Culture of Corruption

We are about to see a political windfall occur that would turn the head of Tammany Hall's George Washington Plunkitt.

Consider this little feature of the "cap and trade" bill..

 .. the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's mouth is watering at the prospect of a huge new derivatives market.

Yep, the big financial winner from Waxman-Markey is not likely to be solar energy entrepeneurs; it is likely to be derivatives traders gaming the emissions trading markets.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is ready to set up its own "Gas House Gang" CME's Chairman, Terrence Duffy, recently told a House committee his firm is all ready to go to implement the process. 

 This is going to be massive if implemented. I mean, like trillions of dollars massive. And this means mind- boggling commissions and bonuses for traders, and huge profits for the CME itself. Remember how much money Enron used to make doing this sort of stuff? 

Now,hmmm, who's on the Board of Directors of the CME? 

Jackie Clegg Dodd, Chris Dodd's wife. (there's no conflict of interest , here , as per hubby)..maybe he didn't read this.

And she is well compensated  for a post where she is thinly qualified.

So if Cap and Trade passes Jackie Clegg Dodd's corporation stands to make a windfall?

(they also stand to make a windfall from OTC derivative regulation underway)

And presumably the board members will share in the added revenue.

And it gets better. Guess who's drafting the yet unfinished parts of the Waxman-Markey bill governing derivative regulations?

Chris Dodd's old buddy Barney Frank

So how this is going to work is that ordinary electric customers will see their rates "skyrocket"; some well connected businesses have already gotten exemptions; and the whole deal will be manipulated by commodity speculators.  Who made sure to put the spouse of the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee on their Board of Directors.

It seems like what "Hope and Change" really means is that the political insiders can add another decimal point to the "honest graft" they were accustomed to receiving. Meanwhile "Connecticut's middle class" will get hosed.  (They'll need to use credit cards to pay their CL&P bill, Chris)

Really, this is going to make the Countrywide mortgage and the Irish cottage look like chump change as far as the potential windfall to the Dodd family.   And  no one seems to connect the dots. Amazing.

I didn't catch this, but apparently Senator Chris Dodd was on Fox News Sunday and defended the aptitude of his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, to serve on numerous corporate boards. Even claimed raising the issue was "offensive"

Boards which represent about $500,000 in annual income to the Dodd household.

Well, if Mrs. Dodd is so brilliant, surely these firms are all very profitable.

Not.

A review of the five active boards  on the Muckety list which Mrs. Dodd serves on indicates only one such corporation--the CME Group---is a profitable corporation. (whether the world's largest financial future exchange should have the spouse of the Banking Committee Chairman on their board in the first place deserves its own post)

The others are --much like the banking system under hubby's oversight--in various forms of financial duress.

Blockbuster---which has had Mrs. Dodd on its audit committee for many years---denies it is about to file for bankruptcy. . It claims to have made money last quarter (despite declining revenue) after a long stretch of losses going back years.

Now for the various health care firms Mrs. Dodd helps to manage. The blatant conflict herein has not gone unnoticed by the press, but let's look at performance. Is Mrs. Dodd capable of running a successful business?

Maybe not.

Brookdale Senior Living claims to be the "largest owner and operator of senior living communities throughout the United States",  How are they doing at that?

Brookdale lost $13.6 million, or 13 cents per share, compared with a loss of $55.1 million, or 54 cents per share, a year earlier. The company mostly benefited from a much smaller change in the fair value of derivatives and amortization.

See as follows Brookdale's long run of red ink.

Now we catch Javelin Pharmaceuticals

Guess what. Javelin is losing money

But the real knee slapper is Cardiome Pharma Corp.  

 We recorded a net loss of $60.5 million ($0.95 per common share) for the year ended December 31, 2008 compared to a net loss of $85.5 million ($1.36 per common share) for the year ended December 31, 2007

and the red ink isn't ending

We recorded a net loss of $12.0 million ($0.19 per common share) for the three months ended March 31, 2009 ("Q1-2009"), compared to a net loss of $22.2 million ($0.35 per common share) for the three months ended March 31, 2008 ("Q1-2008")

OK, it's a medical start-up and maybe the place is about to turn the corner, earn money for their investors and employ lots of highly skilled people.

Only one problem. The firm will be doing all this wonderful stuff in Vancouver, Canada.

