Free Republic

So, President Obama has demanded that health care reform not add "even one penny to the deficit". At the same time, the president is struggling to keep as many of the stakeholders (read special interest groups) on board. Two very important groups are the doctors and their representing group, the American Medical Association. A so called pet project of the AMA is the "doctor fix". This is a plan to subsidize doctors that serve Medicare patients from facing drastic cuts to their fees. Instead, Reid is negotiating with the AMA and Senate and House leaders to rollback about 20% in...

GOSH, what a surprise: A committee of their fellow senators has decided that Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad did nothing unethical when they took out loans from Countrywide Financial on the kind of favorable terms not available to mere mortals without their financial or political standing -- or a personal connection to the head of Countrywide. The very Select Committee on Ethics did recognize that the whole deal looked bad, and gave its colleagues a gentle pat on the wrist for creating "the appearance that you were receiving preferential treatment based on your status as a senator." But in the...

As the old Irish toast goes, may your sins be judged by the Senate ethics committee. Actually that's not an Irish toast but it must be the fervent hope of every politician who received a "Friend of Angelo" loan from former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo. Late last week the six Senators on the ethics panel dismissed complaints against Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd with a mere admonishment about the appearance of impropriety. The three Republican and three Democratic Senators say they conducted an exhaustive probe and inspected 18,000 pages of documents. They say they found "no substantial credible...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Two key Democrat senators were cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee on Friday from year-long investigations about whether mortgages they obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The bipartisan committee, which supported the decision unanimously, did scold the senior lawmakers, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., for not being more careful in their dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised...

When I read last week about the hearings regarding Senator Conrad, Senator Dodd, and the friend of Angelo, I immediately recognized a serious scandal. Some of that has to do with my background in mortgages, and some simply has to do with common sense.

Democrats resist subpoenaing recordsJul 31, 2009 - 04:05:00 CDT By LARRY MARGASAK Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - House Democrats have declined to subpoena available records that might reveal whether other members of Congress got discounted VIP mortgages from subprime lender Countrywide Financial Corp. similar to the sweetheart deals given Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad. Republicans say they are willing to risk that the records now held by Bank of America may show that GOP lawmakers were also "friends of Angelo" who got preferential terms on personal mortgages at the behest of then-Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Countrywide, after losing...

In mortgages, anything can make a difference. The same person could qualify for a loan if the property is a single family unit and get denied if that becomes a townhome or Planned Unit Development. A loan could hinge on whether or not a condominium has four stories or less or five stories or more. While standards became quite loose over the previous five years, it's important to understand that tens of thousands of rules exist in the mortgage world. Everything I just described concerns rules for RESIDENTIAL properties. Commercial properties are a totally different world.

Two powerful Senate Democrats said Tuesday that they knew they got low mortgage-rate deals in a lender's VIP program but thought the special treatment was a "courtesy" or the same as "frequent flier" discounts. Both vehemently denied any wrongdoing or ethical lapse in the mortgage deals, which came to light a year ago and triggered investigations by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "I thought this was like a frequent-flier program," Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said of the special benefits. "I thought nothing of it." Sen. Christopher...

Whoa. It's looking like Sen. Chris Dodd's involvement with a sub prime-lending company warrants far more than a mere Senate Ethics Committee look-see. Or so suggests closed-door committee testimony from a fomer executive of the firm in question. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota both got sweetheart mortgage deals a few years back from Angelo Mozilo, CEO of subprime-mortgage giant Countrywide Financial.

AP IMPACT: Dodd, Conrad told deals were sweetened By LARRY MARGASAK WASHINGTON – Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation's largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony. Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn't know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. Dodd still maintains he got...

Asked by a House investigator if Conrad, the North Dakota senator, "was aware that he was getting preferential treatment?" Feinberg answered: "Yes, he was aware." Referring to Dodd, the investigator asked:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation's largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony. Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn't know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. Dodd still maintains he got no preferential treatment.

Kent Conrad made a startling and curious statement on health care today. Senate Democrats are going to need help from Republicans to get President Obama's ambitious plan to reinvent the health care system over the goal line, a top lawmaker acknowledged on Sunday. "Look, there are not the votes for Democrats to do this just on our side of the aisle," said Sen. Kent Conrad, the chairman of the powerful budget committee.

