Karma, baby! Scaife fears open documents in divorce proceedings
By Nicole Belle Saturday Sep 22, 2007 1:03pm
Anyone who has dipped a toe in the wild and woolly currents of politics in the last thirty years should be familiar with the name of Richard Mellon Scaife. As partisans go, there isn't anyone else willing to put so much of their money where their ideologies drive them, $340 million by some estimates.
Among the right-wing organizations substantially funded by Mr. Scaife are the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Judicial Watch, Cato Institute and a working group within his American Spectator publication called the "Arkansas Project," whose specific aim was to locate and create dirt on the Clintons in order to smear them, in hopes of removing Clinton from office.
Those rumors around Vince Foster's suicide lay squarely on Scaife's lap. During the 2004 election cycle, Scaife had his targets set directly on the Kerrys (and specifically Teresa Heinz Kerry), devoting a considerable sum to breaking open records to find dirt to smear the Democratic candidate through his wife.
Which makes this news story all that much more schadenfreude-licious. Scaife is going through divorce proceedings from his wife, one that has provided lots of fodder for the gossip pages with arrests for trespassing, accusations of abuse and dognapping, of all things. At issue now is how much of Scaife's fortune is owed to his wife, and guess what? What's good for the right wingnut gander is apparently not good for the rest of geese. Scaife wants his records sealed and rival paper Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to return documents.
Mr. Scaife's attempt to make court documents inaccessible is unusual for the head of a news organization. Historically, newspapers and television stations have fought for greater rather than more restricted access. In fact, Mr. Scaife's Tribune-Review joined other organizations in seeking to unseal the estate records of the late Sen. John Heinz during the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry, who is married to Sen. Heinz's widow, Teresa.[..]
Mr. Scaife's attorneys say the Post-Gazette article describes "at length various highly confidential and personal matters contained in the record, none of which have any news value nor are legitimate subjects of public scrutiny."
Karma, baby...
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FRIST!
i've often wondered when a democrat, ANY democat, would counter the Soros-arguments on the right with Scaife's name and tactics.
The way things are, he'll wind up with some Reich-wing judge who will agree with him and keep a lid on it all.
don't forget Steve Kangas' murder
There are many people out there who don't understand what money was created for.
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Dr. Patriot @ 4:
Huh? George Soros finances C&L? Do tell. From whence does your info spring?
bitch....
Dr. Patriot @ 4:
That's retarded. Soros contributed a total of $26 million against Bush in the 2004 election, a far cry from what traitor-Scaife has done to destroy our Republic.
Keep watching Fox and don't forget to drink your kool-aid.
O dear God, please let this man suffer like never before so that I might continue to believe in you.
Dr. Patriot @ 4:
Reading is a wonderful thing. In the links I've provided, it describes Scaife as donating the MOST money towards partisan political causes than any other person in the US.
Soros has donated large sums of money to some progressive causes. But not nearly as much as Scaife and none to C&L. I wish he would...I could use a raise. However, Soros does not spend his money to dig up dirt, nor would he influence in any way the editorial content of this blog.
Take your smears and peddle them to less informed people. You won't find them here.
So those old "publicans sure value their personal records. Remember when Vitter yelled it all over the TV..and his diaper changing and prostitute visits were dropped.
Didn't do any good for President Clinton to say his private life was private they spent 80 million dollars of the taxpayers money to find something criminal. White Water wasn't.
Now this turd of a 'publican wants the country to believe, since he is a 'publican than his private life should be private. Oh damn....we hear this all the time...it really is two Americas....one for the 'publicans and one for the democrats, that is as far as the MSM is concerned.
stevie @ 10:
The kool aid is poison for the rest of us. These guys must have an immunity. Ley's give them a punch.
LEAVE RICHARD MELON SCAIFE ALONE!
Hes not Human! ... and hes going through a really tough time!
His third cousin died in a Learjet accident recently... and he is fresh out of human blood to drink!
Leave Richard Melon Scaife ALONE!!!
