Grassroots Voters Need To Defeat The Wall Street-owned New Dems

Wall St. shills Crowley & Himes, leading freshmen to slaughter

Early this morning we saw how California voters drove the obstructionist Republicans away from the levers of power and made it impossible for them to obstruct government. And the result was a $60 billion deficit turned into a $4 billion surplus. At the bottom of the post, though, is a video from San Francisco progressive Senator Mark Leno warning that not all Democrats are... Democrats.

An Arizona political pal of mine was grousing yesterday about the support he had given freshman Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. "She knows better," he complained about her conservative voting record. She was a Nader supporter! Her IQ is in the stratosphere." Grassroots Democrats in New Hampshire are complaining about Ann Kuster and in New York's Hudson Valley about Sean Patrick Maloney. Activists are disappointed that they helped elect candidates campaigning as progressives who then got into Congress and started voting like conservatives-- particularly on economic justice issues. Kuster and Maloney, thinking themselves "safe" inside committee votes, voted, for example, to gut the food stamps program-- by $20.5 billion. Democrats do that? Bad ones-- especially when the DCCC is constantly telling them they need to come across as moderate to win reelection. That worked out badly in 2010 when Democrats who followed that awful advice were slaughtered by the dozen as Republicans voted for their own candidates and disappointed Democrats didn't show up at the polls. The DCCC learned exactly nothing and they're setting up the same dynamic today. Who do Sinema, Maloney and Kuster think is going to vote for them? Each will have exactly one defense: "The Republican is much worse than I am." Let's revisit that in November 2014 and see how badly it works again.

And then there's obsessive and obsequious Wall Street shillery. As Robert Reich summed it up over the weekend, "Who needs Republicans when Wall Street has the Democrats? With the help of congressional Democrats, the Street is rolling back financial reforms enacted after its near meltdown." Eric Lipton and Ben Protess dealt with it at the NY Times Friday. Short version: Wall Street banksters paid for the cushy political careers of politicos on both sides of the aisle, so they get to write the legislation pertaining to their business that they want. This has been standard operating procedure for Republicans for decades. It's come into vogue among Democrats because of the toxic and corrupt New Dems who now dominate the party establishment.

Bank lobbyists are not leaving it to lawmakers to draft legislation that softens financial regulations. Instead, the lobbyists are helping to write it themselves.

One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month-- over the objections of the Treasury Department-- was essentially Citigroup’s, according to e-mails reviewed by the New York Times. The bill would exempt broad swathes of trades from new regulation.

In a sign of Wall Street’s resurgent influence in Washington, Citigroup’s recommendations were reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill. Two crucial paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks, were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them plural.)

The lobbying campaign shows how, three years after Congress passed the most comprehensive overhaul of regulation since the Depression, Wall Street is finding Washington a friendlier place.

The cordial relations now include a growing number of Democrats in both the House and the Senate, whose support the banks need if they want to roll back parts of the 2010 financial overhaul, known as Dodd-Frank.

This legislative push is a second front, with Wall Street’s other battle being waged against regulators who are drafting detailed rules allowing them to enforce the law. And as its lobbying campaign steps up, the financial industry has doubled its already considerable giving to political causes. The lawmakers who this month supported the bills championed by Wall Street received twice as much in contributions from financial institutions compared with those who opposed them, according to an analysis of campaign finance records performed by MapLight, a nonprofit group.

In recent weeks, Wall Street groups also held fund-raisers for lawmakers who co-sponsored the bills. At one dinner Wednesday night, corporate executives and lobbyists paid up to $2,500 to dine in a private room of a Greek restaurant just blocks from the Capitol with Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, a co-sponsor of the bill championed by Citigroup.

...“I won’t dispute for one second the problems of a system that demands immense amount of fund-raisers by its legislators,” said Representative Jim Himes [vice chair of the bribe-taking New Dems], a third-term Democrat of Connecticut, who supported the recent industry-backed bills and leads the party’s fund-raising effort in the House. A member of the Financial Services Committee and a former banker at Goldman Sachs, he is one of the top recipients of Wall Street donations. “It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, it’s wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It’s unfortunately the world we live in.”

The passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, which took aim at culprits of the financial crisis like lax mortgage lending and the $700 trillion derivatives market, ushered in a new phase of Wall Street lobbying. Over the last three years, bank lobbyists have blitzed the regulatory agencies writing rules under Dodd-Frank, chipping away at some regulations.