 BAUCUS: The president is not helping us. He does not want the exclusion. That's making it difficult, with these taxes moved off the table, it is still difficult to come up with the revenue measures and other savings measures.(END VIDEO CLIP)BAIER: That's a top Democrat saying the president is not helping.CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER...: That's not a good sign. But the worst today, I think, was what emperor's new clothes moment, which occurred with Senator Conrad, who is a Democrat, chairman of the budget committee, and, as we saw, you had the impartial Congressional Budget Office exploding what is the central contradiction...

It looks like Sen. Kent Conrad (D. ND) has an idea to allow private insurance co-ops to write insurance for their members to compete against traditional insurance companies. The president gave it a veiled thumbs-up, and some Democrats who oppose the public option (and frankly who could kill it) may be on board. The part that some Republicans like is that the government doesn't own them and doesn't run them.

From a Senate Budget Committee markup meeting; watch the video.

The western Democrats like Baucus of Montana and Dorgan and Conrad of North Dakota know that this sort of spending is utterly ruinous to an economy and a currency. Some senators like Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, up for re-election in 2010, know that the voters are recoiling from this orgy of spending already, and absent dramatic evidences of a return to growth will judge the entire enterprise a failure.

Email his Chief of Staff and tell her you will work to defeat him in 2010 if he votes for it: Elizabeth Gore: elizabeth_gore@dorgan.senate.gov

NEW YORK TIMES: "About that Mortgage, Senator . . ." It turns out that the chieftain of Countrywide -- which is smack in the middle of the mortgage mess -- extended privileged borrowing status to two Senators, Chris Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota. Both Senators deny any ethical violations.   The disclosure of the V.I.P. arrangments by the political website Politico.com left constituents angry and suspicious -- particularly because the revelations came just as Congress was rousing itself to do something about the mortgage foreclosure crisis.   It would be nice to think that...

(CNN) -- Be honest: How many of you are really shocked to find out that a bunch of Washington insiders were part of a VIP program coordinated by mortgage giant Countrywide Financial? The story was first reported by CondeNast's Portfolio magazine, and everyone else has jumped on it since. Based on what we know, folks like former Housing and Urban Development honcho Alphonso Jackson, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala got favorable loan terms from the mortgage behemoth. My first reaction was, "Man, these folks are dumb to...

When it comes to charging abuse in markets like the mortgage business, American politicians, right up the ladder, should zip their lips. They're not ones to talk. That's becoming ever more painfully clear with reports like the one Thursday from Condé Nast Portfolio suggesting that several key pols got favored treatment on their personal mortgages. The lucky winners included folks like Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-ND), plus several former Cabinet secretaries: ex-Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson; ex-Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala (who is to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Thursday) and ex-UN Ambassador and...

WASHINGTON - Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Saturday he is donating $10,500 to charity and refinancing his loan on an apartment building after reviewing documents showing he received special treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp. Conrad said it appears that Countrywide waived 1 point on his mortgage for a Bethany Beach, Del., vacation home. He said he would donate the equivalent amount of money to Habitat for Humanity. "Although I did not ask for or know that I was receiving a discount, and even though I was offered a competitive loan from another lender, I do not want to...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Barack Obama is considering former top military leaders among his possible running mates, according to a senator who met Tuesday with the Democratic presidential candidate's vice presidential vetting team. North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad told The Associated Press said the team asked him about potential candidates from three broad categories _ current top elected officials, former top elected officials and former top military leaders. Conrad would not disclose which names they discussed, and the Obama campaign has been keeping the process a closely guarded secret. "We talked about many names," Conrad said, including "some that are out...

Congress is starting to move its annual budget outline, and the Members are lucky there's a hot Presidential race. Maybe the voters won't notice that "fiscal discipline," in the phony Beltway phrase, is less disciplined than ever. Look no further than Kent Conrad, the Senate Budget Chairman and godfather of "pay as you go" budgeting. Paygo requires that new entitlement spending and tax cuts be offset dollar for dollar with spending cuts or tax increases. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it: "Instead of compiling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and grandchildren, we will restore pay as...

CHICAGO...Mr. Steinback in almost an hour-long discourse called for leniency. He ran the gamut of emotions from calls for pity on a man who had already paid a high price to reminders of Black's charitable giving, scholarly attainments — his biographies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon — his continued admiration of America. Mr. Steinback argued that in London and on the Continent, Black, who was in 2002 made Lord Black of Crossharbor, was deemed controversial for his boldly stated pro-Americanism...It was, however, the very boldness of Black's life that the prosecutor, Eric Sussman, cited as reason for a heavier...