Is competing with CT's pharma industries how you plan to "defend Connecticut's middle class", Chris?  

What makes this all the more nauseating is that in 1992 Chris Dodd ran saturation TV attack ads against his opponent for buying a textile firm in Canada; implying that was bad for the U.S. worker.

Is it now OK when your wife does it, Chris?

Let's look at this again. Mrs. Dodd is a great businesswomen who just happens to be on boards of five firms. Four of which are money pits.  Why then, is she such a brilliant businesswoman? She doesn't keep firms from losing money, now does she? 

Of course, if I was running a money losing firm in the health care field, the wife of a powerful U.S. Senator is exactly the right person for my company's Board of Directors at this critical time.   

----

Ed Note: I learned Mrs. Dodd is supposedly on the board of Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals. They appear to be a privately held spinoff from Javelin, and therefore, earnings information is not quite as transparent as the publicly traded firms previously mentioned..

On October 16, 2008, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens testified as follows in his corruption trial.

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens testified at his trial on charges of hiding more than $250,000 in gifts that he never intended to lie on his Senate financial disclosure forms and thought they were accurate.

Immediately after taking the witness stand today, Stevens answered, ``Yes, sir,'' when asked by defense lawyer Brendan Sullivan whether he believed the Senate forms at the heart of the case were correct when he signed them.

Asked if he ever intended to file a false statement, the senator said, ``No I did not.''

You see, the Senator was charged with submitting false statements on his U.S. Senate disclosure forms.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd is required to submit the same financial disclosure forms. And in a stunning reversal, late Friday he admitted to the Connecticut press that his Irish vacation estate was worth three times what he had been telling the U.S. Senate.

A new appraisal of the Irish cottage owned by Sen. Christopher Dodd concludes that it is worth about three times as much as Dodd has been reporting on his financial disclosure forms.The new value of the cottage, on Inishnee island in County Galway, is $658,000, according to Dodd's 2008 financial disclosure form released Friday.The two-page appraisal was done by the same man who did the original one in 2002 when the 1,200-square-foot cottage was valued at about $190,000.The new appraisal comes two years into a historic crash in property values in Ireland, which suggests that it might have been worth even more in recent years when Dodd never reported its value at more than $250,000 in annual Senate financial disclosures. 

Every year Dodd submitted a financial disclosure form to the Senate. And every year he submitted a demonstrably false statement as to the value of his Irish vacation home.  He has yet to produce the alleged 2002 appraisal setting the value at a risibly inadequate number.

I'm not going to think people like me got Dodd off the dime.  And even the scandal about how Dodd obtained and financed this house might not have caused the belated disclosure.  No, what prompted this is to pay the nation's bills the Irish Republic is about to reinstitute a tax on residential property, and this appraisal was a pre-emptive strike against the Galway County assessor coming out with an even higher number right before the '10 election.

But, my question is this: How many times did Chris Dodd submit materially false information on his finances similar to the false information submitted by Ted Stevens?

Chris Dodd pretends he was unaware of the Irish property boom. And he claims to be an expert on global finance. Doesn't pass the smell test, Chris.  He knew these numbers were wrong and submitted them anyway.

I doubt the Eric Holder Justice Department is going to rattle the cage of the President's point man on nationalization of banks, car companies and health care. (Why not?....politicised justice?) It would be fun to hear not old stories of Daddy at Nuremberg, but hearing this guy use the "Ted Stevens defense" on the stand. 

He didn't mean to lie on the form. It just turned out that way. 

Rumor is there are going be fireworks on Fox 61 for Shelly Sindland's "The Real Story" Sunday.

I have heard Republican State Chairman Chris Healy may have some "Blockbuster" revelations about the business career of Ms. Jackie Clegg Dodd,professional corporate board member.  

Grab your popcorn!

A group of seemingly unrelated stories are actually linked. And once again it is bad news for Senator Chris Dodd (D- Countrywide)

See, he really IS the "Countrywide Senator" since he attracted a grand total of FIVE contributors this year from the state he claims to represent in the Senate.

Five donors. From a state with five congressional districts. There's a groundswell of local support if I ever saw one. Makes the 3,000 at the Hartford Tea Party look large now.

By way of comparison, Dodd had fewer local donors this quarter than UConn woman's basketball coach Geno Auriemma has national titles.  