But the industry lobbyists also realized that Congress can play a critical role in the campaign to mute Dodd-Frank.

The House Financial Services Committee has been a natural target. Not only is it controlled by Republicans, who had opposed Dodd-Frank, but freshmen lawmakers are often appointed to the unusually large committee because it is seen as a helpful base from which they can raise campaign funds.

For Wall Street, the committee is a place to push back against Dodd-Frank. When banks and other corporations, for example, feared that regulators would demand new scrutiny of derivatives trades, they appealed to the committee. At the time, regulators were completing Dodd-Frank’s overhaul of derivatives, contracts that allow companies to either speculate in the markets or protect against risk. Derivatives had pushed the insurance giant American International Group to the brink of collapse in 2008. The question was whether regulators would exempt certain in-house derivatives trades between affiliates of big banks.

...[M]ost of the Democrats on the committee, along with 31 Republicans, came to the industry’s defense, including the seven freshmen Democrats-- most of whom have started to receive donations this year from political action committees of Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and other financial institutions, records show.

Six days after the vote, several freshmen Democrats were in New York to meet with bank executives, a tour organized by Representative Joe Crowley [one of the most corrupt men to ever serve in Congress], who helps lead the House Democrats’ fund-raising committee. The trip was planned before the votes, and was not a fund-raiser, but it gave the lawmakers a chance to meet with Wall Street’s elite.

In addition to a tour of Goldman’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, and a meeting with Lloyd C. Blankfein, the bank’s chief executive, the lawmakers went to JPMorgan’s Park Avenue office. There, they chatted with Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief, about Dodd-Frank and immigration reform.

So should progressives help defeat bad Dems like Himes, Crowley, Sinema, Maloney and Kuster? I don't see how a progressive following the story can possibly pull the lever on election day for any of them-- or for any New Dem for that matter. In case you missed this the first time I ran it, you get a second chance now. Chris Hayes and Eliot Spitzer laughing at the corrupt Democrats on MSNBC:

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Corrupt House Agriculture Committee Slashes Food Stamps Unmercifully-- With Help From Ann Kuster

Last year, the Blue Dogs only managed to elect one mangy freshman, homophobic conservative Texas state Rep. Pete Gallego. Obama beat McCain in his district (TX-23) 50-49% in 2008 and Romney beat Obama this last time, 51-48%. Gallego managed to edge weak GOP freshman Francisco "Quico" Canseco 96,477 (50%) to 87,255 (46%), after beating Ciro Rodriguez in a primary runoff in this heavily Hispanic district that hugs the Rio Grande border with Mexico from just north of Laredo to just south of El Paso.

Thursday morning I wasn't surprised to see Gallego tweeting away how on Wednesday night he had voted in the House Agriculture Committee-- long, one of the bastions of Blue Dog corporate corruption-- for a $940 billion bipartisan new Farm Bill. I rolled my eyes and wondered how bad it would be. It was bad and cuts nearly two million poor people off food stamps, a top GOP priority that Blue Dogs tend to support.

The bill would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) by almost $21 billion over the next decade, eliminating food assistance to nearly 2 million low-income people, mostly working families with children and senior citizens.  The bill as a whole would reduce total farm bill spending by an estimated $39.7 billion over ten years, so more than half of its cuts come from SNAP.  The SNAP cuts are more than $4 billion larger than those included in last year’s House Agriculture Committee bill.

The bill’s SNAP cuts would come on top of an across-the-board reduction in benefits that every SNAP recipient will experience starting November 1, 2013.  On that date, the increase in SNAP benefits established by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) will end, resulting in a loss of approximately $25 in monthly SNAP benefits for a family of four.  Placing the SNAP cuts in this farm bill on top of the benefit cuts that will take effect in November is likely to put substantial numbers of poor families at risk of food insecurity.

The majority of the bill’s SNAP cuts come from eliminating a state option known as “categorical eligibility.”  Congress created this option in the 1996 welfare law, allowing states to provide food assistance to households-- primarily low-income working families and seniors-- that have gross incomes or assets modestly above federal SNAP limits but disposable incomes in most cases below the poverty line.  The bill also would eliminate SNAP incentive payments to states that have improved payment accuracy and service delivery, would cut nutrition education funding, and would curtail a state option that reduces paperwork for many households with utility expenses and also lowers state administrative costs...

