Northwestern Airlines

by MartinL on December 30th, 2009, 1:01 am

A quick look at Northwestern Airlines

• a large international airline based in Eagen, Minnesota. It has hubs in Detroit, Memphis, and Minneapolis/St. Paul, as well as Amsterdam and Tokyo. In the US one of its brands is Northwest Airlink. (so far, so good)

• Andrea Fischer Newman, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs of Northwest Airlines, is a Bush Pioneer having raised at least 100,000 for Bush in the 2004 presidential election. (ok, not my kind of gal, but still...)

• Northwest was the second largest donor to political campaigns in the airline industry in the 2004 election cycle, split 41% Democrat and 57% Republican. (government ties)

• The company spent 1,867,896 for lobbying in 2006. 1,305,000 went to 12 outside lobbying firms with the remainder being spent using in-house lobbyists. 

The people at Northwestern Airlines 

Douglas M. Steenland - President and Chief Executive Officer 

Also a director at American International Group(AIG), Inc. - director of Delta Air Lines, Inc., and a director at Detroit Economic Club.

AIG has been bailed out by the government and has been given 182.5 billion. Later it came to light that 90 billion of the money provided to AIG by the government went directly to banks, including non-American banks, including Goldman Sachs (12.9 billion), France's Societe Generale (11.9 billion), Germany's Deutsche Bank (11.8 billion), and Britain's Barclays PLC (8.5 billion)[4]. The bailout of AIG was largely a bailout of the banks and others that had made credit default swap bets with AIG, including Goldman Sachs. more info: http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title= ... onal_Group

Neal Cohen - Executive Vice President-Strategy 

Is also chairman of APCO North America and managing director of the Washington, D.C. office. 

APCO's "Core services include corporate, investor and internal communication, crisis management, issue management, government relations, litigation communication, media relations, coalition building, opinion research, market entry, corporate social responsibility and online communication," it states on its website. APCO employs quite a few former congressmen and government people. Its clients include weapons-kingpin Raytheon, Merck, Pfizer, Baxter Pharmaceuticals, Roche, Novartis and many more. more info: http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=APCO_Worldwide

J. Timothy Griffin - Executive Vice President-Marketing and Distribution.

• Griffin is a former prot?g? of Karl Rove, Republican political strategist and top adviser to President George W. Bush. Griffin was "formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a 'caging' scheme to suppress the votes of African-American servicemembers in Florida." (sounds like a nice fella....)

• He is a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas who resigned effective June 1, 2007 , was named in December 2006 to the position by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, which gave the U.S. Department of Justice "authority to install interim U.S. Attorneys without congressional approval.

• In May 2006, Griffin was assigned to the 501st Special Troops Battalion (STB), 101st Airborne Division and sent to serve in Iraq. From May through August 2006, Griffin served as an Army JAG with the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, Iraq. (one of those that enjoy bombing civilians?)

• As Special Assistant to the President, Griffin advised President George W. Bush and Vice-President Richard B. Cheney on political matters and organized and coordinated political support for the President’s agenda, including the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Previously, Griffin served from 2001-2002 "as an appointee at the U.S. Department of Justice where he was Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General, Michael Chertoff, the Criminal Division Chief. 

"He's part of this tight-knit group here in Washington that helped get the president elected twice." - Anderson Cooper, CNN/CIA. more: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Griffin

Roy J. Bostock - Chairman of the Board

• has been a director of Morgan Stanley since September 2005.
• advertisement/PR/marketing guru. 

Robert L. Friedman 

• is the Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Legal Officer for The Blackstone Group. The Blackstone Group has ties to American International Group, Inc. (AIG) and Kissinger Associates, Inc./Henry Kissinger.

• In December 2001, The Blackstone Group was appointed as Enron's principal financial advisor with regard to its financial restructuring.[3] The company also advised Enron on "the Sale of its North American Power and Gas Trading Business to UBS".