Another Indicted Republican…Or Something Else?
An avid reader contributed this story:
Remember David Stockman, Reagan’s Director of OMB? He is under indictment for securities fraud, for allegedly talking up his auto-parts company and misrepresenting its financial position just before it went bankrupt.
Is this indictment an example of strict policing of the securities markets? or is it revenge best eaten cold, and a shot across the bow to would-be Republican whistleblowers?
Stockman was tasked with cutting spending during the first Reagan administration. He is the guy responsible for “ketchup is a vegetable.” The thing about Stockman is that he REALLY MEANT IT about spending cuts. So when Reagan’s keepers informed Stockman the biggest budget items were off limits (defense, military pensions, Social Security, etc.), Stockman got pissed, and he blew the whistle – loud. Stockman embarrassed the Reagan administration first with a candid-till-it-hurts interview with William Greider, published in the Atlantic Monthly as The Education of David Stockman, then with repeated Senate testimony describing how the Reagan budget was not serious about cutting spending to match the tax cuts. Stockman was personally chewed out by Reagan in the famous “trip to the woodshed,” but survived until he resigned after Reagan’s re-election, and then wrote a tell-all book. Stockman derisively coined the phrase starve-the-beast to describe Grover Norquist’s dream of killing social spending by maxing out the nation’s credit card. Most famous was Stockman’s charge that supply-side/trickle down economics was simply a money-grab by the wealthy; a “Trojan Horse” to introduce top-down tax cuts.
I don’t know the merits of the current case. I suppose Stockman could be guilty as charged – but it sounds fishy.
A determined prosecutor could find some fault in almost any executive attempting to steer a company away from bankruptcy. And that’s exactly what Stockman ran into – a determined prosecutor. The case was brought by none other than uber-Bushie Michael J. Garcia, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York – who just happens to be next in line of DOJ succession after Gonzalez.
Is Bush sending a warning message to insiders who are now being pressured to spill the beans? Paul O’Neill better watch his back.
Tags: National Republicans
I would not put anything past the Bush crime family.
It smells more like a Dick Cheney pulling the strings, than Bush. Cheney would have more of a personal vendetta against Stockman. Like with every thing else Cheney proposes, Bush II goes along…….
Stockman also committed Republican heresy by supporting labor unions with his fund Heartland Industrial Partners, which specialized in buying and turning around union-organized companies.
Greider, quoted via Slate:
[hey, can somebody turn on ‘preview?’]
Stockman also committed Republican heresy by supporting labor unions with his fund Heartland Industrial Partners, which specialized in buying and turning around union-organized companies.
Greider, quoted via Slate:
Stockman managed large and successful industrial turnarounds by working with the employees and unions, instead of rolling over them….”David is buying controlling ownership of these companies, and he’s actually turning them around, and he’s not doing it by beating the shit out of workers…”
Mr. Stockman’s heartland group bought the chrysler plant I was working in and in turn slashed wages by 13 dollars an hour,made the employees pay for shoddy healthcare , and eliminated the pension. If that’s not beating the shit out of the workers then I don’t know what is. DO a little research and you will see any company Mr Stockman or his heartland group or the blackstone group have purchased has been or is being run into the ground. This is not a friend of labor. He is a blueblood repub thug and I for one hope he is convicted.
OK, so reports of Stockman cuddling up to unions were too good to be true. Thanks for the first-hand report – the blog system is working.
So if (former Reagan SecNav, present D-VA) Jim Webb gets charged for packing heat on the Hill does it count as a Republican or Democrat scandal? Okay, so it was his aide carrying his loaded pistol and two full mags for him at the time, but concealed carry is still banned in DC for everyone but law enforcement personnel. Let the hearings commence! When was the Senator armed and who else knew it? Remember, thanks to the Libby trial, “I forgot” is no longer a defense.
Of course, I grew up just outside of “Dodge City” and there are plenty of reasons to carry, but it’s still illegal.