The Puppet Masters
Posted: February 23, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign, 2012 primaries, Republican politics, Republican presidential politics | Tags: Super Donors, Super PACs 12 CommentsLast week, we learned that the primary bank roller behind Santorum’s Super PAC is an odd and out-of-it old billionaire that probably still calls women “tomatoes” when he’s not on TV explaining how 
birth control in his day was aspirin-enhanced nonslutiness. Oh what fresh hell has the Supreme Court wrought with its Citizens United decision? We’ve long known that negative, nasty political ads work. Now, each candidate seems to have an endless supply of funds so that proxies can say what ever they want in such ads with absolutely no accountability. We’re all so finding out these Super PAC ads are being funded by a few “Super Donors”. This adds a new twist to voter beware homework. We know have to investigate the candidate’s funding sources. After all, money screams in elections these days. We now have Swift Boat Idiots for Lies on steroids. Each candidate seems to collect billionaire gadflies with specific agendas in mind.
Robert Reich just wrote a blog piece on the GOP’s Big Investors. The GOP has always been a magnet for big money so it’s really interesting to see the Super Pac Super Money play out on in their primary dynamics. I think we’ve seen that Romney’s Super Pac had some effect on Florida and the Gingrich rising star. We’re really going to get some of the flavor of this ruling since the final four have now gotten some cash infusion from various billionaires. The lead up to Super Tuesday on March 6th should be very very interesting and telling. Since we know they bankroll the garbage, who are these enablers of smack?
Have you heard of William Dore, Foster Friess, Sheldon Adelson, Harold Simmons, Peter Thiel, or Bruce Kovner? If not, let me introduce them to you. They’re running for the Republican nomination for president.
I know, I know. You think Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney are running. They are – but only because the people listed in the first paragraph have given them huge sums of money to do so. In a sense, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul, and Romney are the fronts. Dore et al. are the real investors.
According to January’s Federal Election Commission report, William Dore and Foster Friess supplied more than three-fourths of the $2.1 million raked in by Rick Santorum’s super PAC in January. Dore, president of the Dore Energy Corporation in Lake Charles, Louisiana, gave $1 million; Freis, a fund manager based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, gave $669,000 (he had given the Santorum super PAC $331,000 last year, bringing Freis’s total to $1 million).
Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam provided $10 million of the $11 million that went into Gingrich’s super PAC in January. Adelson is chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Texas billionaire Harold Simmons donated $500,000.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, provided $1.7 million of the $2.4 million raised by Ron Paul’s super PAC in January.
Mitt Romney’s super PAC raised $6.6 million last month – almost all from just forty donors. Bruce Kovner, co-founder of the New York-based hedge fund Caxton Associates, gave $500,000, as did two others. David Tepper of Appaloosa Management gave $375,000. J.W. Marriott and Richard Marriott gave a total of $500,000. Julian Robertson, co-founder of hedge fund Tiger Management, gave $250,0000. Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman gave $100,000.
Welcome to the tyranny of the Super Donor.
About two dozen individuals, couples or corporations have given $1 million or more to Republican super PACs this year, an exclusive club empowered by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and other rulings to pool their money into federal political committees and pour it directly into this year’s presidential campaign.
Collectively, their contributions have totaled more than $50 million this cycle, making them easily the most influential and powerful political donors in politics today. They have relatively few Democratic counterparts so far, with most of the leading liberal donors from past years giving relatively small amounts — or not at all — to the Democratic super PACs.
And unlike in past years, when wealthy donors of both parties donated chiefly to groups that were active in the general election campaign, the top Republican donors are contributing money far earlier, in contests that will determine the party’s presidential nominee.
“What unites them? They’re economic conservatives,” said Christopher J. LaCivita, a Republican strategist who helped advise Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a forerunner of this cycle’s super PACs, and who in 2008 co-founded another Republican advocacy group, the American Issues Project, that ran advertisements against President Obama.
“Most of these guys are serious business tycoons,” Mr. LaCivita added. “They’ve built something big — usually something bigger than themselves.”
We’re lucky some of these guys are open about their donations. They have some tools available to them to avoid the public exposure. It will be interesting to see if more or less of that occurs as we study their influence on candidates and races.
