Why Isn't This Lying Sonofabitch In Jail Yet? Oh, Right...

Hate to say we told you so, but...we told you so.  My commentary, made at the time, in blue:

Posted on December 8th:

Jon Corzine tells Congress, "I'm a liar, and an economic illiterate"

Though anything he says could be used against him, Corzine hedges his testimony by saying he had too little time to prepare for the hearing and only limited access to records “essential to my being able to testify accurately.

...In Thursday’s statement, Corzine said that, though he “ultimately had overall responsibility for the firm,” he did not generally involve himself in the movement of cash and collateral or the mechanics of settling trades.

“Nor was I an expert on the complicated rules and regulations governing the various different operating businesses that comprised MF Global,” he said.

[Hmmm. See Jon's first statement casting doubt on his own ability to speak truthfully. Applies directly to the above. Jon is trying to evade responsibility - and perjury. He will fail at both.]


Posted on December 14th, 2011:

Did Jon Corzine Commit Perjury Before Congress? Oh, You Betcha!

“Mr. Corzine was aware because our employee had heard this, on the phone—‘Send back 175’ — and said he was aware of this loan,” Duffy told the Senate committee. …

“The only thing I can tell you [is] that MF Global transferred customer money to its broker dealer, and that Mr. Corzine was aware of the loans being made from segregated accounts,” he said. When asked for elaboration, a CME spokesman said the firm would not comment beyond the remarks Duffy made at the hearing.

That statement, sworn under oath, puts lie to Corzine's now-famous “I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date"..

[Corzine knew all along where the money is - or was - and knows exactly why they can't reconcile customer accounts. Like a pathetic, down-and-out drunken gambler, he stayed at the table too long, convinced of his invincibility, bet the mortgage, and lied about it the next day...]



And so, yesterday:

Jon Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd. (MFGLQ)’s chief executive officer, gave “direct instructions” to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in a brokerage account with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), according to a memo written by congressional investigators.

Edith O’Brien, a treasurer for the firm, said in an e-mail quoted in the memo that the transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg News yesterday. The e-mail, dated Oct. 28, was sent three days before the company collapsed, the memo says.

Barry Zubrow, JPMorgan’s chief risk officer, called Corzine to seek assurances that the funds belonged to MF Global and not customers. JPMorgan drafted a letter to be signed by O’Brien to ensure that MF Global was complying with rules requiring customers’ collateral to be segregated. The letter was not returned to JPMorgan, the memo said...


If it was clear to a two-bit Jersey blogger late last year, Corzine's criminality was no doubt clear to federal investigators well before then. So why isn't he behind bars?

Follow the money, bitches:

...despite President Obama decrying ‘Wall Street Fat Cats' - Corzine has already helped to raise at least half-million dollars for President Obama's re-election.

As for that half-million? The Obama campaign says it will give the money back - if Corzine is convicted of a crime. But if history is our guide -the kind of Wall Street firms Corzine once ran became ‘Too Big to Fail.'

Maybe Corzine himself will be too ‘Big to Jail...

[Not too big. Just too valuable to Barack Obama. $500 million in Barack's pockets is enough to let you get away with squandering - illegally - Over $1B in innocent's people's money.]


Not to mention the fact that having the man who Joe Biden bragged was instrumental in sculpting the failed stimulus program -

"I literally picked up the phone and called Jon Corzine...
...and said 'Jon, what do you think we should do' ?

The reason we called Jon is because we knew he knew about the economy..."

- facing a massive prison sentence for fraud and perjury would be an allegorical nightmare for a president facing re-election.

So the innocent are ruined, while the guilty ride in limousines. For now. A defeated governor whose power as a fundraiser has been greatly diminished is of little value to anyone, and Obama might yet throw him under the bus two weeks before the election in a desperation ploy. If not, no doubt a Republican president will sic his AG on Corzine ASAP - what better way to momentarily satiate the class warriors, while making them out to be hypocrites if they doth protest too much?

But in the meanwhile, Corzine walks free, thanks to Obama's sickening sense of self-preservation above all. But Dirty Jon as been exposed as what we always knew he was: A liar, and a criminal. Sing it, Henry!




I'm perfect
in every way
cause I make you feel so strong and so powerful inside
you feel so lucky
but your ego obscures reality
and you never bother to wonder why
things are going so well
you wanna know why?
cause I'm a liar
yeah I'm a liar
I'll tear your mind out
I'll burn your soul
I'll turn you into me
I'll turn you into me
cause I'm a liar, a liar
a liar, a liar


....I'll come to you like an affliction
and I'll leave you like an addiction
you'll never forget me
you wanna know why?
cause I'm a liar
yeah I'm a liar
I'll rip your mind out
I'll burn your soul
I'll turn you into me
I'll turn you into me
cause I'm a liar, a liar
liar, liar, liar, liar


I don't know why I feel the need to lie
and cause you so much pain
maybe it's something inside
maybe it's something I can't explain
cause all I do
is mess you up and lie to you
I'm a liar
oh, I am a liar...

Now it's Christie vs. Corzine as Daggett is Discredited

After a one-day polling scare that showed Corzine with a 20 point lead or something similar (and had the folks at The Corner writing up Christie's post-mortem), it seems as if things have gone back to "Jersey normal": A margin-of-error lead for Chris Christie. Via JWF:

With just a week to go in New Jersey’s closely contested race for governor, Republican Chris Christie holds a three-point advantage over incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in New Jersey show Christie with 46% of the vote and Corzine with 43%. While the margin is little changed from a week ago and the week before, the biggest news may be that support for independent candidate Chris Daggett has dropped four points to seven percent (7%). The number of undecided voters is down to four percent (4%).

...Christie leads by eight points among those who are certain they will show up and vote. A week ago, he was up by five among that group. Christie’s supporters are also less likely to say they might consider voting for someone else.

Corzine does better among voters who might not make it to the polls. That's one reason President Obama, former President Bill Clinton and other Democratic Party luminaries are spending time in the Garden State in hopes of encouraging turnout.

