it remains the home of Warren Buffett.



Also in Omaha we worked with Father Flannigan's Home for Boys, the world famous Boy's Town, on creating a farm using only natural products for fertilizer, pest control and land restoration. It was successful in demonstrating that crop yields from natural farming could equal the yields of chemicals.



While in Omaha the mayor and I worked on the riverfront development program and during the 1970's oil crises by OPEC we set up a solar energy company that put solar systems in several hundred homes and small businesses across the country. We were able to get the help of major corporations like Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Dow Chemical and Phillips Petroleum to make our patented components. It was highly successful until congress eliminated the solar tax credit when oil prices fell.



While working for the Executive Office of the President and Congress in Washington I helped set up first the Federal Energy Agency, later upgraded to the Department of Energy, and worked on a number of legislative bills to manage energy, promote conservation and reduce oil dependence.

When I worked for Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey in the 1980's we launched a series of nationally recognized environmental initiatives including the first statewide mandatory recycling program, whose stunning success eliminated the need for 19 massive incinerators in the state to process solid waste.



Working with New York we were able to eliminate offshore ocean dumping and eventually to permanently close down the Fresh kills landfill on Stanton Island, formerly the largest landfill in the world and a major source of beach and water pollution along the New Jersey oceanfront.

We adopted the first state energy master plan, the first in the country to block future nuclear plants until all existing plants had decontamination programs for shutting down old plants and restoring the land and until there was a nuclear waste disposal plan. America is still debating nuclear waste disposal.



The first statewide land use and preservation plan was adopted in New Jersey limiting growth in areas and initiating an aggressive plan to protect up to 20% of all New Jersey land from future development. Since New Jersey is the most densely populated state in America this was a massive and controversial undertaking. At the same time we implemented one of the first farmland preservation programs that bought future development rights to protect thousands of acres of farm land in the Garden State.



The Governor also launched an ambitious program to acquire thousands of acres for parks and recreation including 18,000 acres for the Sterling Forest bordering New York, reclaiming Hudson River waterfront for Freedom and Liberty Parks, reclaiming Delaware River waterfront for parks, and many other initiatives.

We were also one of the first states to sue oil companies and won millions of dollars in court settlements for the state. A company in New Jersey owned the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and we were involved in the clean up process from the 1979 accident, the biggest nuclear disaster in America. We were also one of the first states to implement the new EPA Super Fund program cleaning up toxic sites.



In the mid 1990's, after the 1986 tragedy of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion in the Ukraine (then the Soviet Union), I got to meet the children of Chernobyl in Scotland in one of the most humane programs I have ever witnessed. The kids contaminated with radiation in the disaster, and thousands were contaminated, were still living in the danger zone years later with high rates of cancer and often a short life ahead. It has been suggested that the Chernobyl disaster released as much as 400 times the radioactive contamination of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.



Countries in Europe that were victims of contamination themselves set up programs to bring the Chernobyl children for vacations in Scotland, the UK, Ireland, Germany and other nations. If the kids spent a couple of weeks a year in these countries it actually extended their life expectancy by a year or more. I met a group in Scotland and was amazed at the courage and spirit of the children and the act of compassion by the Scots and others.

Now I find myself in Maryland on the Potomac River not far from the Chesapeake Bay where pollution remains a problem, especially the contamination of the rivers and bay. It has cost the area much of the fishing, crabbing and oyster industries of the watermen while contaminating the waterfront from human and farming waste like fertilizers and pesticides. After converting my home to a green model and putting a nitrogen reduction septic system in I found yet another example of environmental concern.



One day I was called by neighbors because a Bald Eagle was injured. We have about nine Bald Eagles living in our village. When the Eagle was blown off a dock into the Potomac it did not have the strength to swim so into the river I went and grabbed the eagle when water was just about to my neck. After getting it to shore and having it taken to a Bald Eagle rescue center in Delaware I learned it was sick from eating contaminated fish from the river, lead poisoning. It was healed and I got to release it back into the wilds.

My point of all this is in most of the activities I outlined over the years we were not forced to do the things that were undertaken. It was not orders from the federal government that led to the creation of programs to meet our needs but the initiative of local citizens working with schools and professionals because of their personal concern for a clean environment. Never underestimate the value of people discovering and solving some of our major problems because it is the right thing to do. That is the secret strength of Americans and our hope for the future.

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Could Goldman Bring Down the Obama Gang and the Republicans?

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As Obama turns up the heat on financial reform and Republicans resist the financial reform bill proposed by Senator Chris Dodd a dangerous game is being played in Washington. Polls just came out that show three fourths of all Americans do not trust the government. With the partisan nature of debate in the capitol and the propensity of the Obama White House to call for bi-partisanship while attacking anyone who questions the partisan Democrats, is it no wonder the public trusts no one?



Then along comes the SEC with fraud charges against the king of the banking community Goldman Sachs. Goldman, the perfect target for venting American frustration with the motives and interests of the banks and their apparent total disregard for public opinion as noted from their multi-billion dollar bonuses, occupies a most unusual position in politics.

