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Millions of Your Fellow Americans are Depending on You . . .
Political pundits and both political parties along with the American media talk 24/7 about “corporate money and lobbyists” running Washington, yet for either party it seems to only be about the ulterior motive of control of power and never about “the people.” Then I read about watchdog groups and by and large they seem to have a political party agenda as well and never seem to be focused on “the people.” I’m hoping and praying that you have a conscience and really care about “the people” and are not part of the daily political gamesmanship played out in Washington. If you do have a conscience, then you simply cannot turn away from “the people” losing their homes, who have starving children and who I’m confident are losing their lives to suicide. The issue is the political corruption killing passage of HR3149: The Equal Employment for All Act that would make it illegal for employers to hire and fire based personal credit reports.

First the money trail:

Sources for the 2010 and 2008 Money Cycles:

House Committee on Financial Services (only)
http://hr3149.blogspot.com/2010/03/democracy-and-money-why-hr3149-is.html

Equifax:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00143867&cycle=2010

Trans Union:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00313700&cycle=2010

Experian:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00379768&cycle=2010

2008 Cycle:

Trans Union
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/fec/?commid=C00313700&page=campaigns&order=TOTAL&cycle=2007-2008

Equifax
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/fec/?commid=C00143867&page=campaigns&order=TOTAL&cycle=2007-2008

Experian
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/fec/?commid=C00379768&page=campaigns&order=TOTAL&cycle=2007-2008

Even though I’m just a lowly average American citizen, I’m not so naïve as to not know that after reviewing the above links you’re presently splitting your sides laughing that I think the above represents real MONEY. Compared to what you’re used to seeing the amounts of money are a joke. Here is the part that is NOT so obvious, virtually no company or corporation wants HR3149 passed (because they think they own “the people” and their privacy). Now do you start to see the big picture? You know far better than I just how many millions of dollars that figure represents. Also please consider that the big three credit bureaus are not some huge defense contractor vying for some billion dollar contract against some other huge defense contractor. The only fear or competition the credit bureaus have for the ear of Congress is a lowly rag-tag group of common American citizens with no money and bad credit. A good Cuban cigar and some cocktails would by out our interests in Washington . . . the money is just a value add for selling us out.

The legislation was introduced way back last July and is still sitting stalled in the House Committee on Financial Services. In just the 2010 cycle alone (excluding 2008), members of Congress have accepted $258,000+ in PAC money from the big three credit bureaus in exchange for trying to kill HR3149. Just in the House Committee on Financial Services alone, during the 2010 cycle, almost half of its members (38+ %) stuffed their wallets with a total of $104,000+ in credit bureau PAC money. At the top of the money list, during the past two cycles, is Committee Chair Barney Frank who took $25,000 during in the 2008 cycle. This quid pro quo money for killing the legislation deal is NOT DEMOCRACY! With that said, the death of democracy pales in comparison to the suffering of the American people caught in a catch 22 of bad credit = no job and no job = bad credit.

In survey after survey, including a recent MSNBC survey, more than 90 percent of the American people say that workplace discrimination based upon someone’s personal credit report is wrong and should be illegal. The practice was always wrong and from the start has always been a gross invasion of Americans’ personal privacy. The information is used by employers to low ball wages and intimidate employees based upon the level of desperation depicted in their credit report – while employers use the smoke screen of saying the information is used to protect them from fraud and theft. It’s “the people” that need protection from corrupt politicians and dirty corporate money . . . not the other way around!

Does a private employer expose their financials or credit report to a new hire? Do they advise employees when they are getting ready to ship their jobs overseas or close their doors? Did someone applying at Enron know the books were being cooked before they quit a good job and then subsequently lost every dime in retirement money they had with Enron? It’s currently a one-way street all tilted to the corporate side of the table. Credit reports for employment are already illegal in three states, but that’s not solving the problem for the millions of other Americans being locked out of the workforce in a catch 22 of no job = bad credit and bad credit = no job.

NOT ONE SINGLE study or shred of evidence exists to demonstrate that Americans with damaged credit reports steal or commit fraud at a higher percentage than other Americans. If there were any correlation between a credit report and theft, then American CEOs such as Bernie Madoff, Ken Lewis, Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, Bernard Ebbers and Richard Fuld wouldn’t be either already convicted or under investigation for “stealing” millions and millions from their companies. The American elite, Wall Street and Congress operate by different rules when it comes to credit reports, corruption and stealing. The more corrupt they become, the better their credit reports get while “the peoples” credit reports suffer to a point of never being allowed to work again.

