Tag Archives: former

The RNC’s Newest Anti-Hillary Weapon Is a Giant Orange Squirrel

by BlytheGorsuch Posted on June 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is speaking in DC Friday night on the campus of George Washington University. The visit was to promote her new book, Hard Choices, but had the air of a campaign event: The line to get in snaked around the block, with attendees sporting “Ready for Hillary” stickers on their shirts. Network TV cameras lined the back of the lower mezzanine. Secret Service agents trolled through the aisles.

And the Republican National Committee was there to respond. Rival political factions turning up at events isn’t a rare occurrence, but the RNC unveiled a new strategy with an…interesting bent. It was the debut of the HRC Squirrel: A person walking around in a bright orange squirrel suit. Tailed by four RNC staffers, the squirrel wandered around giving high-fives to the folks in line, who generally seemed to get a kick out of the odd scene. The squirrel has a Twitter handle and a donation page where anti-Clintonites can get bumper stickers that say “Another Clinton in the White House is Nuts.”

That nutty joke was the gist of the attack, making it a little unclear that the furry was there to rebuke the attendees’ favorite Democrat.

High Five! Patrick Caldwell/Mother Jones

The plainclothes staffers followed the squirrel around, handing out an information sheet with bullet points attacking Clinton. Bold statements include “Benghazi is Still the Defining Moment of Clinton’s Tenure,” and “Clinton’s Russia Reset Has Failed.” One of the staffers, an RNC deputy press secretary, said that the squirrel would be making appearances at subsequent Clinton book signings.

Welcome to 2016!

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The RNC’s Newest Anti-Hillary Weapon Is a Giant Orange Squirrel

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The Definitive Guide to Every Hillary Clinton Conspiracy Theory (So Far)

by UXMAnnetta Posted on June 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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Long before she let Benghazi happen, Hillary Clinton was the center of a swirl of inventive rumors about sex, drugs, and murder. For entertainment purposes only, we’ve rounded up some of the greatest (i.e., most scurrilous). We’ll add more as they inevitably bubble up in the run-up to the 2016 race.

Benghazi on the brain

Concussiongate
Rumor: Then-Secretary of State Clinton faked the flu and a concussion in December 2012 to avoid testifying to Congress about Benghazi.
Rumormongers: 2016 presidential dark horse John Bolton and Fox News contributor Monica Crowley

#TCLOT
Rumor: As if a phony head injury wasn’t bad enough—Hillary faked a blood clot, an even more serious medical condition, to further delay her Benghazi testimony.
Rumormonger: Glenn Beck, who added that “if she really had some weird thing in the hospital, then it should prohibit her from ever becoming president.”

Brained by Bush’s brain
Rumor: The clot was real, and Hillary suffered lingering brain damage that could render her unfit for office.
Rumormonger: Fox News analyst Karl Rove, who backtracked the next day.

The CLINTON Body Count

Fostering doubts
Rumor: Various theories hold that former Clinton White House chief of staff Vince Foster didn’t commit suicide in Virginia’s Fort Marcy Park. One posits that he was killed because he was having an affair with Hillary Clinton.
Rumormongers: Former Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) once shot a watermelon (or a pumpkin—it’s unclear) to prove that Foster was shot by someone else. Accuracy in Media founder Reed Irvine took out an ad in the New York Times to note that the FBI had failed to investigate “semen in Foster’s shorts, blond hair on his T-shirt and trousers and multicolored carpet fibers on all his clothing.” (Bonus: Anne Coulter once joked, “If you attack the Clintons publicly, make sure all your friends know that you are not planning suicide.”)

Ron Brown’s body
Rumor: Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others were killed in a plane crash orchestrated by the Clintons to prevent him from spilling the beans to special investigators about selling seats on trade missions.
Rumormonger: The Clinton Body Count, a website linking the first family to more than 90 deaths.

Whitewater whitewash
Rumor: After agreeing to cooperate with special investigator Ken Starr, Whitewater partner James McDougal died in prison—allegedly at the hands of Clinton henchmen. “Chalk up another body to Clinton,” as one Rush Limbaugh caller put it. An alternative theory: McDougal faked his death to avoid ratting out his benefactors.
Rumormonger: The Clinton Body Count

Kittycide
Rumor: Former Clinton aide Kathleen Willey alleged that after her cat went missing, a suspicious-looking jogger told her to watch what she said. Then her new cat turned up dead.
Rumormonger: Willey, in the the 2007 pseudo-documentary Hillary: The Movie (which triggered the Citizens United Supreme Court decision).

