Covert Operations
The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
by Jane Mayer
On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H. Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated $2.5 million toward the company’s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that. Koch received an award while flanked by two of the gala’s co-chairs, Blaine Trump, in a peach-colored gown, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, in emerald green. Kennedy’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had been a patron of the ballet and, coincidentally, the previous owner of a Fifth Avenue apartment that Koch had bought, in 1995, and then sold, eleven years later, for thirty-two million dollars, having found it too small.
The gala marked the social ascent of Koch, who, at the age of seventy, has become one of the city’s most prominent philanthropists. In 2008, he donated a hundred million dollars to modernize Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre building, which now bears his name. He has given twenty million to the American Museum of Natural History, whose dinosaur wing is named for him. This spring, after noticing the decrepit state of the fountains outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Koch pledged at least ten million dollars for their renovation. He is a trustee of the museum, perhaps the most coveted social prize in the city, and serves on the board of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where, after he donated more than forty million dollars, an endowed chair and a research center were named for him.
Thom tells the Tea Partiers, "...just move to the libertarian paradise of Somalia. No pesky big government bureaucrats, very low taxes, and everyone is free to own all the guns they want." Isn't that exactly what the tea baggers want?
Thom Hartmann's blog
Libertarian Paradise of Somalia
In some big triumphs this year, the tea party movement has had successful wins against long-time Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT), Tea Partier Trey Gowdy won over "reasonable Republican" Rep. Bob Inglis (SC), and now it looks like Senate candidate Joe Miller (R-AK) will beat current Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in one of the biggest political upsets of the year. As President Bush's former speechwriter Michael Gerson points out today, the Republican party now faces an uphill struggle to rein in the "untested ideology" of these new candidates that is "clearly incompatible with some conservative and Republican beliefs" and may prove "toxic to the GOP." Today on ABC's Top Line, RNC spokesman Doug Heye embraced the radical far right views of GOP candidates like Miller saying, "we embrace whatever candidate needs to do to win." While Bush's speech writer Michael Gerson calls the libertarian tea party concepts of eliminating social security and other social safety net program as untested, in fact the tea party ideology has been tested. If you'd like to check it out, just move to the libertarian paradise of Somalia. No pesky big government bureaucrats, very low taxes, and everyone is free to own all the guns they want.
As California Republicans address the “Pension Tsunami”
Lungren enjoys lavish LRS Pension
ELK GROVE, CA – On Saturday August 21, 2010, the California Republican Party is hosting their fall convention, which will feature a workshop on “The ‘Pension Tsunami Facing California.” The agenda for the workshop states that it will address the issue of lavish pension packages:
[...]
If California Republicans are really looking for “concrete examples of lavish pension packages,” they could look to one of their own: Rep. Dan Lungren. In 2009, Lungren received $55,697 in pension income from the California Legislators Retirement Pension (LRS) for only eight years of service as attorney general. (Financial Disclosure Statement, “Schedule I: Earned Income,” United States Clerk of the House, Dan Lungren)
Lungren’s LRS pension has far exceeded the pension income earned by the average state employee in California. According to calculations by the Orange County Register, under the pension plan offered to typical state employees, an 11-year employee would be eligible, at most, for $40,738 annually. (Orange County Register, 8/13/10)
Moreover, Lungren enjoyed a significant spike in his pension payments due to a 25.9% salary increase he received during his final month in office ...
Watch the explanation of the sell-out by our Senators in voting for cloture on Dodd's Financial "Reform" Bill (which will only make things worse; see below) by Dylan Ratigan and Senator Cantwell. Then read about the history of the Glass-Steagall Act and how important it was in reining in the mafia-like Wall Street investment bankers below (and I don't say that lightly - http://www.sec.gov/news/testimony/ts142000.htm - they are mafia-like)
Submitted by Tjadendevries on Tue, 03/30/2010 - 7:28pm
I don't know if there's a description for doing this with bonds, but, it sure looks as though what they did was a sort 'naked short sell.' Watch the video for a description and example of how it works
What they did, was play off the state of California's budget woes to sell derivatives (bets) to their other clients that California was a credit risk (I wonder if any obstructionist Republican legislators invested in those derivatives?). They took brokerage fees (millions of dollars?) from the state of California on the one hand and sold the state short on the other; the banks didn't own the bonds, or borrow them, but they made $12.4 Million from a deal that just happened (wink, wink) to fall through last Oct.. More below ...
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) rips 'teabagger protesters' for calling gay congressman 'faggot', black congressman 'nigger', and spitting on another
by John Aravosis (DC) on 3/21/2010 08:00:00 AM
GOP Lawmaker Demands Recall of Car That Drove Him to Gay Club
Calls Gay Car ‘Menace’
SACRAMENTO (The Borowitz Report) – Anti-gay California State Sen. Roy Ashburn today demanded a sweeping recall of the vehicle that drove him to a gay nightclub this week.
Sen. Ashburn, a Republican who has consistently voted for anti-gay legislation, said that the car drove him to the club “against my will.”
“If we are recalling cars for problems with their brakes and power steering, then surely we should be recalling vehicles that force their drivers to go to gay nightclubs,” Sen. Ashburn said.
The state senator said not only did the car drive him to the gay nightclub, but it forced him to enter the club and party there for hours, resulting in his later arrest for DUI.
California assemblyman Roger Niello has been busy this week promoting his neocon talking points. In the Orangevale View he writes "lawmakers can no longer sit idly by and watch employers be regulated to death."
Meanwhile, Haiti -- without building code regulations -- suffered 200,000 dead after an earthquake the size of Chile's. Chile has building code regulations, and only 700 died. Who is really dead, and who is regulated?
Niello apparently believes government's taxes, spending and regulations never produce any real benefit; they only kill jobs. Never mind that better regulation would have prevented the sub-prime meltdown that has sent our economy into a tailspin, or that taxes have been cut for the last 30 years without any unusual upturn in the economy (the unusual upturn came after the Clinton administration raised the top marginal rates). And never mind that, after adjusting for inflation, California's per-capita State spending has been roughly flat for that same period.
I’m a big believer in New Year’s resolutions. I have one list for home, one for work, and a separate list for my favorite hobby. In honor of the new decade, here’s another list: one aimed at setting the state on a fiscally responsible path for the year ahead.
GOP Lawmaker Demands Recall of Car That Drove Him to Gay Club