Quick. Someone start downloading those documents!
http://buddhaglass.blogspot.com/
Richard "Fucking" Mellon "Communist C*nt" Scaife - getting what he deserves. :)
[Not really a 'communist'-in the classic sense, anyway. Edited-Sitemonitor.]
Scaife is another that I hope there can be charges brought for Bush's evil as Scaife has done incredible harm to this nation. Without Scaife's evil doings all these years, we most likely wouldn't be in our current disastrous state.
Dear Richard Scaife,
Quit funding newsmax. Make Chris Ruddy get a real job
Totally Unrelated to Scaife, but i didn't want this one to get lost. Here's an incredible WaPo article:
War and Terror Inc.
By Douglas Farah
Sunday, September 23, 2007; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR200709...
Giuliani would agree no doubt about the 'private life' not being newsworthy or important to the public at large. Well, sorry Rudy and Mr Scaife, why dont you let others make that judgment call. For Giuliani, if he staggeringly presumes to be president, then things he's done in his personal life do matter to regular folks (because it'll reflect on his character greatly - something that greatly matters in a president so he/she will make better decisions) and since the folks are choosing whom to president they should have all the information that THEY think is important. And for Scaife, he thinks its fine for the Sen Heinz records to be laid open so he can cherry pick info to slander Sen Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, then it's certainly fair for his own records to be laid bare for the press to peruse. All's fair in politics. If there's something damaging to be revealed well these two should have led a more exemplary life and had fewer errors in judgment and character. It's too late now. What a shame. But not really.
No news value nor legitimate subjects of public scrutiny...? Probably not, but the schadenfreude value is priceless.
Watch O’Reilly ratchet up the George Soros rhetoric as a deflection - actually he's doing it already...
That's too bad. I suspect this wife kept him distracted, occupied, and away from making political mischief.
In the words of Nelson Muntz:
Ha-Ha!
a conservative wants his privacy? too bad. he shouldn't be worried if he has nothing to hide.
Karma certainly has much worse in store for RMS. "Blinded By The Right" has some interesting insight into him, to name one book. I think he's certifiably nuts. He has done as much as anyone I can think of to debase political discourse in this country, and to spread lies and distortions for political reasons. ANYONE, left, right, center, who cares about the truth and honest debate should revile this man and his doings. He's also the poster boy for why the inheritance tax needs to be 100% over $5 million. Let the psychotic children of the uber-rich make it on their own.
This could be really juicy. From what I've heard, Scaife is totally Howard-Hughes batshit insane.
Not that we need any more evidence of right-wing paranoia, but it's always nice to have it documented.
Apparently this guy has a lot of bad karma to burn off. This is from a '99 Washington Post series on Sciafe:
Scaife: Funding Father of the Right
Conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. (AP)
By Robert G. Kaiser and Ira Chinoy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 2, 1999; Page A1
First of two articles
One August day in 1994, while gossiping about politics over lunch on Nantucket, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Pittsburgh billionaire and patron of conservative causes, made a prediction. "We're going to get Clinton," Joan Bingham, a New York publisher present at the lunch, remembers him saying. "And you'll be much happier," he said to Bingham and another Democrat at the table, "because Al Gore will be president."
Bingham was startled at the time, but in the years since – as Clinton has struggled with an onslaught from political enemies – Scaife's assertion came to seem less and less far-fetched.
Scaife did get involved in numerous anti-Clinton activities. He gave $2.3 million to the American Spectator magazine to dig up dirt on Clinton and supported other conservative groups that harassed the president and his administration. The White House and its allies responded by fingering Scaife as the central figure in "a vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president," as Hillary Rodham Clinton described it. James Carville, Clinton's former campaign aide and rabid defender, called Scaife "the archconservative godfather in [a] heavily funded war against the president."
But people who know him well say that although Scaife is fond of conspiracy theories of many kinds, he is incapable of managing any sort of grand conspiracy himself. And months of reporting produced no evidence of his orchestrating any effort to "get" Clinton beyond his financial support. Indeed, focusing on his role in the crusade against Clinton can obscure the 66-year-old philanthropist's real importance, which is not based on his opposition or support for any individual politicians (though he once gave Richard M. Nixon $1 million). His biggest contribution has been to help fund the creation of the modern conservative movement in America.