The condoms must be on the other side of the tree. AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee

The Sex stuff

Gay until inauguration
Rumor: After majoring in lesbianism at Wellesley, Hillary entered into a sham marriage with Bill Clinton to cover up the truth. At one point, a former classmate moved to Little Rock to continue an affair with Hillary.
Rumormonger: Edward Klein, author of The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She’ll Go to Become President

Bisexual after inauguration
Rumor: Bill confided that his wife was a bisexual who, as she put it, “had eaten more pussy than he had.”
Rumormonger: Former Clinton mistress Gennifer Flowers, in a 2013 interview with the Daily Mail

Webb of lies
Rumor: Associate attorney general Webb Hubbell was really Chelsea’s father. (And Vince Foster was possibly killed because he knew.)
Rumormonger: This guy on the Internet who keeps emailing me and every other DC journalist.

Bermuda shorts
Rumor: Forget Webb Hubbell. Chelsea was conceived when Bill forced himself on Hillary during a vacation in Bermuda.
Rumormonger: Klein, keeping it classy.

Troopergate
Rumor: Hillary looked the other way when then-Gov. Bill Clinton used Arkansas state troopers to set up sexual liaisons with dozens—maybe hundreds—of women.
Rumormonger: Former right-wing operative-turned-Media Matters honcho David Brock, who later wrote in his book, Blinded by the Right, that “none of the trooper allegations that could be independently checked turned out to be true.”

Bill’s black love child
Rumor: Bill fathered a son after after luring a prostitute into a cocaine-fueled orgy. Hillary dutifully covered it up.
Rumormongers: Little Rock businessman Robert McIntosh circulated a flier noting the resemblance between 13-year-old Danny Williams and a young William Jefferson Blythe during the 1992 campaign. A 1999 Drudge Report exclusive featured Williams’ mother’s on-tape confession. “What becomes immediately obvious to the viewer watching the videotaped confession is that this is clearly not gossip, rumor or anonymous charges being maliciously directed at a politician,” wrote Drudge, before learning three days later that the child was not Clinton’s.

Come all ye faithful
Rumor: As First Lady, Hillary decorated the White House Christmas tree with condoms, cock rings, and lords-a-leapin’ with erect penises.
Rumormongers: Disgruntled former FBI agent Gary Aldrich, in his 1996 tell-all, Unlimited Access; and Texas activist “Doc Marquis,” who seized on Aldrich’s claims as “proof positive that Hillary Clinton is a power, practicing witch.”

Sexual pagan
Rumor: No, it’s not the name of my new metal band—it’s Hillary Clinton’s orientation.
Rumormonger: Southern Evangelical Seminary president Richard Land, who leveled the charge in response to the secretary of state’s advocacy for gay rights in Africa.

The Drug stuff

Powder hungry
Rumor: When Bill was governor, the Clintons covered up a multimillion-dollar cocaine smuggling ring based in Mena, Arkansas.
Rumormonger: The Clinton Chronicles (below), a 1994 pseudo-documentary distributed by the Reverend Jerry Falwell

Boys on the tracks
Rumor: Seventeen-year-olds Kevin Ives and Don Henry weren’t hit by a train after passing out on an Arkansas railroad track; they were brutally murdered after witnessing a Clinton-assisted drug drop.
Rumormongers: Former Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.) and The Clinton Chronicles

Assorted Power madness

Four martini punch
Rumor: Reporter LJ Davis didn’t, as he claimed, pass out on his floor after drinking one too many martinis—he was assaulted in his Arkansas hotel room in 1994 by Clinton goons and robbed of four “significant” pages from his notebook. His crime: Asking too many questions about Clinton’s work at a Little Rock law firm.
Rumormongers: The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which cited the incident as evidence that Arkansas is a “congenitally violent place,” and Rush Limbaugh, who told his listeners, “journalists and others working on or involved in Whitewatergate have been mysteriously beaten and harassed in Little Rock; some have died.”

