Guy rises up through the ranks in government. Guy makes $161k a year (around $8k / month after tax), Guy a few months ago buys a $1 Million D.C. house he can't afford to make himself look good with his high-falutin peers.
Guy can't afford the payments ($7k+ / month). Guy steals stuff from Target and Hecht's, returns it to get cash. Thousands and thousands of $$$. Hey, Guy has to eat. Guy gets caught. Guy loses job. Guy loses reputation. Religious Guy obviously missed the "Thou shalt not steal" sermon. Guy loses house.
The bubble made him do it. The guy advising Bush on housing gets arrested trying to find $$$ to pay for his house. Folks, you can't make up stuff like this.
Arrest of Ex-Bush Aide Shocks Associates
Allen's once-soaring career has taken a bizarre turn with his arrest Thursday on theft charges for allegedly ripping off two department stores in a phony refund scheme. Allen is accused of swindling Hecht's and Target stores out of more than $5,000 in refunds for items he did not buy.
Bush named Allen his top domestic policy adviser last year. With a West Wing office and a salary of $161,000 a year, Allen was the top-ranking African American on the White House staff. His broad portfolio involved advising Bush on policy issues including health care, space exploration, housing and education.
Allen's multi-story home has a tan brick facade with a dozen windows on the front exterior as well as an arched window over the doorway. The Allens bought the home in October for $958,300.
March 12, 2006
Housing bubble leads Bush housing advisor Claude Alllen to rob Hecht's and Target. Man, that's some crazy stuff
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I'm reaching the point where nothing surprises me anymore. I'm simply grinding my teeth for the next 3 years waiting to see how the next president fares.
Bush has singularly unimpressed me ever since he was elected. What major successful accomplishment has happened during his tenure?
Even Nixon could claim he removed us from Vietnam and established relations with China. Reagan at least brough us tax reform in 1986 and signed the START treaty with Russia.
Bush also nominated this guy to be a federal judge.
Can ANYONE tell me what the opening paragraph of this article has to do with the content of the article in general? Allen didn't ruin his career by being a black man in the Republican party. He ruined his career by getting caught STEALING. Opening paragraph is crap.
"Why is this not on the news?"
It's in the News section of the Washington Post, along with the NYT probably the two most influential newspapers in the country -- to other news outlets at least. (John Stossel said that when he was working at the local CBS affiliate in NYC, his editor just clipped articles out of the NYT and passed them around: "Here's your assignment for tonight's show...") It might be too late for the Sunday AM political shouting matches, but I'd be surprised if this isn't mentioned on every TV news show by tomorrow evening.
That said, it certainly does look like he's over his head -- even if he put $200K down, maybe from a previous house, a $758K mortgage at 5.0% is $4100 a month, let's say another $200/month for fire insurance and another $1000/mo (1.2%/year? just a guess) for property tax and he's in for $5300/month on take-home of about $8K.
That leaves him $2700/month -- best case! -- for everything else, including private school for his kids, which pretty much goes without saying for any government official working in DC.
I dunno, maybe his wife works too, but they don't say anything about that in the article. It certainly would be the greatest irony of the Bubble if this "housing advisor" goes to jail because he's drowning in a mortgage.
Theft..This reminds me Hillary stealing White House furniture. Why wasn't she prosecuted for that?
>>>I don't understand why conservatives don't see Bush for the traitor that he is.
Hell, they can't even see him as a traitor to conservatism, even though he has betrayed every principle conservatives have ever believed in.
It's not about left/right or any of that anymore, because Bush is not ideological in the usual sense. What this administration is all about--the only thing, really--is funneling as much of the nation's wealth as possible into the hands of the very top few.
The housing bubble was an excellent way to do that: not only do the moneyed elites get to clean everyone out now with those enormous home prices and mortgage payments, but when the crash comes they will get to buy up half the property in the country for pennies on the dollar. It's ingenious, if evil.
Meanwhile, a good many of the people destroyed by this scam will continue to vote Republican because the GOP will keep the Ay-rabs from nuking the local mall and prevent big guvmint from forcing them to marry homosexuals.
They've got a great racket going.
he'll be foreclosure statistic soon.
Yeh, like the press are going to jump all over a story that reinforces the "black man as thief" stereotype. The NYT and WaPo may pursue a editorial policy of bash Bush, all the time, but they're not going to alienate the 20% of the population who still believes (or even cares) what they have to say.
