The View From The Left

While many Americans struggle in this economy and are losing their homes, it appears that their representatives in Washington, D.C. have been given favorable treatment by the nation’s #1 home loan lender, Countrywide.

Two U.S. senators, two former Cabinet members, and a former ambassador to the United Nations received loans from Countrywide Financial through a little-known program that waived points, lender fees, and company borrowing rules for prominent people.

Senators Christopher Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut and chairman of the Banking Committee, and Kent Conrad, Democrat from North Dakota, chairman of the Budget Committee and a member of the Finance Committee, refinanced properties through Countrywide’s “V.I.P.” program in 2003 and 2004, according to company documents and emails and a former employee familiar with the loans.

Other participants in the V.I.P. program included former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and former U.N. ambassador and assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.

This isn’t a partisan discount program, since both Democrats and Republicans benefited. It’s another prime example of the Hostile Takeover detailed by David Sirota in his book of the same name. This is a blatant attempt by Angelo Mozilo and his associates to influence public policy, and to subvert campaign finance laws. Just take a look at what Angelo does for his “friends”.

Most of the officials belonged to a group of V.I.P. loan recipients known in company documents and emails as “F.O.A.’s”—Friends of Angelo, a reference to Countrywide chief executive Angelo Mozilo. While the V.I.P. program also serviced friends and contacts of other Countrywide executives, the F.O.A.’s made up the biggest subset.

According to company documents and emails, the V.I.P.’s received better deals than those available to ordinary borrowers. Home-loan customers can reduce their interest rates by paying “points”—one point equals 1 percent of the loan’s value. For V.I.P.’s, Countrywide often waived at least half a point and eliminated fees amounting to hundreds of dollars for underwriting, processing and document preparation. If interest rates fell while a V.I.P. loan was pending, Countrywide provided a free “float-down” to the lower rate, eschewing its usual charge of half a point. Some V.I.P.’s who bought or refinanced investment properties were often given the lower interest rate associated with primary residences.

So while the people who make the laws get special treatment from Angelo’s company, our friends and neighbors struggle to keep their houses. Make no mistake, our friends and neighbors are paying, so that Chris Dodd, Kent Conrad, Alphonso Jackson, Donna Shalala, Richard Holbrooke and others like them can benefit.

The scenario is this: Average people pay higher costs for their mortgages, so that Angelo can dole out discounts to powerful people who regulate his business, in the hope that they’ll regulate him a little less so he can turn out higher profits.

Don’t think that the average customer isn’t paying so that Angelo’s “friends” can get a break.

Countrywide’s entire operation, from its computer system to its incentive pay structure and financing arrangements, is intended to wring maximum profits out of the mortgage lending boom no matter what it costs borrowers, according to interviews with former employees and brokers who worked in different units of the company and internal documents they provided. One document, for instance, shows that until last September the computer system in the company’s subprime unit excluded borrowers’ cash reserves, which had the effect of steering them away from lower-cost loans to those that were more expensive to homeowners and more profitable to Countrywide. [emphasis mine]

The next time you’re voting, think about who you’re voting for. Are your representatives doing what you expect of them? Do they represent you and your friends and neighbors, or are they on the corporate payroll like these five public servants? If the answer is the latter, it’s time for a change.

I’m sitting in the Boise airport as I write this, fresh off of 2 1/2 days of Camp Wellstone. Before I came, I talked to several people who had attended previous Camp Wellstones, to get their impressions. I knew it would be valuable to me to sharpen my campaign/political skills, but hearing everyone talk so positively about their experiences just confirmed what I already believed. And Camp Wellstone did not disappoint.

Camp Wellstone is an intensive and energizing training program that is open to anyone interested in gaining practical skills in progressive political action. Over 16,000 people have graduated from the camps since they began in 2003, and we have held camps in 39 states to date.
During the camp, participants divide into three tracks:

• Electoral Campaigns: Tools and Tactics for Success
• Citizen Activism: Grassroots Advocacy and Organizing
• Being a Candidate: How to Run and Win a Progressive Campaign

Each track has a distinctive curriculum (see below) taught by some of the nation’s leading experts in grassroots politics and organizing. In each track, we draw from Paul and Sheila Wellstone’s distinctive and innovative approach to politics - something we call the Wellstone Triangle. The three elements of the triangle are: progressive public policy, which lays out an agenda for action; grassroots community organizing, which builds a constituency to fight for change; and grassroots electoral politics, which provides tools for influencing and holding decision-makers accountable.

