Sad to say, events are moving so quickly in Barackistan that the Pitchforks movement has been eclipsed by an emerging movement to transcend, or at least move beyond, the two party system. No criticism here. Things just are what they are right now.
All posts have been crossposted at our sister blog, The Fourth Republic. Comments have been relocated there, as well. And RBO remains our informational archives and very, very active.
Many thanks to those who supported the Pitchforks endeavor.
Amendment 10 – Powers of the States and People: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
On his May 15 Fox News show, Glenn Beck conducted a live town hall style meeting on “how states are fighting the Fed and taking back their rights and how you can help make it happen!” Watch in four unedited YouTube clips, each about ten minutes long, below (courtesy of APFN).
One RBO regular commented:
It’s very clear now that Beck is plunging ahead; his 9/12 movement [The 9-12 Project] is building steam. There are now about 641,000 Americans who have signed. His Town Hall style show last night, which featured legislators who’re building a state’s rights movement, was riveting, and very educational. [...]
The 9/12 movement is shaping up to be a challenge to the federal government’s unconstitutional grab for more power than accorded by law.
More:
The Patrick Henry Caucus was featured on the show, and they are inspiring more states to join the movement. I learned from the show last night that despite the obstacles to legislation based on 10th Amendment, the rationale is that if enough states make such legislation the federal government and Supreme Court can’t continue to ignore it.
More here from Beck’s May 7 show re “States Test the 10th Amendment”, The 9-12 Project, and the Patrick Henry Caucus (see Call to Action):
A discussion on the Glenn Beck show with Utah State Representative Carl Wimmer (R) and Texas State Representative Leo Berman (R) about legislation currently being proposed in their states which is similar to the recent Montana bill in which firearms and ammunition produced in that state will be exempt from all federal regulation and federal firearms laws. Utah is calling it the “Patrick Henry Caucus” and intends to take it to every state in the nation. This is a huge move for states and individual rights that is expected to go all the way to the Supreme Court for judgement. Judge Napolitano provides his opinion as well on how likely this is to be upheld by the current members of the Supreme Court.
This article is crossposted at PA’s sister blogs, RBO and The Fourth Republic.
We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s unlikely that, back in July 2008, when the “Obama campaign theme [was] that more Americans need to sacrifice for neighborhood and country,” what PrezCanO really meant was that ordinary Americans needed to sacrifice more while the governing class raked in every penny it could pinch. Or at least we’d like to think so.
In his March 26 Salon article, Glenn Greenwald illustrated how things are rapidly heading in that direction just the same. It’s called “class warfare”.
Greenwald wrote:
When I first heard Chuck Todd questioning Obama [at the March 24] Press Conference about why Obama wasn’t demanding “sacrifice” from ordinary Americans — as though the massive loss of jobs, homes, retirement security and financial opportunities isn’t sufficient “sacrifice” — I mistakenly attributed Todd’s question to the standard vapid ignorance and insularity of our media stars. I assumed that Todd was just mimicking a question he heard about 9/11 and decided to repeat it seven years later without realizing what a complete nonsequitur it is when applied to the financial crisis.
But there was actually a more pernicious aspect to his question. He was basically demanding of Obama: shouldn’t you be telling those dirty masses that they can’t have health care and education improvements and that they’re also going to have to give up their Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits (while Citibank and BoA use taxpayer money to buy up distressed assets that they will then sell at a huge profit, also to the taxpayer under the Geithner plan)? Among our coddled elites, anger at the oligarchs who pillaged and who continue to pillage is misplaced, irresponsible and dangerous populist rage that must be stigmatized and suppressed. [...]
Despite the limitless gorging on public funds by the very oligarchs (government owners) who caused the financial crisis in the first place, the predominant sentiment from our establishment media now is that Obama needs to force ordinary Americans to “sacrifice more.” [...]
So our political class cheers on treasury-draining wars, allows financial elites to rob and pillage, witnesses huge transfers of wealth to the richest, and then when the whole thing explodes, the “real fiscal answer” is for ordinary Americans to have their Medicare benefits “slashed” and Social Security benefits reduced.
The UK’s The Sunday Telegraph headlines with Leonard Doyle’s Barack Obama’s rich supporters fear his tax plans show he’s a class warrior. Not much of a surprise to a lot of us but apparently so for Obama’s well-to-do supporters.
Wealthy Wall Street financiers and other business figures provided crucial support for Mr Obama during the election, backing him over the Republican candidate John McCain as the right leader to rescue the collapsing US economy.
But it is now dawning on many among them that Mr Obama was serious about his campaign trail promises to bring root and branch reform to corporate America – and that they were more than just election rhetoric.
The very next line is hysterical, albeit not among the wealthy who shelled and shilled for the One:
A top Obama fundraiser and hedge fund manager said: “I’m appalled at the anti-Wall Street rhetoric. It was OK on the campaign but now it’s the real world. I’m surprised that Obama is turning out to be so left-wing. He’s a real class warrior.”
The “real world”? WTF?
Where have these chumps been for the past two years? Obviously not in the same “real world” as the 48% who did NOT vote for PrezCanO.
Next?
Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, a free enterprise think tank, said Democrats in Congress were unnerved by the president’s latest plan to raise $210 billion over 10 years from multinational corporations. [...]