A few of the megadonors gave through limited liability companies, shielding their identity. One $1 million donation to Restore Our Future came from F8 LLC, a company whose listed address in Utah leads to an accounting firm. A charitable foundation linked to Sandra N. Tillotson, co-founder of the skin care company Nu Skin, uses the same address. Ms. Tillotson was reimbursed by Restore Our Future in July for what appeared to be costs associated with a fund-raiser at her New York apartment. But Ms. Tillotson said in an e-mail Wednesday that she did not know who the owner of F8 LLC was and had not made a donation backing Mr. Romney’s campaign.
So, I’ve been on a Google Trek to try to figure out who some of these people are and what their agenda might be. Bruce Kovner is a hedge fund executive and seems to have a fairly traceable history via the Wall Street set. He’s been likened to a Republican version of George Soros. He has been active in Republican circles for some time.
Some investors, like George Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller, have decided that rather than weather the whims of outside investors, they would prefer to manage their own money as a family office, a designation that allows them to largely avoid regulation.
Like Mr. Soros, Mr. Kovner has grown extremely wealthy betting on global market trends using stocks, currencies and commodities, among other things. He bought the former International Center for Photography on Fifth Avenue and 94th street for $17 million and spent another $10 million renovating it. An avid collector of rare books, Mr. Kovner named his hedge fund after the first printer of English-language books. Forbes magazine estimated Mr. Kovner’s wealth to be in excess of $4.5 billion.
Unlike Mr. Soros, a generous donor to liberal causes, Mr. Kovner is a conservative supporter who counts among his associates former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney. He is a trustee of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization, and has given more than $100,000 to Republican causes and candidates since 2010.
William Dore has a lower public profile. Interestingly enough, a couple of these super donors appear to come from Louisiana. I suppose it only makes sense since the state has a seriously regressive atmosphere when it comes to taxes, spending, and outside New Orleans Culture. Dore’s money comes from marine construction and diving which translates into connections to the oil platforms that dot the Gulf. So, Kovner represents Wall Street interests while Dore is most likely more interested in the treatment of the Oil Industry. Sheldon Adelson is a gambling industry tycoon who is extremely interested in the interests of Israel.
Two rumours are circulating around Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish Las Vegas casino magnate and publisher of pro-Netanyahu tabloid Israel Hayom. One is that he is about to pump another $10 million into Newt Gingrich’s presidency bid. The other, apparently contradictory, piece of speculation is that he is shifting his support to Mitt Romney.
Evidence that can be marshalled in favour of the first rumour is that Mr Adelson and his family have already donated $11m to a pro-Gingrich super PAC – a group that lobbies on behalf of a political candidate. Meanwhile, he told Forbes magazine this week he may increase that to $100m.
What is going on? Fred Zeidman, a close friend of Adelson and a major fundraiser for Mr Romney, explained: “As long as Newt is in the race it appears that Sheldon is going to continue to support him. I don’t know what that means in terms of money, but I think… when Newt is out of the race, you will see Sheldon devote that money directly to supporting whoever is running against Barack Obama.” Mr Adelson’s overriding objective, said Mr Zeidman, is to ensure Mr Obama does not win.
Peter Thiel’s money comes from Pay Pal. He’s a major libertarian, has a foundation, and goes out on the lecture circuit to proselytize for Ayn Randish ideas. Here’s an account from one true believer on another. I still don’t understand the idea of how libertarians worship at the alter of out spoken fascists like Ludwig Von Mises and enjoy the support of the KKK, storm front and all those old Confederate Crusaders. I think it comes from spending too much time in fantasy worlds. Anyway, they all seem to be the new 21st century Marxist ideologues. Damn all the evidence, let’s just put into effect a lot of things that have been proven to not work just because it sounds all ideologically sexy. Try not to imagine this writer masturbating as he’s writing this. I dare you. Of course, Thiel’s is a Paultard.
Whatever their number, these young libertarians are the potential saviors of the country. Peter Thiel – co-founder of PayPal and Facebook angel investor – made this argument as the SFL conference keynote speaker. According to Thiel, the United States is in a bad position: Innovation drives the U.S. industry and our innovation (with a few exceptions, namely the computer/internet world) has stagnated. Witness the airplane – the planes we now fly go the same speed as they did in 1990. We use coal for large amounts of energy, just as we did in the nineteenth century. The number of new drugs we produce has slowed. Life expectancy is no longer rising at the rate it once did. Etc.
Unreasonable explanations for this include: 1) We’ve reached the end of history; it’s impossible for us to improve on the technology of the plane, and 2) We’re not as smart as we used to be.
