No need to hedge 'em:
"In Vegas, Brown trades the truck crowd for glitzy gathering" by Noah Bierman | Globe Staff May 16, 2014
LAS VEGAS — It was more of a private jet gathering than a GMC truck crowd.
But former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown had an engagement, one he made before he entered the New Hampshire Senate race intent on rekindling his everyman image. He had agreed to a paid appearance before some of the wealthiest people on earth at the annual hedge fund confab at the Bellagio Hotel.
Related: Who Bought Brown's Election?
Also see: Scott Brown's Base
I would bet the house on it.
In recent days, as anticipation grew about the political implication of Brown’s appearance, conference organizers took the unusual step of shifting Brown’s schedule to remove him from a panel that had drawn controversy on the campaign trail.
Brown had initially been scheduled to speak Thursday, on a panel titled “American Beauty? Money, Power & Politics.” The other three panelists on the schedule were David Plouffe, Karl Rove, and James Carville.
Brown the poster boy?
But Brown earlier this week was abruptly moved from the political panel to another time slot, Friday morning, to speak alone and on the record for 15 minutes. The new title: “American Leadership in an Unstable World.”
I'm sorry I missed both.
Brown’s staff acknowledged that he would be among those making money at the conference, but would not say how much he was being paid for his appearance.
“Scott Brown is a speaker at a bipartisan conference along with [Democrats] . . . and he will receive an honorarium. It will be reported as required under the disclosure rules,” said Brown spokeswoman Lizzy Guyton.
$ay what?
Money is the biggest attraction here at the SkyBridge Alternatives Conference, known as SALT.
“Everyone here is in selling mode,” John Gibbons, a talent scout for Boston-based Highvista Strategies, which manages endowments, said after a panel Thursday.
Didn't highlight it, and why bother? Just shows this paper is written of and for the elite political cla$$.
Indeed, Wednesday night found Brown and his wife, Gail Huff, sipping beer and wine at the conference’s poolside masquerade party. Amid glaring strobe lights, a winged woman dressed in a sequin top and bikini bottom played a see-through violin from a balcony perch. Later appearances included a fire eater, a French clown on a pogo stick, and can-can dancers.
And I wasn't even invited!
Brown, in a striped golf shirt and khakis, did not wear a mask. Nor did the former senator attract much notice.
Brown’s campaign has tried to deflect attention from his appearance at the conference, which organizers said attracted more than 500 hedge fund managers among 1,800 finance professionals and investors.
The movers and $hakers, if you will.
They said he would not agree to an interview while in Las Vegas. And even as he was here Wednesday night and planned to speak on Friday morning, the campaign sent out a press release statement on veterans affairs Thursday with a “Manchester” dateline, which could have been read as suggesting Brown was in New Hampshire.
Little deceitful, 'eh?
See: Shinseki Takes Point
His spokeswoman did not respond to a request for an explanation.
One man at the party who had an $8 million hedge fund said it was far too small and joked that he could get it to $80 million by week’s end. (Many of the fund managers here invest billions of dollars in assets.)
Oh, that's so funny for the rest of us being impoverished or living in poverty!
Another who managed his own family’s wealth said he was on the lookout for some money managers to help out, then complained that the red wine being served at the party was surprisingly cheap.
OMG! $tinking elites!
Well, like I have been saying, if they are not happy get 'em more, get 'em better. I thought it would be a cla$$y party, but I can $ee I wa$ wrong!
Get that a man a good gla$$ of wine, NOW!!!!
The Las Vegas appearance seems a world away from the campaign trail in New Hampshire, where Brown is staging a revival of his political strategy.
Yeah, and the "conference" -- looks like an excuse to party to me -- is a UNIVER$E AWAY from the 99% of us.
Then again, the paper is written of and for the 1%, by $lavi$h wannabes and $econd-rate $uck-ups.
He has been showcasing his famous green GMC truck, now with 300,000 miles, that has been an effective tool in his quest to show humility and common ground with working people.
Brown has also been running races and showing up at small community events that demonstrate his command of retail politics, and his desire to insulate himself from carpetbagger charges.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the New Hampshire Democrat who Brown is trying to unseat, released a statement this year that quoted her campaign as saying Brown “cares only about himself and the big corporate interests that fund his campaign.” She and other Democrats have long highlighted Brown’s ties to Wall Street. He received at least $2.7 million from the securities industry — more than any other member of Congress — during his 2012 campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
That is why he will win the rigged elections.
Shaheen has collected at least $154,000 in campaign contributions from securities and investment interests since 2009, her seventh-largest category of donors, according to the center.
Yeah, turns out both parties have been bought off by the banks.
After leaving office, Brown continued to show interest in the industry’s concerns, giving a talk at last year’s SALT conference titled “From Washington to Wall Street: The Impact of Overregulation on Hedge Funds.” Democrats as well as Republicans have participated in the event.
Last year, for example, Barney Frank, the former Newton congressman, and Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for Obama, were among the Democratic speakers.