The proposed cuts would cause significant hardship to several million low-income households.

Jim McGovern (D-MA) introduced an amendment to protect the food stamps funding but it was defeated 27-17, after Juan Vargas (D-CA), embarrassed Republican hypocrites by quoting the Book of Matthew in opposing them: "When I was hungry you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink." Watch the an especially telling part of the debate from delusional right-wing psychopath Steve King (R-IA):



The two highest ranking Democrats on the Committee, Blue Dog scum Collin Peterson (MN) and Mike McIntyre (NC) plus millionaire New Dem Sean Patrick Maloney (NY)-- each of whom are on Steve Israel's Frontline list to receive millions of dollars from the DCCC next year-- voted with the GOP, not just for the overall bill, but against McGovern's amendment. The Agriculture Committee is a stinking cesspool of corruption and an institutional organ of shillery for corporate agribusiness. That they passed a wretched bill doesn't surprise me in the least. With just a precious few exceptions who try to protect family farms and consumers-- basically Marcia Fudge, Jim McGovern, Joe Courtney, Richard Nolan and John Garamendi, the committee is all about crooks who want to line their pockets. “In this Congress," Garamendi told his California constituents, "when push comes to shove, it’s the voiceless that get shoved the most. We’re seeing that in the sequester with the immediate harm befalling Head Start, Meals-on-Wheels, and housing assistance, and we’re now seeing it with steep cuts to SNAP in the Farm Bill. SNAP puts food on the table for homebound seniors, for kids who would otherwise go to bed hungry, and for hardworking Americans barely making it. I wish it were a little more kind to the people who need help the most and I will work with my colleagues on the Committee to find a way to ensure the final bill does just that. In a country where 16 million children don’t have enough food to eat, we can and must do better.”

The 8 Democrats who voted NO on the final bill were David Scott (GA), Marcia Fudge (OH), Jim McGovern (MA), Gloria Negrete McLeod (CA), Filemon Vela (TX), Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM), Juan Vargas (CA) and Joe Courtney (CT). I was disappointed, though hardly surprised, to see Ann Kuster (NH), once again on the Dark Side, selling out the progressives who helped win her her seat. Kuster's callous and disgusting attitude went out in a cheery press release about how great she is yesterday:

“Last night’s vote was an important step forward for farmers, consumers, and rural communities in New Hampshire and across our country. For too long, Congress has kicked the can down the road and failed to provide long-term authorization for vital agricultural, nutrition, and conservation programs. Our government’s failure to pass a Farm Bill last year added uncertainty to our economy, inhibiting investments in job creation, research, and rural infrastructure.

“Republicans and Democrats owe it to the American people to break the gridlock and find common ground, which is why I supported this bill-- despite its deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. I am gravely disappointed that this legislation undermines assistance for hungry families, and I fought hard to protect this essential program. At the same time, this Farm Bill contains many important reforms: it eliminates wasteful direct payment subsidies, streamlines more than 100 duplicative programs, and includes both an amendment I sponsored to support rural colleges and an amendment I cosponsored to expand access to local, healthy food.

I sure hope someone primaries her.

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The DCCC's Plague Of New Dem Self-Funders... And Worse

Umm... actually, corporate-oriented New Dem Suzan DelBene wrote herself $5 million in personal checks to crush her middle class opponents and buy a House seat

Because of the innate nature of the Republican Party and what it has come to represent-- basically the longtime conservative quest to preserve the status quo or the reactionary quest to push for a status quo ante-- it surprises no one when you see multimillionaires like Darrell Issa (R-CA), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Fred Upton (R-MI) being "entitled" to committee chairs. Of the multimillionaires who are 50 richest Members of Congress 32 are very conservative Republicans.

Perhaps you've read that the DCCC also recruits multimillionaires to run as Democrats. Not every single multimillionaire is a villain, of course. But, all things being equal, you can probably count on most of them to not relate to the problems faced by ordinary working American families. It's sad when that doesn't only apply to Republicans but to Democrats as well. Last year Steve Israel helped crush working and middle class aspirants who wanted to run for Congress while clearing a path for more sickening ego-driven millionaires. And once they become DCCC-preferred candidates, Israel squeezes them to become politically-unhealthy self-funders.

