Two Dems Back Republican Push for Countrywide VIP Subpoena

ABCNews' Matthew Jaffe reports:

A House panel's contentious battle over issuing a subpoena to obtain documents about a controversial Countrywide program took a turn Thursday night when two Democratic members on the committee supported the ranking Republican's request to proceed with the investigation.

Rep. Paul Hodes, D-NH, and Rep. Mike Quigley, D-IL, wrote to House Oversight & Government Reform committee chairman Ed Towns, D-NY, and Darrell Issa, R-CA, informing the panel chiefs of their desire to issue a subpoena.

“We write to you today to request that the committee initiate an investigation into Countrywide Financial's “Friends of Angelo” program, and if it was used to gain influence over federal officials,” Hodes and Quigley wrote. “We believe that to properly conduct this investigation, the committee needs to gain access to all documents related to the program that Countrywide used to provide preferred status to certain customers.”

In recent weeks, Issa has vehemently argued for Towns to issue a subpoena, but Towns has refused to do so. Issa then attempted to call a committee vote on the subpoena, but a bizarre sequence of cancellations and lock-outs has prevented the California lawmaker from bringing the panel to a vote.

More HERE

The new support of Hodes and Quigley, a Republican committee aide told ABC News, now gives the GOP the necessary votes to pass the subpoena measure, assuming they can manage to bring it to a vote.

“Ranking member Issa fully supports the outline that Reps. Hodes and Quigley have outlined,” said Kurt Bardella, the spokesman for Issa. “He believes it is a blueprint for a fair and comprehensive investigation that will uncover the full scope of Countrywide's efforts to buy influence.”

Issa has fought to gain documents on the murky Countrywide program, which he has said was used to give sweetheart deals to federal government officials and members of Congress who worked on housing policy in an effort to gain their support.

More HERE

Democrats have called the GOP's push for a vote a political stunt to embarrass two prominent Senate Democrats, Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad, who received special VIP loans from the lender. Dodd chairs the Senate Banking committee and Conrad the Senate Budget committee.

Countrywide, once the nation's largest home mortgage lender, collapsed in 2008 in the midst of the subprime mortgage meltdown. In June, the company's former CEO was charged by the Securities & Exchange Commission with civil fraud and insider trading, making him the highest-profile official to date faced with federal charges stemming from the financial crisis.
More HERE

-Matthew Jaffe

DeMint Trip to Honduras Back On? Travel Authorized after Senate Leadership Intervenes

ABC News' Viviana Hurtado reports: Senator Jim DeMint’s trip to Honduras, which was blocked by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry (D-MA), is back on,

A senior DeMint staffer tells ABC News, but only after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) became involved. The Kentucky lawmaker used his leadership position to authorize DeMint’s trip through the Department of Defense, and not the State Department, which is customary for Senate overseas travel.

DeMint who supports the de facto government, accuses the Democrats of “playing politics.” In a statement, the South Carolina Republican says, “These bullying tactics by the Obama administration and Senator Kerry must stop, and we must be allowed to get to the truth in Honduras. Not a single U.S. Senator has traveled to Honduras to learn the facts on the ground. And the Obama administration won't allow Honduran officials or even businessmen to come to the U.S., either. While this administration has failed to act decisively in Afghanistan, it is has no problem cracking down on a democratic ally and one of the poorest nations in Latin America.”

Senators Kerry and DeMint are most recently at odds over the nomination of Arturo Valenzuela to be the next Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs and Tom Shannon, the current Assistant Secretary and nominee to be Ambassador to Brazil. In the case of Valenzuela, DeMint was not pleased with what he interpreted as Valenzuela’s lack of knowledge about the Honduran crisis that led to the June ouster of President Manuel Zelaya, who the Obama Administration backs. Valenzuela, who served the Clinton Administration and has taught politics at Duke and Georgetown universities, is considered an authority in Latin American politics.