PC police
Rumor: As first lady, Clinton formed her own clandestine police force. Agents embedded in the FBI, the CIA, and the IRS harassed and eliminated critics.
Rumormongers: Richard Poe, author of Hillary’s Secret War, and American Evita author Christopher Andersen

Con air
Rumor: Hillary purged the White House Travel Office in order to set up a system of kickbacks for an Arkansas airline helmed by a childhood friend of Bill’s.
Rumormongers: Brock and current Virginia congressional candidate Barbara Comstock

Red, not blue
Rumor: A “meticulously documented” report exposed the Clintons’ links to a Marxist terrorist plot to take over the country, inspired by the Italian communist and grad-student favorite Antonio Gramsci. Exhibit A: Hillary’s failed health care reform plan.
Rumormonger: WorldNetDaily columnist Samuel Blumenfeld

Filegate
Rumor: Classified FBI files were requested and misused by First Lady Hillary Clinton to target enemies of the administration. White House Office of Personnel Security Craig Livingstone took the fall when Republican investigators caught wind.
Rumormonger: Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who demanded FBI files be swiped for the First Lady’s fingerprints.

Brazilian whacks
Rumor: The Clintons forced former Hillary donor Peter Paul to spend two years in a Brazilian prison—including two months in a cellblock known as the “Corridor of Death”—after he filed a lawsuit against the couple claiming they knew about his illegal campaign finance dealings.
Rumormonger: Paul, in the 2007 pseudo-documentary Hillary Uncensored

Black helicopters
Rumor: Team Hillary used helicopters to surveil the Southampton home of 2006 Republican Senate challenger—and current Fox News contributor—K.T. McFarland.
Rumormonger: McFarland, at a campaign event on Long Island

Rush to judgment
Rumor: Rush Limbaugh’s 2006 drug bust for painkillers possession was a set-up by the Clinton machine.
Rumormonger: Poe again

Dressed to kill in 1993 AP Photo/James Finley

The Muslim stuff

Muslim Sisterhood
Rumor: Clinton and top aide/alleged lover Huma Abedin (wife of ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)) are in cahoots with the ladies’ auxiliary of the Muslim Brotherhood. Which explains why Clinton has been secretly pushing us to spread Sharia law in America.
Rumormongers: “Huma’s mom is best friends with the new so-called First Lady of Egypt, who is also a member of the Sisterhood,” explained Rush Limbaugh. “Folks, it’s Peyton place—it’s too much to keep up with.” Rep. Michele Bachmann’s allegations of collaboration between Clinton and the Brotherhood was cited by protesters in the streets of Cairo.

Mullah moolah
Rumor: Clinton’s Islamofascist sympathies were secured with a bribe from Iran.
Rumormonger: Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman, who conscientiously adds, “I cannot prove it at this time.”

Ban on churches
Rumor: Clinton was working with Islamists to shut down Christian houses of worship in the United States before she left office in 2013.
Rumormonger: Conservative speaker and self-described “former terrorist” Kamal Saleem

Hillary Clinton with fellow Muslim sympathizer Barack Obama in Cairo, 2009. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Just Plain Bizarre

Cold-blooded
Rumor: Like most of the Washington elite, Hillary is in fact a blood-drinking extraterrestrial lizard in disguise.
Rumormonger: “Reptoid hypothesis” creator David Icke

Everything is Illuminati’ed
Rumor: Wake up, sheeple. The Clintons belong to an 18th-century secret society that controls global governance and finance.
Rumormongers: Lots of crazy people on YouTube

Contra dancing
Rumor: In the 1970s, Hillary worked at a Little Rock law firm that helped funnel weapons to the Contras.
Rumormonger: The late Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn

Blood money
Rumor: The Clintons consented to the harvesting and selling of HIV- and hepatitis C-positive blood from prison inmates to China in the 1980s.
Rumormongers: Klein and WorldNetDaily conspiracy guru Joseph Farah

Starr crossed
Rumor: Why did the Clintons enjoy impunity for their myriad crimes? Easy: Ken Starr, the man tasked with investigating them, was a secret Clinton crony.
Rumormonger: Poe again

Get behind me, thetan
Rumor: Why did the did the movie version of Primary Colors, in which John Travolta plays a thinly-veiled Bill Clinton, go so easy on the first couple? Maybe because President Clinton pressured the German government to extend religious protections to the Church of Scientology.
Rumormonger: The New York Post reported that Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.) demanded an investigation into the matter; Faircloth denied this.