5 out of the top ten US House Recipients of contributions (1989- 2001) from Arthur Andersen are democRats. Their names and the amounts are listed below. And, according to dim logic, they are guilty by association and should have their names shining in the bright lights of Reuters, AP, Drudge, The Washington ComPost, and more. After all, this is a hit piece. Here you go, Klayman, chase this ambulance too! Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) $34,687 Martin Frost (D-Texas) $32,000 Peter Deutsch (D-Fla) $24,200 James P. Moran (D-Va) $21,250 Ken Bentsen (D-Texas) $19,225 Other Rats also receiving Andersen dirty money include: Rick...

A conservative group supporting Samuel Alito’s confirmation will launch TV ads in North and South Dakota this weekend that ask moderate Senate Democrats to “stand with mainstream America, not Ted Kennedy.� The Coalition for a Fair Judiciary is spending $100,000 on the TV ads. Two Democratic senators, Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Tim Johnson (S.D.), are targeted in the 30-second commercials. Both remain undecided about Alito's confirmation. Conrad has the most to lose if he chooses to cast a "no" vote. He is up for re-election in November and hails from a conservative state that President Bush easily carried in 2000...

North Dakota governor not running for U.S. Senate The Associated Press BISMARCK, N.D. Gov. John Hoeven said Friday he will not challenge U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad next year, depriving Republicans of someone they considered their strongest candidate against the Democratic incumbent. "A day may come when we ask the people of North Dakota to allow us to serve them in a different capacity, but that time is not now," Hoeven said Friday in a brief statement issued by his office. "The outpouring of support and encouragement I have received to run for the United States Senate is truly humbling, but...

HELENA — Both Republican U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns and Rep. Denny Rehberg lead trial matchups against potential Democratic opponents for the 2006 election and, as incumbents, are far better known among the voters, a new Lee Newspapers poll shows.The telephone survey, taken May 23-25 of 625 likely Montana voters by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. If the 2006 Senate election were held today, Burns would defeat state Auditor John Morrison, a Democrat, by a 49 to 34 percent margin, with 17 percent undecided. Burns leads among men by...

In 2001, Dems claimed to support Social Security reform -- as long as it meant sacrificing tax relief. ----- Did you know there once was a time when Democrats admitted they believed Social Security needed protection and reform? Of course, it's quite significant that, of the occasions they took to trumpet the need to fix the program, they were the loudest when they used Social Security reform to justify their strident opposition to President Bush's first tax relief package in the first few months of 2001. Juxtaposing the Democratic Party's lackadaisical position on Social Security reform today (remember, they actually...

Battle of the Badlands Tom Daschle's defeat last November naturally created nervousness among other Great Plains Democrats who are facing reelection battles in "crimson" states where Mr. Bush won by 20 points or more. And perhaps none more so than North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad: It now appears likely that he will be challenged by popular GOP Gov. John Hoeven, setting up another multi-million dollar referendum on Democratic obstructionism in the Senate. Normally, Mr. Conrad would have little to worry about. The former tax commissioner won re-election in 2000 with 62%, the same percentage George W. Bush carried the state...

CONRAD SEES REDIt's true that President Bush hit the upper Midwest and the South in his first big push after the State of the Union Address in order to target potential Democratic support in the House and the Senate. But he also was sending Democrats a clear message: 2002 and 2004 were no mistakes. Recall that the President was particularly aggressive in campaigning for Republicans in the midterms in 2002, and barring unforeseen political disasters, will be out there again, pressing for added GOP strength in Congress. Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota is up for re-election in 2006,...

Democrats on Personal Accounts Adam Doverspike Back in an era where Senators and Representatives listened to proposals before opposing them, these Democrats endorsed the idea of personal accounts. Here are their own words. Senators: Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV): “[M]ost Of Us Have No Problem With Taking A Small Amount Of The Social Security Proceeds And Putting It Into The Private Sector.” (Fox’s “Fox News Sunday,” 2/14/99) Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) Press Release: “Durbin Said Due To The Increasing Number Of ‘Baby Boomers’ Reaching Retirement Age, Social Security Will Be Unable To Pay Out Full Benefits … But The Sooner Congress...

July 27, 2004 Pg. 1 Senators Satisfied With Their 'No' Vote On Iraq ‘We were all firmly convinced we’d done the right thing’ By Lauren Shepherd By 1 a.m. that Friday morning, almost every senator had left the Capitol for home. Three Democrats, though, were still on the Senate floor, waiting for the final vote count on a resolution that would allow President Bush to launch a pre-emptive strike on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) — had voted against the resolution along with 18 other Democrats, one independent and one...