Quite frankly, we’re almost out of time. A preliminary hearing was held a couple of weeks ago in the House Committee on Financial Services on credit issues in general – which means the HR3149 hearing could be announced at any time. The preliminary hearing was “kangaroo court” with seven corporate witnesses and one privacy advocate speaking on behalf of “the people.” If we can’t expose the money being funneled into the committee, it will be the same for HR3149 when the hearing occurs . . . a sham hearing with votes bought and arms twisted to thwart the will of “the people.”

We’ve tried writing the American media but they all work for corporations and are being threatened with their jobs if they report the corruption and pay offs. So a watchdog group like yours is looking like our only hope at this point. Please, please, please take up our cause. The research and money trail is available at your fingertips via the Internet. When your fellow Americans, devastated by Wall Street’s greed that wrecked the economy, are losing everything that have with no way out . . . is asking for your help not warranted?

I realize that Washington, D.C. hasn’t been hit as hard by this economy as the rest of our nation, but please realize that people are truly suffering and there is no way out for the millions of people permanently locked out of the workplace forever unless HR3149 passes. You hold the key to passage of HR3149. Please help to disclose the political corruption behind the stalling and attempted killing of HR3149. Millions of Americans are depending on you . . .

Bruce Eggum

Murtha could have an entire website devoted to his corruption tactics…
The Washington Post – Tues., May 5, 2009

WASHINGTON – The headquarters of Murtech, in a low-slung, bland building in a Glen Burnie business park, has its blinds drawn tight and few signs of life. On several days of visits, a handful of cars sit in the parking lot, and no trucks arrive at the 10 loading bays at the back of the building. Yet last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services. With its long corridor of sparsely occupied offices and an unmanned reception area, Murtech’s most striking feature is its owner — Robert C. Murtha Jr., 49. He is the nephew of Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has significant sway over the Defense Department’s spending as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

Robert Murtha said he is not at liberty to discuss in detail what his company does, but for four years it has subsisted on defense contracts, according to records and interviews. He said Murtech’s 17 employees “provide necessary logistical support” to Pentagon testing programs that focus on detecting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, “and that’s about as far as I feel comfortable going.” Giving more details could provide important clues to terrorist plotters, he said. Murtha said he does not advertise being the nephew of John Murtha and considers it “unfortunate” that some will unfairly assume Murtech received its federal contracts because of his uncle’s influence at the Pentagon. “If we’re not doing our job well, we wouldn’t be doing our job,” he said. “I’m successful at the work I do because of the skill sets I have. . . . You don’t know how good someone is unless you work with them.” A spokesman at Murtha’s office did not return calls seeking comment. The lawmaker, a former Marine, has said in the past that he is proud of his family’s service to the military and the government.

Over the years, John Murtha has proudly claimed credit for using his Appropriations Committee seat to steer hundreds of millions in Pentagon work to companies in his district, many of them fledgling enterprises run by campaign contributors. His influence also may be seen in the military improvements at the Johnstown airport that bears his name. The little-used commuter airport doubles as a wartime preparedness facility for the Pentagon after $30 million in improvements.

Family ties
Murtha’s power has had beneficial effects within his family. His brother, Robert C. “Kit” Murtha, built a longtime lobbying practice around clients seeking defense funds through the Appropriations Committee and became one of the top members of KSA, a lobbying firm whose contractor clients often received multimillion-dollar earmarks directed through the committee chairman. Robert C. Murtha Jr. of Murtech is Kit Murtha’s son. He also is a former Marine who once served as a presidential security officer and aide to the president for White House functions. He worked for eight years for ACS, a defense and information technology contractor. When Lockheed purchased ACS in 2004, he started several companies, including Murtech, which he registered as a defense contracting firm. Murtech received its contracts primarily from the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala., which has been generous to companies in John Murtha’s district and enjoys a close relationship with the congressman through a mutual interest in breast cancer research. The Army command has won at least $200 million a year in federal funding for the cancer research, of which Rep. Murtha is a stalwart supporter. In a program called Missiles to Mammograms the command has collaborated with a contractor in Murtha’s district, Windber Medical Center, in a multimillion-dollar project to explore using missile-tracking technology to detect breast cancer. The command awarded its first storage contract to Murtech without competitive bidding, paying $1.4 million a year. Robert Murtha Jr. says the no-bid arrangement was “the government’s choice” and occurred because the government “got itself in a bind.” A contract with SA Scientific of San Antonio was about to lapse, and the command needed Murtech, then serving as a subcontractor to the Texas company, to store materials for the military’s Critical Reagents Program. The program produces lab materials that can be used in handheld devices and sensors to detect the presence of biological toxins.