First there is the self described mission of the CEO Lloyd Blankfein as told to John Arlidge of the TimesOnline. As John wrote:

So, it’s business as usual, then, regardless of whether it makes most people howl at the moon with rage? Goldman Sachs, this pillar of the free market, breeder of super-citizens, object of envy and awe will go on raking it in, getting richer than God? An impish grin spreads across Blankfein’s face. Call him a fat cat who mocks the public. Call him wicked. Call him what you will. He is, he says, just a banker "doing God’s work"

"Just a banker doing God's work." One wonders what God he is referring to when making such an outrageous statement. Was it Yahweh or Ba'al and was it the Hebrew Ba'al or Christian Baal? Most people would believe the only God Goldman is working for is a false god or idol and we know what kond of agenda that god is pursuing.



Still Goldman, after watching and most likely contributing to the destruction of two of their major competitors, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and then getting the Federal Reserve to change a long standing policy and allow Goldman to change from investment bank to commercial bank thus allowing them to feed at the trough of almost no interest government money while continuing to invest in high risk deals, is in a league of its own in world banking.



A frequent collaborator with the most powerful and secret banking family in history, the House of Rothschild and their army of surrogates, Goldman is the most visible bank in politics of all time. It may just be that this penchant for publicity and obsession with power on the part of Goldman has put them on a collision course in their desire to remain king of the hill.



Now the danger to politicians is greater than ever regarding their association with Goldman or any effort that could be perceived to protect Goldman during debate on the financial reform bill. To begin to understand the problem consider the following as reported by OpenSecrets.org under the Center for Responsive Government:



Top Political Contributors in federal elections since 1989

AT&T, Inc. $44,361,209.
American Fed of State, County & Muni Employees $42,248,261
National Association of Realtors $35,733,073
Intern Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $31,660,630
American Assn for Justice $31,645,679
Goldman Sachs $31,612,375
National Education Assn $30,194,067
Laborers Union $29,132,400
Service Employees Union $28,134,482
Teamsters Union $28,029,624

Note that the American Association for Justice is the new name for the Trial Lawyers Association which gives 91% of their money to Democrats. Goldman, one of only two private companies on the top ten, normally gives 64% of their money to Democrats but gave 74% to Democrats during the Obama campaign. For all intents and purposes 8 of the top 10 contributors the past 20 years are unions.



So Goldman stands alone in pouring money into federal campaigns. But Goldman bundlers also raise money from others in their related industries so Commercial Banks contributed $222 million, Securities and Investment firms $628.9 million, Finance and Credit $59.8 million, and Insurance $327.3 million. That is well over a BILLION DOLLARS over 20 years.

If conflict of interest laws applied to congress most members could not vote for anything related to Goldman Sachs because of campaign contributions. By alas, such rules do not exist. However, in the interest of transparency and integrity all politicians should divulge their relationship with Goldman including the money donated directly and indirectly through Goldman and their dealings with Goldman as a favored special interest in Washington.

This includes an account of the involvement of Goldman from the Clinton presidency days when Goldman executives working for Clinton including Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, Clinton Treasury Secretaries, and Rahm Emanuel, chief Clinton fundraiser, were involved in changing federal regulations that allowed Goldman to capitalize on derivatives, swaps, and oil futures along with moving transactions outside the US so they could not be regulated.



These financial vehicles were adopted in 1999, the last year of Clinton's presidency, and opened the floodgates to hedge fund and others to manipulate the housing, oil, commercial real estate and commodities markets and nearly caused a worldwide depression. Just this week former President Clinton said he regretted allowing his economic advisors to make the federal rule changes. All three of the Clinton economic advisors from Goldman's are now key economic advisors to Obama.

As for transparency, if Obama intends to use Goldman's as a scapegoat then he needs to disclose his long association with Goldman as well. Dating back to his campaign for US Senate in 2004 there are questions regarding his involvement with Goldman including did they pay off the leading candidate in the Democratic primary against Obama and the Republican in the general election when they withdrew from the race for personal reasons? Also what was discussed in private corporate meetings with Obama in 2006 and 2007 in Chicago and NYC?

Finally there are the potential conflicts for the many former Goldman executives throughout the Obama administration and international financial community. Is the government protected from any actions that might benefit Goldman?

As for the Republicans, they risk being perceived as the protectors of Wall Street if they simply vote against the Senate financial reform bill. The mistrust of the public toward Washington will only be reinforced if they block the vote. They must offer a more substantial alternative than what Obama is offering that will effectively control the Wall Street abuses.

Doing nothing 2-3 years after the crash will cost them dearly in potential political gains as the public is waiting to see what congress and Obama can do in light of their cozy relationship with Goldman and other Wall Street firms.

Finally, both Obama and the Republicans can hurt themselves if they support any actions to dilute the impact of legal actions against these firms as more and more charges are filed. If they do not condemn any plea bargains that allow the companies to avoid an admission of guilt and to expense the cost of the fines then they should be held accountable. The actions of the financial community from 2007-2009 cost Americans $29 trillion in lost savings. Someone must pay for these damages.

So you see, both Obama and the Republicans can lose a lot more than they gain if they do not play by the rules, do what is good for America, and tell us exactly their relationship to Goldman. If they don't, then both sides could be a big loser.