How the 2008 Nomination Was Rigged for Obama
Posted: February 23, 2012 Filed under: Team Obama, The DNC, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2008 Democratic primaries, Barack Obama, Florida and Michigan Delegates, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Jeff Berman, May 31 DNC Rules Committee meeting 34 Comments
Obama acception the 2008 nomination among his Greek columns
Hillary never really had a chance in 2008. Politico has the story this morning, based on a new book by Jeff Berman, who was Obama’s “chief delegate counter” during the 2008 primaries. The self-published book, The Magic Number, can be purchased at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
From Politico:
The low-profile Berman, whose formal campaign title was national delegate director, was known for his obsessive attention to detail and preparation, and the book includes an unusually clear explanation of the complex, arbitrary process of selecting presidents. But its most striking moments, for those who followed the campaign closely, concern previously unreported battles, particularly around the primary calendar, the outcomes of which could have determined the nomination.
Unreported by the stupid corporate media who obviously could have investigated, but chose not to.
Florida and Michigan were key, and Berman describes how he tricked the Clinton operation into handing the nomination to Obama from the start.
“A January 29th Florida primary could completely blow up Obama’s winning path to the presidential nomination,” Berman writes. “This path requires him to win in Iowa, get through New Hampshire and Nevada and emerge, the week before Super Tuesday, as a leading candidate in South Carolina, whose large African-American population can carry him to a major victory one week before Super Tuesday. Moving the Florida primary to three days after South Carolina’s primary would block this strategy, as the election outcome in massive Florida would surely overshadow the results from smaller South Carolina.”
Berman quietly asked former Iran-Contra prosecutor John Nields and two other lawyers “to investigate exactly how the Florida primary legislation was enacted.” Their “authoritative legal report” showed that Florida Democrats — who were trying to blame the GOP — actually had a hand in the process; the Democratic National Committee used its findings as the basis for the move to sanction Florida, Berman writes.
According to Berman, Clinton aide Harold Icke, who was on the DNC Rules Committee, never questioned this fraudulent document, and signed on without any argument at all.
The Coup de grace, of course, came on May 31, 2008. Berman says that Howard Dean was worried about the outcome of the rules committee meeting that day, but not to worry. It worked out fine for The One. Of course we all recall how Obama’s nomination was secured by giving Obama some of Hillary’s Michigan primary votes, even though the Obama-obsessed corporate media ignored the whole slimy operation.
The uncertainty, though, lasted through the spring of 2008. Indeed, Berman writes, DNC Chairman Howard Dean was uncertain that he could persuade the Rules Committee members to enforce sanctions on Michigan and Florida in a May 31 meeting, and sought to cancel that session. Had the sanctions failed, the nomination fight could have blown wide open at the very last moment.
Berman also describes how he got help from the UAW to keep Obama and Edwards from being forced to keep their names on the ballot in Michigan, risking defeat by Clinton.
Berman called an official of the United Auto Workers, who had ties to Edwards, and persuaded the union to oppose the change.
“When the UAW makes a few calls in a political fight in Michigan, the political calculus of the fight changes,” he writes with satisfaction.
It’s all water under the bridge now, but I can still get angry about it. This is going to make it even harder for me to decide whether to vote the top of the ticket or leave it blank November.
Obama Changes Course — Will Use SuperPACs After All
Posted: February 6, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, U.S. Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, policy reversals, superpacs 11 Comments
Obama is very worried about superPACs
President Obama has reversed himself–again. He sure has a bad habit of changing his mind on issues. Now, according to Politico, he’s “reluctantly” decided to “permit” his bundlers to raise money for a superPAC that will provide “outside” support for his reelection campaign.
President Barack Obama — a vehement opponent of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision — is offering a reluctant blessing to his top bundlers to raise cash for his pet super PAC in a bid to kick-start sluggish fundraising for Priorities USA Action, according to three Democrats with knowledge of the decision….
