[Peace-discuss] Fw: Outrageous lies

[C. G. Estabrook]

	<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36118.html>
	Dems haunted by corporate ties
	By: Jonathan Allen and Eamon Javers
	April 21, 2010 04:29 AM EDT

President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are promising a climactic 
clash with Wall Street, but there’s a complication in their battle plan: The 
Democratic Party is closer to corporate America — and to Wall Street in 
particular — than many Democrats would care to admit.

Former White House counsel Greg Craig has just signed on as an institutional 
Sherpa for Goldman Sachs, the iconic financial firm facing fraud charges from 
the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt lobbies for Goldman Sachs, Visa and 
the coal industry. Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle — Obama’s first 
choice to head Health and Human Services — is an adviser for a lobbying firm 
that represents Charles Schwab, Comcast, Lockheed Martin, Verizon and a host of 
other corporate interests.

Attorney General Eric Holder once lobbied for Global Crossing — sometimes 
described as the Democratic Enron — and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel 
made eight figures in a little more than two years as the Chicago-based managing 
director at Wasserstein Perella & Co. between jobs as a senior aide in President 
Bill Clinton’s White House and as the congressman representing Illinois’s 5th 
District.

And the Democrats rode to their majorities in the House and the Senate on a wave 
of cash Emanuel and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer helped them raise from Wall 
Street. Earlier this month, a hedge fund manager at the center of the Goldman 
Sachs fraud case held a fundraiser for Schumer in New York.

“It’s pathetic,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, a liberal Vermont independent who caucuses 
with the Democrats, said of news that Goldman Sachs has hired Craig. “But it’s 
what goes on around here.”

The Republican Party is still emphatically aligned with business, but in most 
cases unapologetically so. For Democrats, the dance is trickier: How do you reap 
the financial rewards of corporate America without offending your core political 
beliefs — or your party’s committed base?

Democrats say their willingness to tackle Wall Street with a tough regulatory 
reform bill is the best evidence that they aren’t compromised by their corporate 
connections. But the regulatory reform push is also evidence that they know just 
how hard the political winds have shifted against a pro-business wing of the 
party that gained influence when Democrats were out of power.

The sensitivity is so great that, when a little-known aide to House Financial 
Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank jumped ship for K Street earlier this 
month, Frank took the unusual step of vilifying him in public.

“I wanted to make clear I share the unhappiness of people at this, and my 
intention [is] to prohibit any contact between him and members of the staff for 
as long as I have any control over the matter,” Frank said in a press release. 
“I am therefore instructing the staff of the Financial Services Committee to 
have no contact whatsoever with [the former aide] on any matters involving 
financial regulation.”

Sensing partisan advantage, Obama — a onetime Wall Street favorite who raised 
nearly $1 million from Goldman Sachs employees for his 2008 campaign — has been 
blasting away at Republicans, most notably Senate Minority Leader Mitch 
McConnell (R-Ky.), who opposes the current Senate version of an overhaul of 
financial services regulation.

“Now, the Senate Republican leader, he paid a visit to Wall Street a week or two 
ago. He took along the chairman of their campaign committee. He met with some of 
the movers and shakers up there,” Obama said at a Monday night fundraiser for 
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). “I don’t know exactly what was discussed. All I 
can tell you is when he came back, he promptly announced he would oppose the 
financial regulatory reform.”

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn said the president 
had “demeaned himself and his office” by issuing “political attacks” against 
Cornyn and McConnell for “doing what Rahm Emanuel did.”

Cornyn was referring to a report in The Washington Post noting that, on the same 
night Obama was blasting McConnell for visiting Wall Street, Emanuel attended a 
private cocktail reception with Democratic donors there.

Emanuel, in the unusual role of good cop, appears to be working to assuage the 
fears of investors with less strident language than that used by his boss.

“This is important for America’s leadership in the world. We lead in the 
financial sector. It’s one of the parts in the economy we lead. But if people 
don’t trust our market, we can’t maintain that leadership. That’s why this 
regulatory reform is not against Wall Street; it’s fundamentally in the interest 
of the economy,” he told television interviewer Charlie Rose. “Wall Street, 
though, has advanced beyond the regulatory supervision, and we need to catch up 
in a way that ensures that we don’t have the crisis we had in the past and we’re 
prepared for future ones.”

Schumer’s taking heat back home for not protecting the lifeblood of his state’s 
economy, but standing up for Wall Street could cost him dearly in a future bid 
to be the Senate majority leader.

Some Democrats acknowledge that the legislation — and the harsh anti-Wall Street 
rhetoric — could cost them campaign contributions from the financial services 
sector in what is already shaping up to be a tough election year. But that’s a 
price they say they are willing to pay.

“This is a time when politics has to take a back seat to what’s good for the 
American people,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, a former chairman of 
the Democratic National Committee. “If that means we can’t raise money on Wall 
Street, so be it.”

One congressional Democrat said the financial meltdown has forced the party to 
address regulation.

“It’s not as though Democrats got elected and decided, ‘We’re going to go after 
the financial services industry,’” he said.

Craig’s hiring shows that even as the Democratic political leaders abandon the 
Wall Street ship, the party still has people on board.

And though he’s getting a cool reception from elected Democrats, Craig has 
defenders within the party, too.

“Lawyers have a particular degree of latitude in this regard because we still 
believe that every client is entitled to a defense,” said Jack Quinn, chairman 
of Quinn Gillespie & Associates, who served as counsel to Clinton from 1995 to 
1997. “Greg is a superb lawyer, and Goldman is fortunate to have him on its team.”

The White House says its rules prevent undue influence from former 
administration officials, even though former officials can work as advisers 
rather than as lobbyists to circumvent them.