By compiling a computerized record of nearly all his contributions over the last four decades, The Washington Post found that Scaife and his family's charitable entities have given at least $340 million to conservative causes and institutions – about $620 million in current dollars, adjusted for inflation. The total of Scaife's giving – to conservatives as well as many other beneficiaries – exceeds $600 million, or $1.4 billion in current dollars, much more than any previous estimate.
In the world of big-time philanthropy, there are many bigger givers. The Ford Foundation gave away $491 million in 1998 alone. But by concentrating his giving on a specific ideological objective for nearly 40 years, and making most of his grants with no strings attached, Scaife's philanthropy has had a disproportionate impact on the rise of the right, perhaps the biggest story in American politics in the last quarter of the 20th century.
His money has established or sustained activist think tanks that have created and marketed conservative ideas from welfare reform to enhanced missile defense; public interest law firms that have won important court cases on affirmative action, property rights and how to conduct the national census; organizations and publications that have nurtured conservatism on American campuses; academic institutions that have employed and promoted the work of conservative intellectuals; watchdog groups that have critiqued and harassed media organizations, and many more.
Together these groups constitute a conservative intellectual infrastructure that provided ideas and human talent that helped Ronald Reagan initiate a new Republican era in 1980, and helped Newt Gingrich initiate another one in 1994. Conservative ideas once dismissed as flaky or extreme moved into the mainstream, and as the liberal National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy concluded in a recent report, "The long-standing conservative crusade to discredit government as a vehicle for societal progress has come to fruition as never before."
The ideas behind this success did not come from Scaife. Even the conservative activists who know him best say he rarely offers his own ideas or opinions, and most of those who get money from him have no personal relations with him or don't know him at all.
"I don't see anything resembling a grand strategy about the man," said James Whelan, who was editor of the Sacramento Union when Scaife owned it and later became editor of the Washington Times. "In general he sees certain villains in American life and society and thinks he should do everything he can to attack them and bring them down."
Scaife declined to be interviewed for this story, but in written answers to questions about his motivation, he said: "Our funding is based on our support of ideas like limited government, individual rights and a strong defense."
As for himself, he added: "I am not a politician, although like most Americans I have some political views. Basically I am a private individual who has concerns about his country and who has resources that give me the privilege – and responsibility – to do something to help my country if I can."
If Scaife's explanations seem vague, his achievement is not. Besides acting on his own visceral reactions, Scaife has backed people he admired and institutions he favored with lots of money, without ever telling them what to do. He has done this consistently, patiently, over four decades.
Frank Shakespeare, director of the U.S. Information Agency in the first Nixon administration and Scaife's colleague for years on the board of the Heritage Foundation, summarized the accomplishment: "Dick Scaife has made a real difference in his country – and has had an impact on the larger world."
A Philanthropic Heir Embraces 'the War of Ideas'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To make his mark on history, Scaife had to overcome long odds. In his youth he seemed star-crossed, even to many of his friends. He grew up in a household dominated by his mother's alcoholism, in a family whose members specialized in "making each other totally miserable," in the rueful words of his sister, Cordelia Scaife May.
At 9 he spent a year in bed after his skull was fractured by a horse. Yale University suspended him for drunken pranks, then kicked him out entirely before he could complete his freshman year. At 22 he caused a car accident that almost killed him and injured five members of one family, who won a large legal settlement. He had a drinking problem most of his adult life, finally getting on the wagon in the early 1990s. He has feuded bitterly with friends, employees and relatives. He has no relations with his daughter, and hasn't spoken to his sister for 25 years.
Holy crap, this guy brings in 3.9 million a month. And he's going to pay his ex-wife 700,000 a month. Did I read that right?
Sorry about that. Don't know how that happened. This is what I meant to post.