It’s a tax!
Rumor: As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was pushing a secret United Nations takeover of the Internet, to be paid for by a secret tax on American billionaires.
Rumormonger: Former Clinton aide Dick Morris

Goo goo for Gaga: Clinton’s State Department betrayed its true function as an “agent for Lady Gaga” when it helped the “Bad Romance” singer secure a gig at a gay pride event in Italy.
Rumormonger: Mission: America founder Linda Harvey

Here We Go Again…

Face the nation
Rumor: Clinton got a face-lift after leaving the State Department to “glam up” for 2016.
Rumormonger: Fox and Friends’ Steve Doocy, who tweeted afterwards that he was referring only to Clinton’s website.

Hey sole sister
Rumor: Clinton hired a mentally ill woman to throw a sneaker at her while giving a speech to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Las Vegas in April.
Rumormongers: Limbaugh and former Republican presidential front runner Herman Cain

Hill’s angels
Rumor: Hillary is a tool of the Dark Lord Lucifer sent to oppose Jesus Christ in the Last Days.
Rumormonger: Montana Republican congressional candidate Ryan Zinke, who called Clinton the “anti-Christ” at a January campaign event.

It takes a child
Rumor: Chelsea Clinton became pregnant at the behest of her parents, who believe that the former secretary of state will be viewed more favorably if she has grandkids.
Rumormongers: Fox News host Howie Kurtz, the Washington Free Beacon‘s Michael Goldfarb, and the New York Times‘ Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Vanity press
Rumor: The Clintons arranged for Vanity Fair to publish Monica Lewinsky’s recent essay two-and-a-half years before the next presidential election, so it would be forgotten by 2016.
Rumormonger: Prolific children’s author Lynne Cheney, who asked Bill O’Reilly, “Would Vanity Fair publish anything about Monica Lewinsky that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t want in Vanity Fair?” (Yes.)

To be continued…

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The Definitive Guide to Every Hillary Clinton Conspiracy Theory (So Far)

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13 Conservatives Who Think Benghazi Is Obama’s Watergate

by EmiliaKeaton Posted on May 6, 2014

Mother Jones

Last week, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) subpoenaed Secretary of State John Kerry to testify about Benghazi, and House Speaker John Boehner created a select committee to mount yet another investigation of the 2012 attack on the US facility in Libya. It’s the latest effort by House Republicans to squeeze a scandal out of the tragedy. While the GOP’s relentless Benghazi crusade continues, there has been an outpouring of rhetorical excesses, with some conservatives going as far as likening the Obama administration’s response to the attack to the Nixon administration’s Watergate scandal.

Appearing Sunday on CNN, Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporter who joined with Bob Woodward to break the Watergate story, said there’s no comparison: “This is not Watergate, or anything resembling Watergate. Watergate was a massive criminal conspiracy led by a criminal president of the United States for almost the whole of his administration. We’re talking total apples and oranges here.” He added, “This is about an ideological scorched-earth politics that prevails in Washington.”â&#128;&#139;

Frank Rich at New York magazine wrote last year that Republicans are pushing the Watergate analogy because they believe Benghazi could be a “gateway both to the president’s impeachment and to a GOP victory over Hillary in 2016.” But they’re running into a problem, Rich noted, namely that “no one to the left of Sean Hannity seriously believes that the Obama White House was trying to cover up a terrorist attack.” The Huffington Post observes that Benghazi is hardly the first Obama administration affair that has driven Republicans to reference Watergate. They’ve wielded this analogy to decry Fast and Furious, the Solyndra controversy, the so-called IRS scandal, and the Department of Homeland Security’s handling of Freedom of Information Act requests. And Republicans have dredged up the Watergate metaphor repeatedly since 2012.

