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Washington Prowler
Driving in Reverse
What comes after Emanuel? Soros-Sandler progressives target new mortgage industry devils.
WHAT COMES AFTER EMANUEL?
White House insiders say that the “vibe” inside the Obama
Administration is that “Rahm is running” for mayor of Chicago, but
that it is perhaps the least surprising turn of events in what is
expected to be “a house cleaning” after the midterm
elections.”Maybe it’s just me,” says a longtime Obama aide, “but I
think a lot of us feel that the President was ill-served by White
House staff that did not have the pre-existing relationship or ties
to him, and the result is the mess we’re in right now. The
President needs more of what I’d call the ‘true believers’ close to
him and a lot of us think that is what is going to happen after
November.”
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has not announced whether he will in fact run for mayor of Chicago, though it appears he is undertaking the kind of pre-campaign research and preparation to do just that. President Obama has already endorsed such a run.
Emanuel has been the No. 1 example of a “non-Obama insider” for many Democrats who have complained about the mounting failures of the Administration. Before signing on with Obama, Emanuel was a strong Hillary Clinton supporter. “Obama hired [Emanuel], not because he trusted him, but because he had more experience in the White House and in Washington than he, or just about anyone else Obama associated himself with, did.”
Emanuel, according to longtime associates, took the job, in part, because he had his eye on long-term political strategy for himself. As one of them puts it, “You had the bulk of Chicago’s liberal establishment tied into Obama, some of whom Emanuel did not have strong relationships with. These past two years have been great for him to solidify his political and fundraising connections back home for whatever it is he decides to do.”
Much of the D.C. parlor talk now is who will replace him. The current favorite — mostly among journalists who use him as a source — is Phil Schiliro, the current Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. Several weeks ago, when, regardless of the Chicago mayoral run, it was assumed that Emanuel would be jumping ship, Schiliro was one of several names in play. But with Republicans poised to gain ground on Capitol Hill, and with the antagonistic approach to legislation the Obama Administration has taken, White House insiders now think Schiliro would not be the right man to reach out to Republicans on deal-making.
What some Obama White House aides hope happens is that Obama reaches down to some of his longer-standing political acquaintances and draws them back into the “inner circle.” “If we only have two years left, we need true believers who are going to work hard to put the country on the path that we want the country to be on, and do it in a way that make it very difficult for the next administration to roll back. That is the political calculation we want to see in the President.”
MORTGAGE BUSTERS
Leftist groups with ties to George Soros and
other big-money donors of the Obama Administration are pressuring
Democrat House committee aides and legislators to demand
Congressional hearings on the reverse mortgage industry. Those
companies’ profiles have been raised over the past six months, in
part, due to extensive cable TV and radio advertising. In fact,
over the summer, Mother Jones and the left-wing George
Soros-funded Media Matters launched attacks against American
Advisors Group (AAG), a firm that markets reverse
mortgages.
A reverse mortgage is a type of home loan marketed to seniors that allows them to draw cash on the home equity that built up over years of mortgage payments they have paid. The lender typically requires no repayment until the homeowner no longer uses the home. In fact, the Obama Administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development offers a reverse mortgage program similar to those advertising in today’s tough economic climate.
The timing of the attacks and the attempt to use the summer media reports to push for congressional activity is not a coincidence. “The story gets planted on a website, and then Media Matters picks it up and tries to make a mountain out of a molehill, and then groups like Free Press or the Center for American Progress or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) jump in and push the story into the more political arena,” says a former MoveOn.org staffer.n>
According to political consultants who have in the past coordinated with the leftist and secretive Democracy Alliance as well as a number of other leftist donor organizations, such as the New Progressive Coalition, the Progressive Donor Network, the Arca Foundation and Proteus Fund, many of them with ties to George Soros, among others, the attacks on AAG, as well as other companies that advertise on Fox News and conservative talk radio, are largely being coordinated by the political operations with ties to left-wing media.
“There isn’t a single progressive publication, think tank or blogger who wouldn’t kill to tap into the connections and money that is sitting out there from the Alliance or any of those groups,” says a former political consultant who is now a member of the Obama Administration. “If Soros or one of the Alliance members wants something done — or someone thinks it will help them connect to the Alliance or one of the donors — it usually gets done.”