Senator Kerry gives DeMint “an A for ‘audacity.’” In a statement, the senior Senator from Massachusetts says, “Thanks to his intransigence, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can’t even hold hearings on our policy in Central and South America. Sen. DeMint is blocking the nominations of two key officials who will implement President Obama’s foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.” The Senator continues, “When Senator DeMint lifts these holds and allows these individuals to receive an up or down vote on the Senate floor, the Committee will approve his travel to Honduras, a country that is in the middle of delicate, political crisis.”

Senator DeMint is scheduled to travel to Honduras on Friday as the head of a Congressional delegation that includes: Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL), Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), and Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) to meet with the de facto President Roberto Micheletti and some Honduran lawmakers.

ABC News' Kirit Radia contributed to this report.

GOP Senate Candidate: I’m Not Giving Back Joe Wilson Money

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:

The Connecticut Democratic Party is using $8,000 worth of donations from the man whom they have dubbed Rep. Joe “You Lie!” Wilson, R-S.C., to impugn former Rep. Rob Simmons, the Connecticut Republican who is hoping to be the GOP's Senate nominee against embattled Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd.

Contacted by ABC News, Simmons indicated that he has no plans to return the Wilson funds.

“I think that was quite a long time ago, wasn't?” said Simmons who had not personally seen the press release from the Connecticut Democratic Party.

Asked about Wilson's outburst, Simmons said, “All I know from reading the newspapers, is that a representative made a comment and then apologized.”

Simmons then attempted to turn the tables on Dodd who announced earlier this week that he has decided to keep the Senate Banking Committee gavel instead of moving to become chairman of the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee which used to be chaired by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

“Maybe Chris Dodd needs to be giving back some banker money,” said Simmons.

“I think he should begin by giving back all the banker money that he has been stuffing into his pockets this year,” he added.

Simmons says that if he were to ever become chairman of a Senate Committee, he will not accept money from the industries he is charged with overseeing.

He would, however, raise money from them if he were merely a junior member.

Back to School: Slowing the Spread of H1N1

ABC News' Mary Bruce reports: As children across the country head back to class, schools are expected to become both a breeding ground for the spread of H1N1 and a key arena for the fight against a resurgence of the deadly virus. At a back to school event this morning, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius joined forces to highlight strategies to continue learning in the event of student absences and to educate parents and students on how to slow the spread of H1N1.

“This has the potential to be a difficult school year in some schools,” Duncan said. “As the school year begins, I'm concerned that the H1N1 virus might disrupt learning in some schools across the country.”

“Some schools may experience large absentee rates, some across the country might even need to be closed temporarily at some point during the school year…Today we're releasing recommendations for school officials in case H1N1 interrupts the academic progress of students or requires a school to close temporarily. Principals and teachers need to be prepared. They should have packages of learning materials to send home with students and they need to find online resources for students to learn from at home,” Duncan said. The Secretary also urged teachers to plan lessons that can be taught over the phone or online to students taken out of class.

Sebelius highlighted mitigation strategies including hand washing and encouraging children to cough into their sleeves, rather than covering their mouths.

“What we know is that we are a couple of months away from a vaccine being ready to go and when that's ready we anticipate using schools as partners to make sure we reach out to kids, who are a priority population to get the vaccination, and get parents thinking about that already so we have school resource kits and school guidance that will be available,” Sebelius said. “If a child is sick we would strongly urge parents to keep their children home, which means having a backup plan.”

The Note, 2/27/09: Iraq Roll: Might a war strategy help Obama get back on bipartisan track?

By RICK KLEIN

What?s easier to spend — a few trillion dollars, or one election?s worth of political capital?

What?s easier to tax — families making more than $250,000, or the patience of the American people?

Who should we really be paying attention to at CPAC — the 2012ers, the congressional leaders, or the anxious, Twittering, under-40 masses who are neither (yet)?

Might it be that the road to bipartisanship — under less-than-shovel-ready construction in Washington — now travels through Iraq?