Here are 13 conservatives who have compared Benghazi to Watergate, in chronological order:

1. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.): “I think this is an issue—Benghazi-gate is the right term for this. This is very, very serious, probably more serious than Watergate.” —Fox News, October 1, 2012â&#128;&#139;

2. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.):

3. Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh: “What we’re watching here today is the equivalent of Woodward and Bernstein helping Nixon cover up Watergate. The mainstream media is Woodward and Bernstein. Watergate is Benghazi.â&#128;&#139;” The Rush Limbaugh Show, October 24, 2012

â&#128;&#139;4. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): “You know what, somebody the other day said to me that this is as bad as Watergate. Well, nobody died in Watergate. But this is either a massive cover-up or an incompetence that is not acceptable service to the American people.” —CBS’s Face the Nation, October 28, 2012â&#128;&#139;

5. Fox News contributor Bill O’Reilly: “Richard Nixon denied he had anything to do with a low-level political break-in. If the press had not been aggressive, Nixon would have gotten away with it. And certainly the break-in at the Watergate Hotel was not nearly as important as failing to define a terrorist attack that killed four Americans. President Obama…should have given us the facts weeks ago. He chose not to.” —Fox News, November 15, 2012â&#128;&#139;

6. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa): “I believe that it’s a lot bigger than Watergate, and if you link Watergate and Iran-Contra together and multiply it times maybe 10 or so, you’re going to get in the zone where Benghazi is.” —The Washington Times, December 12, 2012â&#128;&#139;

7. Former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee: “This is not minor. It wasn’t minor when Richard Nixon lied to the American people and worked with those in his administration to cover up what really happened in Watergate. But, I remind you—as bad as Watergate was, because it broke the trust between the president and the people, no one died. This is more serious because four Americans did in fact die.” —The Mike Huckabee Show, May 6, 2013

8. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): “I want to keep pushing because the bond that has been broken between those who serve us in harm’s way and the government they serve is huge—and to me every bit as damaging as Watergate.” —The Mike Huckabee Show, May 6, 2013

9. Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas):

10. Former Nixon adviser Pat Buchanan: “The break in at Watergate was a stupid burglary, political burglary, nobody got killed. This is a horrible atrocity. Killing an American ambassador; killing another diplomat; two Navy SEALs; destroying and burning that compound. Driving us out of a part of a country we have liberated. But you are right, the real thing here is the cover-up.” —Fox News, May 9, 2013â&#128;&#139;

11. Rep. Louie Gohmert, (R-Texas): “This administration is engaged in a Watergate-style cover-up, and once we get to the bottom, people in this administration need to know once they’ve been part of doing this kind of cover-up, they just need to know that people went to prison for participating in the cover-up.” —WND Radio, August 3, 2013â&#128;&#139;

12. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.): “I will say this to my dying day, I know people don’t realize it now, but that’s going to go down in history as the greatest cover-up. And I’m talking about compared to the Pentagon Papers, Iran-Contra, Watergate, and the rest of them. This was a cover-up in order for people right before the election to think that there was no longer a problem with terrorism in the Middle East.” —KFAQ, February 3, 2014

13. Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer: “The email is to me the equivalent of what was discovered with the Nixon tapes.” —Fox News, May 1, 2014

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13 Conservatives Who Think Benghazi Is Obama’s Watergate

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Ex-BP official got rich on Deepwater Horizon spill, gets busted

by AdrianaGivens Posted on April 18, 2014

It’s just capitalism, right?

Ex-BP official got rich on Deepwater Horizon spill, gets busted

By

SkyTruth

When Keith Seilhan was called in to coordinate BP’s oil spill cleanup after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the senior company official and experienced crisis manager looked at the situation and thought, “Fuck this.” He dumped his family’s $1 million worth of BP stock, earning a profit and saving $100,000 in potential losses after the share price tanked even further.

But Seilhan knew something that other investors did not know when he made that trade. The company was lying to the government and the public about the amount of oil that was leaking from the ruptured well — by a factor of more than ten. And the feds say that doesn’t just make Seilhan an awful person — it means he was engaging in insider trading. Charges and a settlement were announced Thursday.

“The complaint alleges that within days, Seilhan received nonpublic information on the extent of the evolving disaster, including oil flow estimates and data on the volume of oil floating on the surface of the Gulf,” the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in its announcement.

Without admitting or denying guilt, the Texan, who has since left BP, agreed to pay the government a penalty equivalent to double the $105,409 that he allegedly gained through the trade.