Daggett got hurt (as did Corzine) when, during a high-profile radio interview, he refused to rule out taking a job in a a second Corzine administration. Between that confession and Christie's new attack ads linking his two opponents, Jersey voters may have come to realize Corzine/Daggett are one and the same, and that Daggett - based upon Corzine's spending history in this election - could even be working for Corzine; by refusing to pull out of an election he can't win in return for splitting the vote, thus handing Corzine a victory, and in return receiving a high-paying job with a nice pension...

Hey, sometimes it's good to be jaded. Remember, this is a state where 40+ public officials were hauled off to the hoosegow in one day for a scandal that included, among other things, organ trafficking. So don't tell me it's unrealistic to assume that Daggert and Corzine are in cahoots... [UPDATE 3:50P: Bret Schundler, the GOP nominee for governor of New Jersey in 2001, agrees w/my assessment of Daggert's duplicity in this race]

With Daggert diminished and exposed as a Corzine stooge, the narrowed field of choices helps Christie. Now it's all about getting the folks out to vote. Corzine will do everything in his wealth and power to retain his seat, including declaring a snow day and/or sending fleets of limos to Camden and Newark. Christie has got to get his "base" - middle class New Jersey taxpayers - out next Tuesday, a difficult task in a commuter state.

If he can, he wins. If he can't, Corzine wins. Maybe the RNC should take some of that money they are pissing away in NY-23 and send it to Jersey to lock up what could be a huge victory with national implications...

Jon Corzine To Replace Timothy Geithner? Or Is It Just Another Scam By Dirty Jon?

It's hard to believe that Barack Obama  - who spends most of his waking hours, and God know how many of his sleeping ones, decrying Wall Street hedge-funds managers and billionaires - would appoint a  billionaire Wall Street hedge-fund manager to replace Time Geithner at the Treasury.  But Corzine has been a good little boy, helping to bundle mega-bucks for the boss, and there's been rumors for a while of a tit-for-tat if Crooked Jon came across with some fat cash.  Which he has.

The New York Times reported this little oddity on Tuesday:

Is Jon S. Corzine on the short list to replace Timothy F. Geithner as Treasury secretary?

A preliminary prospectus filed on Tuesday by MF Global, where Mr. Corzine, the former Democratic governor and senator from New Jersey is now chief executive, suggests that just may be a possibility.

MF Global is planning to sell five-year notes on Tuesday with an unusual twist: the notes will pay an extra 1 percent in the interest rate “upon the departure of Mr. Corzine as our full time chief executive officer due to his appointment to a federal position by the President of the United States and confirmation of that appointment by the United States Senate prior to July 1, 2013,” according to the offering. The higher possible rate reflects how important investors consider Mr. Corzine to be to MF’s prospects and pays them taking the risk that he might leave.

Is Corzine really on the short list, as this disclaimer seems to imply, or is this just flypaper for suckers, luring them to think IMF Global must be all that as their CEO could likely be the nation's next Treasury Secretary?

Like all things Corzine, upon further review, even this guarantee of additional returns turns out to be a shit deal. The Times follows up today with a healthy dose of skepticism:

Investors will get an extra one percentage point of interest on the firm’s $300 million bond deal. That might sound encouraging. After all, bondholder activism is worthy of encouragement. But this key man clause seems to benefit Mr. Corzine’s image more than creditors.

....it’s hard to see how one executive’s departure for another, noncompeting job would undermine a firm’s creditworthiness.

But let’s assume it did. In that unlikely event, bondholders would share among them an extra $3 million a year. That hardly constitutes adequate recompense for increased risk. What’s more, if lenders really are concerned about the consequences of Mr. Corzine’s departure, they should be insisting on a clause in the debt deal that covers every eventuality, not just the possibility that President Obama might ask him to run the Treasury Department, which is what the deal document essentially implies.

....The Corzine covenant is at least good public relations for MF Global and its boss. But as protection for bondholders, it’s pretty much meaningless.

Much like all the patchwork budgets that Corzine put together as governor of New Jersey, nearly sending the state into bankruptcy before getting his ass handed to him by a state with a huge Democratic registration advantage.

I'm not sure if a beaten and bloodied Obama would want to even try to push the tarnished Corzine through the Senate at this point. Seems to me as if Corzine is trying to create a buzz around himself, both to help his fundraising for Obama and to help line his pockets with fool's gold - the gold of the fools who really believe Corzine's name has any type of monetary value attached to it whatsoever.

But Obama does own Dirty Jon something, I suppose. Perhaps an ambassadorship to Luxembourg is more in the cards for the erstwhile governor, notorious for sleeping with union heads while negotiating with them. Seems to me that as he couldn't even handle New Jersey, Jon needs to start at the bottom, and prove his mettle, before he's allowed any more big-boy toys...

Will Jon Corzine Destroy Barack Obama?

The president campaigned vigorously for Jon Corzine in his failed re-election effort back in 2009.  He then hand-selected Dirty Jon (after a number of "secret meetings") to be his 2012 money-man in the banking industry, his bundler on "The Street", tasked with keeping the financial district dollars flowing to the Democrats, despite the demagoguery.  And the president did nothing to quell rumors that Crooked Jon was the heir apparent to Timothy Geithner's Treasury Secretary position - all assuming, of course, that Jon upheld his share of the deal and kept that fat Wall Street cash flowing to the Obama 2012 campaign.  Rumors which, coincidentally, MF Global used to lure investors to their portfolio less than a year ago.

Doesn't speak well for the president's judgement, of course, although the jury has long since returned their judgement on that matter.  But can Barack Obama politically afford to let Jon Corzine walk away from the MF Global disaster with over $12 million dollars, while investigators are searching for almost $700 million dollars in "missing" investor money?  The potential crime:

MF Global, headed by former New Jersey Senator and Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine, filed for bankruptcy yesterday, but reports that $700 million is missing has spooked creditors and others on Wall Street... Best case scenario, the "missing money" is just sloppy "internal controls," but worst case scenario, the financially unstable MF Global diverted customer funds to back its own trades..."Customers' funds must be kept separate from company money," they write. "One of the basic duties of any brokerage firm is to keep track of customer accounts on a daily basis." ...the firm has been suspended from trading on the London Mercantile Exchange and futures market CME Group, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

And the reward:

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is out of a job now that the Wall Street firm he headed, MF Global, has gone bankrupt, but don’t worry. He’ll be just fine.