The debate over President Obama?s budget proposal seems hauntingly familiar — a blueprint praised by the party in power as responsible spending, and denounced by the party out of it as irresponsible and unrealistic. It is a test of the president?s relationship with the American people, and not one it?s clear he?ll pass at this point.

As if that?s not enough — while the Treasury Department takes another shot at saving Citigroup on Friday — next up for the president comes Iraq.

Obama delivers an 11:45 am ET speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where he outlines his plans for troop withdrawal.

Already, his bid for bipartisanship on that front is off to a better start: ?President Obama won crucial backing on Thursday for his Iraq military withdrawal plan from leading Congressional Republicans, including Senator John McCain,? Peter Baker reports in The New York Times. ?Republicans emerged from a meeting Thursday evening more supportive than several leading Democrats, who complained earlier in the day that the president was still leaving behind too many American forces.?

?According to one congressional official, lawmakers were told that Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Baghdad, believed the plan presented moderate risk but supported the 50,000 [residual troops] figure,? per the AP?s Anne Flaherty.

There?s a connection here to matters domestic: The most powerful item Obama is selling is his brand, and for now it?s tied up in perceptions of how he achieves things almost as much as what he actually achieves.

What you?ll hear, again, and again: ?Obama’s decision on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, which he’s expected to announce within days, is a classic example of the gulf between campaigning and governing,? writes Newsweek?s John Barry.

If Obama is seen as taking a centrist path to end a conflict Americans are tired of, it might yet be a way to shore up public trust. It wouldn?t be the first time that the war and the economy combine to boost Obama?s fortunes (recall how his campaign shifted, along with the country?s attention, from the war to the economic crisis).

The Iraq war seems an unlikely front for finding a new tone. But might it be that a war that undid one president could wind up offering a boost to the next one?

Look who?s not jumping up to applaud: ?The speaker of the House has been standing up for herself — distancing herself from the president on Iraq, on tax cuts and on the prosecution of former Bush administration officials,? Politico?s John Bresnahan reports. ?While Newt Gingrich complained that Tuesday?s night unofficial State of the Union looked like a ?Democratic pep rally,? the aftermath has looked more like a sibling rivalry.?

This time, the president may not mind problems on his left: ?President Obama sought yesterday to quell growing complaints from members of Congress about his plans for drawing down troops in Iraq,? Anne Kornblut and Paul Kane write in The Washington Post. ?Of the Democratic congressional leaders, only [Sen. Richard] Durbin has defended the plan, saying that it is not easy to meet Obama’s campaign promise of a nearly complete withdrawal in such a short time frame without posing a risk to the soldiers that are left behind to help with embassy security and further training of Iraqi security forces.?

?No doubt that this is a plan to end the war in Iraq, and that is what the President will say,? says a senior administration official, per ABC?s Luis Martinez.

Martinez reports: ?The President will announce an 18-month drawdown plan that will result in the combat mission in Iraq ending on August 31, 2010. After that date, these officials expect the current force of 142,000 troops in Iraq being drawn down to a force remaining US force of between 35,000-50,000.?

On Friday?s setting: ?In choosing Jacksonville, home of the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune, to announce his plan, Obama has found a town with a distinct military flavor. Marine Boulevard is the main drag, and there’s a thriving trade for barbers advertising buzz cuts,? USA Today?s Tom Vanden Brook writes.

That?s yet another trip to a state that flipped from red to blue in 2008. ABC?s David Chalian points out that, counting his Ohio trip right before the inauguration, Obama has now made recent trips to six of the nine states he moved to the Democratic column. (Nevada, Iowa, and New Mexico await.)

To add to the mix this Friday — a statement Friday morning from Treasury: ?Citigroup is planning to strengthen its capital structure through conversion of a significant portion of its preferred securities to common equity in a series of exchange offers. Citigroup requested that the Treasury participate in this exchange offer by converting a portion of its preferred security to common equity alongside the other preferred holders.?

