Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

US & Int'l Papers

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Democrats and Wall Street

Rich Galen

Wednesday March 18, 2009

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It was only a matter of time before people started figuring out a way to make a buck out of this economic disaster. Here's today's outrage from the NY Times: "New Jersey Sues Over Its Lehman Losses"

It seems that the great (wait until the laughter dies down) state of New Jersey has filed a suit against the "former executives and directors of Lehman Brothers, contending that fraud and misrepresentation had caused the state's public pension fund to lose $118 million."

OK, I can buy that. But here's the fun part. The Governor of the great (wait until the laughter dies down) state of New Jersey is Jon Corzine. A former U.S. Senator. And � a former employee of Continental-Illinois Bank which, until the failure of Washington Mutual last year was the BIGGEST BANK FAILURE IN U.S. HISTORY.

But that's not all. The Governor of the great (wait until the laughter dies down) state of New Jersey was also the co-CEO of Goldman Sachs. The other co-CEO? Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. It is reported that when Goldman went public, Cozine made upwards of $400 million.

SIDEBAR

After he was tossed out of Goldman Sachs, Corzine ran for the U.S. Senate and won by spending something on the order of $62 million of that $400 million he had earned when Goldman went public.
It is amusing, to those of us who follow these things that, having spent $62 million of his own money to buy a U.S. Senate seat, Corzine then voted FOR McCain-Feingold so that only the extremely wealthy who had pillaged investors on Wall Street could afford to run for public office.

END SIDEBAR

Nowhere in the NY Times story about the great (wait until the laughter dies down) state of New Jersey suiting the poor schlugs who went down with the Lehman Brothers ship does it mention the fact that Corzine used to be a member in good standing of the Wall Street Club. Member? Hell, he was on the Board of Directors of the Wall Street Club.

If Jon Corzine were a Republican it would not have escaped the NY Times' notice.

You know those AIG bonuses which have become such a problem for President Obama and his crew of merry men? It seems that those exact bonuses were protected by none other than the DEMOCRATIC Senator from Connecticut, Chris Dodd, during the negotiations on the $700 billion stimulus bill.

According to Fox Business,

Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called "the Dodd Amendment" by the Obama Administration provides an "exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009" -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.

Why? Because in the 2008 election cycle guess which Senator was the biggest recipient of AIG contribution money. KEEREKT! Christopher Dodd DEMOCRAT of Connecticut ($103,000).

Why? Because Dodd is the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Want to know who was next? Barack Obama DEMOCRAT of Illinois ($101,000).

If Dodd were a Republican do you think there would be calls for him to give the money back? Where is the Senate ethics investigation to see whether there was any connection between $103,000 in campaign contributions and the Dodd Amendment?

Happily for Dodd he is a Democrat and is, therefore, granted immunity from media accusation.

On the Obama ($101,332 from AIG in 2008) front, the geniuses who are in charge of figuring all this out are talking about getting the Congress to pass a law which would tax the AIG bonuses at the rate of 100 percent.

Drat. Once again, here comes that pesky Constitution. Article I, section 9: No Bill of Attainder or Ex Post Facto Law shall be passed.

According to a definition on the usconstitution.net website:

In the context of the Constitution, a Bill of Attainder is meant to mean a bill that has a negative effect on a single person or group (for example, a fine or term of imprisonment).

Passing a law which specifically names AIG executives to be taxed at 100 percent on a portion of their income would, it seems to me (who spent seven-and-a-half-years as an undergraduate student at Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio 45750) to qualify as a prohibited Bill of Attainder.

Oh, and about Sen. Dodd? His take from AIG over the past five years has been about $223,000 and that's on top of the $316,000 he's taken from Citigroup AND $218,000 from � the Royal Bank of Scotland. More than three quarters of a million dollars from just three bankrupt financial firms.

As I said, good thing for Dodd, Corzine and Obama they're Democrats.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the NJ - Lehman Brothers suit, to the tawdry history of Gov. Jon Corzine, to the Dodd Amendment and to the OpenSecrets.org listing of Dodd's contributions.

Also one of those Mullfotos which only I think is funny and a column-appropriate Catchy Caption of the Day.

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