He was presented by the jew$media as a great liberal and success for gay rights, but at bottom his career was littered with corruption despite the smoke.
While the Brown campaign declined to discuss the candidate’s payment for this year’s Las Vegas presentation, a spokesman said via e-mail that any story about the matter should note that Shaheen has also taken speaking fees, pointing to disclosure reports that show Shaheen gave five speeches in 2006 and 2007 for a total of $17,750.
Brown’s office pointed out that Shaheen collected $5,000 for one of those speeches, from the Fannie Mae Foundation, which was closed in 2007 amid criticism that it used its tax-exempt donations to curry political favor.
A spokeswoman for the New Hampshire Democratic Party said Shaheen’s speeches did not pose the same conflict of interest issue as Brown’s because she was not serving or campaigning for public office at the time.
$quabbling over $emantics.
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I thought I would pick up some reading material while I was there:
"Geithner book details turmoil with Warren" by Matt Viser | Globe Staff May 12, 2014
WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Warren was taking up a lot of time and energy at the White House — so much that then-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel sent an e-mail.
“We have a lot more pressing issues,” he wrote. “We are spending a lot of time on one person.”
In a new book, former Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner reveals the extent to which President Obama and his top advisers were torn over whether to appoint Warren to head the Consumer Protection Finance Bureau. Some wanted Warren to have the job, despite intense opposition. Others said the president should consider a recess appointment.
A senior adviser, Pete Rouse, had another idea: Maybe she could run for US Senate in Massachusetts.
“The president, who almost never called me at home, made an exception on this issue,” Geithner wrote. “It was really eating away at him.”
Geithner’s book — coupled with one that Warren released last month — provides a fuller picture of a key period that ultimately led to Obama deciding not to nominate her to run a new bureau that was her brainchild.
Already read it.
That decision pushed Warren to run for the US Senate and helped her unleash a populist force that has further complicated matters for the Obama administration and is having a further imprint on Democratic Party policy.
Geithner and Warren had strongly diverging viewpoints of Wall Street regulation, which caused disagreements and heated discussions. Or, as Geithner wrote, “I had a complicated relationship with Warren.”
Warren did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
Some of Warren’s top advisers have long believed that Geithner helped derail any possibility Warren had to lead the Consumer Protection Finance Bureau. Geithner said he told other advisers that he would not try to talk Obama out of nominating Warren but that “everyone in the room knew she had no chance of being confirmed.”
Senate Republicans were vowing to oppose anyone who was nominated, but even some Senate Democrats were expressing reservations about Warren.
***************
Not all of Geithner’s writing about Warren was critical. He called Warren a “noted consumer protection advocate” and “one of our most ardent and eloquent liberal critics.”
But early on they were at odds, with Warren in charge of an oversight panel looking into the bank bailouts and how federal dollars were being spent. She and Geithner had some memorably testy exchanges.
“Her criticisms of the financial rescue, if well-intentioned, were mostly unjustified, and her TARP oversight hearings often felt more like made-for-YouTube inquisitions than serious inquiries,” Geithner wrote. TARP was the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, which some considered a bailout.
“She was worried about the right things, but she was better at impugning our choices — as well as our integrity and our competence — than identifying any feasible alternatives,” he wrote. “On the other hand, she really was smart and innovative about consumer protection, with sophisticated ideas about reform. She had a gift for explanation.”
Hey, she didn't invent or f*** up the $y$tem! YOU DID!
Geithner also detailed his interactions with one of his mentors, former Harvard University president Larry Summers, and some of the awkwardness between them....
Because Summers is a big fat bully!
Geithner revealed that his father, who voted for President Obama in 2008, voted for Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 — even though his son was a top Cabinet official in the Obama White House.
Vote of confidence in the kid.
Geithner also wrote about a private discussion he had with Glenn Hubbard, who was Romney’s top economic adviser. After a speech in New York, Hubbard complained to Geithner about the Obama administration’s unwillingness to endorse the Simpson-Bowles plan to shrink the nation’s deficit. Geithner noted that there was $2 trillion in tax increases.
“When you guys are willing to raise taxes, we can talk about Simpson-Bowles,” he said.
“Well of course we have to raise taxes,” Hubbard responded. “We just can’t say that now.”
Hubbard denied that he ever endorsed raising taxes, a stance that Romney and many Republicans oppose.
“He’s going to go out and say what he wants,” Hubbard told POLITICO. “It just happens to be a lie.”
Related: INSIDE JOB
Who is lying now?
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“Stress Test” was released on Monday. It details Geithner’s role during the country’s worst financial collapse since the Great Depression. In “Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises,” Geithner also wrote about an early encounter with Scott Brown.
Brown, like Warren, did not respond to requests for comment Monday....
Time to put the Globe down.
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Related: Geithner vs. Warren: The gulf widens
Also see: Herbalife probe set to expose sales secret behind Ackman’s bet
Related: Brown Candidacy Signals Change in Senate