Bush will be remembered as THE PRESIDENT who started the demise of American Living standards and lead the country to third world standards.
When housing collapses and GM and Ford BK, will the economy collapse enough that we will see racial conflict, especially if welfare payments are cut off? If he is the best black the Republicans have, I better buy more ammo.
"Bush will be remembered as THE PRESIDENT who started the demise of American Living standards"
No, GWB will probably be remembered as one of the last Presidents. We are headed for imperium, and the man (or woman) who takes the throne and scepter first could be from either party. Our living standards are declining because we're getting fatter, dumber, and lazier while billions of people on the other side of the planet work their asses off.
>>if Bush was a (D), you'd have the Republicans holding an impeachment trial and the Democrats would be defending him like the Republicans are today<<
The prospect of Cheney as President is the ONLY thing that would stop the Ds from impeaching W should they win House back in November. If Cheney resigns this year, Bush will get the revenge treatment the blue staters want so badly.
I found another story about this on CNN. The allegation is that he would buy something, dump it in his car, come right back into the store, grab another one off the shelf, and present the receipt and the item at Customer Service and get a refund.
I'm no retail or security expert, but I'd have to bet they have pretty damming video evidence of every part of what they're alleging. That's the only way you can accuse anybody of shoplifting and this kind of refund scam nowadays. And maybe some fraud-watch software in their cash register determined that everything he buys he returns the same day...
And they're claiming he's done $5000 worth -- that suggests further that it's a lot of separate incidents. One maybe he could explain away or even get a "don't come back to our store" deal, but if it's a half dozen of these on tape, bye bye to Washington.
Why is this surprising? The surprising result is that 34% of Americans approve of Bu$hco. Why does anybody who reads the papers expect members of the Cheney Rumsfeld regime to behave any more rationally than followers of Osama bin Laden. They're basically all a bunch of wacky jihadist zealouts who reject reason and science and are completely out of touch with reality. They do not believe in the idea of a social contract, but instead that their time on earth is but a temporary stopover on their way to a higher realm. Why should we expect sane behavior from anybody associated with this gang of nutzoids?
Not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but it was HousingPanic that first reported the angle that the dude had to commit these crimes to pay his mortgage he couldn't afford. It'll be interesting if the msm picks that up. I doubt it.
First of many stories though in this vein. You'll see desperate behavior by desperate folks all over this nation as these ARMS and teasers adjust.
Fraud. Embezzlement. Prostitution. Ebaying everything in the house. Bank robberies. You name it.
Meanwhile can you imagine what was going through the guys head when he got caught? Spooky stuff. Kinda like when Clinton got caught, or Hugh Grant, or Winona Ryder, or Tricky Dick. It just must be the most sinking feeling in the world in one second to lose your career, your family, your house and your reputation. In one second.
anonymous said:
"If Bush was a (D), you'd have the Republicans holding an impeachment trial"
Had Clinton run up the Bu$hco trade deficit and been in office during the 30% collapse of the dollar between 2000 and 2004, the Wall Street Journal would have run daily front page headlines on the 'Clinton Catastrophe' and yet the business community has been silent in the face of Bu$hco's unprecedented policy disasters and the dangerous imbalances fostered by this gang of rethuglican extremists. This bunch of clowns has botched EVERYTHING they have touched. Pentagon analysts predicted EVERYTHING that is now happening as a result of the absurdly moronic foreign policy yet they were fired or ignored and the US is now the only major power since Hitler's Germany to have a publicly stated policy of preemptive warfare. Diplomats who want to maintain a career simply wait on the side until Bu$hco passes and pray for our planet to survive this plague. It is somewhat lucky that Bu$hco henchmen are so clownishly incompetent, because they will destroy themselves. The only question is how much of our country will they destroy in the deal. This man is just a symbol of corruption. He'll get off after he invokes the persecuted black man image that Clarence Thomas used to bully his way into nearly absolute power over American youth.
Stop kidding yourselves. Bush's objective is to bankrupt the US so it can spiral into a sortof feudal or fascist state. Did you see "Blade Runner", or better still "Mad Max"? Get used to it man.
This year I went from being a believer in the system to a guy who stockpiles food in my basement.
"Hillary stole White House furniture"
I very seriously doubt that. At least she didn't steal the entire US Treasuary a few times over!