“These big companies are based in New York Boston, Seattle and Silicon Valley, where Democrats dominate,” Mr Edwards said. “Obama’s tax plan is already cleaving him from his big corporate supporters,” he said.
Let’s just say that’s too darn bad. Boo hoo.
But the real take away here, one that is not mentioned, is that Obama’s Wall Street supporters were perfectly content to go along to get along to get the One nominated and elected and ensconced upon His Throne at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but NOT perfectly content to go along to get along when it comes to the “real world”.
It was okay for Obama to make any and all sorts of promises on the campaign trail — after all, politicians are expected to lie, right? But what is NOT okay now is for Obama, who owes so much to so many, to go against THEIR corporate interests.
Suspect number one? Obama champion Warren Buffet. Doyle writes:
Warren Buffet, the wealthy investor regarded by Americans as an economic seer, is among high profile Obama supporters worried that he is attempting too much by pressing ahead with other controversial reforms such as healthcare.
“Job one is to win the war, the economic war, job two is to win the economic war, and job three,” he said recently. “You can’t expect people to unite behind you if you’re trying to jam a whole bunch of things down their throat.”
A month ago, there were signs Buffet was beginning to catch on, stating Obama’s economic message is “muddled and undermining public confidence,” Steve Holland reported for Reuters.
Buffett, an informal Obama adviser considered a financial seer on Wall Street, told CNBC on Monday the message has to be “very, very clear as to what government will be doing.”
“And I think we’ve had, and it’s the nature of the political process somewhat, but we’ve had muddled messages and the American public does not know. They feel they don’t know what’s going on, and their reaction then is to absolutely pull back,” he said.
Looks like Buffet might be doing a litting pulling back of his own.
However, Holland slightly understated Buffet’s CNBC comments. Alex Crippen reported that Buffet said the economy had “fallen off a cliff.”
But let’s look back to May 2008, when Buffet endorsed the One. Greg Mitchell reported at HuffPo:
But to find out more, I discovered a May 5, 2008, on-the-fly interview with Buffett carried by CNBC.
The interviewer, Becky Quick, asked Buffett to pretend for a moment that she was John McCain. She then asked, “Is there anything I can do, any economic issue I can get behind, that would actually make you think twice about potentially supporting me?”
Buffett replied: “I would say that if you felt the tax burden should be shifted in a significant way to the super-rich and away from the middle class, I would say that would make me re-evaluate you.”
You have to wonder how the super-rich are feeling about that advice now.
Buffet is deeply invested in the Play-Doh Prez. John McCormick even headlined his August 16, 2007, Chicago Tribune story with Buffett is Obama meal ticket.
How does that old saying go? Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?
McCormick reports that at a Chicago fund-raiser, Buffet said “Barack is here to increase the abundance, but to spread it around a little more so that it is inclusive prosperity.”
It is doubtful that Buffet meant “spread it around” as in redistribution of the wealth in quite the same way that our beloved country is headed — nationalization of everything and socialism.
Then we have Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Doyle writes:
Under one of his tax reforms, companies based in the US would be required to pay US taxes on all their overseas earnings.
Among those affected by such changes would be some of Mr Obama’s most powerful supporters in the election, such as Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, and other “Silicon Valley” executives whose profits are mostly made abroad. They were taken aback when the President blasting companies for “shirking” their responsibilities by avoiding tax.
Owen Thomas at The Gawker provides clear insight into Schmidt’s queasiness:
Everyone has misunderstood why Google, from CEO Eric Schmidt on down, is cozying up to Barack Obama. It’s not out of some likeminded geekiness. It’s out of desperation and fear.
Google has a plan to extend its dominance in search and online advertising into every part of the information economy. It’s no secret — it’s in the company’s mission statement. But antitrust cops look askance at efforts to use market power in one field to move into another.
When Obama appeared at the Googleplex in November 2007, his candidacy was far from preordained. Gullible techies hailed his platform as “Google-friendly.” Sure, Google will be helped by support for faster broadband connections. And cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin share a cleantech obsession with Obama.
Schmidt was so lackadaisical about courting Obama that he only endorsed him in the waning days of the campaign, threw an inaugural ball, and got rewarded with a token appointment to a science council. For those obviously halfhearted gestures, he didn’t get what he wanted: a free pass on antitrust issues.
Add taxation on overseas earnings to the mix and you can see why Schmidt might be regretting that extra helping of Hopeychangey Pie.
The AP’s Michael Liedtke writes today:
If Obama’s proposal becomes law, the hard-hit companies would include tech bellwethers like Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. Each of those companies realized a benefit of more than $1 billion from lower foreign tax rates in their most recent fiscal years — an advantage that could be lost if Obama is able to change the rules.
“It would be like an earthquake for high tech,” said Carl Guardino, chief executive of Silicon Valley Leadership Group, an industry trade association. “On a Richter scale of 1 to 10, this would be a 12.”
Collectively, HP, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft and Google lowered their tax bills by a combined $7.4 billion in their last fiscal years by taking advantage of lower tax rates outside the United States, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.
Through the years, these five companies have avoided U.S. income taxes and foreign withholding taxes on a combined $72 billion in undistributed earnings from their foreign operations.
While Obama’s proposal might not tax all the money U.S. companies keep overseas, it apparently would target a big chunk.