Top Obama campaign staff will appear at super PAC events, although the president himself will not.
Obama told Matt Lauer in an interview shown just this morning that he “worries” about superPACs.
“One of the worries we have obviously in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super PACs, these independent expenditures that are gonna be out there,” Obama told NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview taped before the Super Bowl on Sunday. “There is gonna be just a lot of money floating around, and I guarantee a bunch of it’s gonna be negative.”
As of tonight:
Two former White House aides have formed a super PAC, Priorities USA Action, which — along with an affiliated nonprofit group — hopes to raise $100 million to support Obama. But so far, its funding has been dwarfed by Republican groups’. In all of 2011, the Priorities groups reported raising $6.7 million while a single donor, casino owner Sheldon Adelson, has poured $10 million into a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich.
Obama’s campaign has vowed that neither Obama nor his aides will raise money for super PACs, but the president’s senior campaign staff is now allowing top fundraisers to request that wealthy contributors donate to Priorities USA Action.
Obama was also very concerned about NAFTA, immunity for telecoms, and the Iraq war before reversing his positions on those issues, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.
William Black Goes Ballistic
Posted: February 1, 2012 Filed under: 2012 elections, Bailout Blues, Banksters, corruption, Crime, Democratic Politics, double-speak, financial institutions, investment banking, The Great Recession, U.S. Economy, We are so F'd | Tags: 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama, Financial Crisis, George W. Bush, U.S. Economy 6 CommentsI’ve been reading William Black’s essays and posts, watching his video interviews and You Tube presentations, ever since I saw him on Bill 
Moyers Journal speaking frankly, no holds barred, about how the financial industry had brought the country to its knees and gotten away with it. He spoke frankly again during his Congressional testimony last year when he came right out and called the mortgage debacle that nearly finished the US economy . . . fraud. Yes he used the ‘f’ word! This was unlike other ‘experts’ who insisted there was no inkling of trouble on the horizon, that the financial meltdown was ‘an act of the economic gods,’ a huge surprise, the product of overly optimistic financial predictions.
No, Black said. It was fraud. It was criminal. In case you missed that testimony, you can watch below. It’s worth a second go-around.
Too bad Black’s comments were basically ignored, caught up in the razzle-dazzle of excuses, half-truths and political posturing that’s become all too familiar to anyone paying attention. Business as usual is still the acceptable mantra. In case, you’ve forgotten [time flies when we’re having so much fun], William Black headed Poppy Bush’s forensic audit team during the S&L scandal, which ultimately led to 1000 elite felony convictions.
Black’s investigative team wasn’t kidding around.
William Black came out yesterday morning with his own take on President Obama’s SOTU announcement of a Task Force [The Let’s Try It Again Task Force], quoting POTUS:
And tonight, I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.
Black suggests we look at the wording, the avoidance of using the ‘f’ or ‘c’ word. That would be fraud and criminal. His response to this and Eric Holder’s follow up memorandum:
The working group will not “investigate … abusive lending” and it will not “hold accountable those who broke the law … [by defrauding] homeowners.” It will not “speed assistance to homeowners.” It will not “turn the page on an era of recklessness” – and fraud, not “recklessness” is what prosecutors should prosecute. The name of the working group makes its crippling limitations clear: the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group. Attorney General Holder’s memorandum about the working group makes clear that the name is not misleading. The working group will deal only with mortgage-backed securities (MBS) – not the fraudulent mortgage origination that drove the crisis (the only exception is federally insured mortgages).
