Shays vs Himes Redux?

When the going gets tough. the tough.... (4.00 / 1)

head for Maryland's eastern shore, purchase mansions on the shoreline, and get cushy do-nothing government jobs.

Interesting how the Republicans think Chris Shays, who couldn't see the corruption and mismanagement going on right under his nose in his own campaign, is the right guy to ferret out corruption in government contracts as a director of the Wartime Contracting Commission.  

And, hey, don't we want him to do for Fairfield County what he did for the CIT Group, which he joined as a member of the board of directors last May?  Oops, just a few months after joining the board CIT Group went belly-up, and taxpayers lost- how much?- $2.3 billion in bailout funds they supplied to the group to keep it afloat?

But what's a few billion in lost tax revenues between friends?  

And perhaps Good ole Chris will explain to the families of the dead and wounded from the Iraq War why and how he avoided the draft when his number came up during the Vietnam War in 1969, and how it is that a conscientious objector could push so hard to send other parents' sons and daughters to war when he thought it was immoral to do so.

And, hey, perhaps we could find out if he ever really apologized to that Capitol police officer he cursed at and whose uniform he grabbed.  Perhaps he could explain to minority voters in this district if he thought he was given preferential treatment because he was white, when African-American congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was prosecuted for something far less extreme.

Maybe our press corps will finally begin to ask him some difficult questions.  Maybe John Danosky at WNPR will ask him to explain in detail how he dodged the draft and why Shays thinks it's not immoral for a conscientious objector to support a war.  Perhaps Ken Dixon will ask him how his involvement with CIT Group, which went belly-up, and his own campaign, which was robbed blind, mean that he's qualified to help run federal finances?  Perhaps Mark Pazniokas will ask Shays how it is that he sat by and proposed no reforms whatsoever for health care while millions more Americans were losing their coverage.  

I don't hold out hope, because none of those reporters ever posed difficult questions to Shays before.  Why would they start now?

But should be interesting....

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by: thomashooker @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 17:19:30 PM UTC

any connection between debt and running for office? (0.00 / 0)

Can a campaign finance savvy person explain whether current fundraising can be applied to past debts? Can it make it easier to get money from donors toward those past debts?  Does having the ability to influence earmarks once again could enable Shays to get contributions to pay off the debt related to improprieties by his former campaign manager?

I have to ask if he is more easily influenced if he has a big pile of debt to pay down.  Seems to work that way for everyone else.

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by: greenpeas @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 18:28:06 PM UTC

Not how exactly it works but this quote is kind of telling: (4.00 / 2)

from the New York Times when the Sohn scandal broke:

He has now accumulated more than $200,000 in legal bills, according to Mr. Fox.

Adding to Mr. Shays's problems, Mr. Fox said, is that he cannot solicit money from any donor who gave him the maximum amount allowed during the previous campaign, $4,600 per individual donor.

"I gave serious thought to running again to pay this off," said Mr. Shays, who has kept his campaign running in order to raise money.

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by: saramerica @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 20:04:52 PM UTC

The subject of your next column? (0.00 / 0)

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by: thomashooker @ Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 21:03:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Might wait to see if he actually declares first (0.00 / 0)

There's just so much crazy sh*t to write about and so few column inches.

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by: saramerica @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 00:51:01 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not again.... (4.00 / 1)

Shays running again might cause my head to explode ala Scanners,

Can we not be rid of this smarmy, condescending SOB?

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by: KenB @ Fri Feb 12, 2010 at 18:30:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Apparently Not (0.00 / 0)

With five Smarmy SOBs on the Supreme Court, smarmy seems to be in vogue.

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by: Ann Galloway @ Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 14:42:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A list of Shays' campaign debts here: (0.00 / 0)

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b...

Note that he owes about $85,000 to Pitney, Day. And about $110,000 to Skadden, Arps. Both mega law firms.

The other big debt is $33,750 to his old fundraiser, Kathleen Pierce.

fwiw.

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by: AndersonScooper @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 00:09:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks Scoop! (0.00 / 0)

I was trying to find an article that listed his debts - should have gone straight to the source.  

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by: saramerica @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 00:49:29 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

A more detailed explanation from N. Vigdor (0.00 / 0)

It seems pretty fact based.

http://www.ctpost.com/local/ar...

Shays owes $243,439 for an in-house investigation into the alleged misappropriation of $250,000 in political funds by former campaign manager Michael Sohn, according to a Jan. 31 report filed with the Federal Election Commission.[wow-- he spent as much investigating as the guy allegedly took.]

A prospective Republican candidate for governor, Shays said Sohn, who was arrested in December and is awaiting criminal trial in Bridgeport federal court, should foot the bill for both.  "Michael is responsible for restitution of the funds that he embezzled and for paying the legal costs resulting from what he embezzled," said Shays, who lost his seat of 21 years to Democrat Jim Himes.

.[Yes, he should pay up, but often what people -- especially those living beyond their means --  should do and are told to do by the courts is not what they can or do end up doing.  Shays, one assumes, has evaluated his chances on this one.  

VIGDOR VIGNETTE ASIDE: only quibble with the last line is that it was never "his" seat -- it was the Dist. 4 seat that he HELD for 21 years. i.e. there is no entitlement here.]

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by: greenpeas @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 01:44:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

what I wonder (4.00 / 2)

... is where the other $240k went -- if you read the indictment, you'll see that Shays' bank account had $490,000 less than they had claimed. So it seems to me that somebody ducked a very serious charge.

–7.25 / –7.28 | http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tw...

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by: mattw @ Thu Feb 11, 2010 at 13:25:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]