Corzine has a couple of things to keep him out of the unemployment line. First, he’s a “great friend” and “ally” of President Barack Obama, as the president himself has said.

And second, he’s expected to receive a $12.1 million severance package — the kind of things that critics of Wall Street excess, like Obama, often call “golden parachutes.”

And here's where the problems begin for the president:

In a 2008 campaign ad, Obama attacked then-GOP presidential candidate John McCain for his ties to campaign adviser and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who was paid a little more than $20 million in severance.

“You’ve got corporate executives who are giving themselves million dollar golden parachutes and leaving workers high and dry,” Obama said in the 2008 ad. “That’s wrong. It’s an outrage.”

How outraged? Outraged enough to make sure Dirty Jon gets his comeuppance? Johnathan Tobin at Commentary, in a piece entilted Corzine: Poster Child for Liberal Hypocrisy, thinks Obama may not have much choice:

Corzine is not just another high-flying investment ace that was shot down by bad bets — in this case by his firm’s decision to put customers’ money in European sovereign debt. Such figures are generally associated with the fat cats whom popular culture tells us are all Republicans who finance conservative causes. Corzine was, after all, not just a Democrat but one of the party’s bright hopes just a few years ago and a leading liberal advocate for bigger government as well as, in a touch dripping with irony, for reining excessive compensation for Wall Street executives. More than just a stereotypical “limousine liberal,” Corzine was a major figure in mobilizing financial support for the Democratic Party, a role that he continued to play even after losing his try for re-election in 2009 to Chris Christie. The White House will try to distance itself from Corzine, but the disgrace of one of his leading bundlers will make it a little harder for Obama to spend the next year wandering the countryside complaining about Republican responsibility for Wall Street greed and income inequality.

Will Obama stick by Corzine, in the hopes of squeezing him for a little more cash? Or will he realize the payoff margin is too thin, and toss him under the bus?

The media cannot quell this one, it is a Page 1 story in the business section and the involvement of Corzine will insure it stays there for a while, Herman Cain notwithstanding. The Republicans will tie Corzine and Obama together mercilessly, and Obama will have to explain how his populist rhetoric squares with his business relationship with Jon Corzine, who destroyed a century-old firm, possibly mishandled (intentionally) close to three-quarters of a trillion dollars in customer's money, and still walked away with over $12 million in his pocket.

Obama shouldn't have hitched his wagon to a dirty Jersey penny. Now he's gonna pay, big-time...possibly, even, with his job...

Don't feel too bad, Barack. Just imagine what the press would be saying if you were a Republican...

Hugo Corzine's Jackboot...

....lands on the neck of any whom dare oppose his proposal to make New Jersey toll roads the world's most expensive. From Land Line, a trucker's site:

Apparently, no one told the police in Middle Township, NJ, that freedom of speech is a constitutional right.

On Saturday, Jan. 19, police arrested two men who had leaflets and signs protesting Gov. Jon Corzine’s plan to drastically increase tolls. The setting was the town’s high school where Corzine was scheduled to appear at a town meeting to make his case for raising tolls.

Before the governor arrived, some 10 toll increase opponents began distributing flyers and displaying signs that read “No toll hikes.” Among those were former Bogota, NJ, Mayor Steven Lonegan and Seth Grossman, an attorney.

Lonegan and Grossman told “Land Line Now” that when they got to the sidewalk near the school, they were confronted by a dozen or more police officers.
“I was surrounded by seven officers,” said Lonegan. “They told me the governor did not want me to hand out flyers.”
Lonegan said he was told it was a “private” meeting.

With more than a dozen years experience as a public official, Lonegan explained to the officers it was actually a “public” meeting, paid for by taxpayers. Lonegan told them it was his right to pass out flyers protesting the toll increases.
“They cuffed me and put me in the patrol car,” he said.

Grossman was also arrested. Both were detained for about an hour after being charged with trespassing.

A retired superior court judge who witnessed the arrests said it was “very scary.” Various media sources quoted him as saying it reminded him of movies he’d seen about Russia and Germany.

“My run-in with freedom of speech in New Jersey was a chilling, oppressive experience,” said Lonegan.

Well, that's what you get in a one-party system. Whether it is the willingness of New Jersey liberals to give up their freedom of speech to avoid voting for a (gasp!) Republican, or the state Republican party's sheer ineptitude in failing to bring more awareness to these increasingly ugly incidents (and failure to recruit any decent candidates), the Democrats of New Jersey know that they are operating securely in a single-party system - a la Communist Russia, China, etc. - and act like it.

And thanks to the good police force of Middle Township for gleefully stamping out free speech with the force of their weaponary and badges. They have no fear either; after all, Corzine and his Democratic ilk has made sure that the citizens of New Jersey are completely unarmed and unable to fight back against his fascist government (and NO, this site does not - DOES NOT - condone violence of any kind against police officers, BUT this is exactly why the framers wrote the Second Amendment into the Constitution - to avoid the usurping of inaliable rights by small-time thugs like Corzine and his paramilitary partners in the local and state police departments.) What next for the Jersey police - herding the Jews to the train stations? Well, if Herr Corzine asks...

The Asbury Park Press sounds the alarm:

With each passing day and each release of new information, Gov. Corzine's plan to hike tolls on New Jersey's toll roads to help pay down state debt makes increasingly less sense. At the same time, his refusal to release details about the plan for months before finally unveiling it three weeks ago becomes easier to understand: The more people know about it, the less they like it.

...a bipartisan committee should be established to consider alternatives to Corzine's monetization of the state's toll roads. Corzine insists no one has come up with a better idea yet. We've offered plenty. And we've heard plenty of sensible ideas from others. Corzine doesn't seem to be listening.

Corzine's attempt to ram through monetizations...must be stopped. It's clear his chief motivation for reducing debt is to free up room for new debt to be used to fund his endless list of costly initiatives — not to reduce the state's oppressive taxes.

But will any heed the call? The "progressives" of New Jersey would rather sink the state into third-world status before rethinking any of their faulty presuppositions. Rolling blackouts, pepper spray, state brutality, and insane spending on extremist liberal causes, here we come....

