When THC saw this his first thought was "
surely you must be joking" to which Mrs THC responded "
no, and stop calling me Shirley!". And, in fact, Shirley was not joking:
From the
New York Post on October 8:
President Obama blasted Republicans as the party of “billionaires” on Tuesday while
mingling with high-rollers at the $26 million estate of Rich Richman —
yes, that’s his real name — in Greenwich, Conn.
Richman, who built his $10 billion company developing rental housing,
lives in the Conyers Farm area, where the minimum lot size is 10 acres.
Twenty-five donors paid $32,400 each to get their photo taken with the
president. Others paid $10,000 for dinner.
“If Republicans win, we know who they’ll be fighting for,” Obama
said. “Once again, the interests of billionaires will come before the
needs of the middle class.”
Obama arrived from New York City — where he had attended a fundraiser with hedge-fund billionaires George Soros and Paul Tudor Jones — in a convoy of four helicopters that landed at the Greenwich Polo Club.
Wait a minute, is that the same George Soros who's spent millions in dark money funding progressive organizations and who testified to Congress in support of Dodd-Frank touting the importance of "transparency" in the financial sector and then when the bill (for more on that travesty see
Surely You Must Be Joking) was enacted promptly took his hedge fund private where it would not be subject to the Dodd-Frank disclosure requirements?
Is my memory failing me or wasn't it billionaire
Tom Steyer who was able to rent the United States Senate for a $100 million contribution to the Democratic Party in return for which Harry Reid conducted a special session on global warming?
And wasn't that dinner taking place in the Congressional District of
Jim Himes (D-Goldman Sachs) who after making his big stash at Goldman decided to become a Congressman as a tax shelter move and so he could spend other people's money while protecting his own?
And all of this from a President who had the support of most of Goldman's political contributions in 2008 (as well as that of its former co-chairman
Jon Corzine, who more recently managed to
misplace $1.4 billion of his investors money - if you don't remember the details read
Did You See The NY TImes Frontpage Story On Jon Corzine) along with that of
Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers the collapse of which triggered the financial panic and of Citigroup which routinely funnels millions to Democratic hacks replenishing their bank accounts in between "
public service" stints (see, for instance,
Jack Lew, current Treasury Secretary and
Peter Orszag, former Director of OMB).
So we're supposed to believe that the
Koch Brothers, those terrible, horrible no-good fascist right-wing extremist supporters of abortion rights, same-sex marriage, drug decriminalization and reduced defense budgets are the new
Public Enemy Number One?
Since 2008 we've gone from
The Audacity Of Hope to
The Audacity of B.S.
In retrospect the much-maligned 1988 presidential candidate
Michael Dukakis may have had a good point when he observed "
the fish rots from the head".