This training by Wellstone Action is something that every progressive activist, campaign operative and candidate should attend. Despite working campaigns before, and spending the last 10 years of my career in politics, I was never bored. The presenters are all top-flight, engaging, personable and generally awesome people. For me the material was a good refresher of things I already knew and some things I didn’t know were covered in enough detail for me that I feel comfortable doing those things, and my knowledge has grown as a result.

So thanks to Melvin,  Jen, Erik, and  Cristina for enthusiastically sharing their knowledge and working with us to build a better future for all of us.

And once again, I have to say that if you’re an activist, campaign operative, potential candidate, the best thing you can do to advance your cause or campaign is to attend Camp Wellstone. As someone who followed Paul Wellstone’s career in the Senate, his remarkable legacy lives on through his friends and family who started Wellstone Action.

While Americans die in Iraq, President Bush is sacrificing for the cause.

US President George W. Bush said in an interview out Tuesday that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of US soldiers killed in the conflict in Iraq, now in its sixth year.

[…]

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

This is coming from the guy who did everything he could to get out of serving his country in Vietnam.

As Americans pay ever higher costs at the gas pump, Exxon Mobil scored its second most profitable quarter in history at $10.9 billion, and Wall Street called it disappointing.

Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday that its first-quarter net income rose 17 percent, boosted by surging oil prices.

But even as it posted the second-most profitable quarter in its history, Exxon’s earnings managed to disappoint investors because of a drop in oil production. Shares closed down $3.37, to $89.70, on a day the Dow industrial average rose 189.87 points. The company missed earnings estimates by a dime a share.

So while American consumers get robbed blind by an unchecked oil industry (it’s good to have power isn’t it George and Dick?), the miserly Scrooge is sitting there counting his money and complaining that he didn’t get enough.

If that’s not pure, unadulterated corporate greed, I don’t know what is. And I thought Gordon Gecko was a fictional character.

Somebody please put Bill Richardson in charge of diplomacy and foreign policy before someone else screws it up worse than George W. Bush. In a recent interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Hillary Clinton spoke her mind on Iran:

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on “Good Morning America” Tuesday. ABC News’ Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

I have no problem with strong support for Israel. I do have a problem with saber rattling and rhetoric that sounds like it came from a schoolyard bully. That isn’t diplomacy, it’s the status quo. You don’t just launch the nukes.

Richardson’s Rules

• Share the credit. Politics and diplomacy are team sports. Acknowledge it.
• Be discreet and don’t volunteer too much information.
• Your style can be informal, but you must show proper respect.
• Remember who your friends were when things weren’t going so well.
• Aim big. Always try to achieve more than you have to.
• When you’re about to make a major change, cover your bases.
• It helps to be in good shape. You never know when you’re going to be called to the negotiating table.
• Deliver a strong message with dignity and without insults.
• Never lie when negotiating, because lies catch up with you. Be direct.
• Use the media if you need to, but keep your negotiations private.
• Have others deliver bad news; it keeps you viable as a future negotiator.
• In most meetings, the law of diminishing returns kicks in after five minutes.

And now for a shameless plug. Two guys I know, David Sirota and Andrei Cherny, have books out or coming out very soon. I highly recommend you take a look at their work.

David Sirota’s book, The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington, is due out on May 27. Here is David’s official bio.

The Uprising is all new, firsthand investigative reporting from across the country, showing how populism has become a dominant political force in both national and local politics. Sirota, a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, takes us far from the media spotlight into the trenches where real change is happening - from the headquarters of the most powerful third party in America to the bowels of the U.S. Senate; from the auditorium of an ExxonMobil shareholder meeting to the quasi-military staging area of a vigilante force on the Mexican border.

As someone who knows David and has read his previous book, the New York Times bestseller Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government - And How We Can Take It Back, I highly recommend you read The Uprising.

Andrei Cherny’s new book, The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour, is already out, so go buy a copy and read it. Here is Andrei’s official bio.

From the website:

Three years after the end of World War II, the American occupation of Germany was failing. The Germans were becoming less – not more – attracted to democracy. Communism was on the march, overthrowing one government after another. Faith in America was at a low ebb.

