Scaredy Cats

The hedge funds created a hostile climate, and they should expect hostility. They shouldn't try to isolate themselves from the consequences of their decisions:

Blaming a "hostile climate" perpetuated by the Obama administration "publicity campaign," Tom Lauria, the attorney representing the group of twenty hedge fund calling themselves the "Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders," filed a motion to seal claiming the hedge funds "targeted by the president" -- presumably Oppenheimer Funds and Stairway Capital, since those were the only funds associated with the group -- had "received various threats, including dozens of death threats directed to their employees."

But today bankruptcy court Judge Arthur Gonzales denied the motion, seeing "no evidence that authorities found the threats bona fide" -- maybe because the only evidence of said threats cited in the motion was a printout from the comments section of the Washington Post website.

We've excerpted the relevant portion of the motion after the jump, so we'll leave it to you to determine the seriousness of these elusive zealots operating pseudonymously under enigmatic handles (e.g. "jerkhoff").

From page ten of the 17-page filing -- all bold and italics Lauria's.

Certain members of the public have expressed their rage at the Chrysler non-TARP lenders. The following is a sample of posts on the Washington Post website in response to an article about Chrysler and the Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders:

• "these hedge fund managers are criminals and their firms are nothing more than criminal enterprises. What they do is nothing short of treason, using loopholes in the law to avoid prosecution. Will someone please explain to me why we don't execute these vermin."
• "These aristocrats should be lined up against the wall and executed."
• "I'm sick and tired of being blackmailed by all these financial wizards. I never had any sympathy for them to start with, but now I have lost patience with them entirely. Too bad we can't rid the world of them all."
• "Hedge funds are floating crap games that are capable of taking down entire nations. They should be criminalized."
• "Hedge funds are criminal associations."