Dodd did raise a million; but most likely from people who can't vote for him and he may wish he didn;t raise money from.

Remember the auto bailout that Dodd's done such a wonderful job with?

The new Obama "auto czar" is Wall Street financier Stephen Rattner.

Mr. Rattner made the news today as the Wall Street Journal links him to a "pay for play" scandal involving the NY State pension fund. where it is alleged Rattner's firm made improper payments in exchange for receiving state investment funds.  This scandal is related to the demise of the former NY State Comptroller, Democrat Alan Hevesi.

So the man responsible for saving GM and Chrysler and protecting their pension funds played games with the NY State pension fund? Boy, that's encouraging. NOT.

But who is yet another "Friend of Chris Dodd"?

Stephen Rattner.  

Yep, he contributed the legal maximum to Dodd's 2004 re-election race.

====UPDATE====

Rattner's firm is now implicated in ANOTHER "pay to play" pension scam, this involving the New Mexico pension fund and Governor Bill Richardson

Another day, another sleazy Dodd contributor. (Downe, Madoff, Stanford, Cassano....) I ought to do a macro for these posts.

It looks like Dodd has "friends" on Wall Street; back here in CT, well, there's a different reaction.

What  started this morning at the Washington Times has become a huge local story for Chris Dodd.

Joseph Cassano, the "Patient Zero" of the global financial meltdown, supposedly demanded huge contributions from AIG employees to fund Senator Chris Dodd's campaigns.

 According an email obtained by the Times, Cassano urged executives at American International Group's Wilton-based Financial Products division to donate to Dodd in Nov., 2006, as he was poised to assume the chairmanship of the critical Senate banking committee."As he considers running for president in 2008, Senator Dodd has asked us for our support with his re-election campaign and we have offered to be supportive," stated the email quoted by the Times. 

The executives were reportedly asked to write checks for $2,100 from themselves and their spouses, and to send them to Mr. Dodd's campaign. The Times said the executives were, in turn, supposed to pass the message down the line to senior members of their management teams. 

This leads cynical old me to wonder if AIG reimbursed their executives for these large donations. Perhaps, among Mr. Cassano's other talents, he was running a successful money laundry from his Wilton, CT offices.

This all seems very reminscent of the hi jinks that sent Randy Cunningham to jail.  

Maybe Mr. Cassano might want to do some singing--and not for Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.  Seems he's being investigated for fraud in bankrupting AIG. 

Right now Joey is hiding out at his London mansion. But I suspect the UK authorities will be happy to send us something a bit more valuable than useless DVD's....perhaps a witness in custody?

Were this to happen, the details of what Dodd offered Cassano for the nearly $200,000 in campaign funds might make for, hmm, entertaining reading.

What  started this morning at the Washington Times has become a huge local story for Chris Dodd.

Joseph Cassano, the "Patient Zero" of the global financial meltdown, supposedly demanded huge contributions from AIG employees to fund Senator Chris Dodd's campaigns.

 According an email obtained by the Times, Cassano urged executives at American International Group's Wilton-based Financial Products division to donate to Dodd in Nov., 2006, as he was poised to assume the chairmanship of the critical Senate banking committee."As he considers running for president in 2008, Senator Dodd has asked us for our support with his re-election campaign and we have offered to be supportive," stated the email quoted by the Times. 

The executives were reportedly asked to write checks for $2,100 from themselves and their spouses, and to send them to Mr. Dodd's campaign. The Times said the executives were, in turn, supposed to pass the message down the line to senior members of their management teams. 

This leads cynical old me to wonder if AIG reimbursed their executives for these large donations. Perhaps, among Mr. Cassano's other talents, he was running a successful money laundry from his Wilton, CT offices.

This all seems very reminscent of the hi jinks that sent Randy Cunningham to jail.  

Maybe Mr. Cassano might want to do some singing--and not for Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.  Seems he's being investigated for fraud in bankrupting AIG. 

Right now Joey is hiding out at his London mansion. But I suspect the UK authorities will be happy to send us something a bit more valuable than useless DVD's....perhaps a witness in custody?

Were this to happen, the details of what Dodd offered Cassano for the nearly $200,000 in campaign funds might make for, hmm, entertaining reading.

Dodd's Troubles Open Debate on Congress' Ties With Special Interests

 Dodd has become the poster boy for critics who say the inevitable ties between longtime members of Congress and special interests are undermining efforts to revive the economy.