See below for Mr. Logan's arrest on the charge of.....opposing Governor Corzine's schemes? (hat tip: More Monmouth Musings)




UPDATE: Welcome, friends of Michelle Malkin ! Alas, this blog contains many more True-Life Jersey Horror Stories like the one above; simply search the site using the keyword "Corzine". But be warned: Not for the faint of heart....

Why Barack Obama Won't Let Jon Corzine Go To Jail

I called for jail time for Crooked Jon some time ago, as these facts were unfolding:

The $633 million in missing client funds from Jon Corzine’s now-bankrupt firm MF Global appears to be a result of a “massive hide-and-seek ploy,” a US Commodity Futures Trading commissioner said yesterday.

“This isn’t just a lost-and-found inquiry; it’s a full-on effort to get to the bottom of what appears to be a massive hide-and-seek ploy,” said CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton said in disclosing the MF investigation.

“It’s a distinct possibility, some would say probability, that somebody has done something with the money, and that it’s not going to be ‘all of a sudden discovered’ with an innocent explanation,” Chilton wrote. “If that’s the case, it’s patently illegal. I don’t know yet. Our investigation will uncover that, and we’re aggressively pursuing this.”



The New York Post's economist extraordinaire, John Crudle, reports on four honest family men whose livelihoods were destroyed by Corzine's brazen thievery at MF Global:

“We are just trying to eke out a living,” he added. Moe had to draw $75,000 from a line of credit on his house to stay in business after his firm’s money — which also happened to be his personal dough — disappeared into MF’s rat hole.

Two other traders I’ll call Meeny and Miney are middle-age guys, still paying for their kids’ college educations. Eeny, the fourth trader, is in his mid-30s and has two small children.

All of them were stung hard — not only because their money at MF disappeared overnight but also because they couldn’t even get on the floor of the exchange to conduct business.
Their IDs had been revoked.

Up to 30,000 of MF’s customers worldwide are said to be unable to access money they had in so-called “segregated” accounts at the company. And with the bankruptcy court and a trustee now involved, that money could be locked up for a long time.

“I want to see jail. I want to see one of these guys go to prison,” Moe said, with Eeny, Meeny and Miney nodding in agreement....

Corzine, who took over the sleepy brokerage firm after being defeated for a second term in the statehouse, is the one they hold most responsible.

The traders are now passing around the hat — collecting $500 from anyone willing to pay so they can hire a lawyer. Meeny explained that this wasn’t money lent to MF; it was just on deposit there. So he shouldn’t be considered a “creditor” by the court.

Sounds like exactly the kind of people - middle-class - that Obama swore to protect from thieves like Jon Corzine. And with Obama waging war on Wall Street with his smelly "Occupation" army as his front-line troops, one would think he would use this opportunity to hang Corzine high, to claim an easy, high-profile scalp by someone who is universally loathed.

"Excellent...."

Won't happen. We know that Obama went to the wall for Corzine in his failed attempt to spend his way to re--election as governor of New Jersey, and we know that Corzine was one of the Obama administration's chief economic advisers, and we know that Corzine was Obama's man on Wall Street, tasked to bundle campaign donations from the fat cats in exchange for the Treasury Secretary position in a second Obama term.

And yet despite all this, Obama could still win in our convoluted political calculus if he threw Crooked Jon under the bus, like he has done to some many others. It would show that Obama meant business, and no one was safe from his crusade on the little man, not even former friends and associates.

So why won't he?

...despite President Obama decrying ‘Wall Street Fat Cats' - Corzine has already helped to raise at least half-million dollars for President Obama's re-election.

As for that half-million? The Obama campaign says it will give the money back - if Corzine is convicted of a crime. But if history is our guide -the kind of Wall Street firms Corzine once ran became ‘Too Big to Fail.'

Maybe Corzine himself will be too ‘Big to Jail...

Not too big. Just too valuable to Barack Obama. $500 million in Barack's pockets is enough to let you get away with squandering - illegally - almost $700 million in innocent's people's money.

$500 million sounds like a lot, I suppose. But is it a high enough price to sell your values, your soul, and to undermine the justice system of the Untied States of America?

Apparently, our president thinks so...

Did Bill Clinton help Jon Corzine Loot MF Global?

I speculated a while back that the Jon Corzine scandal could eventually be the undoing of Barack Obama.  Turns out that Crooked Jon may wind up being the downfall of the Clinton clan as well.

The digging into the rubble of MF Global has only just begun, and what do we find?  Unnecessary  contracts paying inordinate sums to Democratic godfather Bill Clinton:

Even as Jon Corzine’s MF Global was collapsing, a firm that includes former President Bill Clinton in a senior post was raking in huge fees for public-relations and financial advice from the ill-fated brokerage...

Clinton’s office insists the former president did not profit from the relationship between MF Global and Teneo Holdings, where he is chairman of the advisory board. But Teneo...was paid $125,000 a month for at least five months in one of MF’s biggest consulting arrangements, according to sources at the brokerage house.

Campaigning together before Corzine's eventual loss to Chris Christie

The relationship was controversial within MF Global even before the company’s financial problems hit the news as executives questioned why an outside firm was needed for work that had long been done in-house.

Teneo served as a personal p.r. firm and political consultant for then-MF Global CEO Corzine, the former governor and senator from New Jersey. It also offered advice on European financial investments — like the ones that ultimately led to MF’s collapse in October.

Clinton does make money from Teneo, but has declined to disclose the sum.

Corzine and the former president have been close for years. Clinton campaigned for Corzine repeatedly and Corzine, in turn, became the first sitting governor to endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the presidency when she ran in 2008.

Hillary, about to plant a big one on Crooked Jon's dirty beard.  Yuk - like watching blind monkey sex...

So Jon Corzine assumes control over MF Global, and takes a task usually handled internally and assigns it  - at a high cost to his company - to a consulting firm  on which his pal Bill Clinton just happens to be a board member.  Apparently, Clinton's firm made over $750K in a few months to help Jon Corzine's image - fail! -  and to advise him on the very investments that collapsed MF Global.  Uber-fail.

This can't help Bill Clinton's image as the wise, sighing philosopher on the mountain.  It can't help his wife, who is whoring herself out - as well as whaetver values she ever held -  to Barack Obama's radical political whims.  And it can't help young Chelsea Clinton, who will undoubtedly run for office one day.