Clearly, he’s not impressed. No, instead he’s disgusted and enraged. In fact, the essay nearly jumps off the page with genuine anger. He goes on to say:
The working group is a symbolic political gesture designed to neutralize criticism of the administration’s continuing failure to hold accountable the elite frauds that drove the crisis. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has convicted a single elite fraud that drove the crisis. This is a national disgrace and represents the triumph of crony capitalism. Remember that the FBI warned in September 2004 that there was an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud and predicted that it would cause a financial “crisis.” There are no valid excuses for the Bush and Obama administrations’ failures. The media have begun to pummel the Obama administration for its failure to prosecute. The administration could not answer this criticism with substance because it has nothing substantive to offer in prosecuting elite mortgage origination frauds. The ugly truth is that we are three full years into his presidency and Holder could not find a single indictment to bring that Obama could brag about in his SOTU address. Who doubts that Holder and Obama would have done so if they had anything in the prosecutorial pipeline? Why do Holder and Obama have nothing in the pipeline?
One of the other things that deeply disturbs Black is President Obama’s willingness to play politics in this matter, float the gambit of the Task Force /Working Group and the reputation of Eric Schneiderman to create the appearance of a genuine hands-on effort. But this move is not genuine as far as Black is concerned and contradicts the very essence of President Obama’s SOTU address, conjuring up the Seal Team that took out Osama Bin Laden—a team effort, concentrating on the mission.
This is no more than vulgar propaganda, Black claims.
He also refers to a disclosure made by Scot Paltrow for Rueters 10 days ago, revealing that US Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, heading the DOJs criminal division [also a co-chair of the ‘Let’s Try It Again Task Force], had been partners at Covington and Burling, a well-established and well-heeled law firm that represented many of the largest banks, providing cover for their clients through key arguments on the MERS debacle.
Conflict of interest anyone?
The state Attorney Generals? They were lobbyied, leaned on, even offered [as was the case of AG Kamala Harris, CA] $8 billion to assist damaged California homeowners in a bid to agree to the original deal, which would have offered the big banks immunity from liability. All so the President could announce ‘a deal’ in his State of the Union address, even though homeowners would be left out to dry and bank executives, who led deliberate “accounting control frauds,” could continue their conduct with absolute impunity.
This is ugly, made all the uglier in that it was sanctioned through and by the White House. Black suggests that Eric Schneiderman recognized the leverage he had, agreed to join the Task Force as a co-chair with the stipulation that the original deal be modified, specifically concerning civil liability in mortgage origination fraud.
This might explain Jamie Dimon’s whine last Friday, pouting and claiming bankers are the objects of unfair discrimination. Really? Here’s the average American’s response:
Of course, you would think that this mess would be a window of opportunity for Republicans in an election year. What an incredible club to use on President Obama to win the WH, maybe the House and the Senate by gargantuan majorities.
No fear there because for every compromised Democrat there is an equally compromised Republican. Both the Democrats and Republicans rely heavily on campaign contributions from the financial sector. Neither side is willing to cut their bankers [crooked or not] off at the knees.
What to do? What better reason to support any and all actions to get money out of the political arena. Until we do? The world belongs to the highest bidder.
Falling Out of Love with . . . Eric Schneiderman
Posted: January 29, 2012 Filed under: investment banking, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: bait and switch, Barack Obama, Eric Schneiderman, mortgage fraud investigation, U.S. attorneys 28 Comments
When I first heard about NY State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman standing up and pushing back against DC’s rush to settle with Wall St bankers and mortgage servicers over the foreclosure debacle, I cheered. In fact, I did more than cheer. I wrote to Schneiderman and thanked him for having the courage and integrity to stand with American homeowners, those who had been abused by unfair [and illegal] business practices, and then further compromised by mortgage modifications and refinancing schemes that turned into a giant con game.
The stories were always the same, particularly with the mod and refi angle. Homeowners called their lending representatives. They were encouraged to fill out mountains of paperwork, pay a particular monthly amount, and then [months later] once they fulfilled their obligation? They were told they did not qualify, would be required to pay ‘x’ amount of dollars upfront or the local sheriff would be knocking at the door. And not for a friendly ‘hello.’
The bait and switch games have been cruel, destructive and predatory. The idea that these same financial institutions–unable to produce proper and legal paperwork on many of these properties, the whole robosigning/MERS debacle—were being offered a sweetheart deal including immunity from civil and criminal prosecution was nothing short of outrageous.