In fact, it’s going to be really tough for some of these folks to be rudely awakened from the Hopium-induced haze only to discover it was all just a smoke-and-mirrors dog-and-pony show afterall. Doyle adds:
It has also dawned on wealthy Americans who flocked to the Obama campaign of “Hope” and “Change” that the president opposes the “trickle down” theories that have guided US economics since President Ronald Reagan was elected with a mandate to slash taxes.
Mr Obama said last week that it was “an aberration” that profits in the financial sector had grown so large over the last decade. It was ridiculous he suggested, that “25-year-olds (were) getting million-dollar bonuses, (and) they were willing to pay $100 for a steak dinner and the waiter was getting the kinds of tips that would make a college professor envious.”
He warned that by the time he was done with them, Silicon Valley and Wall Street would remain large parts of the US economy, but not “half of our economy”.
Now here we have a prime example of Obama’s flight from reality. He thinks there’s something wrong with his barely-out-of-college supporters “getting million dollar bonuses” and paying “$100 for a steak dinner” — and that the waiter is getting a big tip as well?
There can be no clearer indication that the Play-Doh Prez has no idea of the “real world”. The One who speaks of arugula on the campaign trail in Iowa and eats Wagu beef at endless White House events is so out of touch with the “real world” it renders one speechless. And the fact that he begrudges a waiter receiving a big tip just makes you shake your head in disbelief.
Yes. Obama is a “class warrior” — but for which class?
Who’d a thunk it? Pitchfork-toting billionaires! Even better, Obama bundling billionaires with platinum-plated pitchforks aimed at the One.
“How can this be?”, you ask. Simple: Employee Free Choice Act — card check — card-carrying union workers vs non-union workers.
But is it really true? Is a billionaire-class “pitchfork” army bearing down on Barackistan HQ?
Maybe. Maybe not.
John Lippert and Holly Rosenkrantz of Bloomberg News reported May 7:
Three Chicago billionaires who helped fund President Barack Obama’s election campaign are fighting legislation he backs that would make it easier for unions to organize hotels they own.
Penny Pritzker, Obama’s campaign finance chairwoman and a director of Global Hyatt Corp., has told the president she is opposed to the measure, known as card check, said a person familiar with the situation. Neil Bluhm, a partner in Walton Street Capital LLC, also opposes the bill, the person said. Lester Crown, chairman of Henry Crown & Co., criticized the proposal in an interview.
For the city’s business leaders who nurtured Obama’s White House bid, card check is a gut check on support for their hometown president. Labor, which spent $100 million on Democratic campaigns last year, made it a top priority to enact a bill giving workers bargaining rights based on signing cards instead of winning a secret-ballot election.
The Money
Lippert and Rosenkrantz also reported for Bloomberg:
Crown: Who “gave Obama [the legally allowed] total of $4,600 in 2007 and 2008″?
Voting privately is “an American prerogative and shouldn’t be overturned. The recommended legislation is absolutely the wrong thing to do.”
Pritzker — Who “ran committees that generated a record of more than $745 million for the Obama campaign plus $53 million for the inauguration”?
: : crickets : :
Bluhm: Who “raised $160,000 in 2008 as a so-called bundler for Obama, pooling donations from other contributors”?
: : crickets : :
But what’s missing from Lippert and Rosenkrantz’s interviews are the real Henry H. Crown & Company / Crown family mega fund-raisers: James S. Crown, the company’s president, and his wife, Paula H. Crown, who are both documented Obama bundlers and “Mega Donors”.
Husband and wife bundlers, Jim Crown and Paula H. Crown, committed to raise a minimum of $500,001 and achieved “Mega Donor” status with an additional $28,500 to committees supporting Barack Obama. Plus, each contributed $5000 towards Obama’s transition.
It is quite possible that the big bucks contributed by Lester Crown found their way into his son’s and daughter-in-law’s “bundle”, thereby escaping identification.
Penny Pritzker ($5000, 02/15/05) and James S. ($5000, 02/18/05) and Paula H. Crown ($5000, 02/18/05) each contributed towards Obama’s Hopefund Inc. political action committee. Another list of Pritzker’s earlier campaign contributions can be viewed here.
The Pritzker Connections
Penny Pritzker’s silence can be interrupted as a wise move. Most recently Pritzker’s name came up in connection with release of the list of grand jury subpoenas issued in the DoJ case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. One of the four names released was J.B. Pritzker, the brother of Penny Pritzker.
A few weeks earlier, on February 7, Penny Pritzker’s name was among those of corporate lackeys disguised as public servants to work as Barackistan HQ economic advisers.
RBO wrote:
Then we come to the Unprez’s latest addition to his economic advisory bag of tricks, the newly-minted President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB) which includes top top-ranking union officials and Penny Pritzker, long-time Obama supporter and campaign finance bundler, whose “past business dealings” were sufficient cause for her to remove herself from consideration for Secretary of Commerce but apparently insufficient to disqualify her as an “economic recovery” adviser to the Unprez.
The day before, on February 6, RBO wrote that POTUS’s economic recovery advisers included two top union officials and a failed subprime lender, namely Penny Pritzker.
Did we mention Penny Pritzker had served as PrezCanO’s National Finance Chair?
And that reference to Pritzker removing herself from consideration for Secretary of Commerce? That was back in November 2008. (Uppity Woman has more on this here.)
