WHAT'S MORE OUTRAGEOUS-- A $100K BELT BUCKLE, A $194K BENTLEY, 50 CENT AT YOUR OWN DAUGHTER'S BAT MITZVAH-- OR CHEATING OUR TROOPS OUT OF BODY ARMOR?

David Brooks, GOP war profiteer

What ever happened to the good old days when war profiteers and traitors undermining our soldiers in the field were put against a wall and shot? (Yes, unlike many of my liberal pals, I'm a death penalty fanatic-- although just when the punishment fits the crime-- like in the case of the Bush Regime cronies who have long and solid records of treasous criminality.)

David Brooks is probably best known, in our shallow, celebrity-obsessed society, for the lavish and grotesque bat mitzvah be threw for his daughter Liza at the Rainbow Room in 2005. Aside from 50 Cent (for the kids) his own middle-aged friends were entertained by middle aged rockers Aerosmith (who were paid a million dollars for the show), as well as Tom Petty, Kenny G and the Eagles. I can't imagine that the Eagles or Tom Petty took less than the fee Aerosmith got since they all share the same manager. I don't know much about Kenny G. but I suspect he got more than your average bat mitzvah band even if his music sounds just like your average bat mitzvah band's.

But it isn't the $10,000,000 tax deductible, company-paid bat mitzvah, the $194,000 Bentley, the stable of 100 race horses, the $100,000 diamond-studded belt buckle and numerous other egregious instances of fashion crimes or even more shameful manefestations of the sybartic lifstyle the Bush tax breaks for multimillionaires encourages. It's how he made all that loot.

Now, keep in mind that when Brooks was in business with the Bush Regime, making defective body armor for our troops on the front lines, he gave the National Republican Campaign Committee a nice fat check for $25,000, much less than he paid Kenny G to wow his friends at the notorious bat mitzvah the same year, but still, something the Republicrooks were happy to see come there way. He got plenty of business... unfortunately.

According to today's NY Post it was our troops who got the shitty end of that Republican stick. Brooks reaped $185 million by selling his company's stock "when he learned that 6,000 bullet-proof vests the company made were about to be recalled for being faulty and not able to block bullets."


UPDATE: STILL SPENDING BIG

Brooks retained Joe Tacopino as his $750-an-hour attorney. Radar tells us he was the subject of a March 2007 GQ profile titled 1-800 Save My Ass. "Tacopino also defended the Dutch kid held in the disappearance of Aruba blondie Natalee Holloway, the cop charged with sticking a plunger up Abner Louima's ass, and Foxy Brown."


UPDATE: BROOKS DENIED BAIL

Smart judge!

A federal judge denied David H. Brooks bail Tuesday, citing concerns about his access to immense wealth and the possibility that he could obstruct justice from within the walls of his 58th-floor Upper East Side highrise.

"I think the government has established that there is a serious risk of flight," U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert said during a hearing in Central Islip. "I don't have a clue what this man's assets are."