As Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and local papers all over the country are now noticing, the stand that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has taken against the Obama administration and five largest mortgage firms is building drama.

After CBS Marketwatch called the all-too-kind settlement being offered to the mortgage giants “another bank bailout“, the NY Daily News reported Schneiderman got a lift from New York’s Congressional delegation in the form of a letter sent to the Iowa Attorney General Tom Kelly. Kelly removed Schneiderman from the 50-state negotiating panel for objecting to a grant of blanket immunity from state fraud investigations and the NYS Dems did not appreciate this.

Kelly also shared some none-too-kind words about Schneiderman for “undermining” the work of the committee, which he wants to conclude expeditiously with a narrower settlement, focusing only on foreclosures and mortgage servicing practices. Kelly has been criticized in Iowa and elsewhere for serving the big banks who have contributed greatly towards his campaigns.

Schneiderman, elected to enforce the rule of law, wants to use this 50-state panel to immediately investigate the cause of the mortgage backed securities crisis that led the United States into the most debilitating economic tragedy in a lifetime. Attorney General Kelly, along with Obama’s HUD Secretary and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner are noticeably anxious to rush through a settlement that does nothing to confront the dangerous moral hazard of unregulated securitization or hold to account the crooks who designed them to be impossible to detangle, costing taxpayers billions.

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi was not shy in suggesting Obama may want to cuddle up to these banks in time for election contributions, abandoning the “small individual donor” he prided himself on for the historic 2008 election he won as our economy was crumbling. Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc. are the firms in question, but other toxic debt bundlers are also watching keenly.

The signatories to Jerrold Nadler’s letter included every Democratic Member of Congress in the state – Louise Slaughter, Charlie Rangel, Gary Ackerman, Maurice Hinchey, Eliot Engel, Carolyn Maloney, Carloyn McCarthy, Nita Lowey, Kathy Hochul, Yvette Clark, Nydia Velasquez, Joseph Crowley, José Serrano, Brian Higgins, Yvette Clarke, Bill Owens, Paul Tonko, Edolphus Townes and Steve Israel, Gregory Meeks and Tim Bishop.

This display of party unity begs the question – will Governor Cuomo weigh in on the issue as the grassroots are mobilizing? Last week, a petition was circulated by Citizen Action of New York (sign it here) and late word came today that a group including AIG, the FDIC, and various ripped-off banks, insurers and fund managers are joining Schneiderman and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden in a lawsuit against Bank of America Corp., seeking to block any settlement and move the case to federal court.

If you have not yet written AG Schneiderman to support his investigation, click here. To complain to HUD Secretary Donovan, email to Secretary.Donovan <at> hud.gov or “tell your story” to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau overseeing the negotiations. Email the White House here or send a message to Geithner at the US Treasury on Facebook here.

*UPDATED BELOW*

We complain and complain but now here is something we can actually do.

It just broke in Monday’s NY Times that NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said “not so fast” as the Obama Administration sought to whitewash mortgage fraud, pushing for a settlement that includes fines but no fraud or criminal investigations for the major banks who intentionally sold toxic securities and “robosigned” foreclosures.

AG Schneiderman is doing his job, exploring whether some people might need to go to jail for fraud in lending, securitization practices, shady documents or home seizures.

White House pressure NOT to do this has been coming through Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, HUD secretary Shaun Donovan and Eric Holder’s DOJ, according to the Times, to settle because the poor homeowners need the money fast. In fact, the first, worst offer by the banks sought to puts $5-8B towards over $170B in underwater mortgages to buy get-out-of-jail-free cards for everyone involved. Industry watchers told Huffington Post the payment should be more like $20B or $30B plus structural changes and the latest offer is said to now exceed $25B.

Ironically, it was HUD, under Donovan that concluded audits in May showing the lenders violated the False Claims Act, defrauding US taxpayers as well. They referred criminal charges to the DOJ – so why are HUD and the DOJ rushing to make it all go away?

Keith Olbermann’s guest host on Current TV’s Countdown also sat Ralph Nader down Friday night, where he argued a primary would not hurt Obama and the party:

“Well, it’s just the reverse…It will challenge him, bring the best out of him and there’s nothing worse for a candidate in terms of lessening the enthusiastic level for him than to go through an unchallenged routine of repetitious primaries.”

Nader described an impending campaign which will emerge in coming days, intended to “generate a robust debate” over domestic and international policies, including jobs and wars for 2012.