RBO wrote:
Mike Allen at The Politico reports:
Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, national campaign finance chairwoman for the Obama campaign, has taken herself out of the running to be secretary of Commerce, a Democratic official said.
“She fears problems with her confirmation based on past business dealings,” the official said. [...]
Officials said she was not vetted.
RBO: Well there’s a surprise! Not!
[...]
For those who do not know, “billionaire business mogul” Penny Pritzker was named in January 2007 as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)’s national finance chairman. She was also on the finance committee for Obama’s 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate. In August 2001, Penny, Thomas, and Nicholas Pritzker were described as “struggling with a complicated legacy”—”a vast real estate and Hyatt hotel empire”—left to them by its founder, Jay Pritzker, the New York Times reported. In 2005, Forbes counted Penny Pritzer among The 100 Most Powerful Women, as well as a member of the Forbes 400.
But then we come to the “failed subprime lender” subject, which RBO wrote about here in some detail — including a small write up on the Obama subprime plan.
Let’s just say that The Nation’s Max Fraser wrote January 28, 2008:
When asked if Obama would hold these financial institutions accountable for losses incurred by homeowners and investors, his campaign refused to comment.
The Crown Connections
As always, all is not what it seems. Lester Crown’s expressed dissatisfaction may well be all smoke and mirrors. Witness Crown’s comment to Bloomberg’s Lippert and Rosenkrantz about Obama:
“I think the world of him. This doesn’t have anything to do with other relationships.”
What might those “other relationships” be?
Lester Crown’s name first came up last February at RBO’s parent blog, RezkoWatch, in an article about Obama contributor Talat M. Othman. At the time, Othman was president of the Arab-American Business & Professional Association in Chicago, a “non-profit, cooperative, voluntary-joined organization of business and professional Arab-Americans, organized to assist its members in dealing with mutual business and professional concerns.”
In December 2007, the conservative Daniel Pipes wrote the American Task Force on Palestine had “announced the formation of the ‘Public Private Partnership to Benefit the Palestinian People,’ with Lester Crown as one of the co-chairs.” ATFP president was Ziad Asali and Talat Othman was the organization’s secretary treasurer. Othman was also president of the founding committee of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC).
Pipes wrote:
Talat Othman’s connection to the project and his work with the CIOGC and other organizations is further proof of the ATFP’s odious ties. His participation at any level will ensure that the project, regardless of it being called a “peace venture,” will benefit terrorist enterprises.
It is particularly troubling to note that Othman’s efforts are apparently unknowingly being aided and abetted by wealthy philanthropists in the Chicago area, people like Lester Crown and the heads of the religious organizations who also sit on the Advisory board of Chicago’s Catholic teaching institution, the Bernardin Center.
The American Task Force on Palestine and Talat Othman have documented ties to the Saudi Wahhabists and the Islamic Association of Palestine which is Hamas. We therefore urge Lester Crown to sever his relationship with this group at once and terminate his involvement in any projects which are connected to ATFP’s and Othman’s taint.
Next, on July 7, 2008, RBO reported that one of Obama’s early political backers, Lester Crown, a board member at Northern Trust, may have been involved in helping Obama in 2005 to get his $1.32 million loan for his Hyde Park faux Georgian mansion.
Lester Crown appeared again on RBO’s radar November 7, 2008, a few days after the general election, in an article about the possibility Obama would grow the defense industry, or at least the General Dynamics-related sector.
RBO reported:
James S. Crown and his wife Paula are members of Obama’s National Finance Committee. James Crown, Obama’s Illinois finance chairman, serves on General Dynamics board of directors and his family holds a sizable stake in the company. Eric Ames wrote September 17, 2008, at The Next Right:
But Senator Obama’s ties to the Crowns run deeper than one corporate earmark. Paula and Lester Crown are also both directors of the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, an organization for which Senator Obama has requested a total of $7 million in earmarks since 2006. The first was a request for $4 million in 2006 to fund the Children’s Memorial Medical Center’s Electronic Medical Record Project, and the second was a request for $3 million in 2008 to build an intensive care unit. All told, one third of the directors at CMH, including the Crowns, have donated $95,124 to Barack Obama’s senate campaign, and $119,137 to his presidential campaign. These include Director Vicki Heyman, who along with her husband is a prominent Democratic fundraiser and bundler for the Obama campaign. In total, bundlers on the CMH board and their relatives, the Crowns included, have raised and pledged a total of at least $1.15 million for Obama for America. To top it all off, James Crown and his wife Paula are both bundlers for the presidential campaign, and are members of his National Finance Committee. James Crown was also on Barack Obama’s 2004 campaign finance committee, and is currently co-chair of his Illinois finance committee.
More on the Crowns here.
Oh, and Nicholas Chabraja, General Dynamics CEO? He is also on the board of directors at Northern Trust, the lender who hides Obama’s land trust behind the privacy firewall afforded to millionaires, billionaires and presidents-in-waiting. Chabraja is also with Jenner and Block’s Washington, D.C. office.
Just as added interest – General Dynamics is one of largest defense contractors in the world and Mr. Chabraja’s salary in 2006 was just over $32 million and a Democrat. And of course General Dynamics and Jenner and Block are connected to government and judges and courts right up to their eyeballs. Guess the democrats are too against wars – surely Obama will cut the Pentagon budget.