In this case, the attacks on the reverse-mortgage industry, and AAG in particular, appear to be for the pleasure of Herbert and Marion Sandler, billionaires and the former co-CEOs of Golden West Financial. Until 2006, Golden West operated as the World Savings Bank, which was one of the innovators of the so-called “pick a pay” mortgage. Under the terms of such a loan, homeowners were allowed to pay less than the amount of interest being charged, sometimes for as long as a decade. The Sandlers never had to deal with the fallout of such loans. They sold their institution to Wachovia in 2006 for billions, and the rest is history.
The Sandlers have used their profits to join forces with leftist Soros in the Alliance, among other entities, which help fund just about every left-wing entity with ties to the Obama Administration, including MoveOn.org, Free Press, and Media Matters. Marion Sandler has served on the board of the Center for American Progress, and the Sandlers recently donated $10 million for the creation of ProPublica, a nonprofit, left-leaning investigative journalism operation founded by former employees of the Wall Street Journal.
In the case of AAG, some of the attacks and research against the business appears to have been generated by individuals with ties to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and its for-profit network of affiliated credit unions and lending funds known as the “Center for Community Self-Help.” Self-Help pushes subprime lending programs, while the Center for Responsible Lending attacks other for-profit loan programs. Its website has linked to a number of article warning consumers against reverse mortgages, claiming that industry is the next subprime disaster.
Besides the Sandlers, another major private donor for CRL is notorious hedge-fund operator John Paulson, whose company paid Goldman Sachs to structure a transaction in which Paulson & Co. took short positions against mortgage securities that Paulson’s firm thought might be ripe for collapse, but which were sold to Goldman clients as longer-term investment vehicles. Paulson won big; Goldman clients lost. Paulson gave CRL $15 million three years ago, and according to an ethics complaint filed against CRL, some of those funds were used by CRL to lobby Congress. Paulson was not a part of the ethics complaint.
Back in 2007, CRL lobbied Congress for legislation blocking such loan programs as short-term “payday” loans, has lobbied for and supported the Obama Administration’s financial services reform agenda, and sources say, there is a move afoot to fund a campaign that would encourage Congress to look at the reverse-mortgage industry. Perhaps most notoriously, CRL and its for-profit partner have had extensive ties to Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), to promote their home-mortgage programs.
Now, beyond the attacks on reverse mortgages, the Soros-Sandler-backed groups also plan to coordinate a campaign against renewal of the Bush tax cuts, and in support of greater stimulus spending by the federal government.
Ret. Marine| 9.13.10 @ 7:59AM
And why is this any surprise to anyone following the entire mortgage industries and their handlers. The big wigs, are about to lose big time if something is not done to assure them of their ill-gotten rewards, i.e bankrupting the Nation, overwhelming the system. I believe the biggest mistake G.W. did was to listen to and then not investigate Paulson and his connections to the demonrat party. Sad day for the lefties, many are exposing them for who they are, corrupt communist infiltrating our Representative Republic from within. One day all you punks, one day. Madder than hell is going to be a bi-product of our rage.
Alan Brooks| 9.13.10 @ 11:03PM
"The President needs more of what I'd call the 'true believers' close to him and a lot of us think that is what is going to happen after November."
If such will help prevent another Bush-type from being elected, then all power to 'em.
Melvin| 9.13.10 @ 8:09AM
Maybe it is wishful thinking, to think that Someone in Washington D.C. would say, "To hell with all this financial, I'm in it for me schemes."
Furthermore I'm constantly reminded, "Thats just Washington politics and that is the way business is done there."
This is what the majority of Americans are pissed about. We're sick and damned tired of all these experts trying to figure out a way that they can chisel more taxes out of us.
Whether it is the Sandlers, George Soros, Barny Frank, Chris Dodd, and every other single corrupt grifter that holds the office of something or another.
Politicians and their enables come to politics without a pot to pee in or a window to through it out of and when public anger eventually catches up with them, they're multi, multi millionaires.
There is no accountability other than getting voted out of their office or resigning from a appointed position, but the fact remains these officials have stolen billions if not trillions of dollars from the sweat off our backs as we sit at the kitchen table with the misses trying to figure out where the montage payment is going to come from.
We cannot count on the Senate, House, or the Federal Reserve to police themselves not with the revolving door from Wall Street to "K" Street.
"Well there is the Ethics Committees." Please, that is like asking Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, to investigate corruption in Chicago politics.
Why can't Congress, Senate, and the Federal Reserve be audited by an independent concern every fiscal year like my boss has done every year with his companies.