Source
SEC Charges Former Bp Employee with Insider Trading During the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, SEC

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Ex-BP official got rich on Deepwater Horizon spill, gets busted

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Wiretapping Advocate Condoleezza Rice Joins Dropbox

by BobbieStocks Posted on April 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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The internet is not pleased that Condoleezza Rice will be joining the board of the filesharing service Dropbox. A lot of the concern has to do with the fact that she’ll be helping Dropbox navigate “international expansion and privacy” issues. As Ars Technica notes, the former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State isn’t exactly the kind of person you’d trust to defend your data from Uncle Sam: In 2003, she authorized NSA wiretaps of members of the United Nations Security Council at the behest of George W. Bush, and later defended them. Of course, to be fair, maybe having an insider like Rice onboard will allow Dropbox to push back against would-be government intrusions. Still, the news is likely to give a boost to Dropbox competitors that now market their cloud services, convincingly or not, as “NSA-proof.”

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Wiretapping Advocate Condoleezza Rice Joins Dropbox

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NBC Lands Exclusive With George W. Bush By Letting His Daughter Interview Him

by MorganFalconer Posted on April 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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NBC’s Today landed a hot exclusive for their Friday episode. The show will air an interview with former president George W. Bush, who has been press-shy in retirement. For the rare interview, the network brought in their most august, hard-hitting journalist to non-enhanced interrogate Bush: his daughter, Jenna Bush Hager. The president’s daughter has been a correspondent for Today and NBC News since 2009. Back then, Today‘s executive producer Jim Bell said the president’s daughter hadn’t been hired for her political connections. According to the Associated Press: “Bell said Hager won’t be covering politics. He said he didn’t consider the job as a down payment for a future interview with her father, who has been living quietly in Texas since leaving office earlier this year.”

What will Bush Hager ask her father? Will she quiz Bush about the Senate’s investigation of the CIA’s torture program during his tenure? Ask him how he feels about the long-term unemployed who have struggled to find work after the recession that began under his watch? See if he agrees with his former vice president, who thinks we should bomb Iran?

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NBC Lands Exclusive With George W. Bush By Letting His Daughter Interview Him

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University of Chicago Hires Notorious Goldman Sachs Fraudster to Teach Economics to Undergrads

by Gregory2612 Posted on February 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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The lone individual found liable for committing fraud during the lead up to the financial crisis will soon be teaching undergrads the basics of economics at one of America’s most prestigious universities. Former Goldman Sachs banker Fabrice Tourre—better known by his self-assigned nickname, “Fabulous Fab”—is studying to get his Ph.D. in economics from University of Chicago. Per the Chicago Maroon, the school’s student newspaper, Tourre will teach a class this semester, offering honors students the opportunity to learn “Elements of Economics Analysis 3” from a man who owes over $1 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Tourre is a poster child for Wall Street malfeasance. While working at Goldman in 2007, he designed a financial product called Abacus 2007-AC1. This collection of mortgage-backed securities was designed to fail—hedge funder John Paulson had asked Goldman to sell a package of bad mortgages that he could then bet against. Thanks to Tourre and the foreclosure crisis, Paulson made a cool $1 billion. Fab and Paulson knew Abacus was a bum product from the get-go, but Tourre hide that information from investors. Goldman rewarded Tourre handsomely for the scheme: he was promoted and earned a reported $2 million.

After the crash, though, the deal came under scrutiny. Congress summoned Tourre and other Goldmanites for hearings to examine the causes of the crisis, and Fab drew widespread media attention when e-mails he sent to his girlfriend became public. The e-mails showed Tourre boasting about how he had hoodwinked investors. Here’s an excerpt:

When I think that I had some input into the creation of this product (which by the way is a product of pure intellectual masturbation, the type of thing which you invent telling yourself: “Well, what if we created a “thing”, which has no purpose, which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price?”) it sickens the heart to see it shot down in mid-flight.

The emails raised the ire of the SEC, which sued Goldman and Tourre for fraud. The agency settled with Goldman for $550 million in the summer of 2010, but the deal didn’t include protection for Tourre. (Goldman has been covering his legal fees, though). Last year, a federal court found Tourre liable for six counts of civil securities fraud. The fines totaled $1 million, an amount he’s currently contesting. Although the ruling was a victory for people who wanted to see Wall Street pay for the financial crisis, it was a minor win—Tourre, who was 28 when he helped create Abacus, was only a mid-tier employee at Goldman.

Tourre did not respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon. But last April he granted The Wall Street Journal a glimpse into his life as an average grad student. He was captain of an undefeated intramural soccer team, cheering his teammates own from crutches after an injury. He tutored fellow classmates. But the remnants of his former life of decadence linger. He lives in a high-rise apartment with a scenic view of Lake Michigan and a uniformed guard at the entrance.