COLORADO SPRINGS - James C. Dobson, the nation's most influential evangelical leader, is threatening to put six potentially vulnerable Democratic senators "in the 'bull's-eye' " if they block conservative appointments to the Supreme Court. In a letter his aides say is being sent to more than one million of his supporters, Dr. Dobson, the child psychologist and founder of the evangelical organization Focus on the Family, promises "a battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea" if President Bush fails to appoint "strict constructionist" jurists or if Democrats filibuster to block conservative nominees. Dr. Dobson recalled the conservative efforts...

Every other day or so, I get an e-mail along the lines of, "Gone pretty quiet on your old buddy Conrad, haven't you, Steyn? I guess now he's no longer worth kissing up to, you've dropped him like everybody else..." Not at all. I did my stirring defense of Conrad and Barbara Black back at the beginning of the year, and all that's changed in the intervening months is that I'm more convinced than ever that 99 percent of the various "charges" against them are a lot of hooey. Of course, I'm a lazy hack and the fine print...

Election 2006 Of the 15 senators up for reelection this fall who voted to acquit Clinton in 1999, only one was defeated, but it was a big one - prince of obstruction Tom Daschle of South Dakota. Now we turn our attention to 2006. The following 14 senators who will then be up for reelection also voted to acquit Clinton and therefore disqualified themselves for public office. Moreover, all of them voted for the Harkin amendment to the bill banning partial-birth abortion. All but two of them (Byrd and Conrad) also voted on 21 Oct. 2003 against the bill to...

<p>One of the more enduring Internet hoaxes is the chain letter claiming that the government has an e-mail tax in the works. Well, if Congress doesn't extend the Internet tax moratorium before it expires at the end of this week, the e-mail tax could soon cease to be an urban legend.</p>

Conservatives have won the tax cutting argument--can we agree on that? I mean, like the President said, we are no longer asking about WHETHER we're going to have a tax cut...the question is how BIG the tax cut is going to be. Now, from what I understand, there are FOUR RINOs holding up the big tax cut our Commander in Chief wants. Those four RINOs? Lincoln Chaffee, John McCain, Olympia Snowe, and George Voinovich. The focus has been on Snowe and Voinovich, because they are the ones who've said "yes" to at least some of what the President wants. Withouth...

<p>Senate Democrats put together an election-year farm bill designed to please everyone concerned, from farmers to environmentalists and anti-hunger advocates. Only it didn't add up.</p> <p>A $6 billion error by congressional budget analysts has sent Democrats scrambling to rewrite their plans for negotiating a final bill with the GOP-controlled House. It has also left Republicans crowing that the Senate bill had been phony all along.</p>

Washington, D.C.) - Not since Sens. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) in 1991, have two senators from one state scored zero in the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste's (CCAGW) Congressional Ratings. The Hawaiians' ten-year reign comes to an end as Senators Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) have earned goose eggs in CCAGW's 2001 Congressional Ratings. For this and their general love of all things tax and spend, we name Sens. Conrad and Dorgan the June 2002 Porkers of the Month. For the first session of the 107th Congress, the terrible twosome voted against eliminating the...

Senate Plan Will Sunset Tax Cuts, Freeze Defense SpendingDemocrats Will Spend Social Security SurplusBy David Freddoso Like St. Augustine, who asked God to give him chastity—but not yet—Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D.-N.D.) plans to move away from spending the entire Social Security surplus to increase domestic spending—but only starting next year.After criticizing President Bush for planning to spend the entire Social Security surplus in his budget, Conrad and fellow Senate Democrats are proposing exactly the same thing.The plan that emerged from the Democrat-controlled Senate Budget Committee on March 20 claims to pay down more debt and spend slightly less...

Conrad Says Bush Using War to Justify Defense SpendingDemocrats Reverse Field On DefenseBy David Freddoso Senate Democrats last week engaged in#151;and then apparently abandoned#151;a new political strategy to attack President Bush#146;s handling of the war on terror. Comments from Sen. Robert Byrd (D.-W.Va.), Sen. Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.), and Sen. Joe Biden (D.-Del.) caused a political firestorm, leading Daschle to backtrack days later and restate his support for Bush#146;s war strategy.But the harshest#151;and least-noticed#151;criticism came from Sen. Kent Conrad (D.-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. At the same time as Daschle and other Democrats began their rhetorical attack, Conrad openly...