October 9, 2007 (LPAC)--Reports in the Washington Post today that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has assured the private equity funds that taxes on their managers' incomes will not be raised, has prompted EIRNS to take another look at the nature of the Hedge/Private Equity Fund lobby. According to the Post, Reid has promised to table a Senate bill introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA); and a similar House bill introduced by Reps. Charles Rangel (D-NY), and Sander Levin (D-MI), would raise the tax level to a "normal" corporate income tax level. The private equity/hedge fund lobby has been hysterically trying to stop these bills, and now, reportedly, Reid has capitulated.

How deep into Congress does the vulture penetration go?

In the case of Democrat Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), he hired Moses Mercado, a lobbyist for the vulture funds, Carlyle Group and Blackstone Group, to his campaign. Mercado's firm, Ogilvy Government Relations is the main lobbying agency for the hedge funds and private equity funds attacking Congressional attempts to tax them. The Barack Obama Presidential campaign announced in late September that it would hire Mercad. Obama's campaign fundraising efforts began last December, 2006, when billionaire George Soros convened a council of investment bankers to back him.

Moses Mercado is a former top aide to DNC chairman Howard Dean. Mercado's insider status with Dean -- as their faction squeezed funds to Democratic Congressional candidates despite warnings from Lyndon LaRouche and the Bill Clinton forces -- has been publicly lauded by Mercado's lobbying boss, Wayne Berman. Berman's Ogilvy firm, formerly known as the Federalist Group, was one of the two centers of the Tom DeLay/Dick Cheney corruptionst machine in Washington.

In another case, former professional basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson is currently campaigning against proposed legislation to raise the taxes of hedge fund/private equity fund managers. Johnson is a principal spokesman for the Access to Capital Coalition, formed September 7, 2007 with money from such giant funds as Carlyle Group and Blackstone Group. The Coalition is billed as representing minority groups and women who happen to be operators of such funds. At the same time Johnson raises funds for Hillary Clinton's Presidential candidacy.

Magic Johnson owns his own private equity enterprise, which is part of a billion dollar partnership called Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds. This is managed by Canyon Capital Advisers, a hedge and reality fund unit spun off from Michael Milken's operation within Drexel Burnham Lambert. When Milken went to prison for his junk bond outrages, the men who helped him shape his deals, Joshua Friedman and Mitchell Julis, formed Canyon. Friedman and Julis still appear as speakers at Milken's investment events.