Bush rocks! Here's to all you socialist, liberal suckers...Go Hillary!
This is unfortunate. He was a desperate stupid fool.
However, this has nothing to do with race.
Every time a black man is caught stealing, his race takes prominence.
Why is that not the case with Bernie Ebbers, and all those Enron guys. I guess as long as it is a white man doing the stealing, keep race out of it.
What a hypocrisy.
Everyman has himself to answer for. This guy should pay the price regardless of his race.
Please keep race out of it. It is not fair to keep the score only for black men.
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/policenews/press/DisplayInfo.cfm?ItemID=2378
Bush does not control the world economy. He doesn't create hurricanes out of thin air, or manipulate maniacs into flying planes into buildings for his own political gain.
Bush has had to deal with more crises, both foreign and domestic, than any president in at least 20 yrs. Much of what has happened to this country during the past 5 yrs is basically unprecedented, and has origins that long pre-date Bush's time in office.
You may or may not like the guy, but at least be fair about the magnitude of the problems he has been faced with and consider that even the best person would probably struggle in confronting them.
>>>Bush does not control the world economy. He doesn't create hurricanes out of thin air, or manipulate maniacs into flying planes into buildings for his own political gain.
Nobody said he did.
What people have said is that his responses to those events and others have been disastrous. He and his administration are just plain incompetent. They can't even do the most simple, basic things that a government is supposed to do.
Bush has CREATED more problems than those he was presented with.
from wonkette: http://tinyurl.com/lqpa6
What’s the sort of news that can rouse us from our weekend weather intoxication? The arrest of a former White House adviser, of course:
A former domestic policy adviser to President Bush has been charged with theft for allegedly receiving phony refunds at department stores.
Claude Alexander Allen, 45, was arrested Thursday by Montgomery County police for allegedly returning more than $5,000 worth of merchandise he did not buy, according to county and federal authorities.And, as if it’s even necessary, here’s what we had to say when Mr. Allen resigned abruptly:
He’s a morality-issues Christian-right Republican. So he’s probably a drug-addicted gambling gay adulterer with illegitimate children.We’re not gloating, just pointing out the sad predictability of the Christian Conservative modus operandi. Can’t one of these people get arrested for driving out money changers from a temple or something for once?
"He’s a morality-issues Christian-right Republican. So he’s probably a drug-addicted gambling gay adulterer with illegitimate children."
Your attitude towards your fellow Americans is precisely the reason why you keep losing elections.
You can't hate your own people, and expect anything but disgust.
Sad.
I can't believe a dude with 37% approval ratings actually has 37% of people still in his camp.
As an independent, I can see incompetence when I see it and point it out. It must be tough being a hard-core partisan, being led by a dude who is completely against your party's history (smaller goverment, lower spending), and have to defend the guy through disaster after disaster.
Why do I think he still has 37%? Because 37% of Americans really, really, really hate gays, and probably that same 37% really, really, really hates arabs.
So they overlook the incompetence, corruption, performance and results.
The other side is just as bad - overlooking Clintons faults, or defending Carter during his incompetent days.
But I think 63% of the country is now firmly awake, and understands how bad it's gotten under bush's watch. The results speak for themselves.
And good god, don't we deserve better leadership? I see no good ones on the horizon either. Frist? Clinton? Allen? Biden? What a joke.
>>>ignoring the 1993 World Trade Center attacks
The people responsible for that attack are serving life sentences in prison. Osama bin Laden, on the other hand, remains free as a bird more than four years after killing app. 3,000 Americans.
>>>You can't hate your own people, and expect anything but disgust.
Yes, Democrats need to be as loving and hate-free as James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson.
Or they could follow Bush's lead and hang out at luxury resorts while people drown in their attics. That'll do the trick!
I am a Dem who got to know Claude before his meteoric rise. Super kind, sincere, and generous.
He is innocent until proven guilty. Whatever the outcome, I consider his chances to leave a positive mark on the world to be very great.
Greenspan is the problem. That man turned on the credit spigot every time we had a problem. S&L saving crisis, Mexican peso, 1997 Asian crisis, Y2K, and then the NASDAQ crash in 2000. Each time the credit excesses grew until we are where we are. When the housing bubble collapses this spring, I hope Greenspan gets tarred and feathered and ran out of town. The Federal Reserve is a private bank and looks out for the banks not for Americans. Not going to be pretty when this unwinds!
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