Peter’s alternative explanation – developed in his essay “The End of the Future” – is far more feasible: the modern regulatory system has choked invention.
And the only people in the place to fix this aren’t the statists on the right or on the left, but the libertarians. As Peter said, “It’s an exciting time to be a libertarian.”
Armed with new enthusiasm, I spent the rest of the weekend at SFL learning more about how the state is choking development, and I met the people who are going to fix this course in the near future.
My theory is that these Paulbot guys know the only way they will EVER have sex outside of the virtual world, pot induced hallucinations, and hookers is to have enough money to buy a trophy mistress and wife. Since I’m not a voyeur to self abuse, I’ll leave you to google more on this dude in the privacy of your own home, By Onan’s withered Balls!
So, all this googling has left me feeling like the plutocracy is live and well. If you didn’t think America’s government was basically up for sale these days, reading about any of these folks will do it. I’ve been boycotting Marriott for decades since all that Mormon money went heavily into running anti-ERA efforts in the late 70s. I watched that unfold first hand as a baby feminist and activist. It’s now creeping and crawling around the Romney campaign. There’s a lot of Mormon corporate money behind the Romney Super Pac.
Several of the biggest donors to Restore Our Future, the super PAC backing Mr. Romney, share the candidate’s Mormon faith. A quartet of companies connected to Melaleuca, a company based in Idaho that makes nutritional supplements and home care products, donated a combined $1 million to Restore Our Future.
The company is headed by Frank VanderSloot, a national finance co-chairman of the Romney campaign and a graduate of Brigham Young University, Mr. Romney’s alma mater. “I am very concerned about the direction of the country and especially the administration’s constant attacks on free enterprise,” Mr. VanderSloot said in an e-mail.
Many of the biggest givers to the pro-Romney super PAC hail from the world of finance, particularly private equity and hedge funds. Julian H. Robertson Jr., who has given at least $1.25 million to Restore Our Future, is considered one of the godfathers of the hedge fund industry.
The one thing these Super PACS have done is put the agendas right out there if you look for them. You can clearly see the Romney agenda from your front porch. If you like women’s unequal status and gamed financial markets,by all means support Willard just like his SuperPac Puppet Masters do! Any way, I suggest you try to keep track of these ballers and who they buy. I also wonder if these billionaires will be happy if the press starts focusing laserlike on their activities. Right now, Forbes appears to be the only magazine with the lives and ideology of the rich and not so famous. I figure if they want to buy our elections, the least we can do is out their activities for all to see.
Monday Reads: Republican Knock Down, Drag out, Slap Fight Edition
Posted: February 20, 2012 Filed under: morning reads, Republican presidential politics 17 Comments
Bon Lundi Gras! Happy President’s Day! Tashi Losar!!
How’s that for a great mix of holidays? Losar is the Tibetan New Year and it’s celebrated on the 22nd this year. It’s Lundi Gras today. That’s the day before Mardi Gras. President’s Day is officially today too. Plenty of holiday revelry to give us a break from the Civil War in Syria, the continued attack on Tibetans, the war on US women, and a still fragile economy. Meanwhile, the Republican primary season is turning into a Slap Fight Club. Which of the four stooges will be still standing after Super Tuesday?
Rick Santorum continued to provide evidence of exactly how far out of the mainstream his views seem to be. He attacked prenatal testing as something that leads to abortions and continued to lecture Protestants and the President on phony theology. I think he must be running for Pope and we missed the announcement.
Campaigning in Ohio on Saturday, Rick Santorum displayed his culture-warrior side in full force, as he harshly attacked President Obama by suggesting the president wanted to see more disabled babies aborted and accusing him of projecting his values – which Santorum claimed were not rooted in the Bible – on the Catholic Church.
Santorum recalled his prominent role in the 1990s debates over the controversial procedure that critics call partial-birth abortion. He lambasted the president’s health care law requiring insurance policies to include free prenatal testing, “because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.”
“That, too, is part of Obamacare, another hidden message as to what President Obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our country,” Santorum said.
Prenatal tests are a standard part of modern medical care. The Department of Health and Human Services says such tests “help keep you and your baby healthy during pregnancy. It also involves education and counseling about how to handle different aspects of your pregnancy.”
Paul Ryan suggested that Obama’s goal to provide universal access to birth control in private insurance plans was “paternalistic” and “arrogant”. Something tells me that Ryan’s not got a very good grasp of vocabulary. He seems to have those definitions upside down. Since when is it the role of government to enforce the Bishop’s views on the rest of us?
