With Jobs on the line, Obama White House turned to Private Equity to Save the Day -

While accusing presidential candidate Mitt Romney of cutting a swath through American industry during his time as a private equity executive, the White House was working with another private equity firm with long-standing Washington ties to save jobs in the Northeast, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

Obama has his own ties to Venture Capitalists and Obama's cronies are far from the clean, job savers that they are portrayed to be.

There’s more to the ties between the Obama White House and the Carlye Group.

From a web site called the State of Division:

Though not having an official title on the Obama-Biden transition team, former FCC chairman William Kennard — a Clinton appointee who succeeded Hundt as agency chief — is likely to have an influential voice on telecom and high tech matters during the transition and afterward when the Obama administration takes power early next year. Kennard, a managing director of The Carlyle Group’s global telecommunications and media unit, was a $500,000 bundler for Obama.

High dollar bundlers raised over $40 million for Barack Obama according to Open Secrets. Look at how these two gentlemen were listed:

$50,000-$100,000 Johnson, Mark Washington, DC Carlyle

$500,000 Kennard, Bill Washington, DC Attorney

One might conclude Bill Kennard to be self employed. Nope, Bill is the William Kennard mentioned earlier, the Managing Director of The Carlyle Group. Ironically, Mark Johnson works in the same division as William E. Kennard at Carlyle, telecom & media.

And right before the Democratic National Convention, Senator Barack Obama voted for telecom immunity. I thought it was a nod to AT&T for their sponsorship of the big event. But, it turns out Barack could’ve had other motivations.

Note: William Kennard was appointed as European Union Ambassador by President Obama.

When I first learned of the Carlyle Group purchase of the Sunoco refinery, I thought that the company was some kind of a White Knight, riding in to save the day. Not so, I'm afraid. Basically, this is a crony (with ties to public sector unions) take over of an oil refinery. This is from the Wikipedia on the Carlyle Group:

Carlyle was founded in 1987 by five Washington executives: William E. Conway, Jr., Stephen L. Norris, David M. Rubenstein, Daniel A. D'Aniello and Greg Rosenbaum.[8] Rosenbaum left in 1987;[9] Norris left in 1995.[10][11] The three remaining founders are reported to collectively own around a 50% interest in the group's general partnership. The rest of Carlyle is owned by a group of individuals, most of whom serve as managing directors, and by two institutional investors.

Carlyle Group Historical Logo In 2001, the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) acquired a 5.5% holding in Carlyle's management company for $175 million. The investment was valued at approximately $1 billion by 2007 at the height of the 2000s buyout boom.[12]

…In 2000, Carlyle entered into a joint venture with Riverstone Holdings, an energy and power focused private equity firm founded by former Goldman Sachs investment bankers. In March 2009, New York State and federal authorities began an investigation into payments made by Carlyle and Riverstone to placement agents allegedly made in exchange for investments from the New York State Common Retirement System, the state's pension fund. It was alleged that these payments were in fact bribes or kickbacks, made to pension officials who have been under investigation by New York State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo.[14] In May 2009, Carlyle agreed to pay $20 million in a settlement with Cuomo and accepted changes to its fundraising practices.[15] [edit]

This company really stinks and the Obama ties to it are really scary. The public sector union investments are scary as well. I thought that the public sector union pension funds were in trouble.

I did note that Carlyle posted a loss for the 2nd quarter this year, before buying the refinery.

Carlyle also invested $800 million in a RR that carries coal in Wyoming and Montana, where the Democrats have another crony capitalist project going. The RR was in trouble due to decreased coal train traffic in the east, but Obama is pushing the Powder River Basin coal sales to China.

I looked up the ties to the Bush family. It was Bush senior who did some speeches for them. Baker and a few other Bush people, including Colin Powell did some work for Carlyle. None of them were tied to any of the dirty dealing and none of them were partners.

From an ABC article:

“This is the nexus of private-sector fraudulent operators meeting fraudulent government and political operators,” Cuomo said, according to Bloomberg News.

At the center of the storm is one time New York Democratic Party operative Morris who is accused of steering state pension fund business to firms that paid him millions in kickbacks. Morris is the target of a 123 count indictment unsealed by Cuomo’s office in March. It accuses Morris of pension fund related activities including “enterprise corruption, securities fraud, grand larceny, bribery and money laundering.”

At the time of the indictment Cuomo’s office said in a statement, “If proven, the allegations in the indictment reveal a complex criminal scheme involving numerous individuals operating at the highest political and governmental levels of the Office of the State Comptroller. The charges entail a web of corrupt acts for both political and personal gain.

Also under scrutiny is a firm co-founded by Steve Rattner, President Obama’s auto industry Czar. That firm, Quadrangle, used Morris firm and is under the spotlight for allegedly failing to disclose the relationship.

Carlyle began receiving New York dollars when Alan Hevesi was state comptroller. Hevesi pled guilty for a single felony unrelated to his fund management. Morris was Hevesi’s political consultant.

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