These were some of his top recruits last cycle and how much they spent from their personal fortunes to buy their congressional seats:

• Suzan DelBene (New Dem-WA)- $2,796,879 (63%) after spending $2,284,034 (57%) in 2010
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- $2,757,452 (63%)
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)- $2,370,556 (54%)
• Elizabeth Esty (New Dem-CT)- $545,195 (17%)
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)- $500,000 (14%) after spending $545,000 in 2010 and $1,998,223 (41%) in 2008
• Denny Heck (New Dem-WA)- $99,000 (5%) after spending $350,000 (18%) in 2010

Each one rushed to join the super-corrupt, Big Business-oriented New Dems. What a coincidence! NOT. And what about Patrick Murphy, the spoiled rich kid and lifetime Republican who switched parties so he could be in Congress? He's a New Dem too, of course, but he only self-funded to the tune of $66,743. But don't worry, his rich Republican daddy started his own superPAC, American Sunrise, to funnel much more substantial sums into Patrick's campaign. And now that he's in Congress, he's been voting with the Republicans on financial and economic issues and working with right-wing crackpots to undermine the progressive agenda.

Today's Boston Globe ran a great big picture of one of the most disappointing of the Democratic freshman, New Hampshire conservative Ann Kuster, grubbing for money in a feature called For Freshmen in Congress, Courting Cash Is Job 1. Having money to defend your seat in elections is obviously essential, but if it's job 1, you don't deserve to be in Congress. And it helps explain why Kuster brags about voting whichever way Steve Israel and the DCCC tell her to vote, no matter how much she disappoints her own electoral base.

At a party-sponsored orientation session, the freshmen-- many still giddy from winning close races in which they espoused grand plans to change the Capitol’s toxic atmosphere-- were schooled in their party’s [does the DCCC define "the party?"] simple list of priorities for them.

Raise money. Raise more. Win.

The newcomers were told to devote at least four hours each day to the tedious task of raising money-- so-called dialing for dollars-- so they could build a war chest and defend their seats, according to those present. That’s twice as much time as party leaders expect them to dedicate to committee hearings and floor votes, or meetings with constituents.

Some members were flabbergasted. One rolled his eyes and walked out of the room.

But just about everyone in Congress signs on. Four months into a new session, Democrat and Republican freshmen in targeted districts say they often spend up to half their days raising money, whether through dreaded “call times” at a party-run phone bank near the Capitol, or attending fund-raisers.

“It may not be exactly like the Bataan Death March, but there are some similarities,” said one freshman representative who did not want to speak on the record for fear it would harm his campaign.

The all-consuming quest for dollars is part of Washington’s permanent, intensely waged campaign for party dominance. It cuts deeply into the typical day of lawmakers, robbing them of time they could spend building relationships with colleagues, dealing with constituent problems, and delving into policy issues. It is a major contributor to party gridlock, and keeps lawmakers dependent on the good graces of lobbyists and other special interests seeking favor on Capitol Hill.

The chase for campaign money is especially grueling for the 18 freshmen who have already been identified as top targets by the opposition in the 2014 election.

Almost immediately after being sworn into office-- or in some cases even before-- targeted politicians in both parties have been forced to defend themselves against negative attacks, bankrolled, in many cases, by the growing array of groups freed to spend without limit on elections by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.

Democrats and Republicans alike are compelled to sign confidential agreements with their parties’ campaign committees, pledging to meet specific fund-raising goals each quarter in exchange for a commitment of heavy financial support as the election draws near. Both parties’ campaign committees monitor their members’ progress weekly.

The Democrats’ program to protect its most vulnerable-- called “Frontline"-- commonly requires a member to promise to raise $250,000 per quarter.

Such benchmarks have had a measurable effect. The average amount raised by each freshmen in the first quarter has jumped 76 percent over the past decade to $188,313, according to data compiled for the Globe by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocates for open government.

Members routinely duck out of the House office buildings, where they are prohibited by law from campaigning, and walk across the street to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee offices in the salmon-colored party headquarters. There, on the second floor, 30 to 40 legislators and their staffers squeeze into the “bullpen,” as some members have dubbed it-- a makeshift call center of about two dozen cubicles, each 2-feet wide and equipped with two land lines.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and its GOP counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee, function “basically like telemarketing firms,” said Tom Perriello, a Democrat from Virginia and former Frontline member who lost in 2010 after one term in the House. “You go down on any given evening and you’ve got 30 members with headsets on dialing and dialing and dialing, trying to close the deal.”

