Random commentary and senseless acts of blogging.

The first Republican president once said, "While the people retain their virtue and their vigilance, no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can seriously injure the government in the short space of four years." If Mr. Lincoln could see what's happened in these last three-and-a-half years, he might hedge a little on that statement.
-Ronald Reagan

Left Bloggers
Blog critics

Gryffindor House
Roger Ailes
AintNoBadDude
Americablog
Amygdala
Angry Bear
Atrios
Billmon
Biscuit Report
Body and Soul
Corrente
Daily Kos
Demosthenes
Digby
Kevin Drum
Electrolite
Firedoglake
Glenn Greenwald
Group Think Central
Hamster
Inappropriate Response
Mark Kleiman
Lean Left
Nathan Newman
Nitpicker
Off the Kuff
Pandagon
Politus
Prometheus Speaks
Rittenhouse Review
Max Sawicky
Scoobie Davis
Seeing the Forest
Sideshow
Skippy
Sully Watch
Talking Dog
Talking Points
TPM Cafe
Tapped
Through the Looking Glass
Washington Monthly
WTF Is It Now?
Matt Yglesias

Slytherin House
Gideon
Indepundit/Lt Smash
OTB
Damian Penny
Natalie Solent
Andrew Sullivan
Tacitus
Eve Tushnet

Ravenclaw House
Balkinization
Michael Berube
Juan Cole
Cronaca
Crooked Timber
Decembrist
Brad Delong
Deltoid
Donkey Rising
Dan Drezner
Filibuster
Ideofact
OxBlog
Sandstorm
Amy Sullivan
Volokh Conspiracy
War and Piece
Winds of Change

House Elves
Tom Burka
Al Franken
Happy Fun Pundit
Mad Kane
Neal Pollack
Poor Man
Silflay Hraka
SK Bubba

Beth Jacob
Asparagirl
Gedankenpundit
Kesher Talk
Meryl Yourish

Prisoners of Azkaban
Antidotal
Ted Barlow
Beyond Corporate
William Burton
Cooped Up
Counterspin
Cogent Provacateur
Letter From Gotham
Likely Story
Limbaughtomy
Mind Over What Matters
Not Geniuses
Brian O'Connell
Rants in Our Pants
Ann Salisbury
Thomas Spencer
To the Barricades

Muggles
A & L Daily
Campaign Desk
Cursor
Daily Howler
Op Clambake
Media Matters
Spinsanity

Party Animals:
Clark Community
From The Roots(DSCC)
Kicking Ass (DNC)
Stakeholder (DCCC)

Not a Fish
Ribbity Blog
Tal G


Baghdad Burning
Salam Pax

<< List
Jewish Bloggers
Join >>

 
Grasping at Stems

Bill Simon announced a particularly audacious attempt recently to salvage his failing gubernatorial campaign.

"I am sure now that Davis' people are busily making new ads, and I hope they do," Simon said. "Because if they want to attack me now for a bad verdict and take the side of a convicted drug trafficker ... then Davis is welcome to choose that side."

Let's look at the sequence of events here:

• 1981: Paul Hindelang convicted of importing marijuana. Begins a prison sentence.


• 1986: Released from prison, Hindelang starts Pacific Coin, a pay phone company.


• 1998: Simon & Sons pay $16.5 M for 39% share of Pacific Coin. Simon & Sons now claim they were defrauded by Hindelang's failure to disclose his background - an admission that $16.5 M was invested without a minimal investigation of the company and its officers. Any due diligence check would have revealed the felony conviction, which is a public record.


• 2000: Having gone into debt on a failed plan to make an IPO, Pacific Coin comes under the control of its lender.


• 2002: A jury rules for Hindelang in a fraud suit against Simon & Sons. Simon now can't remember the investment, although Simon & Sons is his family company, he has been an executive in it since its founding, he claimed losses related to the Pacific Coin investment of $1.2 M in his tax returns which show an income of 3.3 M, and evidence in the case includes a 10 page memo discussing the investment with several marginal notes in Simon's handwriting.


• Simon now claims that criticism of his family's Pacific Coin deal would be "[taking] the side of a convicted drug trafficker".

I guess if patriotism isn't available as your last refuge, you can always give the War on Some Drugs a try.

  posted by Alex at 1:50 PM