Chabraja is a long-term Democratic contributor although he did not give directly to Obama’s campaign. Members of Jenner and Block contributed almost $60,000 to Obama’s 2004 senatorial race and contributed nearly $120,000 to Obama’s presidential campaign.
Not-so-coincidentally, Jenner and Block lists General Dynamics among its clients and recently represented GD’s NASSCO shipbuilding division in a lawsuit.
Thomas J. Perrelli of Jenner and Block, has been a federal lobbyist and is another Obama mega bundler. He also just so happens to have been managing editor of the Harvard Law Review while Obama was there.
More? you ask. Well, among his many connections, Thomas Ayers, father of unrepentant Communist terrorist Billy Ayers, was on the board of General Dynamics. It’s also reported that GD has lots and lots of Chicago connectons, including Chicago education, which, an RBO tipster pointed out, is probably how Billy got to be in on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
Finally, on December 5, 2008, RBO wrote about Obama’s Exelon connections — and a link with Rahm Emanuel and Lester Crown.
RBO wrote:
From the December 4, 2008, New York Times we now learn that Obama’s Chief-of-Staff-in-Waiting Rahm Emanual has some Exelon ties of his own while working 1998-2002 for “investment banking boutique Wasserstein Perella & Company” and Bruce Wasserstein, “a major Democratic donor and renowned Wall Street dealmaker”:
Mr. Emanuel’s biggest transaction came in late 1999 when he landed an advisory role for Wasserstein in the $8.2 billion merger of two utility companies, Unicom, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison, and Peco Energy, to create Exelon, now one of the nation’s largest power companies.
John W. Rowe [another Obama bundler], the former chief executive of Unicom who now holds the same position at Exelon, sought out Mr. Emanuel after he went to Wasserstein. Mr. Rowe said he believed Mr. Emanuel would offer a different dimension, providing wisdom on what might pass muster at the governmental level.
“You can’t understand utility transactions without thinking about whether they’ll play or not play in legal and political circles,” said Mr. Rowe, who was first introduced to Mr. Emanuel by Lester Crown, the billionaire scion of Chicago’s influential Crown family.
The Neil Bluhm Connection
Self-made real estate mogul and multi-billionaire, Neil G. Bluhm, did not personally respond for the Bloomberg article. As Forbes reported in October 2006, Bluhm was developing a Niagara Falls casino with the Pritzker family. Forbes also reported in that 2006 mini-profile that Bluhm controlled the Four Seasons hotels in Chicago and had backed Obama’s successful run in 2004 for the U.S. Senate.
File this under the “there are no coincidences” category:
Regular RBO readers will recognize the Four Seasons Hotel through its association with political fixer and convicted felon, Tony Rezko, Obama’s political patron — and personal real estate fairy — who hosted a reception there in April 2004 in honor of Iraqi-British billionaire businessman Nadhmi Auchi. (See RBO’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? for full details.)
WaPo’s Matthew Mosk and Alec MacGillis wrote April 11, 2008:
Several on Obama’s list at least appear to have interests in conflict with his platform. There is the billionaire casino developer [Bluhm] who plans to put a slot parlor in Philadelphia; Obama has decried gambling for its steep “moral and social cost.” [...]
The Chicago finance elite has been a major hub of Obama’s fundraising, led by Pritzker. Another major figure is billionaire Neil G. Bluhm, a hotel and office building developer. But Bluhm has posed a symbolic problem for Obama in Pennsylvania, site of an April 22 primary, because his latest endeavor is a push to open a controversial casino along the Philadelphia waterfront.
Bluhm’s path crossed Obama’s in 2003, when Bluhm pursued a gaming license for a Chicago riverboat. That June, he gave the first $1,000 of what would become more than $78,000 in contributions from him and his family.
In 2006, Pennsylvania awarded Bluhm one of two coveted Philadelphia gambling licenses. Last year, his partners in the project, called SugarHouse, made $2,300 donations to Obama, including nearly $50,000 from the Philadelphia law firm Cozen O’Connor, which represents him in the deal.
Bluhm said that the gaming project “has got nothing to do with” his support for Obama and that the two have never discussed it. “My interest in him is, I think he’s inspirational, I think he will enormously improve our economy and our relations with other countries,” he said.
The Obama-Bluhm connection startled members of Philadelphia’s anti-casino groups who knew that the senator had resisted efforts to legalize gambling. It was “really surprising to find [Bluhm] in Obama’s corner,” said Debbie King, who helped start Mothers Against SugarHouse.
The possible implications for what the legislation could mean for Bluhm goes far beyond just his Philadelpia casinos. Mark Belko’s July 13, 2008, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article clearly illustrates how Bluhm’s business investments have a lot at stake in the anti-card check column:
Chicago billionaire Neil Bluhm amassed his fortune by wheeling and dealing for hotels, resorts, malls and shopping centers. But lately he has developed a growing infatuation with another type of real estate — casinos.
For much of the last decade, Mr. Bluhm has been steadily building his gambling holdings, from management of two Niagara Falls casinos to development of the Riverwalk casino and hotel scheduled to open in Vicksburg, Miss., in October.
And if a proposed deal with Don Barden is completed and approved by the state gaming control board, Mr. Bluhm will have a stake in casinos in Pennsylvania’s two largest cities, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. [...]