The room, devoid of decor or character, is abuzz with the sound of members courting money in all the accents of America. But it can be depressing, participants say, to witness fellow elected officials methodically working through the list of names and numbers that a staffer has organized into thick binders, or index cards, or a computer database-- only to have appeal after appeal rejected in the full hearing of their peers.

But despite such inevitable humiliations, they drive on.

“This is a deadly dull business, and you need to do anything you can think of to motivate yourself to continue doing this,” said the freshman lawmaker who compared it to the Bataan Death March.

...Party leadership is sensitive-- up to a point-- to criticism by members that the focus is too heavily skewed to fund-raising at the expense of governing. Tim Walz, a representative from Minnesota and chairman of the Democrats’ Frontline Program, said, “Unfortunately in the era of Citizens United fund-raising is a part of life, but the needs of your district and advocating for constituents always come first.”

When members are not engaged in the requisite “call time,” they attend breakfast, luncheon, and evening fund-raisers at one of many restaurants with private function rooms dotting the Hill or in one of the handsome lobbyist-owned townhouses located blocks away from the Capitol.

At a March fund-raiser at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, party leaders debuted the committee’s list of the 26 most endangered House members in the 2014 election, half of whom are freshmen.

As lawmakers mingled with lobbyists-- who paid up to $5,000 for the privilege of some face time at a gathering of elected officials-- House minority leader Nancy Pelosi called out legislators’ names, ceremoniously disbursing tens of thousands of dollars from her own campaign coffers over the course of the evening. Her personal largesse is just the beginning of support they will receive from the party and party leaders, as they seek to defend themselves and their seats from partisan fire.

Party leaders introduce freshmen to lobbyists right off the bat and actively encourage them to start working the phones, said Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida who was a Frontline member in 2009, lost his seat in 2010, and was reelected in 2012 in a newly created district that’s considered safe.

The pressure to raise money opens the door for special interests, a timeless source of ready money, now available in greater amounts than ever.

"Of course they are all people with specific agendas, generally corporate agendas. So that’s how the ball gets rolling in terms of the interaction that leads to lobbyists influencing legislation, and members turning to lobbyists for money," Grayson said.

Some of the newer lawmakers say privately they feel frustrated by the grinding process and the accommodations it requires. But most declined to even talk about the grab for cash, seeking to downplay the demands of fund-raising on their time and attention.

New Hampshire’s Ann McLane Kuster, a freshman representative elected in November, is among the Democrats’ Frontline corps who has plunged into the fund-raising fray with gusto. She tapped Washington lobbyists, unions, special-interest groups, and ordinary citizens for $316,880 in contributions in the first three months of the year. That is more than double the average haul of House freshmen in safe districts and places her eighth among freshmen Democrats.

But Kuster would not discuss details of the fund-raising side of her new job. Through her staff, she rebuffed multiple requests for interviews on the subject of the permanent campaign. Approached in a Capitol hallway and asked to describe her views of the rush for money, she replied only, “I am fortunate to have great support."

“I’m not distracted by any kind of campaigning at this point,” Kuster added, before hustling off. “I’m not thinking about the politics.”

A crucial swing state, New Hampshire has been the scene of some of the most intensely partisan campaigns in recent years. Kuster’s district has switched between Democrats and Republicans three times in the past four elections. In the last election, Kuster was the top recipient of DCCC money.

Even before an opponent has formally announced plans to challenge Kuster, the National Republican Congressional Committee has begun weekly attacks on her, hoping to soften her up for an eventual GOP rival. It released a Web video highlighting nearly $11,000 Kuster owed in local property taxes. In April the NRCC, in a publicity stunt, delivered tax preparation software to Kuster’s office.

Keep in mind what Grayson said about the sleazy K Street lobbyists many of his colleagues are on the phone with all day begging for money: "[T]hey are all people with specific agendas, generally corporate agendas. So that’s how the ball gets rolling in terms of the interaction that leads to lobbyists influencing legislation, and members turning to lobbyists for money." So far this cycle, Grayson is the only incumbent on the Blue America endorsed-candidates list. There's no chance Ann Kuster will be back on that list this cycle.

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