Then, on June 24, 1948, intent on furthering its domination of Europe, the Soviet Union cut off all land and sea access to West Berlin, prepared to starve one of the largest cities in the world into submission unless the Americans abandoned it. Soviet forces hugely outnumbered the Allies’. The choices before the western allies were seemingly to abandon the city to the Russians, allow the Berliners to starve, or start World War III.

Most of America’s top officials considered the situation hopeless. But not all of them.

[…]

THE CANDY BOMBERS is their story.

Andrei is the author of The Next Deal and also someone I’ve worked with, and I highly recommend his books as well.

American philosopher George Santayana said, in The Life of Reason (1905-1906), “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article in the April 28, 2008 edition of The Nation, challenges the traditional views of how Hawaii became the 50th state, with the truths of the native Hawaiian people. I strongly suggest you read the entire article.

“Manifest Destiny” was the catchphrase for a whole confluence of late nineteenth-century racial, economic and national defense issues that divided the public as intensely as any such issues since slavery. With its dark-skinned natives, burgeoning sugar plantations and strategic location, Hawai’i was at the center of the debates. While The Nation, along with Harper’s Weekly and a number of influential papers across the country, was passionately in the anti-annexationist column [see boxes, pages 18 and 19], other papers, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Sun, were just as eager for it to happen. The Anti-Imperialist League, with prominent members, sent speakers all over the country. Congress prevaricated. Despite his original hope of restoring Lili’uokalani to her throne, Cleveland appears to have been stymied by her alleged initial refusal to grant amnesty to those who conspired against her and by the stalemate in Congress. With their hopes for annexation stalled, on July 4, 1894, the leaders of the coup, who had been calling themselves the Provisional Government, renamed themselves the Republic of Hawai’i, further complicating efforts at US intervention, which they now claimed would be interference with the internal affairs of a sovereign state. In January 1895, after an unsuccessful native uprising against the government of which she was accused of having prior knowledge, Lili’uokalani was tried, convicted and imprisoned in ‘Iolani Palace, which further strengthened the new government’s position. In spring 1897, when expansionist Republican William McKinley succeeded Cleveland, the linked annexationists in Honolulu and Washington resumed their campaign. Still unable to achieve the two-thirds Senate majority required for ratification of annexation by treaty, Congressional annexationists attempted to acquire the islands by joint resolution of both houses–which also stalled until July 1898, two months after Commodore Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay, when it went through.

To those who had resisted the logic of Capt. Alfred Mahan, whose The Influence of Sea Power Upon History in 1890 had been followed by a pointed discussion in Forum titled “Hawaii and Our Future Sea Power” in 1893, the importance of our troops stopping over in Honolulu on their way to the Philippines now spoke for itself. There never was any treaty. On August 12, 1898, in a formal ceremony, Hawai’i was officially annexed, the land seized from the Kingdom in the 1893 coup included. In 1900 it became a territory. In 1959 in a referendum in which the only choice was whether the voter was for or against statehood–the restoration of the Kingdom or any other form of independence was not an option–it became the fiftieth state.

If you think this article is a stretch, think of Native Americans. Didn’t the earliest Americans treat Native Americans similarly, driving them off their land? It’s just another shameful chapter in American history, one that has been sanitized from the history books.

Read this open letter to progressives from the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.

So far Hillary Clinton’s campaign has insulted just about every voting demographic that hasn’t voted for her. Add one more to the list. This week, President Bill Clinton decided to write off the youth vote.

Older voters gravitate to Hillary Clinton because they’re too wise to be fooled by Barack Obama’s rhetoric, former president Bill Clinton told Pennsylvania voters today.

“I think there is a big reason there’s an age difference in a lot of these polls,” he said. “Because once you’ve reached a certain age, you won’t sit there and listen to somebody tell you there’s really no difference between what happened in the Bush years and the Clinton years; that there’s not much difference in how small-town Pennsylvania fared when I was president, and in this decade.”

That’s right, if you’re in the 35 and under Young Dem crowd, you’re stupid and easily duped by politicians, according to President Clinton. Only older voters know how to properly vote.

Well I got news for you President Clinton, and grandma and grandpa. My friends and I are coming for you. We’re the future of the Democratic party and some of us are ready to take it over now. Barack Obama represents the future and you represent the past.

