New York City apparently has no lock on Ponzi schemes. Perhaps Madoff is just the tip of a large iceberg that runs the length of America.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Idaho securities regulators are investigating allegations that a money manager in the state operated a long-running Ponzi scheme that cost investors as much as $100 million."

In Idaho, the value of the dollar is such that $100 million is worth about the same as $50 billion is worth in NYC.

What the news shows is that the great bull market in assets from stocks to real estate clearly allowed a number of people to dupe investors by claiming remarkable returns In a flat market or a down market, claims like the ones that Madoff made would not have been believable.

As the Dow rose to 14,000, almost anything about making easy month could appear real. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Last week the company that hopes to build a nuclear power plant in Idaho, Alternative Energy Holdings Inc. (PINK: AEGC), announced it would sue the environmental group Snake River Alliance for calling them "scammers" in a TV interview -- a local TV interview.

The company explained that they had to hold this environmental group responsible because the "world wide reach of KTVB and KTVB.COM" was causing them "substantial damage." Calling the company "scammers" on KTVB was "aimed at harming the company's stock and defaming company officials bringing down the stock price," according to this Associated Press report in the Idaho Statesman.

I'm sure the company and locals have got into a fiery battle and that the local activists say lots of inflammatory things. But KTVB still doesn't have the power to sully Alternative Energy's name around the globe. But, do you know what does? An Associated Press story on this lawsuit.

No matter what the suit's outcome people will start wondering about the company. Waste News, the influential trade magazine of the waste disposal and energy industries, picked up the story. Idaho blogger Dan Yurman predicts the suit will just lead to more donations to Snake River Alliance and more scrutiny for the company.

You know what else could really hurt the stock price? A story like this one this month in TradingMarkets.com, which says "Last week, New York-based auditors Rotenberg & Co. reported the company had lost so much money that it raised "significant" doubt about its ability to continue. Company officials said nearly $5 million in losses would not stop it from moving forward." Wouldn't a story like that hurt the stock price more than the local Idaho TV news?

Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton owes her fellow Senator Larry Craig a huge debt.

The scandal involving the Idaho Republican has deflected the media's attention from the revelations of dodgy campaign contributions her campaign received from fugitive California businessman Norman Hsu. Craig is a much better story. For one thing he's a conservative Republican with close ties to social conservatives who is so out of touch with reality that it's comical. His "I am not gay. I never have been gay" statement convinced no one.

What makes Craig's downfall so dramatic is that it came from a high perch of moral superiority that Republicans seem to like to inhabit more than Democrats. There also have been rumors about Craig's allegedly secret gay life since the early 1980s when there was a scandal involving members of Congress having sex with male pages. Craig, a Congressman at the time, issued a statement denying rumors that he had been implicated. He reportedly is now close to resigning.