To make his mark on history, Scaife had to overcome long odds. In his youth he seemed star-crossed, even to many of his friends. He grew up in a household dominated by his mother's alcoholism, in a family whose members specialized in "making each other totally miserable," in the rueful words of his sister, Cordelia Scaife May.
At 9 he spent a year in bed after his skull was fractured by a horse. Yale University suspended him for drunken pranks, then kicked him out entirely before he could complete his freshman year. At 22 he caused a car accident that almost killed him and injured five members of one family, who won a large legal settlement. He had a drinking problem most of his adult life, finally getting on the wagon in the early 1990s. He has feuded bitterly with friends, employees and relatives. He has no relations with his daughter, and hasn't spoken to his sister for 25 years.
monk @ 29:
Dear Bill O'reilly,
I love that you cut through the spin, so where is your Talking Points Memo on the conspiracy of Richard Scaife as political activist financier?
Bill O'reilly whines, complains, bloviates fraudulent outrage and has his underlings make up very cheap and ridiculous 'instructive' charts on the conspiracy of George Soros funding common-sense-leaning political action groups. In this he betrays his own boundless hypocrisy, lying by omission, excluding mention of the prominent, well-known billionaire patron of the Trite-wing, Richard Mellon Scaife. O'reilly deceives his viewers by not making up comparable cartoon charts, and expressing visceral outrage and disgust, in fact, not even mentioning the 'conspiracy' of the hundreds of millions of dollars Scaife provides to prop up Derelict-wing political action groups, think-tanks, and task forces created for the sole purpose of dredging up negative personal information on liberal candidates. Bill O'reilly's hypocrisy and commitment to defrauding his viewers knows absolutely no bounds, is limitless and baffling.
Karma, baby! Scaife fears open documents in divorce proceedings(link)
"Anyone who has dipped a toe in the wild and woolly currents of politics in the last thirty years should be familiar with the name of Richard Mellon Scaife. As partisans go, there isn’t anyone else willing to put so much of their money where their ideologies drive them, $340 million by some estimates.
Among the right-wing organizations substantially funded by Mr. Scaife are the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Judicial Watch, Cato Institute and a working group within his American Spectator publication called the “Arkansas Project,” whose specific aim was to locate and create dirt on the Clintons in order to smear them, in hopes of removing Clinton from office."
And, as the main topic of the article points out, O'rally's hypocrisy in spitting outrage against Soros while the Reich-wing nutjobs are sucking off of Scaife's billionaire teat, is matched by the flaming hypocrisy of Sciafe himself!!!
'Conservatism' (Hypocrism, Fraudulism, Deceptionism, Cronyism, Corrupticism) is a dead dinosaur, so dead that is has decomposed into oil, ready for incineration. Good sickening riddance.
The TURDS on the Right better be glad I'm not worth a few Billion. I would gladly give most of it to help pound their asses into obscurity. Any time, any place, assholes.
Scaife is the angry, booze-addled godfather of the American fascist movement. Any comeuppance would be too small an amount to suit me.
I can see why this WinNut would want to keep his divorce docs under wraps.
Plaintiff's Trial memorandum Regarding Complex Support
http://www.post-gazette.com/downloads/20070922scaife_AffidavitRegardingC...
First off the guy is an adulterer. Can you imagine the head Right Winger an adulter and naturally he's going after Bill Clinton. Anway here's the money quote, "Wife was forced to abandon the marriage after confirming that Husband had engaged in an adulterous relationship..."
But what's really the meat and potatoes of this document is the Complex Support. Wifey got "An Interim Order of Support for $725,000 per month..." We next find out that "Both parties agree that the asset value of the trusts total about $1.4 billion." Basically, Husband has this huge Trust and takes out so many millions a year to survive. Now, out of this amount you have to figure his expenses, related business profits, and eventually sum up his disposable income. This is the chunk that wifey wants a piece of.
