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2007-10-19 Home Front: Culture Wars

Rush's auction of the Harry Reid smear letter will raise over $2 million for Marine charity

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Posted by Mike 2007-10-19 07:49|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11129 views ] Top

#1 These appeaser-democRATs want to take us down the road that Chamberlain and Daladier took us back in the 1930s. Rush is warning us about the socialist dhimmicRATs duplicity, treachery, and treason. We ignore these modern day Benedict Arnolds at our own peril.

Posted by Galactic Coordinator Shins1195 2007-10-19 08:08|| 2007-10-19 08:08|| Front Page Top

#2 OOOOOPPS! Wrong picture above.

Posted by Galactic Coordinator Shins1195 2007-10-19 08:09|| 2007-10-19 08:09|| Front Page Top

#3 :) LOL. Rush shoves those scoundrels letter down their collective throats. Hah, hah, hah, hah. He must be having lots of fun with this; moreover the Marines benefit.

The usual suspects (and culprits).

Harry Reid Hillary Rodham Clinton Blanche Lincoln
Richard Durbin Kent Conrad Bob Menendez
Charles Schumer Christopher Dodd Barbara Mikulski
Patty Murray Byron Dorgan Bill Nelson
Daniel Akaka Dianne Feinstein Barack Obama
Max Baucus Tom Harkin Jack Reed
Joseph Biden Daniel Inouye Jay Rockefeller
Barbara Boxer Edward M. Kennedy Ken Salazar
Sherrod Brown John Kerry Bernie Sanders
Robert Byrd Amy Klobuchar Debbie Stabenow
Benjamin Cardin Mary Landrieu Jon Tester
Tom Carper Frank Lautenberg Jim Webb
Bob Casey Patrick Leahy Sheldon Whitehouse
Carl Levin Ron Wyden

Posted by JohnQC 2007-10-19 08:20|| 2007-10-19 08:20|| Front Page Top

#4 Some liberal with more money than Limbaugh (Soros, Gates, Winfrey?) could pay more than Rush HAS and either bankrupt him or make him a liar. Or maybe they can get a government earmark to do it with, instead of using their own money.

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2007-10-19 08:36|| 2007-10-19 08:36|| Front Page Top

#5 Say wha?

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2007-10-19 08:44|| 2007-10-19 08:44|| Front Page Top

#6 Glenmore: I heard Rush makes 35mil on his salary. I imagine if true it would be hard to bankrupt him without having a paper trail somewhere.

Posted by Charles 2007-10-19 08:53|| 2007-10-19 08:53|| Front Page Top

#7 Soros, Gates, and Winfrey might have the money but I doubt they will contribute to the Marines--just doesn't sound like their cup of tea--to liberal.

Posted by JohnQC 2007-10-19 09:10|| 2007-10-19 09:10|| Front Page Top

#8 I love Rush's counter attacks. They are always with class.

Eat hot death Reid.

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-10-19 09:18|| 2007-10-19 09:18|| Front Page Top

#9 I was in the car the other day and Rush was on the radio. A caller called in and asked Rush point blank: "Whatcha gonna do if the winning bid is $20 million? You gonna match it?"

You had to hear the confidence dripping off of Rush's response: No problem. No problem at all.

Very cool.

Posted by Mark Z">Mark Z 2007-10-19 10:02|| 2007-10-19 10:02|| Front Page Top

#10 A more important question is will Limbaugh offer up other items for auction? Granted this will be a hard act to follow, but he must have some incredible stuff that would fetch millions more dollars to this worthy charity, and others.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-10-19 10:12|| 2007-10-19 10:12|| Front Page Top

#11 Rush has two more year left (pun intended) on his eight year $285 million contract. It's right about $35 Mil a year. He also sells Rush subscriptions to about ?5 Million? people each for around $35 per year. He also sells Rush merchandise on line (Shirts, gifts, trinkets) which probably brings in another $20 million or so. Throw in some speaking engagements (I am guessing $50k-$100k) and he brings in a tidy sum each year. Did I mention that the Marine Corps charity will make the entire donation a tax write-off? So Rush will get to stick it to Harry and the government at the same time. Someone put this in football terms the other day: This like Rush intercepting a long pass, running it back for a touchdown, whipping out a sharpie, signing it, selling the ball for $2 million, and then mooning the QB from the end zone. GO RUSH GO!

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2007-10-19 11:27|| 2007-10-19 11:27|| Front Page Top

#12 And in addition to a big-ass pile of money going to a good cause, the steadily rising sum keeps this smeary bit of business from disappearing off the news cycle. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that the noble Carl Levin decided to get on this bandwagon.