Mr. Weinert said Mr. Bluhm is a “bit of an unknown” in the gambling industry because of his relatively small holdings. But Gregg Klein, high yield analyst for BNP Paribas Group, said that shouldn’t be a detriment, adding Mr. Bluhm has a “very impressive track record” as a businessman.
“If he gets the go-ahead in Pittsburgh, he will finish the job and do it well,” he said. “For the actual project, this is a big positive for getting a casino open in Pittsburgh.” [Bluhm got go ahead in November 2008.]
In Niagara Falls, Mr. Bluhm co-founded and chairs Falls Management Co., which operates the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara on behalf of the government.
The company also designed and built the Fallsview resort, which includes a 200,000 square-foot casino with 3,000 slot machines and 150 table games, a 30-story, 368-room luxury hotel with views of Niagara Falls, a 1,500-seat performing arts center, retail shops, restaurants, spa and a 3,000-space parking garage. [...]
The $720 million SugarHouse Casino on the Delaware River would feature 3,000 slot machines, bars and lounges, and parking for 3,000 cars. Mr. Bluhm also has an interest in competing for a tenth Illinois casino license that recently became available after protracted litigation. He even has a site selected in Des Plaines. [Bluhm got go ahead in December 2008.]
In fact, it was on May 6 that Jennifer Lin at the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board “voted unanimously to give the SugarHouse Casino an extension on its license and to approve its modified design.”
While acknowledging a “very, very difficult” lending environment, the head of the SugarHouse Casino project told state gaming regulators earlier today he is “confident” the partnership could borrow the $150 million it needs to start construction of a riverfront slots parlor in Fishtown/Northern Liberties.
Chicago gaming billionaire Neil Bluhm testified before the gaming control board, which then granted the project an extension of its slots license.
SugarHouse, one of two slots parlors planned for Philadelphia, was supposed to have 1,500 slot machines operating by now. But in the past year, the project has faced political opposition and delays in the getting permits.
“We believe we can get financing for this project,” Bluhm said. He said the partnership is “talking to several banks” but needs board approval before it “can finalize financing.”
SugarHouse has modified its design, which now includes an interim casino, surrounded by surface parking and a more natural waterfront. The developers, however, have eliminated a promenade over the Delaware River.
Bluhm said the new design could allow the project to proceed more quickly. He said the interim casino with 1,700 slot machines could be operating by the second quarter of next year.
Bluhm said the interim project will cost $310 million. The partners, he said, have already put in $160 million of their own money, requiring another $150 million in loans. Of that sum, he said the casino project should be able to get $30 million in lending from slot equipment suppliers, with the remaining $130 million coming from banks or other lenders.
After the interim facility is constructed, SugarHouse will add a 10-story garage. Bluhm said the project will be able to finance that through the cash flow generated by the casino.
That could add up to a whole bunch of unionized (aka union-controlled) vs non-unionized casino workers.
Bottom Line
So. Will Pritzker, Crown and Bluhm succeed in leveraging their clout and manage to turn Obama against card check and the EFCA? Or will Obama stand by the union bigwigs, to whom he owes so much, and remain firmly in support of the bill?
Nearly a year ago, back in June 2008, New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks described Obama thusly:
But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.
This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.
But he’s been giving us an education, for anybody who cares to pay attention. Just try to imagine Mister Rogers playing the agent Ari in “Entourage” and it all falls into place.
An interesting “pitchfork” army scenario presents itself — the Billionaires vs the Union Bosses. How will the Split-Personality President fanagle his way out of this dilemma?
James Morrow of the United States Study Centre in Sydney, Australia, on April 8, called Barack Obama The Pitchfork President.
For a truly chilling account of how this all works behind the scenes, check out this account of the president putting the hard word on bankers, telling them that his administration “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”
Never mind that it was Obama himself who did so much to encourage the pitchforks; for Democrats, it seems that the fact that their guy is in the White House and sticking it to their enemies is enough.
FYI — Sublog at Ace of Spades HQ commented April 3:
So let me see if I’ve got this right. The Democrats helped cause the crisis through bad policy, fanned the flames of outrage against CEOs and Wall Street and are now saying they’re the only ones who can protect the CEOs from all of those angry people out there. All the CEOs have to do is whatever Obama wants.
That’s a pretty sweet little operation Obama’s got going.
FYI — Ed Morrissey at Hot Air advised April 3:
Alinsky + Chicago = mob-tastic! My dad used to know guys like this growing up in lower Manhattan. Free advice from him to me to you: If you’re strapped for cash and one of them offers to help, decline.
But it’s Oleg Atbashian (the Ukranian blogger who created The People’s Cube) at Pajamas Media, however, who explained what the One meant by the “pitchforks”. It is most likely NOT what you have thought.
“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks,” Barack Obama told the CEOs of the world’s most powerful financial institutions on March 27, when they cited competition for talent in an international market as justification for paying higher salaries to their employees.
Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room, the bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president, but he wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He interrupted them by saying, “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”
To get the full flavor of the president’s implication we must remember that in Obama’s code language, the word “pitchforks” means “a vigorous campaign of threats and intimidation perpetrated by Obama-sponsored ACORN and union activists in conjunction with theatrical outrage from government officials, amplified by the complicit media, and coordinated from one political center, which has now moved to the White House.”
