Jackson Stephens wants YOU to get out and vote PART ONE

People liked the Warren Buffet piece.  The United States have a great many hidden rulers and Invisible Hands, though, and we’re spotlighting another spot-light phobic specimen today.  Jackson Stephens is a name few people have ever heard of --- considering the man had his grubby hands up the asses of both Clinton and Bush, perhaps that’s to be expected.

Strong words, huh?  Hell, once you’re finished reading this, you’ll be angry at me for vastly understating the situation.  (The astute reader might notice recent posts have been downright rhetorical, but that’s just a natural response to all this “get-out-and-vote” cheerleading that daily life subjects me to.  I’m in Burlington, surrounded by grinning college kids with clipboards and matching shirts.  It will all be over soon.)

Jackson Stephens, it should be mentioned right off, is dead.  Passed away July 23, 2005 fnord.  But he’s such an integral part of nearly everything that is wrong with this world today, and such an enigmatic figure, that we’re going to go ahead and start digging anyways.

Best place to begin with Jackson Stephens is the raw numbers.  He’s only worth $1.5 billion dollars, and that’s not a sarcastic or flippant statement.  There are a lot of other billionaires with far more money out there, but Jackson Stephens seems to exert a pull that greatly exceeds his actual wealth.  Makes you wonder what the nature of his operation actually is. (Also worth noting that Mr. Stephens might not be declaring all his wealth.)

Jackson Stephens is living proof that the American Dream, frankly, kinda sucks.  He started out dirt poor with his brother Witt in Arkansas back in the 1930s, according to legend, humble merchants specializing in Bibles and belt buckles.  (We don’t believe that either.) From these humble beginnings, the Stephens brothers have built a mighty empire, and the world is a worse place for it.

Along the road to riches, Jackson Stephens has made some very auspicious stops over these past 60-odd years.  He currently owns the single largest investment bank on Wall Street --- Stephens Inc. --- who are majority shareholders of a great many Earth-eater corporations: 1) Wal-Mart, which he helped take public back in 1970, 2) Tyson Foods, which he bailed out repeatedly and helped aquire some rival companies, and 3) Alltel, a cellular service upstart. 

If you’re thinking something doesn’t add up, you’re 100% right.  (As an interesting side note, wikipedia does not admit that Jackson Stephens exists. Further searching revealed the story of Willis Stephens, who accidentally sent an email out to everyone on his contacts list where he referred to the voters as “idiots”. Frankly, the man should be re-elected just for that.)

So What Gives?

Let’s examine some of the interesting places that Jackson Stephens turns up in the grey zones of US history.

When current “President” George W. Bush’s early company Harken Energy went bust, it was Jackson Stephens who put up $25 million dollars to keep it afloat.

A lot of people are fond of former President Bill Clinton --- Brainsturbator is not among them.  The Clinton legacy is intertwined with Jackson Stephens over the course of decades.  This is not something that’s been investigated much, since for one, there’s not a lot of information about Stephens available, and for two, it’s not interesting to partisan investigators.  For the most part, investigative journalism is an attempt to “get” someone, and the same Republicans who clamored for an investigation into the whereabouts of Clintons penis in the late 90s saw no problem with Bush refusing to even investigate the events of 9-11.

It’s interesting that many commentaries I’ve read find it “curious” or “odd” that Jackson Stephens, who was a huge donor for George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign, was also a huge donor for Bill Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 campaigns.  Nefarious explanations aside, this is a very common practice among corporations and the super-wealthy, it’s a strategy known to any competent gambler as “hedging your bets”.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.—Two days before Bill Clinton’s bitterly contested re-election in 1990, the Arkansas Governor grew concerned that his campaign was slipping.  He placed calls to members of an influential Arkansas business group, asking them to raise $50,000for his campaign, according to people involved in the effort.

“He was somewhat in a panic,” recalled Warren A. Stephens, one of those contacted by the Governor.

Mr. Stephens is president and chief executive officer of Stephens Inc., the investment banking flagship of the Stephens family empire, which
has vast holdings in natural gas, finance and real estate.  Published estimates of the family’s wealth put it well over $1 billion.

Mr. Stephens and his associates quickly agreed to raise the money, providing the pledges that helped Mr. Clinton get $50,000 from a bank the next day.  The money was used for last-minute television advertisements.  Thus began an important financial alliance that has helped drive Mr. Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

---New York Times, Feb 5, 1992 (no link available, it’s from an old notebook)

You can probably see where things are going from here.

Waste Treatment Industries

Anyone moved by Al Gore’s courage in releasing An Inconvenient Truth might be surprised by the following:

The man just elected vice president of the United States had run as a critic of the massive toxic-waste burner threatening to spew hazardous chemicals into the Ohio town of East Liverpool and outlying areas.

Campaigning in the region, Al Gore - the author of the pro-environment book “Earth in the Balance” - had denounced the incinerator. So had Bill Clinton.

The Waste Technologies Industries plant - one of the largest-capacity toxic-waste burners anywhere - was set to operate in a residential area just a few hundred yards from an elementary school. WTI would emit large quantities of lead and mercury (substances destructive to young nervous systems), and poisons such as dioxin.

Widely hailed as the greenest national candidate, Al Gore used the WTI issue to appeal for environmental votes last fall. But two months after he became vice president, Gore began to hedge - speaking of federal obligations to WTI’s investors.

The Clinton administration could have nullified WTI’s test permit right after Inauguration Day. Instead, in mid-March, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would not bar the toxic burner’s opening.

WTI is now operating alongside the upper Ohio River, with grim implications for public health.

WTI was also caught in the following hilarious PR fuckup:

That’s a school in the middle of the photo, specifically an elementary school.  However, for several years, this photo was on the WTI website instead:

It won’t take you long to see exactly where those trees along the bottom of the photo came from.  (If I get emails from people who don’t get it, I’ll be drinking heavily, so please ask someone else to help you out.)

We could do a whole article --- a whole series of articles --- just on the WTI plant.  It has generated --- and dumped --- literally billions of pounds of toxins into the Ohio ecosystem.  We just mention is as a “huh”, because there’s too much to cover here.  For an even more vast amount of dirt and oddities on Jackson Stephens and the WTI affair, we recommend this Free Republic article.

Tommorow we’ll conclude this article with the real dark stuff.  No kidding --- all of this was adorably innocent by comparison to where we’re about to go.  Meanwhile, if anyone reading this meets Barbara Bush, give her a little smack on the ass for me.  She’ll understand.