The course guide for the class Tourre will be teaching describes it as “an introduction to macroeconomic theory and policy.” There’s no word on whether dreaming up crappy new financial products to sell to unwitting investors will be on the syllabus, too.

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University of Chicago Hires Notorious Goldman Sachs Fraudster to Teach Economics to Undergrads

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Here’s Why Bob McDonnell Just Got Indicted

by TangelaCso Posted on January 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, on 14 counts related to gifts the couple accepted from a businessman looking to curry favor with the McDonnell administration. McDonnell, whose one term in office expired in early January, was once considered a possible Republican vice presidential candidate before reports of his dealings with businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. cast a shadow over his last year-and-half in office.

In a statement, McDonnell apologized for his actions but maintained that he never did anything illegal: “I deeply regret accepting legal gifts and loans from Mr. Williams, all of which have been repaid with interest, and I have apologized for my poor judgment for which I take full responsibility. However, I repeat emphatically that I did nothing illegal for Mr. Williams in exchange for what I believed was his personal generosity and friendship. I never promised—and Mr. Williams and his company never received—any government benefit of any kind from me or my Administration. We did not violate the law, and I will use every available resource and advocate I have for as long as it takes to fight these false allegations, and to prevail against this unjust overreach of the federal government.”

Here’s everything you need to know:

Who’s Jonnie R. Williams Sr.? Until December, Williams was the CEO of Star Scientific, Inc., a dietary supplements company. The company’s main products are Anatabloc—an anti-inflammatory supplement derived from tobacco plants—and smoking-cessation product CigRx. According to the indictment, Williams forged a friendship with the the McDonnells starting in 2009, after he gave Bob McDonnell use of his private jet during his gubernatorial campaign. McDonnell and Williams soon discovered that they both had a lot in common, according to the Associated Press: They both have large families, started their careers in health services, and honeymooned at the same spot in Maine. This isn’t the first time Williams has had a run-in with federal investigators: In 1993, the Securities and Exchange Commission fined him $300,000 for peddling false medical claims.

What kinds of gifts did he give the McDonnells? The lengthy list includes over $100,000 in corporate jet travel; an engraved $6,500 Rolex watch; a $15,000 Bergdorf Goodman shopping spree; a $10,000 engagement gift for the McDonnells’ daughter Jeanine; and $15,000 to foot the catering bill for another McDonnell daughter, Cailin. (McDonnell maintains his daughters returned these gifts.) The indictment reveals that the McDonnells had a taste for Louis Vuitton: If convicted, the couple will have to relinquish a number of items made by the high-priced designer, including shoes, a raincoat, a purse, and a wallet.

What did Williams get out of this? Authorities say that in exchange for gifts, the McDonnells legitimized and promoted Star Scientific products. Among the allegations: In February 2011, Bob and Maureen McDonnell praised Star Scientific’s products at a dinner the company held in an effort to convince doctors to prescribe CigRx to their patients. In August, 2011, the defendants hosted an event for the launch of Star Scientific’s Anatabloc product at the Governor’s Mansion; the invitees included some university researchers Star Scientific wanted to perform clinical trials of Anatabloc. In October 2011, Maureen McDonnell attended another Star Scientific dinner to lend her support to Anatabloc, according to the indictment.

Could this have been avoided if the McDonnells had been nicer to their staff? Maybe. Things began to fall apart when the couple’s chef, Todd Schneider, was accused of stealing food in 2012. Schneider denied any wrongdoing, instead implicating the McDonnell family themselves as the culprits. Upset about his treatment, he turned over a pile of documents revealing the tip of the iceberg of the family’s financially cozy relationship with Williams.

What will happen to McDonnell if he’s found guilty? Per the Richmond Times Dispatch, the charges could put the couple behind bars for decades and carry a fine of more than $1 million. But prominent political couples don’t normally receive maximum sentences. Top Virginia politicians in both parties have, at McDonnell’s request, lobbied the Department of Justice to go easy on him.

Is there a silver lining? If recent history is an indication, he’ll probably get a reality show. Former Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich was indicted in 2009 for attempting to sell President Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. He was convicted one year later and is currently serving a 14-year sentence—but not before his wife, Patricia, raised funds for his legal fees by starring in the show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, who served six years in prison over federal corruption charges, landed a post-penitentiary gig as the co-star of short-lived A&E series The Governor’s Wife.