Accordingly, the words “public” and “the people” denote “an appearance of broad popular movement created by a small but highly organized band of professional pitchfork operators (ACORN) who rely on the government funding and the media’s eagerness to present their deliberately planned actions and pre-fabricated messages as heartfelt and spontaneous.”
In compliance with Orwellian logic, Obama’s “Newspeak” not only redefines existing meanings, it also abolishes ranges of “Oldspeak” meanings such as property, markets, competition, capitalism, political opposition, and the rule of law. The latter is perhaps the most important ingredient missing in his new “pitchfork” formula, signaling that law is now being replaced with mob rule.
In a balanced society, an angry mob is never a part of the equation. But if the goal is to throw a capitalist society off balance in order to change it, an angry mob is the ticket. Anger is known to be the easiest and the most effective tool of crowd manipulation. Angry mobs cancel out the rule of law. Infusing anger into a community and turning it into an angry mob, canceling out the rule of law, and changing the balance in a society — this is what community organizers do for a living.
It was often pointed out during the election that Obama lacked management experience. While having a president with no experience is bad, it’s not nearly as bad as having a president with experience as a community organizer.
Oh, how things have changed from the days on the campaign trail. Hence we have the delusional Mark Schmitt who wrote October 20, 2008, at The American Prospect, an arm of the Soros-backed Center for American Progress, in Populism Without Pitchforks. Obama’s inclusive, quiet tone has given liberals a new language of ethics:
Obama doesn’t just turn the volume down, he all but strips populism of its oppositional qualities. Sometimes he does so explicitly: “We will all need to sacrifice and we will all need to pull our weight because now more than ever, we are all in this together … there is no real separation between Main Street and Wall Street.” At other times, it’s implicit: “We are not a country where a young woman I met should have to work the night shift after a full day of college and still not be able to pay the medical bills for her sister who’s ill. That’s not right — and it’s not who we are.”
There are no pitchforks in this populism. No “self-serving and undemocratic” elites. They’re just part of the same America. And yet, there is, in both the language and policies, a deep and profound commitment to “ordinary Americans,” to their security and their chance to get ahead. And while the attack on Wall Street is muted, the sense that it has obligations beyond short-term profits is loud.
At PA’s sister blog you can read the RBO Rant Have you bought ‘Brand Obama’? You’ve been ‘perception manipulated’! WAKE UP!
You see, another aspect of the One’s “pitchfork” army is perception manipulation. It serves him as well now as it did throughout the presidential primary and general election campaigns. And, taking into account Atbashian’s spot-on assessment, it is surely a technique that has served him well throughout his life.
It is doubtful that the bankers had a clue to the Unprez’s meaning back in March. It is just as likely the takeaway was the same as that perceived by the public in general. They, and the Obamacon media, of course, who continue to push the “get out the pitchforks” meme, would be wrong.
Prime example is Christopher Buckley, who wrote April 2 at Forbes:
There is outrage in the land. If you are a) an AIG employee, b) a banker, c) a capitalist, look out your window. See all those shiny metallic things glinting in the sunlight? Those are tines of a thousand pitchforks. Call it “a thousand points of spite.” Now you know what it felt like to be Dr. Frankenstein.
Buckley cites Colbert Nation’s Stephen Colbert, who also gets it wrong. You can watch the segment below.
As the excellent Stephen Colbert put it recently: “What’s to be done when companies that received major bailouts from taxpayers turn around and brazenly offer beaucoup bucks to the executives who helped put us in the hole in the first place? Here are a couple suggestions by way of an answer: Pitchforks! Angry mobs!”
These angry mobs would be the ACORN-led ones. No sooner was Dear Leader in office than organized ACORN mobs began to interfere with foreclosures nationwide. As Michelle Malkin wrote February 18 about “the massive mortgage entitlement campaign launched by President Obama today — and the concurrent, anti-foreclosure bullying campaign launched by ACORN.”
Even earlier, on February 11, Jennifer Millman headlined at NBC New York with Grab Your Torch ‘n Pitchforks! At-risk homeowners storm mansions of mortgage CEOs:
Hundreds of people trying to save their homes from foreclosure flocked to Connecticut’s wealthy Gold Coast this weekend to give financial kingpins a piece of their mind. [...]
Homeowners are fed up – and many are frustrated that those who lead the companies that gave them their subprime mortgages live in luxury while they struggle so hard to meet their loan payments and not fall behind.
This protest was not a staged ACORN event. These were ordinary citizens, fed up with the way they could already see things were headed — another “pitchfork” army in the making.
You must admit, there does seem to be a theme here. His Obamaness did warn the bankers back in March. And, as Oleg Atbashian wrote, the “pitchforks” the One referred to were his taxpayer-funded ACORN-thugs. It was not, as many have thought, the American public at large or even the voters (aka the ‘regular guy’ “pitchfork” army).
To all accounts, this could well come down to a battle of the “pitchforks”. On February 11 the Obama administration had barely occupied the West Wing Barackistan HQ for three weeks and already the natives were restless in Connecticut. A week later the ACORN hords launched an all-out campaign to interfere with due process.