Nader said that without any such effort, Obama would take free license to cater to “corporate warlords and corporate barons of Wall Street.”

Popular progressive Senator Bernie Sanders told Thom Hartmann that same day that he approves of a primary challenge. Over the weekend, as the country stewed in the aftermath of the recent debt ceiling deal in Congress, word surfaced that over 70 members of the CA Democratic Party had passed around and approved a resolution blasting Obama for:

- potentially negotiating away resources in “safety net” programs
- escalating military conflicts
- extending tax cuts for the rich
- abandoning single payer/public option healthcare models
- renewing the Patriot Act and ignoring human rights violations
- refusing to restore Habeas Corpus
- increasing arrests of undocumented workers
- expanding privatization of education
- abandoning the environmental and labor movements

…among other issues. Delivered to the CDP’s Executive committee, the resolution drew jeers from the African-American Caucus and others, and was tabled to allow “tempers a chance to cool on all sides”

Read the resolution in it’s entirety here. Also weighing in on the same topic was Dennis Kucinich, also calling for a primary challenge to heighten crucial debates and ‘strengthen’ the Dems. Also from Raw Story we learned of this pledge petition in which hundreds of anti-war activists vow to abandon Obama in 2012 unless he changes Afghanistan and military spending policies. Signers included David Swanson, Cynthia McKinney, Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges, Coleen Rowley and many more.

Here John Nichols of The Nation takes the country’s progressive temperature citing polls and various local efforts to mobilize a primary challenge.

We at RPDC take interest in this question as progressives nationwide ponder – to support Obama or not? We’d love to hear from Democrats and democrats on the pros, cons and concerns as the 2012 elections slowly shape up.

Carlucci Asks DEC "What The Frack?"

Wondering if your water is healthy to drink? So do we. That’s why we’re grateful State Senator David Carlucci stepped up Friday to proactively and publicly ask the State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens why we exempted NYC’s water supply from the risks of hydrofracking but not the water supplies in other areas.

Just this evening on CBS, 60 Minutes ran a segment questioning the true cost of fracking, showing overnight “shalelionaires” on the one hand thanking the Lord for their blessings and on the other hand, residents living near fracking sites suffering from pollution who showed Leslie Stahl how they can light their well water on fire.

After explaining the rush to make quick billions harvesting natural gas by pumping water, sand and secret poisonous chemicals deeply into the ground under high pressure, 60 Minutes may have for the first time on network television exposed the alarming facts behind the “Halliburton loophole”.

This special privilege granted hydrofrackers exemption from compliance with the regulations in the Clean Water Act, designed to ensure our drinking water is safe. The free pass was named after the large energy firm Halliburton which first sought the exemption, benefiting from their close ties to former CEO Dick Cheney. In his now-famous “Energy Meetings” then Vice President Cheney successfully influenced Congress to pass a measure essentially granting an entire industry a license to pollute.

These meetings were said to have been illegal, because representatives of private corporations were allowed to participate in policy discussions and even make recommendations. The meetings not only resulted in the expansion of domestic gas drilling, but the resultant policies and deregulation led to the deadly Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, the Enron bankruptcy scandal, the California energy crisis, billions in subsidies to oil companies and the MMS royalty and cocaine/fornication scandal.

Violating federal transparency requirements, the secret meetings resulted in lawsuits brought by environmental and judicial watchdogs alike, but Cheney made unprecedented assertions of his “executive” privilege to conduct meetings in secret that landed the case in the Supreme Court.

In a dramatic fashion, Cheney narrowly triumphed as the deciding vote of dissent came from Antonin Scalia. Scalia had been asked to recuse himself because he had recently gone duck hunting with Cheney, but asserted he could rule fairly as he agreed to everything Cheney wanted.

This leads us back to our water supply. We have to act, as Carlucci and 60 Minutes both recognize, we cannot let the Halliburton exception stand in NY. Karl Rove is gathering money to buy a lot of PR putting a pretty face on the hydrofracking issue. The energy companies have considerable resources and many NYS lawmakers have shown they can be far too easily bought.

But we have the greatest water supply here in the NY metro area. We cannot afford to let anything happen to it – act out for your children’s sake. Let Albany know – water is the key to life, liberty and health – don’t frack it up.

As reported here in November, an autopsy of Hall’s defeat attributed heavy outside spending on attack ads as the likely difference in the close race, only possible in the wake of a January 2010 ruling which allowed unidentified donors to purchase unlimited campaign advertising.