Sexual harassment and  the treatment of women were a big deal for Democrats in the 90's, and the Clintons got caught in a net of their making.  Fast-forward a decade or so, and here the Clintons are again, trapped again, this time by a Democratic jihad against Wall Street.  Both times, Bill got caught with his hand in the, ahem, "cookie jar", just as the spotlight was shining brightest.

And again, we see Jon Corzine treating private sector money as if it were taxpayer money - that is, as his personal piggy-bank.  And where did this payoff money to Bill Clinton come from - MF Global's personal funds, or their investor's allegedly untouchable cash?  We'll likely never know.

But who else did Corzine lavish his client's money on?  Does it end with Bill Clinton, or will it go all the way up to the White House?

The media will do everything they can to disappear this story, but it may not work.  After all, they have worked in tandem with the Democrats to make Wall Street the scapegoats of the Great Recession.  When The Street starts vomiting up Democrats, does the media expect the people not to notice it?  And will they not notice the rank hypocrisy if the media turns a blind eye?

We've oft warned the president that unleashing a pitchforked mob can have unpredictable effects. So hopefully, he won't be surprised when he sees the torch-lights on Pennsylvania Avenue...

Jon Corzine: As Destructive In the Private Sector As He Was In New Jersey

After leaving the state broke and bankrupt with his leftist economic illiteracy, he is now doing the same to investors (aka "suckers") at MF Global Holdings:

Shares of MF Global Holdings, the outfit Jon Corzine took over last year, dropped 40 percent yesterday after its biggest-ever quarterly loss as a public company. Corzine has tried to transform the broker into a global investment bank that manages money for customers and provides capital services for companies. In the past 12 quarters, the company has turned a profit three times, and shares are down 70 percent this year.

And investors are fleeing Corzine the way citizens fled New Jersey:

Some customers are moving money away from struggling futures brokerage MF Global Holdings Ltd, according to hedge funds, rivals, and analysts, though the extent of the outflows is unclear.

Any substantial departures will likely put further pressure on MF Global Chief Executive Jon Corzine, a former New Jersey governor and former head of Goldman Sachs, to sell all or part of the company.

MF Global, whose shares slumped 15.9 percent on Thursday and have lost more than 60 percent of their value this week, had been trying to transform from a brokerage that mainly places customers' trades on exchanges into an investment bank that bet with its own capital.

But its bets on bonds from euro zone countries have gone bad, prompting regulators to press it to boost capital and one rating agency to cut the company's debt rating to junk status.

Three brokers at rival firms said they were signing up customers who were formerly at MF Global, and Patrick O'Shaughnessy, an analyst at Raymond James in Chicago, said his conversations with customers indicate there have been "significant departures."
There are rumors, too, that Corzine might get the boot sooner rather than later.  A one-termer, so to speak, just like this loser was in New Jersey.

But maybe MF Global was never on the up and up to begin with.  As I reported in August, there were some strange doings afoot with MF & Crooked Jon.

The New York Times:

MF Global is planning to sell five-year notes on Tuesday with an unusual twist: the notes will pay an extra 1 percent in the interest rate “upon the departure of Mr. Corzine as our full time chief executive officer due to his appointment to a federal position by the President of the United States and confirmation of that appointment by the United States Senate prior to July 1, 2013,” according to the offering. The higher possible rate reflects how important investors consider Mr. Corzine to be to MF’s prospects and pays them taking the risk that he might leave.

My question was:

Is Corzine really on the short list, as this disclaimer seems to imply, or is this just flypaper for suckers, luring them to think IMF Global must be all that as their CEO could likely be the nation's next Treasury Secretary?

Well, to be fair, there were plenty of rumors of a possible quid pro quo agreement between Barack Obama and Jon Corzine.  Crooked Jon was appointed as one of Obama's top Wall Street money "bundlers", and supposedly would be first in line for the coveted treasury spot, should Obama get re-elected, or need to fill the position even sooner.

But apparently, Corzine couldn't even convince his fellow crooks to pony up for man on top of the Syndicate, as Obama's Wall Street donations have dropped dramatically.  Of course, the "Occupy" movement - endorsed by the president - is having a dampening effect as well.

So to sum up - who has Jon Corzine screwed over in the last 18 months?

-The entire sate of New Jersey, which he left a fiscal shambles

-Investors in the MF  Group, thinking the CEO would eventually become the Treasury Secretary, and thus give their portfolio "most favored nation" status,

-The President of the United States, who trusted him to be a to fundraiser in what looks to be a challenging re-election campaign (and that's me being polite)

I don't think Crooked Jon has got a lot of friends left anymore, and has made some powerful enemies to boot..  Who's left for him to rob, besides innocent children and drunken call girls?

And I would put neither class past him...

Jon Corzine and Carla Katz: Lust in the Dust!

Well, considering the way these two perfectly-mated lovebirds - one a union negotiator, the other a governor with a union fetish - financially pulverized New Jersey, this post title is apt.

Jon Corzine spent two years and nearly $200,000- of taxpayer money to keep secret the emails between himself and former lover and union leader Carla Katz. Now that the Star-Ledger has gotten hold of around 100 of them, we can get a peek as to whether the bedroom talk was simply about the size of Jon's tax increases, or more geared towards the nuts and bolts, as it where, of contract negotiations.

The answer: Both. But most of the pressing came from Carla's side, who comes off more as an unhinged ex-girlfriend than a savvy negotiator. Still, I guess there was nothing untoward on her end in using sex to lure the governor into giving her union more goodies. Who doesn't try a wink and a peek when the chips are down?

Anyway - some examples of Carla's craziness:

At 11:15 p.m. on Feb. 13, she sent the governor a note harking back to their romantic days, saying, "Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetie. You are both a good man and a hard man...and I like both. xxx"

A day later, Katz wanted to know what was happening with the contract talks. As the evening of Valentine’s Day progressed, she still hadn’t gotten the answers she sought, and that sharpened her edge.

At 12:04 p.m. on Feb. 15, she was growing insistent and said she was taking the governor’s silence "personally."

It didn’t stop there. At 8:56 a.m. on Feb. 17, Katz was annoyed and upped the ante, saying she wasn’t looking to discuss negotiations but she needed to speak with Corzine and had been leaving messages for him. "I rarely say it is important and wish you respected that by getting a hold of me quickly."