Almost simultaneously, on February 16, the first protest to Porkulus originated in Seattle; and the newly-minted One was confronted the following day, February 17, at an Anti-”Crap Sandwich” Protest in Denver, with the movement following him to Mesa, Arizona, the next day. The TEA Party Movement (Taxed Enough Already, in case you did not know what it meant) was born, with the first national blowout event on Tax Day, April 15, attended by hundreds of thousands. The next national event is slated for July 4th, with TEA Parties and protests gathering steam; and a mass gathering is scheduled for September 12 in Washington, D.C. Check for updates here.
But of course there’s more. The Pitchfork-In-Chief (PIC — oh, yes, we like this name; so fitting) has stuck his own long-handled fork into the proverbial haystack. (Once a “pitchfork”-carrying community organizer, always … etc.)
Evan Coyne Maloney wrote April 4 in White House Picks Up the Pitchforks Against “the Speculators” at Brain Terminal:
New York Post columnist Irwin M. Stelzer notes that President Obama “said last week that he’d override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler’s senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers.”
Maloney also reminds us of PIC’s threat to Perella Weinberg over Chrysler:
One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.
Anyone exhibiting shock that the Obamacon media would be complicit in such an act is kidding him- or herself. Let’s just call them the “pitchfork” media. It’s so, so … befitting.
Nicholas von Hoffman, in his April 14 article at The Nation, directs our attention at another “pitchfork” target — “Obama’s Wall Street Rat Pack”:
“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks,” President Obama told the CEOs of the biggest banks when he took them to the woodshed recently. As public anger builds against the Goldman Sachs rat pack he has welcomed into the White House, the president might also reflect on his own popularity being the only thing standing between the pitchforks and some of his most prominent appointees.
The focus of public displeasure seems to swing between Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council. This is the same Summers who was run out of the presidency of Harvard University by pitchfork-wielding academics. [...]
These people–of whom Summers is the most conspicuous–are by intellectual background, institutional associations and track record, in government or in the private sector, the last on earth to be making policy in the White House. They are the epitome of the status quo ante, the architects and apologists of Wall Street and the money monopoly system that brought us to the edge of disaster.
Lastly, let’s return to PIC’s comment to the bankers back in March. Erick Florack enlightens us further in his April 10 Pajamas Media article, Just who is protecting whom from the pitchforks? (assuming his interpretation is the correct one, of course):
America’s bankers lack backbone.
Maybe I’m being unfair to the current crop of bankers. After all, the problem has always existed. It’s just that it has come to a head recently because we have a political power structure in place that clearly plans to take advantage of that perceived weakness. [...]
So it was recently when we saw a Democratic president of the United States suggesting that his administration was the only thing standing between the bankers and the pitchforks.
To anyone who has been watching the events unfolding recently and understands the causes of those happenings, the statement of the president was absurd on its face. The issue, of course, is that most people today really don’t have much of a grasp of economics. [...] So along comes President Obama trying to push the image of the bankers being the problem. And of course his supporters, who know little to nothing about economic matters, nod in unison like so many bobblehead dolls glued to the dashboard.
But it’s not true.
Very seldom do economic crises occur without government being at or near the root of the problem. So it is with this crisis.
This is not a failure of regulation of any kind, particularly of banking. Nor is it a failure of free markets. Rather, it’s a failure of over-regulation and a lack of free markets. In short, it’s a failure of government. Governmental interference in the market requiried bankers, for example, to make loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — government-created entities — helped to create this artificial boom, and government also caused the bust by way of serious mismanagement. [...]
Obama’s efforts at solving the financial crisis are less than successful because you can’t use government to solve a problem created by government. [...]
Clearly, it is in the political interests of the Democrats to make us forget it was government, and not the bankers or anyone else, who created this problem. This effort would doubtless be aided by the perception on the part of the voters that Obama’s not the problem but the solution, which was part of the president’s message in that “pitchfork” line. [...]
But imagine what would have happened if one or more of the bankers in that meeting with Mr. Obama had had the courage to stand up and remind him of the facts:
“No, Mr. President. The only thing between the Democrats and the pitchforks is us, the bankers, and that’s the way it always has been. You Democrats used us to buy votes with home loans, requiring us to lend money to people who could not pay it back. You left us holding the bag, Mr. President — you and the rest of the Democrats then in Congress. And you need our cooperation to save your political hide from the people with the pitchforks.”
In his latter statement Florack is correct. The people with the “pitchforks” are not only ACORN; they are also the pissed-off homeowners in Connecticut and elsewhere around our fair land; and they are filling the ranks of the TEA Partiers, a movement yet in its infancy. And if Florack’s belief is shared by some of those bankers, just some of them who may manage to grow a backbone to survive, then we have another “pitchfork” cadre on its way.
Yet to be determined are how many will join the “pitchfork” brigades as the US economy continues to slide come the first announcements of tax increases in 2009 ($1 Trillion in New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011, but it can’t/won’t wait that long), added to the rushing tide of unemployment; reductions (or disappearance) of unemployment benefits (in spite of Porkulus extending benefits from 14 to 20 weeks and the first $2400 collected being tax free); revamping and disappearance of social security benefits (and/or additional deductions therefrom) — and, by the way, cost-of-living benefits for 2010 are not likely to increase, and perhaps the same for 2011, while the actual costs of daily life continue to rise — and there is allegedly a “major strain” on the SS Trust Fund; and the creeping nationalization of health care and the extinction of private health insurance via a single-payer system — just for starters.
Where does that leave the Pitchfork-In-Chief?
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