But her lawyers are arguing, and here's what Husband probably want to keep secret, that it's insane for him to claim an on going 16 year business loss of $244 million dollars as an offset his disposable income. Does this sound fishy? Here are the details right from the document regarding
Scaife’s "asset" the Right-Wing Rag aka. "the Tribune-Review"
( A little background on the Tribune Review. Recent articles include:
1. Felonizing illegals
2. Hillarycare II: Hillary Clinton's second run at socializing medicine differs from her first abortive attempt in 1993-94 only in detail
3. Infrastructure Porking: Here it comes, barreling toward taxpayers like an overloaded semi on bald tires with no brakes: a concerted push in Congress to add billions to federal infrastructure spending.)
1. Husand is the sole shareholder of the Tribune-Review Publishing Company which publishes the Tribune Review
2. Husband unequivocally stated that his primary motive in founding the Tribune Review to give the people of Pittsburgh a "second voice."
3. Husband unequivocally indicated that his primary motive for continuing to direct funds to subsidize the Tribune Review's staggering losses is to provide the people with a "second voice."
4. The Tribune Review has lost money every single year since its inception 1992 -- a 16 year track record of losses.
6. Husband insists on remaining as the Chariman of the Board of the Tribune Review, despite 16 consecutive years of losses under his leadership, thereby ensuring that it is his own voice that is the Pittsburgh's "second voice."
8. since inception, the Tribune Review has suffered aggregate losses of $244 million.
WOW!
In summary, Right Wing Ideas are so distasteful to the people of Pittsburgh that Scaife has to take a loss of about $15,000,000 per year to keep his paper afloat. In 16 years he's never turned a profit, but he keeps pouring money down the toilet in order to have his soap box.
No wonder wifey is contesting that this has nothing to do with "business" or "profit". Got that WingNuts, NO ONE WANTS YOUR CRAP. If it was not for Nuts like Scaife your think tanks would all go away. According to the rules of Capitalism, the Tribune Review is just a Socialist Rag soley supported by one Nut.
Suck On That.
Lol, ScrewBush. That's a doozy!
Scaife is truely an evil man I hope the records are open and ruin him.
Note who this guy funds. Every reichwing gestapo organization, perhaps including the Nazi Party USA. And yet the reichwingers in the media have the gall to complain because a good man like Soros supports Democratic causes. Oh what hypocrites these Rethuglican Reichwingers are. Limberger that means you and the rest of your ilk.
Hoisted on his own petard. How sweet it is.
I've never seen a picture of the man before - he's butt-ugly. What a piece of garbage.
I sincerely hope he loses this battle and that he gets nailed for all kinds of filth that is undoubtedly there.
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type 4 @ 26:
Indeed, ain't that their MO: "If you have nothing to hide..."
I want Scaife's divorce papers for public record. The second Mrs. Scaife is so outraged about his new paramour she might let a few skeletons out of the closet. Scaife is an example of what the super rich trust fund babies do---nothing but screw things up. Can you imagine never having to work a day in your life and getting a $3.9 MILLION DOLLAR paycheck each month. Scaife is just a waste of a human being.
I don't know what kind of doctor "Dr. Patriot" is but let me make this observation. First, I think it highly unlikely that a physician or a psychologist would stop to the kind of name callling evident in this post quoted below. Second, I find it hard to believe that anyone with a Ph.D. would make a claim "Soros...probably funds this blog in some part" without offering evidence. Third, as one of my graduate school professors noted, "Reporting the state of one glands is not an argument."Dr. Patriot @ 4:
hahaha Yes, divorce papers often have PERSONAL issues in them. DUH.
aquarius2 @ 43:
Scaife isn't normal even for a super rich trust fund baby.
He's just plain evil.
YES YES YES
Richard Mellon Scaife has given Neo Con groups $340 million dollars
Among the right-wing organizations substantially funded by Mr. Scaife are the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Judicial Watch, Cato Institute
But you failed to mention he's a Fascist Cocksusker
Dr. Patriot @ 4:
Wow. Talk about ignorant. Keep drinking the kool-aid kid.
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monk @ 29:
This explains so much. Anger management problems are very common in instances where head trauma is a factor. Sometimes very serious anger management problems.