As Eli Sanders reported in The Stranger, it looks like Hillary Clinton’s campaign is still trying to get people to believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim and shouldn’t be elected President based on his name. Regarding the April 5 legislative district convention in the 43rd legislative district, Sanders wrote of Hillary Clinton surrogate and actor Sean Astin:

Hillary Clinton’s surrogate? He was very, very late, causing a lot of grumbling from the crowd, which was overwhelmingly pro-Obama. When he finally did show up he was… Sean Astin??? Yes, the man who played Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings had flown up to rally the Clinton troops. Which made very little sense, given that the type of people who show up for legislative district caucuses on a Saturday don’t really need a celebrity (or semicelebrity) to motivate them to take political action.

Astin’s speech was most memorable for this line: “Should Obama get the nomination, I will become a massive Barack Hussein Obama supporter.”

Hussein? Eyebrows shot up. Brows furrowed. Heads turned. A friend in the audience texted me: “Hussein!?” I’m not sure what Astin was up to with that line, but someone probably should have told him that Seattle’s 43rd District is the last place in the U.S. where subliminal messaging around Obama’s middle name is likely to move Democrats toward Clinton.

Hillary Clinton should immediately repudiate Astin’s use of Barack Obama’s middle name, and pull Sean Astin off the campaign trail. Astin clearly did not use Hussein to distinguish Senator Barack Obama from some other Barack Obama, whom we all might know. This was another blatant attempt by the Clinton campaign to perpetuate the myth and smear Obama as a Muslim who must be a  terrorist sympathizer.  It’s the same kind of trashy politics that Barack Obama is running against and that the American people have been voting against in the primaries. It’s unacceptable and unnecesary.

For the next couple of weeks I’ll be contributing  at the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog (soon to be renamed, I might add). So head on over there, check out the action and join the conversation.

Or so it seems to be with regard to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Presidency. From Scotsman.com News:

DEMOCRAT grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president.

Falling poll numbers and a string of high-profile blunders have convinced party elders that she must now bow out of the primary race.

Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats.

“They’re in discussions,” a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. “Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence.”

An appeal by both men for Democrats to unite behind Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama, would have a powerful effect, and insiders say it is a question of when, rather than if, they act.

It’s time to unite the Democatic party behind Barack Obama and defeat John McCain in November.

Rasmussen Reports has just released new polling numbers for the race to succeed the retiring Senator “Pajamas Pete” Domenici. The poll shows Congressman Tom Udall with double digit leads over both of his potential Republican opponents in November.

Udall now leads Republicans Steve Pearce 54% to 40% and Heather Wilson 56% to 36%.

Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, Udall has a twelve-point advantage over Pearce. Udall leads Wilson 52% to 33% in that category.

Last month, Udall had an eight-point lead over Pearce and a seven-point lead over Wilson. [emphasis mine]

Congressman Udall has run on the slogan “Udall for Us All”, and the poll numbers above show that slogan is no joke. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent or unaffiliated with any political party, Tom Udall has made a career of getting things done for all of the people, not some of the people. And though I live in Washington state, Congressman Udall is a strong progressive on issues that matter in my neck of the woods, particularly the environment. One of the benefits to living in Washington is Puget Sound, the Cascades and the Olympics. I know a Senator Udall would be working to protect my quality of life and the things I enjoy as someone who hikes and camps a lot. I also have no doubt that Heather Wilson or Steve Pearce would want to drill for oil, or bring supertankers into Puget Sound.

Outside of Virginia, where former Democratic Governor Mark Warner is running, New Mexico is the best hope for Democrats to pick up a seat and expand their majority. But Tom Udall is facing a right-wing smear machine that will throw everything but the kitchen sink at him (and they might throw that too). So if you’ve received your tax rebate from the federal government for last year, think about helping Congressman Udall out by donating to his campaign.

And if you want to know more about Congressman Tom Udall and where he comes from, check out this great profile in last month’s edition of Outside magazine.

Earlier today I posted about an online poll being done at Daily Kos, where Governor Bill Richardson was in the finals after several rounds of defeating worthy opponents for the right to be nominated Vice President. I’m happy to report that Governor Richardson won the poll.