Posted by SteveS 2007-10-19 12:59|| 2007-10-19 12:59|| Front Page Top

#13 Now that they've announced who the winning bidder is, I'm afraid that all across the United States, Democrats and their leaders are saying to themselves, "How can we hurt that woman?"

I fear that they will try to destroy her, drag her name through the mud, attack her personally, maybe even use a corrupt government official to attack her, like Ronnie Earl attacked Tom DeLay.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-10-19 14:26|| 2007-10-19 14:26|| Front Page Top

#14 Actually, Harry Reid had the temerity to try to attach himself to this this morning, to take credit as part of "we" for this good turn for charity.

Posted by eLarson 2007-10-19 14:26|| http://larsonian.blogspot.com]">[http://larsonian.blogspot.com] 2007-10-19 14:26|| Front Page Top

#15 Anonymoose, you may be right. This is from a commenter at HotAir.com

Heres an interesting 1992 WaPo story on Betty Casey:

The strange story of the Casey family of Montgomery County starts with a bomb, a pipe bomb that nearly blew heiress Betty Brown Casey out of her Mercedes and into oblivion in March 1990.
The bombing only slightly injured the widow of multimillionaire landowner Eugene B. Casey, and it has never been solved mainly, investigators say, because Casey and her family have refused to help them.

Now the Potomac socialite, who is 64, is being sued by 10 of her late husbands grandchildren, who say she coerced her dying husband into giving her nearly exclusive control over his $ 100 million fortune.

Sources close to Betty Brown Casey, who declined to be interviewed, say she is a shy, generous woman who has been victimized by a murder attempt and now by greedy, spiteful relatives, angry that Eugene B. Casey left his millions to charity instead of to them.

That is absolutely false, said Eugene S. Casey, of Rockville, a son of Eugene B. Casey. This suit is not about money. Its about the theft of the Casey heritage and name by Betty Brown Casey.

The Casey family tale is filled with the kinds of characters and intrigue, plus a monstrous inheritance, that novelists dream of.
Consider some of the characters: Eugene B. Casey was a farm adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of Montgomery Countys wealthiest landowners. He built hundreds of low-cost houses in the Rockville-Gaithersburg area in the 1950s and 1960s, along with some of Montgomerys first large apartment buildings. A Democratic activist in Maryland, Casey also bought the Marlboro Race Course and became embroiled in the corruption trial of former governor Marvin Mandel.

Caseys six children include Douglas R. Casey, a best-selling author and adventurer whose business interests have run to parts of the globe where, he once said, blood is running in the streets.

Also playing a major role is the suspected bomber: a mysterious man in a black wig, carrying a leather bag, who was seen skulking around the downtown Washington garage where Caseys luxury car was parked.

In the middle of the drama is Betty Brown Casey, who as a young waitress from Sykesville in 1955 married a political and financial powerhouse 24 years her senior and became a prominent figure on the Washington social scene. Family members said she met her husband-to-be when she came to live on his property with her cousin, a Casey employee.

Today Betty Brown Casey controls a foundation that bears her husbands name and distributes some of his millions to charity. She is on the boards of the Washington Opera and her alma mater, Washington College in Chestertown, Md., which has as its centerpiece, thanks to the Caseys philanthropy, the Eugene B. Casey Academic Center.

The Eugene B. Casey Foundation also has given generously to the Patrick Henry Foundation of Brookneal, Va., a group that promotes free enterprise. Betty Brown Casey was the chief organizer of a Washington dinner that raised $ 150,000 for the group in May 1990. The group that night gave its citizenship award to Ross Perot; another guest speaker was President Bush.

Casey has denied all the allegations against her in documents filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, where the case is in preliminary stages.

Ive never met anyone who is so quietly charitable as Betty Casey, said Caseys attorney, Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., the Washington luminary who represented Marine Col. Oliver North. She is a quiet, almost shy woman. A lot of her money is given away . . . always on the condition of anonymity.

Sullivan said he cannot think of anyone who would want Casey dead, and investigators said they couldnt either.

After the March 19, 1990, bombing, county police and investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) determined that the device planted in the trunk of her car was a 12-inch piece of galvanized pipe packed full of explosive powder, with a $ 50 garage door opener from Sears taped to its side.

The bomber had used the door openers remote control to detonate the bomb, which blew the back end off Caseys Mercedes-Benz sedan as she was being driven home from a shopping trip to Riziks, a womens clothing store in Northwest Washington.