No one knows exactly how much was spent against Hall or his opponent Nan Hayworth and we probably never will – investigative reporter Mike McIntire says even the NY Times’ best efforts to find out who is behind secretive “Super PACs” have come up empty again and again.

With polls showing Americans favor both donor disclosure and campaign spending limits, many now believe the SCOTUS case also changed the course of health care reform with the acquisition of Hall’s seat as a key win for the for-profit health insurance lobby.

After Citizens United, big PhRMA began to “kill the bill” they negotiated with the White House, seeing a wholly greater chance to repeal it by buying enough Members of Congress. Nan Hayworth explicity ran on an anti-Obamacare platform while supporting anonymous donations as a new challenge for voters to try to figure out who is “credible” without disclosure of any sort.

NYU Law Professor Ronald Dworkin explained why the Citizens United v. FEC case needs another look in the New York Review:

In the 2008 presidential primary season a small corporation, Citizens United, financed to a minor extent by corporate contributions, tried to broadcast a derogatory movie about Hillary Clinton. The FEC declared the broadcast illegal under the BCRA [Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act]. Citizens United then asked the Supreme Court to declare it exempt from that statute on the ground, among others, that it proposed to broadcast its movie only on a pay-per-view channel.

In a startling example of corporate activism, five Conservative Judges led by John Roberts quickly, surprisingly and drastically expanded the scope and declared the entire BCRA act unconstitutional.

The new lack of accountability in attack ads has already resulted in a scandalous number of false or deceptive claims, according to a study by FactCheck.org. Only libel lawsuits protect against this common but now legalized lying, however no one can reverse election results after the fact.

Hall’s remarks have garnered coverage by CBS News, Huffington Post (with 2,700 comments so far), David Horowitz, Raw Story and The Washington Examiner. Rumored as a possible Obama or Cuomo administration appointee, Hall is convinced that Congressional seats were bought and that America should beware the expansion of “corporate personhood”. Several Conservative commentators argue that Hall’s class of Democrats were similarly bought by banksters and big health, although I don’t see how this would somehow excuse it now for Republicans.

It is believed NY’s 19th district will be significantly redrawn following census-year redistricting, with much of Rockland newly encompassed within the new boundaries.

We do know Hayworth won by 53-47% but because of the recent Citizen’s United  ruling by the US Supreme Court, corporations can buy unlimited campaign ads without disclosing their officers, size, members, location, amounts, criminal history, citizenship status or affiliations.

The article spelled out how 501(c)(4) groups spending for conservatives more than doubled spending to liberals. Hayworth agreed with the ruling which allowed limitless contributions by “entities” on First Amendment grounds.

Although 48 Republicans in the US Senate voted for greater disclosure in 2000, the number shriveled to zero voting for the DISCLOSE act in the last term. Not surprisingly, the GOP were by far the biggest beneficiaries of the secret money. Karl Rove even touted his latest organization’s ability to shield donors from any scrutiny which drew complaints from tax policy watchdogs.

An analysis of donations in the Hayworth-Hall race does point to an interesting difference in the campaigns – with more contributions from individuals and labor groups, Hall received more donations from people and Hayworth received more donations from industry, businesses and PACs from outside the district. Anti-Hall ads were also purchased by secretive groups such as “OpsPAC” for which no information is available.

In contributing $1.1 million to Hayworth, former Governor George Pataki said his corporation had to conceal his donors because he feared they would be harrassed or boycotted if the public found out who they were.

My personal concern is the loss of transparency in our elections. If voters do not know who is pumping money into a race, or paying to blanket TV and radio with attack ads, how can they properly decide who has real grassroots support and who is essentially a puppet of large industries?

Hayworth believes it’s the voter’s burden now to determine who is who, by deciding for themselves who is credible, as the new law stripped transparency from the process that allowed big health, Wall Street hedge funds and anonymous non-profits to buoy her to victory.

I would suggest to candidates left, right and center that voluntary disclosure greatly helps voters decide. We all remember the Pan-Asian donor scandal marring Clinton/Gore’s re-election as they brokered generous free trade policies to benefit Far East industries. So we see how bundling, straw donors and opacity leads to accusations of pay-for-play and corruption.

Today, however, the stakes are raised. With terrorists seeking to drain the US economy, only transparency can prevent the influence of foreigners in US elections. And in the case of the rich buying their way into elected office, we need safeguards that prevent wealthy individuals from creating non-profit corporations to hide their identity while allowing them to “legally” buy campaign ads for themselves.

