Danielle Smith’s Pension Scam Claims Its First Victim

What a pathetic coda to the respectable if not quite illustrious political career of Jim Dinning!

Once the whiz kid and heir apparent of Alberta’s Conservative establishment, Dinning has resurfaced years later as, in my view, chief snake oil salesman for the scam artists and would-be separatists dreaming of hijacking half the Canada Pension Plan’s investment fund.

Dinning may not have gotten to be the premier of Alberta in 2006, when he was widely seen as front-runner in what was supposed to be not much more than a two-horse race with another former Progressive Conservative finance minister Ted Morton.

Foreclosure Auction Scams Face Federal Crackdown

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — At the height of the financial crisis, bargain hunters would gather each week on county courthouse steps to bid on foreclosed properties throughout Northern and Central California. The inventory lists were long, especially in hard-hit areas such as Sacramento and Stockton. But the auctions were generally short affairs — often because real estate speculators were illegally fixing the bidding process.