This auditing concern needs not to answer to the President or his party, or the rampant cronyism, but answer to the American taxpayer. Have the report released every year before the State of the Union Speech given by the President.
This auditing concern would not only audit the financial policies and ethics of politicians, but would also weed out the redundancy and waste. There are laws that have been passed years and years ago and no one can answer what their purpose or intent was but they are still being funded automatically by the taxpayer.
This auditing concern needs to be given absolute power without political chicanery interfering.
Right now the politicians and they're cronies have no fear of anything while they rape and pillage the US Treasury. The must have the fear of going to prison for a very, very long time in order to keep them honest, even with term limits that would servilely damper political power broking but the politicians would eventually figure out a way around that as well.
Frank, Dodd, and even Hillary Clinton with her insider trading to name a few, belong in prison, not representing the hard working in these United States.
A thief is a thief whether they wear a hoody, or a pant suit, they're still a thief.
Alert1201| 9.13.10 @ 8:19AM
Great stuff.
Would it not be amazing if we still had a free press that spent time and effort actually printing news worthy stories like this?
Trebuchet| 9.13.10 @ 8:34AM
The name glaringly omitted from the Goldman Sachs Fraud case is George Soros who was feeding at the same Abacus trough as Paulson. I know for a fact that Paulson and Soros used these products and had the portfolios stacked with CDO’s from Ameriquest. Why? Because they knew that Democratic presidential hopeful Eliot Spitzer was going to go after Ameriquest and the bonds written on their CDO’s were bound to drop drastically. I also believe all parties involved knew this would collapse the mortgage market. Why do I believe this? Ask yourself, how did Herb and Marion Sandler who owned World Savings the inventor of and the biggest writer of Adjustable Rate Mortgages and huge donors to liberal left wing causes know to sell their company just before the whole thing went south? I do believe this is just the tip of the iceberg and you will see class action suits on behalf of employees of several mortgage companies that were run in to the ground purposefully to make Soros, Paulson and GS billions, while they lost income, homes and savings.
Tenn Slim| 9.13.10 @ 10:48AM
Treb..
Your post is accurate, spot on.
I expect noone to punish the Soros' etal. These types are the underlying basis for the Reality Based World of Finance. It is sorry to say, but these types almost always get away with thier endeavors.
end
Semper Fi
Tomp| 9.13.10 @ 8:46AM
How did Soros, who has a criminal past, gain US citizenship?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Melvin| 9.13.10 @ 9:13AM
Well Tomp, Old Georgee Boy, I guess one could say he is in perfect company with the other white collar criminals that troll the Halls of power in Washington D.C. or any other town in the USA for that matter.
hardcard| 9.13.10 @ 9:11AM
How did soros gain US Citizenship ? He paid for it.
He and a few of his consorts are manipulating everything, financial institutions, governments, churchs, to rule the world. Evil power and wealth.
Tom in Michigan| 9.13.10 @ 9:47AM
When you look into the faces of Herb and Marion Sandler and George Soros, you are gazing into the maw of pure evil.
These are the Democrats' financiers (Now, trolls; ooze forth and tell us about the Koch brothers - OOOOOOOOOO!).
Melvin| 9.13.10 @ 10:30AM
These are people, who are cold, calculating, and would do anything to grown their power.
When banks want to grow larger what do they do? They buy out other banks. These big banks want to become bigger banks what do they do.? They buy up governments. When these Mega banks want to grow, what do they do? They buy up Countries.
This is what we are observing the culmination of.
Nunya| 9.13.10 @ 6:26PM
I am reminded of the quote from Mayer Rothschild (Godfather of the Rothschild Banking Cartel of Europe):
" Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
We are there, folks. The Fed controls our money, and they control all of the other banks in this country through fiscal manipulation.
Occam's Tool| 9.13.10 @ 9:47PM
Yeah, well Mayer could be wrong---I doubt much of the German money was left after WWII for the Rothschilds.
Soros, if I remember, arranged to send his fellow Jews to the gas chambers.
Clinton nee Publius | 9.13.10 @ 9:59AM
This is what you can expect with fractional-reserve lending and a system supported by the government who is both an illiquid borrower and the biggest lender. Corruption and discrimination are the only real outcomes that a system like this can generate because the system is designed to provide the banking industry with an exclusive monopoly on credit and money at the expense of all other stakeholders in the economy - including the government.