Corzine responded by having Tom Shea, his chief of staff, deal with Katz. But that did not suit the governor’s ex-girlfriend, who wrote him at 9:40 a.m. on Feb. 17 to say talking to Shea was not sufficient....

Seems like Corzine did the right thing, and continued to try to do so:

While Corzine tried to convince Katz that they needed to avoid contact because of the negotiations, Katz had been sending e-mails pertaining to the talks for weeks.

On Feb. 7, Katz sent him a 22-point list of "non-economic issues" that were part of the union discussions. Ninety minutes later, she said she was disturbed that the Treasury Department had, in her view, leaked a story that would hurt the union’s bargaining position...

And when she wasn't begging for union giveaways, she was begging for sex. Yuk:

She kept asking to see Corzine — for a drink or just a brief chat — and even dispatched his-and-hers horoscopes in separate e-mails on March 12.

By 5:21 p.m. March 15, she sent a note announcing that she had relaxed and was back in Hoboken with the hope that Corzine would see her and that the quiet time could give way to being "temporarily noisy." Ninety-three minutes later, she wrote: "Anybody there???... 9 p.m. drinks? 9:30? 10?" Six minutes after that, she wrote: "Tomorrow? Sat? Sunday? 2008? 2009? 2020?"

Corzine said he was tied up, first with official appearances and then visiting his adult children. He was suspicious about a lull in the controversy, and he encouraged Katz to relax and go to bed.

So why did Jon fight so hard to keep these emails secret, emails that show him as a man pursued by a woman scorned, almost as - a victim? Fellow Democrats weigh in:

"There was nothing in there that he did that he should be embarrassed about," said Sen. Richard Codey (D-Essex), Corzine’s predecessor in the governor’s office. "I don’t know what he was thinking when he thought something would be damaging. Sometimes his political acumen wasn’t always the best. Sometimes he just wasn’t thinking clearly."

Just sometimes, Richard?

What's the best part of this story? That the losers turned out to be...Corzine, rejected by the voters, and Carla Katz, fired by the union. Finally - a union communique that I can march along with:

Katz, then president of Communications Workers of America Local 1034, is now 51 and a practicing attorney.
Katz was expelled from the union after it was learned she was secretly communicating with Corzine about the contract talks. Yesterday, CWA leaders said they feel vindicated after reading the e-mails.

"When it became known that such unauthorized and prohibited communications occurred, CWA took action to enforce its constitution," the union said in a statement. "Carla Katz is no longer a member of CWA and Jon Corzine is no longer governor and we hope that this chapter is finally over."

So do we, guys - so do we....

Key Corzine Staffer Arrested For Drug Possession/Dealing!

[updates at bottom - 8:27 pm]

So now we know how Jon Corzine's been funding his campaign:

An official with New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's re-election campaign was arrested last night after cops found found ecstasy tablets wrapped and ready to be sold in his car, police said.

Officers wound up finding 19 "blue star" ecstasy tablets in Shih's car, each wrapped in its own little plastic bag.
Shih -- who was stopped within 100 feet of Becton Regional High School -- also had "several hundred" empty plastic bags in his car, Conforti said.

Shih told police he worked for Corzine's campaign, and had several campaign-related items in his car, police said. A "Jason Shih" is listed online as a deputy assistant director of the campaign.

Shih was charged with possession of drugs, possession of drugs in a school zone, intent to distribute drugs and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was also charged with two motor vehicle violations -- driving while using a cell phone and having drugs in his car.

Well, this will get the crackhead vote out for Corzine, I reckon...but if you still had questions about the governor's judgement, the fact that his deputy ass't campaign director was dealing "X" in a school zone after hours tells you everything you need to know.

Between this ugly incident and his remarks about selling off the Turnpike right after he gets re-elected, one has to wonder if Corzine isn't completely (willingly?) self-destructing here at the end of the game...

UPDATE: JWF has more on how this story is being scrubbed from various websites (including the link above); but beyond a standard denial of knowledge by the Corzine campaign, there is no indication that Shih is lying about his Corzine connection. As a matter of fact, we can see he was working for the New Jersey Democratic party as recently as 2006, which certainly lends credence to his story. NJ.com still has the story up, for now.

If Shih's story is false, I'd like to hear it from someone other than the Corzine flaks, who are not quite famous for their honesty. If the media reported the story incorrectly and has evidence to that fact, they should report that as well.

Unless, of course, we are witnessing some high tech bullying from the Obama folks who have been running the Corzine campaign for some time now...don't put it past them to try to silence this potentially Corzine-killing story with all the weapons and intimidation at their disposal...

Jon Corzine: The Ultimate Ingrate

It was just over two years ago when Jon Corzine almost died in a near-fatal accident almost entirely of his own making - ordering his driver to speed (91 MPH in a 65 zone) while refusing to wear a seat belt ("Click it or Ticket", guv!), in order to attend a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Does anyone even remember that kerfluffle any more? Certainly not Corzine, although he was a dim bulb before he took a shot to the head in the now infamous crash. It seems like Corzine forgot the whole incident - beacuse the governor, who thanked the first-responder EMTs for saving his life that night, is now cutting their budget by 90%. Bob Ingle of the Asbury Park-Press:

Surely Corzine can find a better way to balance the budget than cut $4 million from an account established in 1995 to fund volunteer EMT training through 50 cents taken from every moving violation in the state. The governor would leave $400,000 in the fund and that means 20,000 volunteers would have to pay for their own EMT training

Two years ago, Corzine praised the EMTs who helped save his life. They have to undergo training to keep their knowledge current and their licenses valid. EMTs can mean the difference between life and death — Corzine should know.

Assemblywoman Dawn Marie Addiego:

“Other than the satisfaction of serving the community and helping others, being a volunteer EMT does not bring many perks. Making them pay for their training will worsen their already thinning ranks and push towns toward paid squads, which will increase property taxes.”

Rudder noted that it was volunteer responders who first arrived to Corzine’s aid when he sustained nearly fatal injuries in a 2007 automobile crash.“

Governor Corzine should know better than most the value EMTs provide to New Jersey, yet his budget proposal threatens to make these volunteers disappear from the state’s landscape – just like he is doing to the middle class and small businesses,” Rudder said. “The governor’s budget has many misguided priorities, but this example shows contempt for those who keep us safe without charging for their services.”

