Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (12572)	8/2/2007 8:29:37 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224729

DEMOCRAT VOTER FRAUD>>Editorial from Seattle: >ACORN's record: clean up or shut down The ACORN case — what Secretary of State Sam Reed called "the largest case of voter-registration fraud in the state's history" — has resulted in a settlement that looks at first like a slap on the hand. It is more than that when the details are examined. ACORN has done things similar in other states, and it needs to be cleaned up or shut down. ACORN is an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that promotes left-wing causes. Its aim clearly is to change the outcome of elections. The effort here, apparently, was lower and sleazier than that: A group of employees tried to keep their $8-an-hour jobs without doing the work. Their task was to go into the community, find eligible citizens and help them fill out voter-registration cards. What they actually did was go to the library, or sit at home, and fill out hundreds of voter-registration cards with names like Tom Tancredo, Dennis Hastert, Fruito Boy Crispila and Leon Spinks, usually giving the addresses of homeless shelters. All this was supposed to fool elections workers. It didn't. The registrations were accepted for a while. Officials watched to see if anyone voted claiming to be Fruito Boy or his friends. No one did. If anyone had, it would have been an effort to corrupt an election. Still, the mass filing of fake registrations could be a first step in corrupting an election. The King County Canvassing Board has invalidated 1,762 ACORN registrations, and another 55 have been tagged in Pierce County. Felony charges have been filed against seven persons, some of whom have criminal records and two of whom are in jail for other things. Some of them, says King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, "are people you wouldn't want to hire to mow your lawn." To avoid prosecution, ACORN has agreed to pay $25,000. It has agreed to train paid canvassers to state specifications and sign every registration they turn in, to have a paid supervisor responsible for their conduct, and to notify county prosecutors when they're coming. All this puts ACORN under a public microscope — which, as its conduct shows, is where it belongs.<<

To: sandintoes who wrote (12572)	8/2/2007 9:29:18 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224729

Wall St Pays Protection Money to Hypocrite Dems: >Democrats: We hate the rich, We love the rich Fortune's Nina Easton examines a tough balancing act for the Democrats. Fortune Washington bureau chief August 2 2007: 2:25 PM EDT WASHINGTON (Fortune) -- More and more Wall Streeters - especially those new-money hedge fund and private equity managers with net worths stretching toward and beyond the billion-dollar mark - are throwing their considerable moneyed weight behind Democratic candidates. So far, presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have managed to charm these masters of Manhattan with their policy smarts and scent of potential victory, even while decrying the country's "highest concentration of wealth...since 1929," as Clinton puts it. Candidates can get away with tailoring their messages for different audiences on the campaign trail. But on Capitol Hill, choices have to be made, and votes cast. That's why the legislative brawl over taxing hedge and private equity funds is one to watch. Don't let technical jargon like "tax treatment of carried interest" scare you: The question of whether fund managers' compensation should be taxed at a 15-percent capital gains rate or 35-percent income tax rate has left the glass offices of clever tax attorneys and entered the swirl of presidential politics, where it provides a vivid stand-in for America's conflicted emotions about brazenly wealthy people. In another era, this might be a slam dunk for populist-minded Democrats: A new class of billionaires doesn't pay the same tax rates as ordinary Americans, leaving tens of millions of dollars more in their pockets to spend on private helicopters and ivy-clad boarding schools and Nantucket summer homes. What better example of Republicans favoring the rich? But wait: These new Greenwich/Manhattan billionaires happen to be donors, friends, and constituents of Democrats--not Republicans. What's a presidential candidate to do? For John Edwards, the left-leaning Southerner whose ties to this world pretty much start and end at the firm that once employed him, Fortress Investments, the answer was easy: Raise their taxes. Obama, a far more popular figure on Wall Street, quickly followed suit, leaving both men in good stead with liberal-leaning, populist-minded Democratic primary voters. The question was stickier for Clinton, who has a much longer history of cultivating Wall Street, first as New York's junior senator, later as a presidential candidate. Clinton spent several weeks "evaluating" a Senate bill to double hedge fund taxes, before deciding to end this "glaring inequity." She added: "It offends our values as a nation when an investment manager making $50 million can pay a lower tax rate on her earned income than a teacher making $50,000 pays on her income." So the top Democratic presidential contenders are now in sync. But on Capitol Hill, the Democratic Party saga continues. And on a hot summer morning, just before Congress broke for its August recess, the party's conflicted feelings towards its wealthy new friends played out neatly inside the same Senate office building, just three floors apart. A political odd couple tackles Social Security On floor 2, Democrat Max Baucus opened his Senate Finance Committee hearing with a melodramatic rendering from the New Testament. "The Apostle Paul wrote of this world: 'Now we see through a glass, darkly.' We could say [as] much about the world of hedge funds and private equity. The world of hedge funds and private equity is opaque." Especially for a senator from Helena, Montana. Together with the self-described "farmer from Butler County" - Iowa Republican Charles Grassley - Baucus is behind the push to double taxes on hedge funds. On Floor 5, though, Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd, '08 presidential candidate and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, was playing a starkly different tune, praising hedge funds for performing a "very, very important and valuable role in the capital markets." His state, of course, is home to scores of hedge funds and some of his biggest campaign backers are employed by Steven Cohen's SAC Capital Partners and others. Dodd was careful to say he hasn't taken a position "one way or another" on the tax hike proposal. But he could barely conceal his annoyance at the mischief underway in that "other committee" three floors below. Dodd said he worried that a tax increase could have "potential adverse effects on capital formation, on job creation, and on institutional investors like pension funds and college endowments." Dodd was joined on the dais by New York Senator Charles Schumer, who routinely trolls Wall Street donors for party candidates in his role as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Keeping the Democrats in control of the Senate in '08 also means keeping big donors happy. Schumer, also a member of Baucus' finance committee, piped in with his own concerns about singling out hedge funds for the higher tax rate. "I want to see New York stay a financial center," he said. "The increase in financial service jobs in London exceeds the increase in financial service jobs in New York." In the end, the powerful Dodd-Schumer duo could put the kibosh on the tax increase proposal, giving the party the best of both worlds, at least for now: Democratic presidential candidates who continue to issue populist appeals to tax the rich, and a Democratic Congress that leaves its new friends alone.<