It seems like disgraced bankers who engaged in Ponzi schemes are a dime a dozen these days. Still Allen Stanford is different in at least one way. Sure he was a crook, he took in money and claimed that he and his financial wizards could and did beat the market average performance, in good times and bad. Sure, that was all a lie with the new investor’s money going to pay the supposed profits to the more senior investors. That is nothing special. No, what makes Mr. Stanford special is that he was a big political donor.
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
Mr. Allen knew that money only translates to real power when you have access to the legislators on the Hill. So, he was more than willing to give his money away.NPR is reporting this morning that Mr. Stanford and five of his top executives at Stanford Financial gave more than two million dollars to five party, three presidential campaigns and 82 members of Congress.
The judge in charge of the has appointed a receiver to try to get that money back from the various campaigns and politicos. So far, $89, 000 or nearly 5% been returned. As much as it pains the Dog to say that Sen. Richard Shelby does anything right, his campaign fund returned $14,000 dollars, the second highest of any group returning money (Sen. Chris Dodd’s presidential campaign is number one with $16,000).
The issue here is should a politician or political committee return tainted funds. The answer should always be yes. It is a basic no brainer that if you find that someone who has given you money is a crook or even just a person you want your campaign or candidate to have nothing to do with you give the money back. If you do not then you have to spend time defending the actions of someone who is not part of your campaign when you should be spending time defining the opposition or yourself.
The biggest recipient of Mr. Stanford’s tainted cash is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. They have received $950,000 dollars from Stanford and his executives. Up to today they have not returned the money. When contacted by NPR they had no comment on the story. This is not acceptable. Yes, the Dog gets that this is an election year and we just lost a self-financing candidate in Indiana. Yes, it is important to have money to run good campaigns, but the DSCC has 12.6 million in cash-in-hand. They have 3.1 million dollar advantage over the RSCC, according to Open Secrets.
While giving back one third of their cash advantage is going to be hard, hanging on to the money is going to be far worse. The populist mood of anger at big banks and the scams (legal and otherwise) which brought the world economy to the brink of disaster is not something the Democrats running for Senate need to be defending.
Given that the RNC and RNCC are both still holding on to money from this fund, there is also a chance to steal this issue for our own, if Democrats get the point and give this dirty money back, before it becomes a big enough issue and they are forced to give it back.
Below is the rouges gallery of committees and politicians who have not returned the money. Feel free to contact any of Democrats and let them know how little you think of them keeping this money. After all, any of the money that is recovered goes back to the victims of Mr. Stanford’s Ponzi scheme. While these victims were more greedy than smart for investing in something too good to be true, they do deserve to get some of their money back.
$950,000 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
$238,500 National Republican Congressional Committee
$202,000 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
$128,500 Republican National Committee
$83,345 National Republican Senatorial Committee
$25,000 Rangel Victory Fund
$10,000 New Jersey Democratic State Committee
$10,000 Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
$6,600 Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY)
$6,100 Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL)
$5,000 Americans for a Republican Majority PAC
$5,000 Delegate Donna Christensen (D-USVI)
$5,000 Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX)
$5,000 KPAC -- affiliated with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
$5,000 Lone Star Fund
$5,000 Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
$5,000 Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)
$4,600 Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) -- presidential campaign
$4,550 Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY)
$4,000 Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
$4,000 Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
$4,000 Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA)
$4,000 Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)
$3,300 Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX)
$3,300 Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
$3,000 Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-SC)
$3,000 Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL)
$3,000 ERICPAC $3,000 Leadership PAC 2006
$2,550 Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY)
$2,550 Rep. Mike McMahon (D-NY)
$2,500 Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL)
$2,500 Freedom Fund
$2,500 Rep. Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
$2,500 Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA)
$2,500 Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
$2,500 Rep. John Lewis (D-GA)
$2,500 Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
$2,500 National Leadership PAC
$2,500 Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL)
$2,500 Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR)
$2,500 Former Sen. John Sununu (R-NH)
$2,500 Rep. John Tanner (D-TN)
$2,500 Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS)
$2,300 Rep. John Boccieri (D-OH)
$2,300 Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
$2,300 Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
$2,300 Olson-Texas Victory Committee
$2,300 Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)
$2,100 Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
$2,000 Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
$2,000 Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN)
$2,000 Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX)
$2,000 Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
$2,000 Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI)
$2,000 LEADPAC
$2,000 Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ)
$2,000 Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
$2,000 Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TS)
$2,000 Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-OH)
$1,500 Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA)
$1,500 Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas)
$1,500 Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.)
$1,500 Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.)
$1,000 Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)
$1,000 Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
$1,000 Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
$1,000 Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
$1,000 Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)
$1,000 Former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)
$1,000 Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND)
$1,000 Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)
$1,000 Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS)
$500 Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)
There are 33 Democratic committees or politicians on the list. There should be none, if Sen. Shelby (Jackass, AL) can understand that this money is toxic then there is no excuse for Democrats and our party committees to hang on to this money.
The floor is yours.