“We were uniquely qualified because we had already been doing that work,” Murtha said. In justifying the award, the command said in a spring 2007 notice that “Murtech, Inc. possesses a unique combination of certain essential capabilities” to perform the warehousing. Leo Fratis, the Army contracting officer who handled the matter, said there was “nothing improper” about the contract. He said it was awarded on a no-bid basis only because the Army command “had a lot of things going on at the time.”
Pentagon spokesman Julius Evans said the congressman never contacted the Army command about his nephew’s company and has no say in its procurement decisions. “Congressman Murtha has had no influence over any contract award by our organization,” Evans said. The Pentagon has paid $2 million to Murtech to provide “logistics and engineering” for tests of joint dismountable reconnaissance systems, emergency tools and kits that troops can use to evaluate the environment when a release of biological or chemical agents is suspected. Robert Murtha Jr. explained that the work involves Murtech employees moving equipment to Army test locations.

Murtech also was awarded a large piece of military business in September, as part of a contract for detection equipment awarded to ICX Technologies, a client of the lobbying firm PMA Group. PMA founder Paul Magliocchetti is a close friend of John Murtha’s, and his firm’s clients were highly successful in securing hundreds of millions of dollars in defense earmarks from Murtha. PMA is under federal investigation for its campaign donations to Murtha and other lawmakers. Several members of the congressman’s family have served in the military and worked in the government contracting arena. There’s no evidence that Murtech has received direct congressional earmarks. A congressional rule imposed in 2007 requires that lawmakers certify that the earmarks they add to the federal budget would not benefit them or their family members. The nephew disputes the notion that he has secured Pentagon work because of his family ties. In fact, he said, having a powerful relative can sometimes be a distraction. “I’ve been critiqued all my life, having the last name of Murtha,” he said. “Whenever I walk into a room, I don’t know if you like him or if you don’t like him.”

Are taxpayers getting best value?
But Steve Ellis, a spokesman for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said contracts to Murtech raise questions about whether taxpayers are getting the best value. “Historically we’re always concerned when there is a sole-source or single-bidder contract,” he said. “By definition, the taxpayer isn’t necessarily getting the best deal possible. And certainly when you see the company has close ties to one of the most powerful appropriators in Congress, our antenna really perks up.” During an unannounced visit to Murtech headquarters last week, a reporter asking to talk to the owner was waved away by an employee. “He’s not here. Come back another day,” said the woman who opened Murtech’s security door. “Unfortunately, everybody’s stepped out.” But a few minutes later, Murtha emerged and answered questions about the company.

In an interview, Murtha expressed concern that publicity could be harmful to his business. Tom Mann, a Murtech vice president, also defended the company’s operations, noting that Murtech had won the confidence of the Army by doing a good job. Mann said the $4 million in contracts has not been excessive for the quality of work performed and the demands on the business. “With a warehouse and distribution center, there’s a lot of overhead,” he said. “There’s a huge recurring utility bill.” “Busy, busy. We’re always busy here,” said one employee walking outside the building.