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Sunday blasted the Obama administration’s moves to mandate religious affiliated groups to provide contraception coverage as “paternalistic” and “arrogant.”
“What we’re getting from the White House on this conscience issue, it’s not an issue about contraception, it’s an issue that reveals a political philosophy the president is showing that basically treats our constitutional rights as if they were revocable privileges from our government, not inalienable rights from our creator.” said Ryan on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“We’re seeing this new government activism, paternalistic, arrogant, political philosophy that puts new government-granted rights in the way of our constitutional rights.”
“That’s really not about contraception,” said Ryan of the mandate. “It’s about violating our first amendment rights to religious freedom and conscience.”
Ryan was asked by host David Gregory to respond to GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum’s comments Saturday, saying that President Obama’s political agenda was based on “some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.”
“I wouldn’t characterize it that way,” said Ryan. “I would simply say that he has a political philosophy that believes he can mandate certain benefits and activities of the American people that conflicts with their constitutional rights. He believes that these new government-granted rights trump our constitutional rights such as our first amendment right to conscience, to freedom of religion.”
While these guys keep pushing the religious freedom meme, they certainly forget to mention all those supreme court cases that have ruled out specific religious practices. This includes human sacrifice, smoking pot and peyote as sacraments, bigamy, denying children life saving blood transfusions and vaccines, and a host of other things.
Meanwhile, Ron Paul thinks all this focus on social issues is a “losing proposition”. However, Pauls’ religious obsession with an extreme interpretation of state’s rights doesn’t seem too far off the marks of the other nitwits. Paul thinks Santorum is a liberal. Back in the day when political labels were consistent, we would call Santorum a “theocrat” and Paul a “dixiecrat”. I don’t see any thing remotely conservative about any of these Republicans. They’re all extremely radical in their own right.
Paul seemed almost baffled that everyone has been talking about social issues at a time when he and others are more concerned with preserving basic civil liberties and the economy. But specifically where Santorum was concerned, Paul argued that he’s been a hypocrite for years now.
“He wants to control people’s social lives. At the same time, he voted for Planned Parenthood. I mean, I don’t see how anybody can get away with that inconsistency pretending he’s a conservative. And his voting record is, I think from my viewpoint, an atrocious voting record, how liberal he’s been and all the things he’s voted for over his many years in the Senate and in the House.”
Paul Ryan is one of those Republicans that also make up American History. There’s no mention of a creator or “inalienable rights” in the Constitution. That’s the Declaration of Independence. He also must thing that it’s okay for any remaining Incas to practice human sacrifice, for Rastafarians to use pot as a sacrament, for Jehovah’s witnesses to deny their kids access to blood transfusions and vaccines, and for Mormons to practice bigamy under that reasoning. I wonder if he’s even read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or any Supreme Court decisions. But all this Santorum surge has cheered up the Obama campaign.
“The one who can beat Obama: Rick Santorum,” the television commercial proclaims. That boast brings cheers from two quarters: the faithful followers of the conservative Republican presidential candidate, and the Democratic president’s political strategists.
The former Pennsylvania senator is on fire in the Republican contest, threatening the front-runner, Mitt Romney, in the critical Michigan primary next week and nationally.
Still, President Barack Obama’s campaign, the super-PACs supporting it and the Democratic National Committee are targeting Romney. They still believe the former Massachusetts governor is the likely nominee, though they are less certain than they were a few weeks ago. And they calculate, despite the shortcomings Romney displays as a candidate, that he would be more competitive than Santorum in the general election.
Santorum, on the other hand, is a more natural Republican primary candidate, singing the same conservative economic song as the party’s other aspirants, and layering it with hardcore social and cultural views, such as hostility to gay rights, contraception and feminism.
He’s a more problematic adversary for Romney than is Newt Gingrich, who has been savaged for his lucrative links to the federally backed home-mortgage company Freddie Mac and his checkered career as House speaker.
Newt Gingrich? Is any one talking about him at all? Well, just Callista, the Newster, and Fox News. The rest of us have figured he moved his campaign to the moon.
WALLACE: Let’s start with the rollercoaster that is the Gingrich campaign. Just three weeks ago, after your win in South Carolina, you were leading — just three weeks ago — leading the Real Clear Politics average of national polls at 31 percent. Now, you’re a distant third all the way back at 14.5 percent.