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Here’s Why Bob McDonnell Just Got Indicted

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This Is How Ringo Starr Got Involved With the New "Powerpuff Girls" Special

by CareySargent Posted on January 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Earlier this month, you might have heard the latest song by ex-Beatle and former NORAD Santa tracker Ringo Starr. It’s a new track he recorded for (of all things) The Powerpuff Girls, a beloved Cartoon Network series about three adorable little girls with superpowers and their professor father. The show ended its original run nine years ago, but an all-new special episode, titled The Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pantsed, is set to air on Monday night. Starr guest-stars as a mathematician named Fibonacci Sequins (click here to check out his cartoon look), and recorded “Wish I Was a Powerpuff Girl” for an animated music video (which you can watch below).

The A.V. Club called the video “trippy.” BuzzFeed dubbed the tune “the most adorable song.” And Rolling Stone reported that the “video, if nothing else, proves that the experimental Sixties spirit still shines bright.”

This isn’t the first time The Powerpuff Girls has been associated with The Beatles. The episode “Meet the Beat Alls,” which follows a villainous supergroup’s reign of terror, is packed full of Beatles references. But how exactly did the former Beatles drummer end up playing a part in The Powerpuff Girls? Well, according to Dave Smith (who directed the new episode and served as a storyboard artist during the show’s initial run), it took some convincing—and it almost didn’t happen.

“Brian Miller, who runs Cartoon Network in Los Angeles, came up to us one day and said that he’s one degree separated from Ringo Starr, and asked us if we wanted to reach out to him for a role,” Smith says. “We thought Ringo Starr would be fantastic as the mathematician. So we came up with a character design and sent Ringo a brief synopsis of the show and the characters he could play. And he politely declined.”

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This Is How Ringo Starr Got Involved With the New "Powerpuff Girls" Special

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BP engineer found guilty of obstructing justice

by AdelaidaH Posted on December 19, 2013

BP engineer found guilty of obstructing justice

By

NOAA

In May 2010, as BP prepared to try to staunch the flow of oil from beneath the wrecked Deepwater Horizon rig by dumping mud over the blowout, some of the company’s engineers knew the effort was bound to fail. But the mud-dumping plan, codenamed Top Kill, moved forward anyway as the world’s media watched on. Sure enough, Top Kill failed to staunch the leak.

One of the engineers who knew the effort would fail, Kurt Mix, later tried to keep that a secret from investigators. When Mix found out that his iPhone was about to be seized, he deleted more than 100 text messages — messages such as “Too much flowrate – over 15,000.” In that message, Mix was warning a colleague that 15,000 barrels of oil was leaking every day, which was too much oil for the operation to handle, and three times the flow rate that BP had stated publicly.

The presumably panicked decision to delete the texts on Wednesday led to the 52-year-old Texan being found guilty by a jury of one charge of obstruction of justice — a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment. He avoided conviction on a second, similar charge. His attorneys vowed to appeal. From the AP:

Mix, who was arrested in April 2012, was the first of four current or former BP employees charged with spill-related crimes and the first of them to be tried.

BP took corporate responsibility for its role in the catastrophe earlier this year, pleading guilty in January to manslaughter charges for the workers’ deaths and agreeing to pay a record $4 billion in penalties. But none of the top executives at the London-based oil giant have been charged with crimes.

David Uhlmann, a University of Michigan law professor and former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, said Mix was a “sympathetic defendant” because his conduct seemed relatively minor in the context of a disaster that killed 11 workers and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf. Uhlmann, however, said the Justice Department appropriately has a “zero-tolerance policy” for those who destroy evidence in a criminal investigation.

“The Gulf oil spill was the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. Kurt Mix was charged with deleting text messages from his iPhone,” he said. “The government was justified in seeking charges, but there’s a proportionality problem here.”

Props to the feds for going after BP wrongdoers. But it would sure be nice to see some senior execs held accountable for the 2010 disaster, which is still affecting the Gulf of Mexico and its fishermen and shoreline communities.


Source
Ex-BP engineer convicted on 1 obstruction charge, Associated Press
Former BP Engineer Arrested for Obstruction of Justice in Connection with the Deepwater Horizon Criminal Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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BP engineer found guilty of obstructing justice

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