Jacob Weisberg NEWSWEEK From the magazine issue dated Dec 22, 2008

Corruption in Illinois is mainly pedestrian and shameful. In Louisiana, it’s flamboyant and shameless. With the unmasking of Gov. Rod Blagojevich as a kleptocrat of Paraguayan proportion, Illinois now has a real chance—if the allegations prove true— to defeat Louisiana in the NCAA finals of American political corruption. The land of Lincoln boasts some impressive stats. Dick Simpson, a political scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says more than 1,000 people have been convicted in political corruption cases since 1971, including an astonishing 30 aldermen. If Blagojevich goes to prison, he will be the fourth of the last eight governors to wear stripes, joining predecessors George Ryan (racketeering, conspiracy, obstruction), Dan Walker (bank fraud) and Otto Kerner (straight-up bribery). Should he be assigned to the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., Blagojevich could become the first governor to share a cell with someone he defeated at the polls. But don’t count Louisiana out. According to the Corporate Crime Reporter, it was No. 1 for the period between 1997 and 2006 with 326 federal corruption convictions. That’s a rate of 7.67 per 100,000. Illinois had 524 convictions in the same period, but with a larger population, its rate was only 4.68, which puts it an embarrassing sixth. And Louisiana can boast some impressive streaks. In 2001 Jim Brown became the third consecutive insurance commissioner to be convicted. Rep. William Jefferson, who was just defeated for re-election following corruption charges, apparently liked cold, hard cash so much he kept bundles of it in his freezer. His brother, sister and niece recently joined him under indictment. (Jefferson, his brother and niece have pleaded not guilty; his sister has pleaded guilty.) Corruption in Illinois grows out of a tradition of patronage politics—not just the old Democratic machine in Chicago, but also a Republican machine in the suburbs. Even as old-school politics has faded, however, scandals in Illinois have retained their ward-boss flavor. They still tend to revolve around petty, methodical rake-offs from the quotidian operations of government: liquor licenses, elevator inspections, speeding tickets and, above all, hiring. The paradigmatic Illinois crook was Paul Powell, who served as secretary of state in the 1960s. When Powell died, his executor found shoeboxes filled with $800,000 in cash (along with 49 cases of whisky and two of creamed corn) in the Springfield hotel room where he lived. The money had been collected in $5 and $10 increments from applicants who wanted to make sure they passed their driving tests. Under the old Richard J. Daley machine, city workers had to kick back about 5 percent of their salaries to the political organization that guaranteed their jobs. When, on a tapped phone line, he allegedly insisted that “you don’t just give it away for nothing,” Blagojevich was applying an old precept—though possibly for the first time at a senatorial level.
The Louisiana pathology is slightly different. Wayne Parent, a professor of political science at LSU, explains that with the discovery of oil and gas around 1912, politicians in the dirt-poor state suddenly controlled a gold mine in tax revenue. “They could spend this money virtually unsupervised,” he says, “as long as they threw enough crumbs to the masses to satisfy them.” This was the formula of populist governors Huey Long; his brother, Earl Long; and Edwin Edwards. Louisiana politicians have always liked big bribes for big projects better than crooked little schemes: Edwards, for instance, is serving time for collecting a $400,000 gratuity in exchange for a casino license.
The stylistic differences between Illinois and Louisiana can be described as David Mamet vs. Walker Percy. The corruption culture in Illinois tends to be mingy, pedestrian, shameful. State legislators who sell their votes for $25 cash in an envelope (a scandal of the 1970s) do not tend toward braggadocio. When former House speaker Dan Rostenkowski was caught filching postage stamps from the House post office, he pleaded guilty and apologized.
Louisiana’s culture of corruption, by contrast, is flamboyant and shameless. Earl Long once said that Louisiana voters “don’t want good government, they want good entertainment.” He spent part of his last term in a mental hospital, where his wife had him committed after he took up with the stripper Blaze Starr. When Sen. Allen Ellender died in office in 1972, Governor Edwards didn’t try to auction off his seat. He appointed his wife, Elaine, possibly to get her out of town. When Edwards ran for governor again in 1983, he said of the incumbent, “If we don’t get Dave Treen out of office, there won’t be anything left to steal.” Raised among figures like these, Louisianans tend to accept corruption as inevitable and to forgive it easily.
In recent years, however, Illinois and Louisiana seem to be copying each other. With Blagojevich, Illinois corruption has gone carnival. And since Katrina, Louisianans seem to have lost their zest for the big heist. There’s been no sympathy for officials caught siphoning disaster funds. It’s going to be a close contest again this year, but I’m betting on the Fighting Illini to claim the national championship.

