Obama taps Philly for some re-election cash

President Obama will come to the home of Comcast executive vice president David L. Cohen next Thursday for an intimate but deadly-serious fundraiser, Tom Fitzgerald reports. It will cost you 10 grand a plate, but if you can come up with or raise $100,000, you can attend a “VIP clutch” with the president.

I knew Cohen when he was chief of staff to then-mayor Ed Rendell in the 1990’s. He managed the city budget and Rendell’s politics, returned reporters’ calls within two hours, and personally handled the distribution of city hall tickets to the Mummer’s Parade. I’m not surprised he’s gone far. I just wish he were still somewhere in government, serving us all instead of a cable/entertainment company. I’ve told him more than once the greatest waste of natural resources I know of is David L working for Comcast.

Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein from the investigative non-profit Pro Publica report that the Securities and Exchange Commission got a $154 million settlement from JP Morgan Chase for misleading investors about toxic mortgage-backed securities they were peddling and betting against. And the reporters raise a great question: What will the SEC do about the more than two dozen other deals JP Morgan did with the hedge fund, Magnetar?

As Eisinger and Bernstein pointed out in our interview for Fresh Air, a bunch of executives were prosecuted after the savings and loan debacle in the 1980’s. We’ll be watching.

And for you Sarah Palin watchers, Molly Ball of Politico reports she’s back in Alaska, just to keep you guessing about her next move.

For those who love to see Palin picked apart, there’s this dissection in the Anchorage Press by a former Alaska legislator.