Republicans hate regulatory agencies, mostly because they hate the rule of law. It's an impediment to their "He who has gold makes rules", also known as their "Golden Rule".
They hate all regulatory agencies- EPA, MMS, SEC, you name it. Republicans have the same attitude about regulatory agencies that crack cocaine dealers have towards anti-narcotic task forces.
And just like crack peddlers, Republicans get busted. Except not nearly as often, even though their white-collar crime nets sums of money on a much higher order of magnitude.
Hanlon is well known in political circles as CEO and contributor to the Red County website, that covers political and financial news. It is well-read in Republican political circles.
I'd never heard of it until today, but apparently there is a red blog started by some d-bag here in Orange County by the name of Chip Hanlon. Chip writes regularly about his good friend in Costa Mesa, Jim Righeimer. [That's the guy that helped lay off half the public employees in Costa Mesa, and where a public employee jumped to his death off of Costa Mesa City Hall. See Seneca Doane's diary here. And read the follow-up: Costa Mesa's budget crisis made up]
This "Red County" site features exclusive recent interviews from John Bo(eh)ner, and a laughably titled feature : "Oregon Tea Party Protest Promises to Meet Violence with Non-Violence". (No, that's not snark. Does this mean teabaggers stopped headstomping people?) So, it's no hyperbole to say that 'Red County' , which started out in the OC but now has a national chapter, regional chapters, and multiple California chapters, is a giant turd. Meg Whitman even spent six figures to get Chip Hanlon and "Red County" services. [That's the same Meg Whitman who got less votes than marijuana in last year's election]
The local newspaper here, the hard-right OC Register, is usually useless. But they actually reported this story:
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges Thursday against high-profile Orange County money manager and political activist Charles “Chip” Hanlon, alleging that Hanlon “vastly overstated” the size of his Delta Global Advisors financial advisory and the financial health of the business.
http://lansner.ocregister.com/...
In legal paperwork the SEC released last week:
“From March 7, 2007 through July 6, 2008, Delta’s Form ADV filings improperly included the trusts’ assets as Delta’s advisory assets under management, even though Delta did not provide continuous and regular supervision of the trusts’ assets.”
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“In four filings, Delta claimed to manage between $656 million and $1.49 billion, when in reality Delta’s assets under management dropped as low as $9 million during this period. For nearly every period reflected in Delta’s (financial advisor) filings, Delta did not have $25 million or more in advisory assets under management and therefore was not eligible for Commission registration.”
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“Delta’s financial condition was seriously impaired in 2009 and 2010 because the firm had minimal liquid assets, overdue bills, and an unsatisfied court judgment in a breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit filed by one of Delta’s clients that ordered Delta and Hanlon to pay $353,706 in damages. Delta and Hanlon did not disclose Delta’s precarious financial condition to clients as required, nor did they disclose the court judgment or the fact that (broker regulator) FINRA had suspended Hanlon from acting in any registered capacity for failing to comply with arbitration award.”
SEC claims Hanlon used Delta’s website to also mislead the public, stating:
“Delta similarly misrepresented its assets under management through its website. Delta’s website included a section containing articles from Bloomberg, Reuters, and other news sources quoting Delta’s employees, including Hanlon. Many of these articles falsely stated that Delta had assets under management of $1 billion or more.”
[Lying blatantly in ads? That's such a scammy, Orange County, white-collar crime hobby. Just like the debt settlement and loan modification scams. These guys hate regulatory agencies because they love lying. The 'private' regulatory agency, the Better Business Bureau, is easy to fool. [loan modification scams exploit the BBB regularly to receive A+ ratings. The BBB is like a security guard who went blind last year. Still standing, but useless.]
But Chip Hanlon isn't just another Orange County car salesman, sleazy real-estate broker, loan modification scammer, or Ponzi schemer. Scam a few folks, you're a scammer. Scam thousands or millions? Then you're an Enron/Goldman Sachs/AIG exec with golden parachutes. Or, at the very least, a smaller turd like Chip Hanlon.
Claiming to have over a billion in assets, when it was closer to $9 million? Lying to customers? Refusing to pay a court ordered judgement? Sounds like a republican to me. You can rest assured that Chip Hanlon gave some sob story to the press about how all of this is a big misunderstanding. I'm not gonna paste that here, because that excuse has only one place to be: somewhere deep inside Hanlon's colon where it came from.
But don't worry. Red County right now has an EXCLUSIVE! advertised on its website in which we, the readers, will be told why "Obama is fiddling while energy prices SOAR: our EXCLUSIVE interview with the Speaker of the House!"
An orange guy who loves pork barrel spending hanging out with a fraudster: don't miss this week's fun with one of the "elite" and "powerful" Red Blogs: Red County !!
oh look, how cute: on the bottom of their site, you can see how Chip Hanlon is the 'leader' in three website categories: top commenter, most followed, and fastest rising. What kind of doucebag has to put that on a site that HE HIMSELF OWNS? That's as if dailykos.com had a section prominently featured at the bottom listing Markos Moulistsas as "best writer, featured writer, best commenter".
And speaking of union members dying in Costa Mesa, Chippy McChipster posted a blog last week bashing the Costa Mesa public employees union. The City Council that laid off half of those employees last month, leading some to call OC the 'bloody spearhead of the Right's war on unions", was headed by good ole Jim Righeimer. Just use your handy little Google, and you can find blogs published under Chip Hanlon's name in which he extols his "dear" and "good friend" Jim Righeimer. Nothing secretive about the Scumbag Clique in the OC.
In a world without inhibitions, perhaps Chip and the rest of his buddies would tell the truth about their feelings: they would be happy to see every union member in America jump off a building, and for a low low price they'll even rent out Costa Mesa City Hall as a jumping pad.