IT’S been a rotten year for Chris Dodd. Time and again, the Connecticut senator has been caught both doing favors for heavy hitters and receiving them — and then lying about it. Sometimes the mess involves a firm like AIG or Countrywide, enmeshed in the abuses that have so damaged the US economy. Sometimes Dodd’s pal is just a felon in need of a presidential pardon. But the cavalcade of scandal clearly puts the five-term senator in danger of losing his next re-election bid.
Dodd’s collapse began last June, when Conde Nast Portfolio revealed that he had gotten two cut-rate mortgages of nearly $800,000 from subprime giant Countrywide Financial in 2003. As the magazine reported, Dodd was a “Friend of Angelo” — one of several notables marked for special treatment by Countrywide co-founder Angelo Mozilo. That triggered a dizzying carnival of misleading Dodd statements. First, he issued an angry written statement denying any favorable treatment. A few days later, he told some reporters that he knew he’d been treated as a VIP by Countrywide, while the same day assuring other reporters that he hadn’t. He also promised he would release documents related to his mortgages. It took more than seven months for him to produce anything, and he still hasn’t disclosed all the paperwork. On Feb. 2, he let some Connecticut reporters look at some papers — but allowed no copies to be made and refused to list the documents provided. Dodd has promised to refinance the Countrywide deals, which would save him at least $70,000 over the life of the mortgages. But this is plainly damage control, not remorse. There’s no question why Countrywide wanted Dodd’s friendship. Dodd has long been a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the industry. In 2003, at the time of the first sweetheart loan, he was close to becoming chairman — and a big catch for a company that depended on government policies that encouraged lending over prudence.

Nor is this the only sweetheart deal to surface:
* He bought a Washington, DC, condo in 1986 with New York bon vivant Edward Downe Jr. Dodd lived in the unit; Downe paid half the mortgage, fees and taxes — but rarely used the apartment. The subsidy ended in 1990 as federal authorities closed in on Downe’s lucrative off-shore insider-trading scheme. In 1994, Dodd bought a waterfront home on 10 acres in County Galway, Ireland. Actually, he got a 1/3 interest: Buying the rest was William “Bucky” Kessinger, Kansas City, Mo. real-estate developer (and also a college classmate and longtime business partner of Downe, who by then had been convicted. The total purchase price was $160,000; eight years later, Dodd bought out Kessinger for only $122,351. He says he also paid the balance of the outstanding mortgage — but other records suggest that couldn’t have been much, so Dodd still realized a substantial profit on the deal. Dodd claims that price was based on an independent appraisal. If so, he owned the only piece of property in Ireland that was nearly untouched by the biggest boom in Europe. Dodd’s Irish real-estate bonanza, likely worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars in 2002, came the year after he obtained a full presidential pardon for his and Kessinger’s pal Downe. Circumventing the usual vetting process for pardons, Dodd had made his plea directly to President Bill Clinton. Downe still owed millions to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The latest Dodd disaster, of course, involves those AIG bonuses. In February, Dodd inserted an amendment into the stimulus bill ensuring that executives of firms bailed out by the government could still collect already-contracted bonuses. When that became so controversial this month, Dodd at first denied doing the dirty work — then admitted it, but tried to blame the Obama administration. Even voters who might believe that story will also note that AIG had donated more to Dodd than to any other American politician. And now it turns out that his wife served for three years (2001-2004) on the board of a Bermuda-based company in the AIG constellation.

Polls show Dodd, long unassailable as a Democrat in Connecticut, in a close race with ex-Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Stonington). But his real danger comes from outside Connecticut. Jay Leno no longer needs much setup to skewer Dodd in his monologue. The California audience gets it, and the Connecticut one does, too.

Kevin Rennie, a lawyer and a former Republican state legislator, is a columnist for The Hartford Courant.

Posted: Friday, March 27, 2009
From NBC’s Chuck Todd

In the midst of the congressional outrage over bonuses and bailouts, many of the very firms who benefitted from TARP funds are still making political donations. And the politicians are still taking them. According to the latest F.E.C. data for February, several members of Congress who have been critical of the federal government’s bailout of U.S. companies have received campaign contributions just in the last six weeks – from the firms they bailed out. Campaign-finance-reform advocate Fred Wertheimer says the government’s been bailing out banks and other major “too-big-to-fail” firms — as these same companies continue to use their PACs to make contributions. “It all adds up to kind of a magic circle involving the government, TARP recipients, members of Congress, and campaign contributions.” The reality, of course, is that these contributions, individually, aren’t a lot of money. But many members of Congress (including Speaker Pelosi and Financial Services Chair Barney Frank) have decided against taking any of the money. The optics of this for both the banks and for the members of Congress is bad, and only feeds the credibility problems both entities have with the American public.