If you want an end to this then you have to be willing to admit that fractional-reserve lending is actually a government-mandated check-kiting scheme that cannot be supported any longer and replace it with a banking system that is self-sustaining and self-regulating.
Until you do this these types of corruptions and games will continue and all of us will continue to suffer as a result.
Tom| 9.13.10 @ 3:31PM
If banks were not allowed to lend the a proportion of the monies left on deposit with them -fraction reserve banking - what possible profit motive would there be for them to accept any deposits?
If banks were required to hold in reserve 100% of all deposits by definition they could not make loans. The only thing that allows them to do so is the ability to hold a fraction of deposits in reserve while they loan out the rest.
Tenn Slim| 9.13.10 @ 10:45AM
"If we only have two years left, we need true believers who are going to work hard to put the country on the path that we want the country to be on, and do it in a way that make it very difficult for the next administration to roll back. That is the political calculation we want to see in the President."
This attitude is reflective and noted across the Leftist Sites on the Net. Discontent, primarily due to being left out in the beginning is driving the attitude.
There is a growing, Leftists' Sense, That thier one time opportunity is indeed lost. The last 2 years of the OBAMA presidency seem to be dedicated to filling in gaps, legislative regs, rules and other agenda items, those not currently in place. Once these last agenda issues and items are placed, the emphasis will be on tieing up loose ends. Making the removal of such nearly impossible.
The Civil Service Corps, Czars, 2nd and 3rd level appointees all have thier marching orders. Get your desks in order, the 2nd half is nearly on us.
As to the Soros connection, etal, the entire OBNA has been one big Soros experiment in governing. He has learned a lot. Spent a lot. Expect his continueing guidance.
end
Semper Fi
Radegunda| 9.13.10 @ 8:07PM
I too was struck by the phrase "the path that WE want the country to be on"--after the country has said loudly that it doesn't want to be on that path! The Dem-left doesn't really like democracy, much less a constitutional republic of limited government. For the left, "democracy" means leftists dictating what "the people" should have.
That's how leftists can maintain their love affair with Castro even while indulging in the rhetoric of "democracy."
Chuck| 9.13.10 @ 11:34AM
Oh, yes, that's all we need in the White House -- more true believers, as if we didn't have enough already.
Come to think of it, the more true believers, the greater the havoc they'll wreak, the more comic they'll become, and the easier it will be to sweep them all out!
Richard| 9.13.10 @ 12:11PM
Why don't they like the reverse mortgage industry? I did not get the reason from the article.
Cuffs| 9.13.10 @ 2:11PM
All of you are forgetting, the Federal Reserve,
the World Bank and the IMF.
In addition to that, the name of Rothschild rears
its ugly head. Georgie Soros is a minnow compared to the Rothschild cabal.
Soros is of the same mind--global control and manipulation. God save us from these gangsters.
Doctor Right| 9.13.10 @ 2:11PM
"True believers"..???
A better way to describe these commie-pinko scumbags has yet to uttered.
Oldefarte| 9.13.10 @ 2:30PM
I don't think that many of us give a rat's youknowwhat as to if Emmanuel stays, goes, or jumps off of a cliff somewhere [since EL CHOSEN ONE will no doubt replace him with a Van Jones type or worse]. The operative game plan for conservatives should be to elect as many Republicans and Independents that are conservative in November and thereafter; and to demand that same begin defunding WELFARECARE and [UN]STIMULUS ASAP [and possibly considering IMPEACHMENT charges against the WEALTH RE-DISTRIBUTOR IN CHIEF]!!!!!!!!!!!
DatsunMark| 9.13.10 @ 3:10PM
There is a Pulitzer waiting for the journalist who makes the connection between Soros's activities driving down the money markets prior to the Election, Hank Paulson's dealings with Goldman and his destruction of Lehman, and the Bond rating companies all calling Securites based on Credit Default Swaps as AAA.
Neo| 9.13.10 @ 4:43PM
Herbert and Marion Sandler ... these are the folks that Saturday Night Live put in their Financial meltdown piece that included Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi et al. They weren't too happy with the subtitle that appeared below their "stand ins".
linda| 9.13.10 @ 6:50PM
the john paulson in this article is not the hank paulson that worked in bush's cabinet.
Andy Texan | 9.14.10 @ 12:10AM
This is a very comedic sketch. Very pointed. Too bad that with all the material provided by demorats, more comedians don't take advantage.
http://www.archive.org/details/PulledSnlBankBailoutSkit