ATF reports say that Casey told investigators she couldnt think of anyone who might want to kill her, but several family members said she has made many enemies. Who would want her dead? Just open the phone book and start with A, one family member said.

Investigators showed photos of family members to parking garage attendants, with no luck. They tracked bomb components, but couldnt identify where they were purchased. They reviewed Caseys finances and could not determine who would benefit from her death; her will leaves her money to the charitable foundation, the reports say.

Thats where the leads stopped.

That [investigation] ran basically into a dead end because the victim was uncooperative, said David Troy, special agent in charge of ATFs Washington field office. Troy said the investigation is still open, but turned into a real circus when neither Casey nor her family would cooperate.

Sullivan, however, said Casey cooperated fully and agreed to repeated interviews.

Troy said the family seemed to be in some turmoil and to fear extensive publicity. There were a lot of domestic problems within that family involving inheritances, he said.

Those problems surfaced with a roar in April when the grandchildren, who range in age from 16 to 31, filed their suit. In it, they say Caseys estate was worth more than $ 100 million when he died of natural causes in 1986 at 82.

In court papers, Sullivan said Caseys fortune was less than that, but he did not give a figure.

Eugene B. Caseys first two marriages, which produced six children and 11 grandchildren, ended in divorce. When he married Betty Brown Casey, it was her first marriage. They had no children together.

In 1981, Casey signed a will that would have divided his holdings in half at his death. One share was to go to Betty Brown Casey; the other was to be divided into equal trust funds for his six children.

If Caseys estate were worth $ 100 million, as the grandchildren say, Betty Brown Casey would have received $ 50 million and the six children would have received trust funds of about $ 8 million each. As each of those children died, their trusts were to be divided into equal shares among their children.

The suit contends that two changes made to the will in 1985 resulted in half of Caseys assets going to Betty Brown Casey and the other half minus $ 1 million for each of the six children to the foundation, controlled by Betty Brown Casey.

The six children, who live in Florida, Texas, New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Montgomery County, and range in age from 42 to 66, are not plaintiffs in the suit.

But a source close to Betty Brown Casey said she believes at least some of the children are behind the suit because they are angry that their father changed his will and reduced their inheritances. The source also said that Casey, out of her own holdings, gave each of the six children property, cash or trust funds worth $ 1 million on top of the $ 1 million they each got from the estate.

Eugene S. Casey, the son, acknowledged that gift, but said Betty Brown Casey gave the money to be manipulative, to keep the children from complaining about the larger inheritances they did not receive.

Other family members described Casey as greedy, mean and vindictive, despite her effort to appear kind and generous.

But another family member disagreed. As far as Im concerned, shes always been nice to me, said Virginia Casey Visnich, 66, of Coral Gables, Fla., Eugene B. Caseys oldest child.

Visnich said she does not believe Betty Brown Casey coerced her father into changing his will. Betty Brown Caseys friends also said that the allegations against her were hard to believe and that the bombing had left her shaken.

It just scared her to death, wondering who would do that and feeling very distrustful, said Sarah Brady, the gun-control activist and wife of James Brady, the former White House press secretary who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt against President Reagan.

The Caseys and the Bradys became friends in the early 1980s because the two men had a common doctor and friend: Arthur Kobrine, one of Washingtons best-known neurosurgeons. Kobrine treated Brady and Reagan on the day of the shooting, and he remains Bradys doctor.

Sarah Brady and Kobrine said Casey was a wonderful person who would not and could not have coerced her husband. Even in the years when he became someone physically less strong, I cant imagine anyone coercing him into anything, Kobrine said.

Douglas Casey, the older of two children from Eugene B. Caseys second marriage, was the child closest to his stepmother, family members said. Douglas Casey, who could not be reached for comment, wrote a 1981 bestseller, Crisis Investing, and told The Washington Post then that his business interests ran from arms factories in Peru to ventures in South Africa. There are always business opportunities when the blood is running in the streets, he said.

Casey family members said that despite Eugene B. Caseys vast wealth, the family never lived lavishly. The lawsuit, they said, is a reluctant step into the limelight to correct what they consider a serious wrong.

One family member said the situation proves only one thing, that money never made anybody happy.

Mike D. on October 19, 2007 at 1:38 PM

Posted by Sherry 2007-10-19 14:31|| 2007-10-19 14:31|| Front Page Top

#16 Nice going Rush. This is a goodly thing!

Posted by newc">newc 2007-10-19 14:57|| 2007-10-19 14:57|| Front Page Top

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