So who is getting money and giving it right back to the politicians? Here’s a list of companies who received at least $1 billion in TARP funds and in February alone also gave money to members of Congress or national parties: (Note: more TARP-recipients may have given money in February but not every company PAC reports their contributions monthly, some do it quarterly, meaning we won’t know until mid-April if these figures are actually higher)

Citigroup
Bank of America
Goldman Sachs
U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Chrysler
American Express
KeyCorp
BB&T
Huntington Shares

Now here’s a list of House leadership and banking committee members who got money from these bailed-out companies:
(Note: Some members of Congress received contributions directly to their campaign accounts and some received money to their leadership PACs.)
Steve Austria, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., $5,000 from Bank of America
Melissa Bean, D-Ill., $5,000 from Bank of America
Roy Blunt, R-Mo., $1,500 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
John Boehner, R-Ohio, $5,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from American Express; $1,500 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Kevin Brady, R-Texas, $1,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from American Express
Eric Cantor, R-Va., $2,500 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from Chrysler; $2,500 from American Express
Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., $1,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., $5,000 from Bank of America
Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., $1,000 from Chrysler
Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., $1,200 from Huntington Shares
Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, $1,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
Steny Hoyer, D-Md., $1,500 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., $1,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp
Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Leonard Lance, R-N.J., $1,000 from Citigroup; $2,000 from Goldman Sachs
Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., $1,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., $5,000 from Bank of America
Gary Miller, R-Calif., $1,000 from Bank of America
Gwen Moore, D-Wis., $2,500 from Bank of America
Richard Neal, D-Mass., $4,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from American Express
Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Devin Nunes, R-Calif., $5,000 from Bank of America
Glenn Nye, D-Va., $250 from BB&T
Mike Pence, R-Ind., $1,000 from Chrysler
Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., $1,000 from Chrysler
Mike Rogers, R-Mich., $1,000 from Chrysler
Pete Sessions, R-Texas, $5,000 from Bank of America
Lamar Smith, R-Texas, $1,000 from American Express
Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, $1,000 from Huntington Shares
Mel Watt, D-N.C., $1,000 from Bank of America; $1,000 from BB&T; $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC

But Senators also benefitted:
(Note: Both Reid and Shelby say they returned their checks.)

Michael Bennet, D-Colo., $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Robert Bennett, R-Utah, $1,000 from Chrysler
Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, $1,000 from Chrysler
Richard Burr, R-N.C., $5,000 from Bank of America
Tom Carper, D-Del., $620 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $5,000 from Bank of America
Jim DeMint, R-S.C., $2,000 from Citigroup; $1,000 from Bank of America; $2,000 from BB&T; $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., $1,000 from Citigroup
Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., $1,000 from Bank of America
Bob Menendez, D-N.J., $5,000 from Bank of America
Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., $2,500 from Citigroup; $4,000 from Bank of America
Harry Reid, D-Nev., $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp employee PAC
Richard Shelby, R-Ala., $5,000 from Bank of America
Arlen Specter, R-Pa., $2,000 from Chrysler
George Voinovich, R-Ohio, $5,000 from Bank of America

And so did the Parties.

The Democrats:
(Note: Both the DSCC and the DCCC say they never received the checks Bank of America reported in their March FEC report)
NDCPAC, $5,000 from Citigroup, $5,000 from Bank of America
Blue Dog PAC, $5,000 from Citigroup; $5,000 from Bank of America
DSCC , $15,000 from Bank of America
DCCC, $15,000 from Bank of America
FourOhDems, $1,000 from Huntington Shares

And the Republicans:
HouseConFund, $5,000 from Bank of America
GOP Main Street, $5,000 from Bank of America
NRSC, $15,000 from Bank of America
NRCC $15,000 from Bank of America