“The president thinks that he does have tough rules in place, and he’s going to 
continue to make sure that people abide by that rule,” White House spokesman 
Bill Burton told reporters Tuesday.

A senior Senate aide disagreed.

“Barack Obama has done his best to demonize lobbyists. [But] we can pretty much 
predict that [National Economic Council Director] Larry Summers will be making 
millions working for some hedge fund in two years. And Rahm Emanuel made 
millions working for Wasserstein Perella. But it’s a distinction without a 
difference: All these folks are cashing in on their contacts to make tons of 
money. ... We all become more valuable after we serve in government,” the aide said.

For liberals, many of whom remain skeptical of Democratic Party ties to the 
corporate world, the jury won’t be in on the regulatory overhaul until the fine 
print is set.

Only then will they know “whether the Congress has the ability to regulate Wall 
Street or Wall Street continues to regulate the Congress,” Sanders said.
___________________________________


On 4/21/10 10:33 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> "Oh, Mr. Republican, please don't throw us Democrats into that
> no-regulation brier patch!"
>
> It's an outrageous lie that the administration wants to do anything that
> will harm the interests of its pay-masters on Wall Street. The Democrats
> received far more money in the last election from Wall Street than the
> Republicans did. Therefore they will produce a regulation bill like
> their health-care bill: a few sops of reform covering a massive pay-off
> to financial interests. --CGE
>
>
> On 4/21/10 8:42 AM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
>> A worthy cause (even if it's promoted by MoveOn. --Jenifer
>>
>> --- On *Tue, 4/20/10, Nita Chaudhary, MoveOn.org Political Action
>> /<moveon-help at list.moveon.org>/* wrote:
>>
>>
>> Wall Street is spending $500 million to convince Congress to kill
>> financial
>> reform. And that's paying off—every Senate Republican is against it
>> now. We
>> have to call them out right away, otherwise their bogus arguments against
>> reform will stick. We're working on an ad that lays out the
>> Republicans dirty
>> tricks. *Can you chip in $5? *
>>
>> <https://pol.moveon.org/donate/wallstreet.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=1>Contribute
>>
>>
>>
> <https://pol.moveon.org/donate/wallstreet.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=2>
>
>>
>> Wall Street is spending $500 million to convince Congress to kill the
>> reform
>> bill that will finally curb their reckless behavior.^1
>>
>> That's one investment that's paying off. Every single Republican is
>> now on
>> record opposing Wall Street reform.
>>
>> That means every single Republican is on record protecting the big banks
>> instead of the countless Americans who lost jobs, money, houses, or their
>> pensions because of Wall Street's behavior.
>>
>> * We have to call them out right away. If we don't, their bogus arguments
>> against reform will stick—just like they did on health care.*
>>
>> We're working on a hard-hitting ad that lays out for the American people
>> exactly whose side Republicans are on. But we need to get it up on the
>> air
>> fast—while this story is hot. That means we need 4 donations from
>> people in
>> Champaign. Can you chip in $5?
>>
>> https://pol.moveon.org/donate/wallstreet.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=3
>>
>>
>>
> <https://pol.moveon.org/donate/wallstreet.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=3>
>
>>
>> It seems hard to believe that anyone would want to oppose Wall Street
>> reform
>> in the middle of a major financial crisis like this. But the
>> Republicans are
>> willing to do it to protect their allies at the big banks.
>>
>> They know this is a high risk strategy. Their pollsters say the only way
>> they'll get away with it is if they lie about Obama's plan and say it
>> will
>> cause more bailouts—even though they know that it will do the exact
>> opposite.^2
>>
>> But if we don't expose them—their lies will stick. Remember health care?
>>
>> The truth is that Wall Street reform will:^3
>>
>> * *End the bailouts* by forcing big financial companies to put aside
>> money
>> now, so if there's another AIG-like disaster, taxpayers won't be on
>> the hook.
>> We'll use the big banks' own money to shut them down. * *Protect
>> consumers*
>> by creating an independent watchdog that would finally stop credit card
>> companies, mortgage brokers, and big banks from hiding information in the
>> fine print. * *Shut down the "shadow markets"* by cracking down on the
>> backroom trading that put our economy at risk. Unlike the stock
>> market, these
>> "shadow markets"—where trillions of dollars of "derivatives" are
>> traded each
>> year—are secret, highly risky, and virtually unregulated.^4,5
>>
>> So we're fighting back. But we need help. Can you chip in $5?
>>
>> https://pol.moveon.org/donate/wallstreet.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=4
>>
>>
>>
> <https://pol.moveon.org/donate/wallstreet.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=4>
>
>>
>> Thanks for all you do.
>>
>> –Nita, Laura, Daniel, Ilyse and the rest of the team
>>
>> Sources
>>
>> 1. "No more taxpayer bailouts," Americans for Financial Reform, April 15,
>> 2010 http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87878&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=5
>> <http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87878&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=5>
>>
>> 2. "A GOP Financial Reform Bellwether," Time, April 13, 2010
>> http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87876&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=6
>> <http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87876&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=6>
>>
>> 3. Senate Banking Committee, April 16, 2010
>> http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87877&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=7
>> <http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87877&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=7>
>>
>> 4. "Sen. Lincoln unveils broad derivatives regulatory bill," MarketWatch,
>> April 16, 2010
>> http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87879&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=8
>> <http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87879&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=8>
>>
>> 5. "Derivatives market," Wikipedia, April 13, 2010
>> http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87838&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=9
>> <http://www.moveon.org/r?r=87838&id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=9>
>>
>>
>> Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 5 million
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>> ensures
>> that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here
>> <http://political.moveon.org/donate/email.html?id=19922-10635882-ZjDdtVx&t=10>.
>>
>>
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