Schneiderman stood up first and said, ‘No.’ He was later joined by five additional state attorney generals: Beau Biden [DE], Martha Coakley 
[MA], Catherine Cortez Masto [NV], Kamala Harris [CA] and Lisa Madigan [IL]. Each has pledged to independently investigate the malfeasance and fraud in the mortgage industry and seek prosecution where warranted.
However, during his State of the Union Address, President Obama announced the creation of a Federal Mortgage Fraud Task Force. To my dismay and that of many others, it was subsequently announced the aggressively independent Schneiderman was joining the DC team.
The immediate question [and I’m glad I’m not alone in this]: Will Eric Scneiderman be sucked into the Washington Borg, be used for window dressing by the Administration or remain staunchly on the side of ordinary Americans, who have been abused and sucker-punched enough.
Though I’m generally an optimist, I have to admit—it does not look good.
As an article at Yves Smith’s site pointed out, the very fact that negotiations with the TBTFs proceed uninterrupted sends up a red flag. Why proceed with negotiations, offering the banks a back door exit, if you’re running an investigation into fraud? The composition of the Task Force is also troubling, composed as it is with people from the original Task Force that has done very little. Consider Eric Holder, for instance—not exactly the poster child of a justice fighter.
Additionally, indications are that a miniscule fraction of FBI agents [10] have been assigned to the Task Force in comparison to William Black’s forensic team [1000] to tackle the S&L scandal. Matt Stoller stated that the current investigation is on the order of 40x the magnitude and complexity although I actually heard Bill Black say the magnitude was in the 70-80x range.
In the same article, Stoller quotes Eric Holder, who seems to truly believe [or at least wants everyone else to believe] that the Administration and the DOJ have been dedicated to rooting out corruption:
On Tuesday night, the President referenced this initiative, asking us to, “hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans.”
That is precisely what we intend to do. And the good news is that we aren’t starting from scratch.
Over the past three years, we have been aggressively investigating the causes of the financial crisis. And we have learned that much of the conduct that led to the crisis was – as the President has said – unethical, and, in many instances, extremely reckless. We also have learned that behavior that is unethical or reckless may not necessarily be criminal. When we find evidence of criminal wrongdoing, we bring criminal prosecutions. When we don’t, we endeavor to use other tools available to us – such as civil sanctions – to seek justice. My number one to commitment to the American people is that we will continue to devote significant resources to combating financial fraud and be as aggressive and creative as we can be in holding accountable those who, in violating the law, contributed to the financial crisis.
For example, in just the last six months, the Department has achieved prison sentences of 60, 45, 30, and 20 years in a variety of financial fraud cases charging securities fraud, bank fraud, and investment fraud. And, just last month, I announced the largest fair lending settlement in history, resolving allegations that Countrywide Financial Corporation and its subsidiaries engaged in a widespread pattern or practice of discrimination against minority borrowers from 2004 through 2008.
Either the Administration and DOJ have done a very poor job of keeping the public abreast of their multiple investigations/prosecutions or the average layperson would refer to this claim as: Don’t trust your lying eyes.
Schneiderman has reportedly stated that if the investigation is not on the up and up, he will publicly step away. He has insisted that the investigative work will be rigorous and unrelenting.
I hope he means it. I hope the queasy sense I have in my gut is wrong because false champions have become the disheartening rule.
Though I’m more likely to see the glass half full than half empty, I and many others have witnessed the same repetitive pattern: promising, good-intentioned men and women go to DC, only to be chewed up in the machine. Or irreparably compromised. And though I’ve always believed Barack Obama inept in leadership qualities, he does have an uncanny ability to disable and defang his opponents. David Dayen wrote a convincing essay to the same effect.
I want to be wrong about this. I hope the naysayers are wrong, too.
Breaking up is hard to do.
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