I would like you to put on your political analyst hat that you used to wear here at FOX News. What happened?
GINGRICH: Twenty million dollars of Mitt Romney negative ads. I mean, it’s not complicated. Look at Florida, outspent five to one. Many of the ads factually false, as the Wall Street Journal and National Review and others have reported. Now, you got to work your way back up again.
As you pointed out, I’ve twice been the front runner — both times over big ideas, developing positive solutions. The first time I was ahead 15 to 21 points in the national polls, we hadn’t bought a single ad yet. So, we’re back doing what I think I do best, which is focusing on things like on energy policy, $2.50 a gallon gasoline, big breakthrough ideas, and we’ll see what happens over the next three or four weeks.
Newt still has the worst negatives of any politician in the country. However, that’s not stopping him at all.
Public Policy Polling is showing a tight race in Michigan. Romney’s gaining and probably due to all of Santorum’s religous rants.
The Republican race for President in Michigan has tightened considerably over the last week, with what was a 15 point lead for Rick Santorum down to 4. He leads with 37% to 33% for Mitt Romney, 15% for Ron Paul, and 10% for Newt Gingrich.
The tightening over the last week is much more a function of Romney gaining than Santorum falling. Santorum’s favorability spread of 67/23 has seen no change since our last poll, and his share of the vote has dropped only 2 points from 39% to 37%. Romney meanwhile has seen his net favorability improve 10 points from +10 (49/39) to +20 (55/35) and his vote share go from 24% to 33%.
What we’re seeing in Michigan is a very different story from Florida where Romney surged by effectively destroying his opponent’s image- here Romney’s gains have more to do with building himself up.
Groups Santorum has double digit leads with include Protestants (up 47-30), union members (up 43-23), Evangelicals (up 51-24), Tea Partiers (up 55-20), ‘very conservative’ voters (up 54-23), and men (up 40-28).
Romney is leading the field with women (38-34), seniors (42-34), moderates (35-24), ‘somewhat conservative’ voters (40-34), and Catholics (43-31).
Newt Gingrich’s continued presence in the race is helping Romney a lot. If he dropped 45% of his supporters would go to Santorum, compared to only 29% for Romney and it would push Santorum’s lead over Romney up to 42-33. 47% of primary voters think Gingrich should drop out while only 40% believe he should continue on, but he’s certainly not showing any indication he’ll leave.
These are the primary dates to watch. Arizona and Michigan have primaries on the 28th. Washington State has a caucus on the 3rd that comes directly before Super Tuesday on March 6. There are ten primary/caucus states holding elections on that day. I’m wondering if it can get any more insane. The Arizona Debate appears to be the only scheduled event prior to all these elections.
In no particular order, here are four things you should watch in this week’s desert debate: Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich.
The final four have not shared a stage in almost a month: Not since Romney won Florida, Nevada and Maine. Not since Santorum triumphed in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado. Not since Paul won — well, Paul won nowhere, though he told me on CNN’s “State of the Union,” “It all depends on how you measure winning … the bottom line is who is going to get the delegates … and we think we’re doing pretty good.”
Also not winning anywhere since the last debate is Gingrich, who retains his down-but-never-out storyline. The former House speaker promised recently, “I have been front-runner twice. I suspect I’ll be the front-runner again in a few weeks.”
It is at least arguable that since the last debate on January 26, Gingrich has faded and Paul has hit a ceiling. Still, all four Republican presidential hopefuls have jointly suffered from an increasing Republican anxiety about the field.
Frankly, I’m just going to try to stick to this week’s celebrations. It has to be less insane than watching politics these days. The biggest screaming lie of the weekend was Michelle Bachmann’s insistence that the Republican Party was pro-women. Between that and Sarah Palin’s offer to rescue the party via a brokered convention I spent most of the weekend cleaning my computer screen.
Former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on Sunday railed against critics who say the recent birth control controversy reflects a Republican Party that holds suppressive views toward women.
“There is no anti-women move whatsoever. The Republican Party is extremely pro-women,” Bachmann said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “What we saw was President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, which is ‘Obamacare,’ demonstrated 3-D tragedy.”
Yeah, right. It would be so awful if every woman got birth control, prenatal care, and other preventative services with no add-on costs. That’s a real 3-D tragedy, isn’t it?
So, any good news in your neck of the woods? Let’s hear what’s on your reading and blogging list these days!