This is good news for the Hall campaign, which had trailed Hayworth in past polls. A Public Policy Polling/DailyKos poll had Hall trailing Hawyworth by 2 percent, and the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog had previously given Hayworth a 73 percent chance of winning the 19th Congressional District and has revised that number to 69 percent.

FiveThirtyEight now has Hayworth projected to take 50.7 percent of the vote to Hall’s 47 percent.

Becoming increasingly more important to this race are the write-in candidacy mounted by Hayworth’s former Republican primary opponent, Neil Di Carlo. Di Carlo, unhappy with Hayworth’s position on social issues such as abortion, has asked his supporters to vote, but to select a write-in candidate. Republished from previously given Hayworth a 673 percent chance of winning the 19th Congressional District and has revised that number to 69 percent. FiveThirtyEight now has Hayworth projected to take 50.7 percent of the vote to Hall’s 47 percent. Becoming increasingly more important to this race are the write-in candidacy mounted by Hayworth’s former Republican primary opponent, Neil Di Carlo. Di Carlo, unhappy with Hayworth’s position on social issues such as abortion, has asked his supporters to vote, but to select a write-in candidate.

Republished from Left of the Hudson.

Perhaps because of Nan Hayworth’s pro-abortion stance, Di Carlo refused to endorse her in the upcoming race against John Hall for Congress. And while Di Carlo hasn’t quite came out and say to vote for him come November, Di Carlo is adamant that voters select a write-in candidate in the race.

On his campaign website, Di Carlo won’t go a step further than recognizing Hayworth’s primary victory. There is no concession, no congratulations, and certainly no endorsement. But this Di Carlo does say:

To endorse or vote for Nan Hayworth, however, would require me to place profound moral principles beneath mere party expediency – a price neither I nor any candidate should be required to pay. Our differences on social issues fall within these bounds.

I believe that forsaking our moral American heritage is to blame for much of our country’s downfall.

To those who feel that neither candidate represents their concerns, I encourage you to still vote on November 2nd and write in a candidate of your choice.

We cannot assume that right-to-life voters will swarm to a write-in candidate, nor can we even assume that these voters will sit on their hands because of Hayworth’s stances on abortion and other social issues. This we can say: Don’t doubt that the votes gathered by Neil Di Carlo’s Quixotic quest won’t peel away from Nan Hayworth’s tally.

Versions of this article also appear on Plan Putnam, DailyKos, Left of the Hudson, and The Albany Project.

While John Hall stayed home in his district last night, donating his time and talents to save the Beacon Theater, Nan Hayworth was living the high life out of State, partying at her fundraiser thrown by Hedge Fund Kings Steven Shapiro and Charlie Parkhurst in tony Greenwich, CT.

Shapiro and Parkhurst have worked for both large investment banks and for so-called salon firms, tiny entities which can still hold billions in investor assets. Shapiro headed Intrepid Capital Investments, which managed to lose nearly 90 percent of investment capital between 2007 and 2009. Parkhurst, a former managing director at Smith Barney, moved on to Archeus Captial Management, which shut down when its hedge funds went from $3 billion to $700 million in assets in three years. After helping to form Centerlight Capital Management in the dust of Archeus, Parkhurst has gone on to be a trader at the British Investment Bank Barclays.

Despite investors losing their shirts on Archeus and Intrepid investments, times must not be too bad for Shapiro and Parkhust, neither of whom are residents of New York State or the 19th Congressional District. Prior to last night’s high-price soiree at Shapiro’s mansion (just check out this Google maps image), both have donated $2,400 to Hayworth’s campaign.

Nan Hayworth is a multi-millionaire herself and largely a self-funding candidate in her campaign’s early stages. Hayworth’s husband runs the mammoth Mount Kisco Medical Group of more than 200 physicians in Westchester County.

A version of this diary is posted at Left of the Hudson, The Albany Project, and Take 19.

The integrity of a Republican candidate’s congressional campaign came under fire this week after news emerged that three notary publics she used in gathering petition signatures admitted to professional misconduct.

Nan Hayworth’s campaign manager, John Hicks, along with other notaries, admitted to misconduct on a court witness stand on Wednesday in regards to the handling of Independence Party petitions. Hayworth, a retired Mt. Kisco ophthalmologist, is one of two potential Republican opponents to Congressman John Hall (D-Dover) in the mid-term elections.