*
ron powell @ 44:
I would bet that "Dr. Patriot" is some guy sitting in a trailer with empty beer cans surrounding him.
same ole excuse used by all repugthugs, their personal business is "very private" and the dems personal business is to be made public. let's see, who has over 50 sex scandals currently and many of them are for child abuse and related other crimes. the repugs have made a mockery of the truth. the repugs are the most EVIL group of terrorists in the world.
He's single-handedly responsible for so much of the muck of the past couple of decades, having financed the reich wing's anti-Clinton crusades. You'd think that with all his bazillions of dollars he could afford to fix his ugly teeth!
ron powell @ 44:
Unfortunately any moron going for a couple of years to a bullshit seminar at theology school believes that they can be use the title of "Doctor." That brings a lot of anger to those of us who had to sweat our way through a doctorate in applied science. If seminarian want to call themselves doctor they should allow religion to be peer reviewed. I don't go out calling myself a Rev. for having a PhD in applied physics, so I would recommend the clergy extends me the same courtesy and stops abusing the term doctor...
I think there is a nice hot place waiting for this man in his near future.
Trittydi @ 49:
I think his middle name is "melon" in slang Spanish it means dumbass... as in replacing their head for a honey dew melon would not change a damn thing about the intelligence of the subject (and it some cases it would improve the overall IQ of the person).
Bring him down... rich, elitist, good old boy ba$tard!
Richard Mellon Scaife, a rich partisan ideologue who uses his money to influence politics in the US. A man who has spent more than anyone else to do just this. And all we hear from the O'Reillys and Hannitys of the world is bitching about how Soros is using his money to influence politics? Why aren't they bitching about this Scaife fella using his money to influence politics too? What happened to fair and balanced? Yeah, I know, nevermind...
Get em while they're hot:
all the docs here:
http://post-gazette.com/pg/07266/819835-85.stm
If Bill O. calls Soros, Dr. Evil, conversely, is this guy is Dr. Good?
Bring on the dirt. If he and his wife have sunk to dognapping and trespassing charges, it might get very "First Wives' Club", with both parties wanting to stick it to the other. What's politics without good dirt? (Answer: very very un-American!!)
I'll email Perez Hilton to get right on it.
It's not terribly important, but what the f*ck is wrong with Mellon-Scaife's teeth? In the few photos I have seen of him, it looks like his teeth are rotting in his mouth.
Billy Joe @ 61:
Rotten souls emanate highly corrosive vapors which escape via the esophagus...
The papers and effects and IN FACT EVERYTHING is COMMUNITY PROPERTY.
Scaife may be able to bully some people.... but something tells me that his soon to be EX
will not be bullied or bought off. I think she will expose all his skeletons.
It's about time, don't you think?
A evil Bastard of this magnitude only get some 60 comments?
That's sad.
Will it produce any more comments if I point out that some people suspect Richards mother had an unnatural relationship with her uncle the powerful Andrew Mellon?
What's most ironic about Scaife's funding of Vince Foster conspiracy theories is this: Scaife was implicated in a real mystery shotgun death of a political figure many years ago.
Scaife's nemesis, the county District Attorney at the time, was found shotgunned to death on Scaife's property. The cause could have been suicide, or maybe not. The death remains unsolved. Yet, Scaife had the evil nerve to fund the Foster conspiracy theories.
Hope his wife cleans him out, so he can't give as much money to these Right-wing-nutO hate groups.
Note this comment and related story from Feb. 19, 2007 NYT.
Christopher Ruddy, who once worked full-time for Mr. Scaife investigating the Clintons and now runs a conservative online publication he co-owns with Mr. Scaife, said, “Both of us have had a rethinking.”
“Clinton wasn’t such a bad president,” Mr. Ruddy said. “In fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today.”
Just FYI.
That's eerie, I was just reading "who is Steve Kangas" again over the weekend, then THIS appears on C&L....
Kasandra @ 11:
Quoth God: What Goes Around, Comes Around
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