Whiney Rick “The Dick” Santorum Wants Secret Service Protection
Posted: February 15, 2012 Filed under: 2012 primaries, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: hecklers, Mitt Romney, Occupy Tacoma, Rick Santorum, Secret Service 21 CommentsRick Santorum is terrified because a few Occupy Tacoma protesters heckled him at a rally a couple of days ago (see video above). Three protesters, including a women who threw glitter at the candidate, were dragged away by police but not before the two men were tasered. From the Washington Post:
Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum is exploring Secret Service protection following a rowdy rally in Washington state earlier in the week.
Santorum says it’s “a sad state of affairs,” especially after he spent several weeks campaigning in a supporter’s pickup truck. But for his family’s sake, he says, he’s in discussions with the Secret Service.
Santorum hosted an outdoor rally adjacent to the campsite of Tacoma, Wash., Occupy protesters Monday night. They chanted and yelled during most of the event. Two protesters were dragged away by police.
Reflecting on the experience after another campaign stop Tuesday night, Santorum says it’s unfortunate that some people “can get a little rowdy and sometimes a little violent.”
The only violence I saw in that video was by police. I guess glitter bombing is considered “violent” nowadays.
Santorum is also worried about the Romney campaign plan to “take him down.” Reportedly it will be even worse than what they did to Gingrich
Romney, who allowed Restore our Future to do his negative work in Iowa, has long since given up any apparent worry that voters will react badly to negativity, and complains of unfair attacks don’t seem likely to deter him here.
“The expectation is that Santorum, just given his personality, is going to whine like crazy about this,” the advisor laughed.
In anticipation of the Romney attack, Santorum has released a new ad called “Rombo.”
Tuesday: John Wayne Gacy, Freudian Slips, “the Liberal Bulldozer,” and other Valentine’s Day Reads
Posted: February 14, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, 2012 primaries, morning reads, Reproductive Rights, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Politics, Women's Healthcare | Tags: "severely conservative" Freudian slip, capital punishment, death penalty, John Wayne Gacy, Mary Todd Lincoln portrait, Mitt Romney, payroll tax holiday, Rick Santorum, serial killers 31 Comments
Rosalynn Carter and John Wayne Gacy
Good Morning!! I’ll have a few political links for you later, but first I want to share an interesting story I came across yesterday. Remember John Wayne Gacy? He was a supposedly upstanding member of the Chicago business community and active in Democratic politics, even having his photo was taken with first lady Rosalynn Carter when she visited Chicago in May, 1978. In his spare time, Gacy dressed as “Pogo the Clown” and entertained at charity events and kids’ birthday parties.
All that ended in late 1978, when it was revealed that Gacy had 26 bodies buried in the crawlspace under his house and 3 others under the concrete floor of his garage. The gregarious businessman and clown was a serial killer. In March of 1980, Gacy was sentenced to death for 12 of the murders. He was executed on May 10, 1994. It’s too bad Gacy is dead, because two Chicago attorneys have convinced Cook Country Sheriff Tom Dart to do some further investigating on the case. It might be helpful for investigators to be able to interview Gacy about new evidence.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said Friday that he will ask his investigators to look into a theory that serial killer John Wayne Gacy had one or more accomplices.
Criminal defense attorneys Robert Stephenson and Steven Becker recently examined Gacy’s work and travel records and suspect he was out of town when victims Russell Nelson and Robert Gilroy disappeared in 1977.
They also think Gacy didn’t have enough time to abduct and kill victim John Mowery because he disappeared about 10 p.m. in Chicago and Gacy’s work records show he showed up at a job in Michigan at 6 a.m. the following day.
There is more detail on these victims in an article at Time Magazine.
So far, the lawyers believe Gacy may have had accomplices in at least three of the notorious killings of 33 young men and boys, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. This supports an earlier claim from Jeffrey Rignall, a victim who survived, who said another man was in the room while Gacy raped him, WGN notes.
One of the murders raising questions is that of Robert Gilroy. Apparently, the convicted murderer had been in Pittsburgh when the 18-year-old disappeared on Sept 15, 1977. Allegheny Airlines tickets indicate Gacy had been out of town from Sept. 12 to 16, making it unlikely he could have snatched and killed Gilroy, the Sun-Times reports. This also echoes claims Gacy had made while in prison, saying he was not in Illinois during 16 of the disappearances.