"He literally thinks he's going to play a critical role from saving us from ourselves," Christopher Healy, the Republican Party chairman in Connecticut, said of the Democratic senator.

"It's like putting the arsonist in charge of the volunteer fire department. He knows where the fire is because he set it. But beyond that, he can't offer much help."........

Ross Baker, a politics professor at Rutgers University and a congressional scholar, said the ties between lawmakers and special interest groups have bothered him for a long time.

"No one leaves Congress living at the same level they came in," he told FOXNews.com.

"More than anything else, it's getting insider information, getting special deals that on the face are not illegal. But they're in a privileged position."......

Critics are seizing on that now, saying Dodd should have been paying more attention to red flags in the economy.

"He wasn't asleep at the switch," Baker said. "He wasn't even at the switch."

There's really not much more than I can add. Sleazy, self-centered and incompetent. The trifecta of failure all packaged together in one article. Perhaps this sums up the worst problem with Dodd.

"They're trying to weave things together that have been reported on widely over the years," Dodd said. "They are taking some items that are frankly, old news, routine transactions, and trying to make more out of it."

For Wicca's sake, you've spent a career hanging out with grifters like Ed Downe Jr. and abandoned the helm of the Banking Committee right when the financial tsunami appeared on the horizon, and you don't realize you did anything wrong.  

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

Looks like Senator Chris Dodd and his family go back quite a-ways with financially rewarding ties to fallen insurance giant AIG. Here's what the relentless Kevin Rennie posted yesterday on Real Clear Politics

From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an "outside" director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG. IPC, which provides property casualty catastrophe insurance coverage, was formed in 1993 and currently has a market cap of $1.4 billion and trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IPCR.....

Clegg was compensated for her duties to the company, which was managed by a subsidiary of AIG. In 2003, according to a proxy statement, Clegg received $12,000 per year and an additional $1,000 for each Directors' and committee meeting she attended. Clegg served on the Audit and Investment committees during her final year on the board.

So the Mrs. was part of the management team at an AIG subsidiary. There's not problematic for a member of the Senate Banking Committee, now is it?

This leads Rennie to conclude "Dodd is likely more familiar with the complicated workings of AIG than he was letting on last week"

There's a local angle here Rennie misses, however. Bermuda is a notorious tax haven for foreign corporations. Bermuda does not levy income tax on foreign earnings, and allows foreign companies to incorporate there under an "exempt" status.  The insurance industry has aggressively incorporated affiliates there to skirt US and EU corporate tax rates.

In 2002 one of CT's leading manufacturers, The Stanley Works, announced plans to reincorporate in Bermuda for tax purposes,  When the hardware icon made this announcement, it because a huge issue around the firm's headquarters in the hotly contested 5th District.  Public outcry caused Stanley to back off from its plan.

The point here is I well remember Rep. James Maloney and Rep. Nancy Johnson, as well as Attorney General Dick Blumenthal scolding Stanley, but I don't recall Dodd saying boo about the plan and his name does not readily surface in web searching today on the topic.

Is that because Mrs. Dodd was running a firm that had done the same thing? Guess former Congressman Maloney would have called her firm "unpatriotic" and compared their management to "Benedict Arnold" had he paid attention.  So Dodd hid out, and let the brass at Stanley get harangued for doing something his wife's firm had already done.  

Another further layer of chutzpah is Dodd eagerly advocates a "corporate carbon tax".   while his nearest and dearest ran a company that skirted the business taxes we already have.

The more you think about it you'd rally have to be a meathead not to see these conflicts of interest.. I guess "those were the days" for Dodd-- when folks weren't turning over his rocks and not liking what's underneath.

NOT

THE INFLUENCE GAME: New record for number of PACs

WASHINGTON – More groups than ever are contributing money to presidential and congressional candidates as their strongest growth in a generation reflects the fervor over last year's White House election and a desire for access and clout on Capitol Hill.

The Federal Election Commission says that on Jan. 1 there were 4,611 political action committees, which are formed by companies, unions or other groups to raise and spend money to help presidential and congressional candidates. That was 9 percent more than the 4,234 PACs a year earlier.

Well, maybe this is why Obama is optimistic about the economy all of a sudden.

There's boom times going on in the influence peddling industry!