More:

John Mateus, president of the New Jersey Medical Services Educator's Association, said Corzine would be making a "tragic decision" if he uses the money to plug a hole in the state budget.

Mateus said he hopes a letter-writing campaign will convince the governor to change his mind.
The campaign includes a flyer, "Say Thanks to Corzine," showing the governor in a wheelchair the day he was released from a Camden hospital thanking those who treated him after he suffered broken ribs and a broken femur in a much-publicized April 2007 car crash.

What an ungrateful bastard - to raid and de-fund the very people who saved his life in order to continue to pay for the myriad of social welfare programs he has initiated that are bleeding the state bone dry.

What's next? Robbing his father while raping his mother? Hey, if it helps him stay "progressive..."

Jon Corzine Humiliated Before Congress

Jon Corzine was back before Congress yesterday, frantically trying to explain how his lies actually meshed with the sworn testimony of Terrence Duffy, the chief executive of CME Group, who claimed that Corzine did in fact approve illegal transfers of customer funds.

What Corzine said or didn't say isn't really important; if he's lucky enough to escape sharing a jail cell with Bernie Madoff, we can at least be consoled that he'll face massive legal bills for the rest of his natural life.  And over the remainder of that lifetime we will see the haughty Corzine brought down to earth, the folly of his economic policies exposed, and the myth of liberalism as a compassionate philosophy exploded.

As it was yesterday on Capitol Hill.  Via Hot Air:


Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) mocked Corzine’s apologies and his statements that he sympathizes with MF Global customers hurt by the bankruptcy.

“What hotel are you at here in the city?” Pearce asked, repeating Corzine’s barely audible answer: “The Ritz Carlton — did I hear it correctly?”

“How many of the 36,000 clients that were defrauded have you called personally?” Pearce asked.

“None,” Corzine said.

Alluding to the fortune Corzine made as head of Goldman Sachs, Pearce asked, “Have you created a scholarship for any of the families that have been disadvantaged, people just to help them out with maybe their college funds? Yes? No?”

“Congressman, the answer is no,” Corzine said.


Is liberalism anything except a con game, redistributing the earnings of hard-working, well-meaning Americans into the pockets of devious politicians and their cronies?

Sadly, the answer is no....

 "What have you been doing lately, Jon? Playing the market with the company's money?
....Look at you. You used to be so cocky. You were going to go out and conquer the world... What are you but a warped, frustrated young man? A miserable little clerk crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help....."
~Mr. Potter, "It's a Wonderful Life"

Jon is going to do more than simply help bring down Barack Obama.  He's going to destroy an entire poisonous ideology, albeit one that he has profited by for his entire life.

Good things do grow out of manure piles, I suppose...

In New Jersey, The Blind Leading The Naked

But who can say which is which?

Somehow, Jon Corzine thinks this will help his already-wounded re-election campaign for governor:

Vice President Joe Biden will join Gov. Jon Corzine as the Democratic governor officially kicks off his re-election campaign next month, Corzine announced today.

Corzine zipped out an email to his diehard loyalists...

"I share the President and Vice President's vision for what America can become once again," Corzine wrote. "In times like these, it is essential that our leaders hold firm to our core values and show the courage to do the right thing, and I'm eager for a chance to serve with a partner in the White House and with an economy on the upswing."

Man, you can spend a day just picking apart this example of Corzine's cluelessness. He shares Obama's vision of the socialization of America? Well, he's telling the truth about that. But what "core values" and "courage" have Corzine, Obama and Biden ever shown?

And what's that crap about an "economy on the upswing?" Does Corzine think if he keeps repeating a lie enough, people will start to believe it? Or does he ascribe to Hitler's "Big Lie" theory?

It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".

Well, guess who does has the impudence...

Related - if you ever wanted to know how clueless Joe Biden was, this statement should send the Gaffe-O-Matic flying off the scale:

[Biden] commended the former Wall Street executive for helping to craft the Recovery Act, adding that Corzine was the first person he called during the presidential transition period for advice on how to repair the damaged economy. At one point, he called Corzine, who was rumored to be on the short list to become Treasury Secretary, "the smartest guy I know on the economy and finance."

Well, if he's the smartest guy Joe Biden knows on "economy and finance" - a man who's run a somewhat wealthy state into the ground, and may be facing bankruptcy in six weeks - it's no wonder that the nation's economy is disintergrating before our eyes...

Jon Corzine: "I Sucked"

I am paraphrasing, of course, but it looks like he now knows what the rest of us figured out well before election day...The New York Times reports, with a tear in its collective eye:

In a farewell address tinged with more wistfulness than Wall Street bravado, Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey acknowledged on Tuesday his inability to solve the state’s mounting fiscal problems and said he hoped that he would be remembered for his commitment to the state’s children.

Before a joint session of the Legislature for his fourth and final State of the State address, Mr. Corzine bluntly admitted that he was leaving behind the same problem he had inherited: “Let’s face it: Everyone’s property taxes are too damn high.”

But Mr. Corzine said he was proud to have made enduring improvements to the lives of millions of the state’s most vulnerable residents by dedicating billions to rebuild schools and to pay for preschool education for 50,000 children and health care for 100,000 children.

So you f*cked up your #1 campaign promise - cutting the nation's highest property tax - and instead dedicated billions the state didn't have to "children" who will most likely flee the state due to its onerous tax burden. All this, while the property tax continued to skyrocket.

Truth is, most of the billions in taxpayer dollars that went into the New Jersey school systems were swallowed up by waste, fraud, corruption, and administrative positions and perks. Ask Chris Christie, he should know - he prosecuted enough of Corzine's school-board buddies....

Meanwhile, the overwhelming amount of these billions went to designated under-performing "Abbot" school districts, which achieved virtually no enduring academic results despite all the extra monies that rained down upon them. Of course, this necessitated cutting back on education funds in middle-class school districts - you know, the children of the folks that were actually paying for Corzine's "enduring improvements" - but Corzine notably did not ask to be remembered for his contributions to the lives of the middle-class residents of New Jersey.