Gilroy also died in a completely different way than most of Gacy’s victims. He was apparently suffocated by having a cloth shoved down his throat. Many of Gacy’s victims were strangled by a rope.
Russell Nelson, the Minneapolis architecture student kidnapped while with a friend outside a bar in October of the same year. Stephenson told the Sun-Times he doesn’t believe Gacy could have seized the 21-year-old without the friend noticing. And like Gilroy, Nelson had been suffocated with a similar cloth stuffed in his throat. Thirteen victims died the same way, according to WGN.
The friend who was with Nelson at the time of his disappearance is also allegedly suspect. According to WGN, the friend demanded money from Nelson’s mother in exchange for helping the family search for him. Nelson’s mother had also reported a striking coincidence. Following her son’s disappearance, Nelson’s brothers went to Chicago to look for him. They met with the friend, who offered the siblings contracting jobs with Gacy.
All three victims were found in Gacy’s crawlspace.
Last fall, eight Gacy victims who had never been identified were exhumed for DNA testing, in hopes of discovering their identities. Since then, two men who were believed to have been murdered by Gacy have been found alive.
Harold Wayne Lovell was found in Florida.
“He was high on the list,” said Sheriff Tom Dart. “If not one, two, or three, in someone’s mind, of the most likely person that was one of the eight down in the crawl space.”
As Sheriff’s detectives began their renewed search, they quickly learned there had been recent activity by Lovell in Florida. It was about that time that the family came across a booking photo of a Harold Wayne Lovell, 53, from South Florida. It was him.
“I almost gave up hope in the late 90s,” said Lovell’s brother, Tim, 48. “I dreamed about it. I’ve only had maybe a one percent inkling that I’d ever, ever see my brother again, and here we are. It’s just amazing.”
Lovell said he left home because of a “family situation.” He took a train to Florida because he “couldn’t stay around the house any longer.”
Lovell may have been fortunate, because he did yard work at Gacy’s before leaving for Florida. He says Gacy tried to get him to come in the house, but Lovell refused. In addition, Gacy had apparently taken some belongings of Lovell’s and they were found in Gacy’s house. Lovell’s mother had identified them.
A second missing man, Theodore “Ted” Szal, turned up in Oregon.
Szal admits that he simply vanished. There were family issues. A troubled marriage, coupled with a belief that his mother had assisted his wife in getting an abortion.
“I didn’t have too much money. I didn’t have a job. So I drove to the airport, threw my keys down a sewer drain so I wouldn’t change my mind and got on an airplane. That was 35 years ago.”
Thirty five years without a single word to his family. Szal travelled first to Colorado Springs, then California, and finally to Oregon, where he settled down and eventually remarried. He admits that the memory of his family had haunted him, especially on holidays.
“Christmas has been hard. But this year, Christmas is going to be different.”
One of the unidentified bodies is now known to be William George Bundy
For years, Laura O’Leary has visited the graves of her family members in southwest suburban Justice, but she didn’t know her brother was buried in the same cemetery — as an unidentified victim of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
O’Leary recently learned her missing teenage brother, William George Bundy, was one of Gacy’s eight unidentified victims more than three decades ago. He was buried in Resurrection Catholic Cemetery where his grandparents and an aunt were also laid to rest.
On Tuesday, O’Leary hugged Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to thank him for a DNA initiative that led to her brother’s identification on Nov. 14.
“Today is a terribly sad day for my family. But it is also a day that provides closure,” she said at a news conference with Dart.
Another mother, Sherry Marino, has always wondered if the body buried in the grave she visits frequently is really her 14-year-old son Michael Marino and if he was really a Gacy victim. She plans to have the body exhumed for DNA testing as soon as she can raise the money.
Now that I’ve indulged my fascination with true crime, I’ll give you a few news headlines. Everyone is laughing about Mitt Romney’s Freudian slip at the CPAC conference. He told the audience he was “severely conservative” as Governor of Massachusetts. I say it’s a Freudian slip, because it makes being conservative sound like a disease–that’s probably what Romney really feels in his subconscious mind.