During the court review of the petitions, Hicks admitted that the charges by Congressman’s John Hall campaign were true, and that he didn’t uphold the law “in the traditional sense” when gathering signatures.

As a small, fusion party in New York, the Independence Party, must use notaries, when party members are not available to carry petitions. This helps to reduce errors and petition mishandling. More importantly, notary publics must swear each person in before they sign a petition sheet. The lawyer for Hall’s campaign alleges that Hayworth’s campaign did not meet the legal criteria and that her volunteers and staff consistently perpetuated fraud when gathering signatures.

While Hicks, along with two others, admitted to not following New York law, Hicks attempted to distance his personal petition practices from the campaign he manages. On the stand, he denied coordinating the campaign’s petition process, first insisting that he did not know who was responsible and later making the claim that nobody had coordinated this important step of ballot access.

A few weeks back, Nan Hayworth’s campaign had denied any wrongdoing in an email to Left of the Hudson:

The Hayworth campaign categorically and vehemently rejects the allegations that any campaign staffer, notary or others engaged in deliberate fraud regarding Independence Party petitions.

I now wonder if that email message was a deliberate parsing of words by Hayworth’s campaign. While they’re now admitting to mishandling the petitions, they’re denying their culpability, insisting that they did not do so  deliberately. This does not absolve them; Hicks as a lawyer, former Orange County Republican Committee Chairman, and notary, must have known better.

John Hall’s campaign responded to Hick’s admission:

“I’m glad that Mr. Hicks came clean that he never swore in signers, despite a clear legal requirement for him to do so. He’s an experienced attorney and this is not his first election. He should have known better than to break the law,” Hall campaign manager Patrick McGarrity said. “However, his efforts to deny that anyone in the Hayworth campaign coordinated their petition efforts is disingenuous at best. Somehow, a petition arrived at the New York State Board of Elections in Albany.”

One other Hayworth campaign worker, a notary, testified to not swearing in petition signers as required by law. Other Hayworth notaries defended their petition practices, even despite the insistence of signers who claim they were not sworn in.

One politician, a Yorktown Town Councilman, Vishnu Patel, admitted his involvement in the mishandling of petitions, saying that he gathered a signature for his wife and then turning the page over to her to notarize. Councilman Patel is not a member of the Independence Party or a notary and cannot carry Independence Party petitions.

The notary section on a petition page is a written legal declaration. The document attests to the identity of those signing it as well as the identity of the person carrying it. Notaries are not just identify petition signers, but witness that signers wish for the candidate to be the party’s nominee; thus notaries must swear in petition signers. Notary publics who violate this process are found to have committed fraud.

Patel’s wife, Dipika, contradicted her husband during her testimony, claiming that she gathered more than 70 signatures all by herself. The Hall campaign, however, has collected several affidavits from  signees regarding the Patels’ conduct, which disputes both their claims. Hall’s campaign maintains that the Patels systemically committed fraud.

In a press release, Hall’s campaign backs up this claim:

“It seems more than suspect that the only instance of fraud that Patel admitted to is the one that was extensively covered by News 12 in the days preceding his appearance in court,” Hall manager McGarrity said. “Patel went into the trial knowing specifically of one signature that we had evidence against. There is absolutely no credibility to his claim that this one ‘mistake’ is the limit to the fraud he perpetrated.”

While John Hall’s campaign may be more focused on getting Hayworth knocked off the Independence Party line; the issue for many following this issue is not this particular election but Hayworth’s campaign’s integrity. Her staff and volunteers were caught red-handed in election misconduct and their response is basically, “oh well, who cares?”

In addition to this muddying the election waters, this misconduct degrades the trust the public seeks in the notaries. How can New York State residents trust notarized documents when it’s OK—at least according to those who may potentially work one day for a federal lawmaker—to not follow the law when handling legal documents. How could anyone feel comfortable with having a notary engaging in misconduct later handling their documents, especially critical ones like those in regards to estate planning or property titles? The office of the notary, as a whole, becomes suspect and falls apart if you can’t find people to honestly verify signatures.

Supreme Court Justice Michael Lynch is scheduling further court proceedings on this issue. Hall and his campaign intend to show that these instances of misconduct, and others, reveal a systemic problem in the Hayworth campaign where notarial fraud was prevalent.  It is possible that this may invalidate many of Hayworth’s Independence Party petitions.

Variations of this article are posted at The Albany Project, Left of the Hudson,andPlanPutnam.org.