Bill Richardson 56% 3064 votes
Jim Webb 43% 2354 votes

As one of the most prolific bloggers on Governor Richardson for the past 2 years, I’m thrilled to see the Daily Kos community embrace Governor Richardson by voting for him for Vice President over all of the other worthy candidates. That a community where millions of people congregate to debate the issues of the day has lent its vote of confidence to Governor Richardson is significant. The Daily Kos brand, and more specifically, the netroots, have established themselves as players in the political arena. Daily Kos is a recognizable brand, and that so many in that community want Governor Richardson to join Senator Obama to defeat Senator McCain in November, is a testament to his leadership, his experience, and his willingness to engage in a positive campaign talking about issues and not engaging in the politics of personal destruction. This vote should not be taken lightly. Even on the campaign trail as I talked to people in my own state (Washington), and even in other states, those people who were supporting other candidates for President always said that Bill Richardson would be a great Vice President if he wasn’t the nominee. Let’s hope that this vote is the start of that process. Obama/Richardson in 2008!

I’ve asked for comment from Governor Richardson, through his Communications Director, Pahl Shipley. If I get a response, and I hope I do, I will be posting it here.

Update: Thanks to Heath Haussamen for correcting me. The poll is not yet closed, and Governor Richardson has not won the poll yet, though it seems likely he will. There is still time to vote. That’s what I get for blogging when I’m really tired, and I apologize for the error.

As it turns out, Mark Penn isn’t the only Clinton campaign operative with ties to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

But within the Clinton campaign, Penn is not the highest-ranking adviser with financial ties to groups and individuals supporting the passage of the measure.

Former President Bill Clinton has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars speaking on behalf of a Colombia-based group pushing the trade pact, and representatives of that organization tell The Huffington Post that the former president shared their sentiment.

So let’s do the math. Mark Penn is hired by Colombians to push the free trade agreement, which is in conflict with his boss, Hillary Clinton’s view on the subject and he “leaves” the campaign. Bill Clinton, the candidate’s husband and arguably the biggest voice in the room (with the exception of Hillary herself) in her campaign does the same thing as Penn and…[insert crickets chirping here]
How ironic that Hillary opposes the free trade agreement, yet is financially benefiting by her husband supporting it. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

Like the vendors who have supplied goods and services to the Clinton campaign, Chief Strategist Mark Penn, apparently isn’t getting paid by the campaign either. If he was getting paid, Penn wouldn’t need to be out doing this today.

Hillary Clinton’s chief campaign strategist met with Colombia’s ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate opposes.

Attendance by the adviser, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Colombian officials. He wasn’t there in his campaign role, but in his separate job as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, an international communications and lobbying firm. The firm has a contract with the South American nation to promote congressional approval of the trade deal, among other things, according to filings with the Justice Department.

Where  I come from this kind of conflict of interest would either lead to being fired for not advancing your employer’s interest, except in this case Mark Penn is serving two masters: the Colombian government and Senator Hillary Clinton. These are two opposite interests and Mark Penn is being paid by both. But that’s not the worst of it.

It’s already well-documented that Mark Penn’s firm has aided union busters (also apparently in contrast with Senator Clinton’s positions). But as David Sirota has noted Colombia engages in a different sort of union busting, the kind that ends in death.

The Colombia agreement, which is being pushed by former Clinton administration officials-turned-lobbyists, rewards a government that helps execute union organizers, according to the Washington Post. Today, more unionists are killed each year in Colombia than in the rest of the world’s countries combined. Suppressing unions keeps Colombian wages low. With the benefits of a free trade agreement, those low wages will be more easily exploited by outsourcers.

I should note that David Sirota has been covering this story and Mark Penn’s involvement from the beginning.

And the Clinton campaign has some explaining to do.

The way I see it, if you’re going to call out Barack Obama and condemn him for the comments of his former pastor (Rev. Wright), and use it against him, you better make sure your house is in order. Sure, Reverend Wright has said some controversial and  inflammatory things. But Hillary Clinton needs to take a hard look at Mark Penn’s actions, collaborating with murderers on a free trade deal she says she opposes. Shouldn’t Penn be condemned for his actions and fired for acting in ways that are contradictory to what the Clinton campaign supports? How can you have a senior level advisor actively contradicting you while he works for you? If Hillary Clinton can make public statements about how she wouldn’t have had Rev. Wright as her pastor, perhaps Barack Obama needs to play up Penn’s complicity with murder and say he would never have Penn as an advisor.

It’s time for Mark Penn to get the Chris Lehane treatment. And it’s time for the Clinton campaign’s hypocrisy to stop.