If the children of New Jersey were such a concern to Corzine, maybe our billionaire governor (who, according to the Times, left the chamber for a ski vacation in Switzerland) could have used some of his own limitless fortune to help build schools and hire educators, instead of raising taxes, creating deficits that threaten to bankrupt the state, and screwing the middle class, all in order to fulfill his liberal fantasies. Helping the poor is nice, but shaking down an almost-poor person in the name of charity is criminal.

As was Corzine. But the King is dead. And boy, did he suck. And he can hide behind "the children" and other moral vanities all he wants, but it appears as if not even his own people are buying it:

While his voice appeared to break at several points during the 30-minute address, there were few other signs of emotion outside the rows where Mr. Corzine’s family and closest friends were seated...

Not missed, not loved...

Did Jon Corzine Commit Perjury Before Congress? Oh, You Betcha!

Well, he did tell us beforehand he was going to lie - Corzine hedged his testimony by saying he had too little time to prepare for the hearing and only limited access to records “essential to my being able to testify accurately..” - but an oath to tell the truth, so help you God, does not allow for if, buts, candy, or nuts...

The first piece of testimony contradictory to Corzine's came out yesterday in the Senate. And it was germane to the most serious potential charge against Corzine, that he knowingly used customer funds to cover MF Global's bad deals:

In a hearing before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Terrence A. Duffy, the chief executive of CME Group, said a senior female executive of MF Global told a CME auditor that Corzine — the former chief executive officer and chairman of the firm — was aware of a $175 million loan of customer money to a European affiliate of the now-bankrupt commodities brokerage.

“Mr. Corzine was aware because our employee had heard this, on the phone—‘Send back 175’ — and said he was aware of this loan,” Duffy told the Senate committee. …

“The only thing I can tell you [is] that MF Global transferred customer money to its broker dealer, and that Mr. Corzine was aware of the loans being made from segregated accounts,” he said. When asked for elaboration, a CME spokesman said the firm would not comment beyond the remarks Duffy made at the hearing.



That statement, sworn under oath, puts lie to Corzine's now-famous “I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date"...

Corzine knew all along where the money is - or was - and knows exactly why they can't reconcile customer accounts. Like a pathetic, down-and-out drunken gambler, he stayed at the table too long, convinced of his invincibility, bet the mortgage, and lied about it the next day.

Of course, it comes down to whom you believe: CME Executive Chairman Terry Duffy, or Jon Corzine. Or better yet: Given their character, which man is more likely to be an oath-breaker?

An easy one. And so are the perjury charges...

Corzine Trying to "Fix" Republican Primary?

Oh, man, only in Jersey is this kind of circus-like shennanigans possible:

Allies of New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Jon S. Corzine, are so worried about his re-election prospects that they are going to start spending and advertising heavily — in the Republican primary.

Mr. Corzine’s allies plan to attack the Republican they consider more formidable, the former federal prosecutor Christopher J. Christie, in an attempt to knock him out in the June primary, according to people briefed on the matter.

That would leave Mr. Corzine facing Steven M. Lonegan, a former small-town mayor from the party’s right wing, whose support for a flat income tax and a ban on abortion are popular with conservative voters, but could be a problem in the general election.

Mr. Christie has based his campaign almost entirely on his credentials as a corruption fighter, having obtained convictions of some 130 New Jersey politicians and public employees. and promises to bring the same forceful leadership to tackling the state’s fiscal problems. The Democratic assault, according to one of the people briefed on the plans, will aim to tarnish that image.

A desperate plan from a desperate man, I reckon. I believe Christie will survive this attack, as he has already survied others from frightened Corzine allies such as the ACLU, who smeared Christie with accusations of "abuses of power" that turned out to be anything but. Corzine still trails Christie, with polls showing leads over the embattled incumbant of anywhere of 4-9 points.

Six months out from election day, and Corzine is already using his unlimited wealth to go negative in the opposition's primary. This is going to be ugly, and the Republicans better be ready to fight back hard, or the state will retain Corzine for another four years, or until he is forced out, a la Rick Wagoner, in a bankruptcy hearing.

And speaking of forced out - Corzine's strategy here is reminicent of Gray Davis' strategy in the 2002 California governor's election, where he used his funds to defeat a tough Republican in their primaries and then cruise to an easy general election victory.

Does Corzine remember, though, what happened a short time after that? Enter the infamous California recall, say goodbye to Mr. Davis, and hello to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Desperate men win small victories, but always lose big in the end...

Jon Corzine: Buying Every Vote Available For Sale

Well, that's one way a billionaire can corner the market - buying up, regardless of price, all that he covets, be they items of desire or simply votes.

Corzine's already gotten some heat for his $87K contribution to the Black Ministers Council, whose leader, Reginald Jackson, endorsed the governor for re-election immediately afterward despite having a number of public disagreements with him.

But that figure is just pocket change to the governor when it comes to buying votes:

Turns out Corzine’s foundation gave nearly $1 million to a non-profit organization controlled by a black minister in Camden County in South Jersey, the Rev. Bishop David G. Evans, who also serves on the Turnpike Authority. The governor gave $25,000 to Evans’ church, which claims 28,000 members, as well. The Evans group did not say how the money was spent and Evans didn’t return calls to reporter Jason Method of the Asbury Park Press who broke the story.

Corzine also gave $250,000 to the foundation of Cooper Hospital where he was treated after an accident in which he wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The chairman of Cooper is Camden County Democratic Party Boss George Norcross.

According to its 2007 non-profit disclosure, David G. Evans Ministries collected $598,389 in revenue that year and more than half of that — $375,000 — came from Corzine.

Interesting that that Evans group refuses to talk about what they did with Corzine's millions. Is Corzine supporting black churches, or is he simply purchasing their votes with his unlimited wealth and patronage? Or even worse, is his money and vote-buying corrupting these ministries and their leadership, thus further impoverishing their congregations both financially and spiritually?

And the big bucks he's sent to over Boss Norcross? Just remember - if he gets convicted of a crime against the public, like Bergen County Democratic leader Joe Ferriero (Corzine payoff: $441K) recently did - it has absolutely nothing to do with Corzine's cash!

Not sure who's stupider: The folks who keep taking Corzine's money - which is either poisoned or cursed like a monkey's paw - or the folks who keep voting for him.

Or maybe they are just one and the same?