At the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza provides A “Severely Conservative” Lexicon, with examples of the use of the odd expression. Here are a few examples:
“Like so many alcoholics, or criminals, or sexually promiscuous people who reform, Janet had flipped to the opposite extreme, to severely conservative behavior. At some level, Janet was doing penance for her past destructive behavior. She was full of self-hatred and was operating out of fear. ”
—“Mastering Your Moods: How to Recognize Your Emotional Style and Make It Work for You,” by Dr. Melvyn Kinder (1994)
“As philosopher James Rachels has observed, ‘the opposite is true: the rule against causing unnecessary pain is the least eccentric of all moral principles, and that rule leads straight to the conclusion that we should abandon the business of meat production and adopt alternative diets. Considered in this light, vegetarianism may be thought of as a severely conservative moral stance.’ ”
—“Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?,” by Gary Lawrence Francione (2000)
“Only severely conservative jewelry is worn by the bride. She may wish to wear pearls or other simple jewelry given her as a gift by the groom or her parents.”
—“Planning LDS Weddings and Receptions,” by Lois F. Worlton and Opal D. Jasinski (1972, revised edition 1999)
Hmmmm….maybe that’s where Romney picked up the expression.
As everyone knows by now, Rick Santorum is ahead of Mitt Romney in Romney’s home state of Michigan. Santorum is also running neck and neck with Romney in the national polls.
Via Charlie Pierce, right wing Catholics are thrilled that Rick “the Dick” is “fighting the liberal bulldozer.”
Rick Santorum was impossible thirty years ago. If Rip van Winkle woke up today he would be dumbfounded. How could such an overtly religious and socially conservative politician have so much traction on the national scene?
The answer comes from the Left. Since the Sixties our liberal elites have become increasingly anti-religious, increasingly opposed to traditional moral norms, and increasingly aggressive. As a result they have made our national politics much more extreme.
To a great extent, post-sixties American politics has been shaped by liberal aggression. As Lyndon Johnson knew, the Civil Right Act of 1964 would trigger a fundamental shift in national politics. The South would no longer be in the hip pocket of the Democratic Party.
I don’t know how the author of the piece, R.R. Reno, knows this, but he or she says that Johnson didn’t predict “liberal overreach.”
Mandatory school busing—modern liberalism always tends toward coercion—as well as crudely imposed quotas in the 1970s led to a great deal of unhappiness among white ethnic and blue collar voters who had for decades been pillars of the Democratic Party. They weren’t (for the most part) in favor of Jim Crow, but they didn’t like being moved around like chess pieces by liberal elites. It was during those years that the term “limousine liberal” gained currency as a new and telling term of abuse in American political culture.
The Equal Rights Amendment would have encoded gender equality into the Constitution. It seemed a sure thing in the early 1970s. But opposition mounted and it failed to secure ratification. That’s not because most Americans were opposed to women’s liberation. Instead support for the Equal Rights Amendment dwindled because John Q. Voter was coming to see how modern liberals use rights—not as instruments of freedom but as new warrants for social control.
And so on. It’s like going through the looking glass with Alice.
House Republicans have agreed to extend the payroll tax holiday without accompanying cuts.
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and his top lieutenants said they do not want to be held responsible for the tax increase on 160 million workers that would happen if the tax holiday were not extended.
The two sides have been negotiating for weeks but have been unable to strike a deal. Republicans want to continue negotiations over financing the rest of the original legislative package, including an extension of unemployment benefits and a key tweak to maintain Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, while ensuring that taxes will not rise on workers.
“Because the president and Senate Democratic leaders have not allowed their conferees to support a responsible bipartisan agreement, today House Republicans will introduce a backup plan that would simply extend the payroll tax holiday for the remainder of the year while the conference negotiations continue,” Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a joint statement.
Awwwww…that’s big of you boys. Now you can devote full time to the war on women’s health care.
A famous portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln has turned out to be a fraud.
A long-celebrated portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln which hung for decades in the Illinois governor’s mansion has been deemed a fake.
James Cornelius, the curator of the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, described the painting as part of an elaborate fraud that befell President Abraham Lincoln’s descendants in the 1920s, the Chicago Tribune reports.
“It was supposedly a gift Mary Lincoln planned to give to her husband, but then he was assassinated and she became a widow before she could present it to him,” Cornelius told the Tribune Saturday of the painting’s alleged backstory.
But the truth of the matter, as the Daily Journal reports, is that the portrait supposedly painted as a “secret” present for the president actually depicts an unknown woman who was later doctored to look more like Lincoln. Barry Bauman, a conservator, discovered that the “artist’s” signature had been added to the portrait later, while he was cleaning it.
That’s it for me, except to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day! Are you getting the feeling it isn’t one of my favorite holidays? What can I say? I’m getting old, and I’m jaded about romance.
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