Those anti-gummint Republicans sure do love all those gummint $$$ they glom onto -- how 'bout a hand for John Kasich and Rick Lazio?

In July 1999, an ebullient Rep. John Kasich (R-OH, right) announced he was abandoning his bid for the presidency, and would support Texas Gov. George W. Bush. (Oh look, he's there in the photo too! Doesn't seem to, uh, quite know what's going on.)

by Ken

It's just a theory, but maybe all those Republicans who preach the uselessness and financial irresponsibility of government are believing from personal knowledge and experience -- their principal relationship to government $$$ being their all-consuming quest to glom onto it for personal enrichment and for the enrichment of their family, friends, and hangers-on, including people who can contribute to their further enrichment, like as not via other government $$$. The idea that that money might be better applied to the public good is apparently unimaginable to these sleazoids. They know that government has nothing to do with the public good, whatever the heck that might be, and they know because, after all, they are the government.

Tonight, a couple of cases in point featuring the Party of Greed and Selfishness.

One is a tale told today by our pal Al Kamen in his Washington Post "In the Loop" column:

Kasich's Buckeye bucks

The Dems wasted no time Monday jumping on a Dayton Daily News article about how Ohio gubernatorial candidate and former GOP House member John Kasich was paid $50,000 a year for seven years to teach a course at Ohio State University.

"Hypocrisy," the D's alleged, to ask for colleges to "tighten their belts" and then "rake in cash from them." Kasich, the article said, got about $4,000 per campus visit as a "presidential fellow." In a 2008 report to a security industry regulatory body, Kasich said he worked there four hours a month, according to the article. He also served on panels at banquets and forums.

Kasich campaign spokesman Rob Nichols said Kasich, former chairman of the House Budget Committee, got "what OSU thought his teaching was worth," and "they kept asking him back." A school spokesman said the students liked him. (Yeah? Well, some adjunct professors at Georgetown get high ratings but only about $5,000 a semester -- and we have to grade all those papers. Okay, so maybe a little jealous here.)

The Daily News noted that "other politicians," including GOP Senate candidate and former Bush OMB director Rob Portman, "have taught courses" at OSU free of charge.

What? Free? Like, for nothing? And he wants people to think he's got good judgment?

Al, that roster of Georgetown adjunct professors who "get high ratings but only about $5,000 a semester" wouldn't include anyone we know, would it? Like somebody who notes that "we have to grade all those papers" and may be "a little jealous here"?


HEY, REMEMBER SNOTTY SLEAZEBAG RICK LAZIO? NOW HE'S MILLIONAIRE SNOTTY SLEAZEBAG RICK LAZIO

Our other case tonight involves former Rep. Rick Lazio (R-NY). You probably remember our Rick as that little snot, then a Republican congressman from Long Island, who thought he could browbeat Hillary Clinton into submission when they were fighting for one of New York's U.S. Senate seats, and wound up suffering deserved public humiliation, not to mention an electoral trouncing. Just possibly you've heard that he's seeking the Republican nomination for governor, and nobody else of any note is, meaning that he's set up to be trounced again, this time by NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the all-but-certain Democratic nominee.

There is, however, more to our Rick, as Wayne Barrett reports in this week's Village Voice ("Inside Rick Lazio's Biggest Wall Street Deal -- The Chummy E-Mails"). It seems that since leaving government, Rick found himself a cushy niche at the country's largest money trap, JPMorgan Chase, where he's parlayed his connections into millions in salary and bonuses.

Wayne's story is about an almost-consummated deal between our Rick and another onetime New York Republican wunderkind, Charles Millard, based on Millard's stewardship of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Never heard of the PBGC? Don't know what it does? Not to worry. Neither, apparently, did our Charles -- not just when President George W. Bush appointed him to the job, but still when he pitched the Senate for confirmation.

Millard was still getting acquainted with the agency when he testified at his confirmation Senate hearing that September. Yet he was already talking about fundamentally changing PBGC's investment policy, shifting billions in assets from what he called "extremely conservative" investments to higher-yield ones. Maryland Democrat Barbara Mikulski, who then chaired the aging committee, did not hide her alarm. "I am really requesting as chair that before any board decision is even taken that you share" the new investment policy "with us," asking pointedly: "Do I have your commitment on that?" Millard said he'd be "absolutely be happy to discuss" the policy with the committee.

Millard had apparently sprung into this cushy job by latching onto Rudy Giuliani's mayoral crony bandwagon, after the failure of his run at electoral politics, when as a city councilman he challenged Democratic freshman Rep. Carolyn Maloney in her bid for reelection in that posh East Side Manhattan district.

Here's how Wayne outlines the story of Rick and Charlie's adventure in cahoots:

Within Hours of George Bush's May 3, 2007, announcement that he was naming Charles Millard head of the $64 billion Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), Rick Lazio got an e-mail about it from a fellow JPMorgan Chase executive.

"Assume you know Charlie Millard," wrote Tom Block, the bank's top in-house lobbyist, attaching the White House press release.

"I do know him well," Lazio replied.

Lazio would boast in subsequent internal Morgan e-mails obtained by the Voice that he was "very friendly with the head of PBGC."

How friendly? Lazio and Millard would soon start down the path of a near-billion-dollar deal that eventually ensnarled both in multiple federal probes that looked into their apparent efforts to game a government bidding process, as well as subsequent attempts by Lazio to get Millard a job.

This is the story of that stunning deal, Lazio's biggest score at Morgan, which earned him a $1.3 million bonus in 2008 and another $300,000 in the first four months of 2009, in addition to a combined $585,000 salary.

These details of Lazio's exercise in insider influence are emerging just as his gubernatorial campaign boasts that he's the man who should be elected to clean up Albany. The key facts about his conduct crawl from his own computer in an e-mail trail that reaches as high as America's number one banker, Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who was drawn in as Lazio pushed to win Morgan a lucrative contract that would put retiree benefits into risky investments.

No one will be prosecuted for this chummy dealing, because neither the quid (the allocation of the $900 million Millard awarded Lazio's firm) nor the quo (Lazio's efforts to get Millard a job) came to fruition, nipped in the bud by investigations that began almost as soon as the deal began to come together, leaving prosecutors with nothing more than compelling proof of intent. But a botched scam can be a blessing in disguise, as the electronic fingerprints of these two clumsy conspirators prove beyond a click of a doubt.

I'll leave the sordid details to Wayne to set out. Trust me, your stomach will churn and heave. At the same time, nothing he has to report will particularly surprise you.

Let's just note the irony that right now Carolyn Maloney (seen here with what's-his-name, one of those Democrats who apparently got a four-figure check from Fox's PAC), who pretty much zapped Charlie Millard out of elective politics, is facing a potentially hugely well-financed challenge from a candidate, Reshma Saujani, who's in the race exclusively as the candidate of Wall Street, which feels betrayed by "their" congresswoman for her active participation in the financial regulation reform legislation. Naturally, the very idea of government checks on unbridled greed and selfishness horrifies the financial community.

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