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs actually reported members of Congress who refused to cash their checks, including Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., Rep. Pete DeFazio, D-Ore., and then-Congressman and now chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Sen. Chris Dodd says Treasury forced him to add language to the stimulus bill last month that specifically excluded executive bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill’s passage. In a dramatic reversal Wednesday, Sen. Chris Dodd confessed to adding language to a spending cap in the stimulus bill last month that specifically excluded executive bonuses included in contracts signed before the bill’s passage. Dodd, D-Conn., told FOX News that Treasury officials forced him to make the change. “As many know, the administration was, among others, not happy with the language. They wanted some modifications to it,” he said. “They came to us, our staff, and asked for changes, and the changes at the time did not seem that obnoxious or onerous.” But the provision has become a flash point for criticism amid the controversy over $165 million in bonuses given out by AIG after securing more than $170 billion in federal aid. The language in the stimulus bill wasn’t specific to AIG, but some have expressed outrage that it appears to have created a loophole. Dodd said the argument put forward by Treasury was that a “flood of lawsuits” would come forward if the change was not made. Dodd said he was unaware of the AIG bonuses at the time the bill was being written back in early February. He also said he has no reason to believe Treasury officials making the argument knew about the AIG bonuses. When asked how administration officials have this kind of leverage over members of Congress, Dodd said, “The administration has veto power. … No one suggested a veto to me, I don’t want to imply that to you. But certainly that’s not an insignificant tool.” On Tuesday, Dodd told FOX News that he didn’t add the exemption. “When the language went to the conference and came back, there was different language,” he said then. “I can tell you this much, when my language left the Senate, it did not include it. When it came back, it did.” Dodd still thinks the Treasury can get the bonuses back, despite the inclusion of a date in the stimulus bill, and he said officials are, in fact, using his very language to claw back the money.
“There is language after that date that says explicitly that the Treasury has the right to modify, reaching back, those bonuses, compensations, if it’s inconsistent with the TARP legislation or contrary to the public interest,” he said. “In fact, it’s that phrase that the administration is relying on this evening as a means by which they can reach back and maybe get these bonuses back,” he said.
Still, Dodd has his enemies. The Senate Republican re-election campaign quickly shot out a statement on the Dodd reversal, as he is a prime target in the 2010 midterm elections and is facing a Republican opponent who, in one poll, is in a statistical tie with him.
“Senator Dodd’s reversal on this issue is both astonishing and alarming,” the National Republican Senatorial Campaign said in a written statement. “Contrary to his statements and denials over the last 24 hours, Senator Dodd has now admitted that he and his staff did in fact change the language in the stimulus bill to include a loophole for AIG executive bonuses.” The group added that Dodd had “misled voters and equivocated on his statements .”

By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
 News broke last week that Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, lived rent-free for years in the home of Rep. Rosa De Lauro, D-Conn. — and failed to disclose the gift, as congressional ethics rules mandate. But this is only the tip of Emanuel’s previously undisclosed ethics problems.  One issue is the work Emanuel tossed the way of De Lauro’s husband. But the bigger one goes back to Emanuel’s days on the board of now-bankrupt mortgage giant Freddie Mac.  Emanuel is a multimillionaire, but lived for the last five years for free in the tony Capitol Hill townhouse owned by De Lauro and her husband, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. During that time, he also served as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — which gave Greenberg huge polling contracts. It paid Greenberg’s firm $239,996 in 2006 and $317,775 in 2008. (Emanuel’s own campaign committee has also paid Greenberg more than $50,000 since 2004.)

To be fair, Greenberg had polling contracts with the DCCC before — but each new election cycle brings its own set of consultants. And Emanuel was certainly generous with his roommate. Emanuel never declared the substantial gift of free rent on any of his financial-disclosure forms. He and De Lauro claim that it was just allowable “hospitality” between colleagues. Hospitality — for five years?  Some experts suggest that it was also taxable income: Over five years, the free rent could easily add up to more than $100,000. Nor is this all that seems to have been missed in the Obama team’s vetting process. Consider: Emanuel served on the Freddie Mac board of directors during the time that the government-backed lender lied about its earnings, a leading contributor to the current economic meltdown. The Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight Agency later singled out the Freddie Mac board as contributing to the fraud in 2000 and 2001 for “failing in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.” In other words, board members ignored the red flags waving in their faces.

The SEC later fined Freddie $50 million for its deliberate fraud in 2000, 2001 and 2002.  Meanwhile, Emanuel was paid more than $260,000 for his Freddie “service.” Plus, after he resigned from the board to run for Congress in 2002, the troubled agency’s PAC gave his campaign $25,000 — its largest single gift to a House candidate.  That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? Now Rahm Emanuel is in the White House helping President Obama dig out of the mess that Freddie Mac helped start. The president’s chief of staff isn’t subject to Senate confirmation, but his ethics still matter. Is this the change that we can depend on?