Advocating One Thing While Doing Another

There is a burgeoning field of candidates vying for the Democrat
Party's presidential nomination, with 24 hopefuls at the moment
jockeying for position as they come out of the gate for the start
of the White House race. One of them is Tom Steyer, a hedge
fund manager-turned-presidential aspirant, billionaire,
and liberal activist whose specialty is environmental issues
but also wants to lessen what he sees as the impact of corporate
money in politics: "I believe our democracy is corrupted by
corporate money, and the only way to bring real change is from
the outside by giving more power to the American people,"
Steyer said in a recent statement. "That's why I'm running for
President."

So let's see how Tom Steyer's record to date supports (or not)
his avowed stands of these issues. In recent years, he has shared
of his vast fortune with the Democrat Party to the tune of
$350 million, much of it dedicated to fighting climate change.
He is going to fund his long-shot campaign for President with
$100 million of his own money; Forbes estimates his fortune
to be around $1.6 billion. Steyer amassed his wealth through
Farallon Capital Management LLC, the hedge fund he founded
in 1986 and personally operated for 27 years. Yet he complains
about the influence of corporate money in the political arena,
claiming he wants there to be less of the big bucks there.
By 2007, Farallon became one of the world's largest hedge funds,
with $37 billion in funds. During Steyer's time as its manager,
it lent over a billion dollars to coal-mining projects in other
countries.

Having been a consistent Democrat donor for over thirty years,
he increased his presence in the party as a fundraiser during
John Kerry's unsuccessful 2004 presidential effort. In 2008,
Farallon lost 36% of its funds' values as real estate markets
in the U.S. and other countries went bearish. Itching to become
more involved in politics, Steyer stayed on to see his hedge fund
firm through the aftermath until stabilization took root. In 2012
he announced to his clients that he was going to focus on
philanthropic activities, which he had begun some years before,
naming a successor to take over the firm. His choice,
Andrew Spokes, was previously in charge of the unit that
financed the international coal projects. Doesn't sound terribly
green to me, unless you are thinking of monetary green.
Here, one must ask the question of how does Tom Steyer square
these investment activities with his environmental advocacy
of battling climate change, which those on the Left like Steyer
wholeheartedly believe is due to human activity rather than
nature's caprices.

Ah, but Steyer has involved himself (and his money) in other
interesting things as well. In 2007 Steyer was asked by
Californian Democrat operative Chris Lehane to help fund
the campaign to defeat a proposed ballot initiative in that state
which would have apportioned California's presidential electors
in a way which would have benefited Republican presidential
nominees. Steyer's $1 million infusion into that campaign
helped it to succeed, as did the $5 million he gave to the effort
to defeat a proposition to overturn a state law to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, giving some financial easement
to California's businesses which have long been bound up in
red tape and high taxes as the cost of doing business in
California.

And we haven't even discussed Steyer's maniacal fixation on
impeaching and removing President Donald Trump from
office; now that the impeachment scheme has fallen flat,
Steyer fancies himself as a "White Knight" who will ride in
and save our country from the villainous, awful President
Trump. Oh yes, Steyer has a particularly bad case of TDS
(Trump Derangement Syndrome), a disease quite prevalent
on the left side of the political divide.

All this by someone who wants to lessen the influence of big
money from the corporate sector in politics; brilliant idea of
Steyer's, get corporate big money out of politics by putting
your own corporate big money in. And now this man wants
to be our next president? The Peasant thinks not.


MEM