Citi statement: ?Citi today announced it will issue common stock in exchange for preferred securities, which will substantially increase its tangible common equity (TCE) without any additional U.S. government investment. The transaction is intended to build Citi’s TCE to a level that removes uncertainty and restores investor confidence in the company.?

Not a government takeover, reports ABC?s George Stephanopoulos, on ?Good Morning America? Friday. ?The big question is, will this be enough??

?The deal, announced Friday morning, is designed to ease jitters about the soundness of one of the world’s largest financial institutions. The Treasury has agreed to convert some of its current holdings of preferred Citigroup shares into common stock, a move that could better protect shareholders against future losses,? The Wall Street Journal?s Deborah Solomon and David Enrich write.

As for the budget — a different surge, and a very different type of battle: ?Whatever else it is, President Obama?s budget is a political gamble of the first order,? John Harwood writes in The New York Times. ?Whether Mr. Obama has overreached or succeeded in putting the nation on a sharply different course will largely depend on the same political skills that delivered him the presidency.?

A battle with a big upside: ?He’s racing up the basketball court of American public life at a furious pace,? Howard Fineman writes for Newsweek. ?Obama wants to pile up a crushing lead on the scoreboard early in the game — when his popularity is high and he can still lay all the blame on his predecessor — and hope that the resulting momentum will impress the world (he goes to Europe for the G-8 in April), reluctant global investors (the sovereign wealth funds are sitting on trillions) and, of course, American voters and consumers.?

?President Obama’s first budget . . . underscores the breadth of his aspiration to reverse three decades of conservative governance and use his presidency to rapidly transform the country,? The Washington Post?s Dan Balz writes. ?He is now gambling with his own future and the success of his presidency.? (Remember when McCain was the gambler?)

?Obama will face increasing partisan opposition to major elements of his plan, even as he attempts to change the tone of political debate in Washington. But he may run into resistance from some Democrats as well, given the size of his ambitions,? Balz continues.

All at once, should you choose to swallow it: ?Even if Obama achieves only part of his goals, that could leave a long record of accomplishment. But by proposing action on such a wide range of fronts, Obama also risks overloading the often cumbersome legislative machinery of Capitol Hill,? Janet Hook writes in the Los Angeles Times.

?Democrats on Capitol Hill welcomed President Obama’s budget as a long-awaited reordering of the government’s priorities. Republicans expressed dismay for much the same reason,? Naftali Bendavid reports in The Wall Street Journal. ?But even some Democrats expressed unease with some of the president’s sweeping proposals, which include calls for higher taxes on affluent Americans and businesses, a new form of energy tax and big cuts to some long-favored programs. Mr. Obama’s budget reflects his vow to change the way Washington works, but some changes can have powerful opponents.?

Here?s your optimism: ?If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course,? Paul Krugman writes in his New York Times op-ed. ?The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats who were starting to feel a bit of postpartisan depression.?

Gimmick watch: ?President Barack Obama?s promise to slash a record deficit may rely on economic-growth projections for the coming years that are too optimistic,? Bloomberg?s Ryan J. Donmoyer and Roger Runningen report. ?The $3.55 trillion budget proposal for 2010 the president unveiled yesterday projects 3.2 percent economic growth next year, thanks to a $787 billion fiscal-stimulus measure he signed into law earlier this month that is aimed at creating jobs and consumer demand. That is twice the 1.5 percent growth projected by the Congressional Budget Office before the stimulus bill was enacted and higher than the 2.1 percent consensus growth estimate by analysts in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators survey.?

Not a bad time for conservatives to gather in Washington. Friday starts the 2012 cattle call at the Conservative Political Action Committee.

Your Friday-Saturday speakers include Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Mark Sanford, and Tim Pawlenty.

From Romney?s address, per excerpts provided to The Note: ?President Obama was awfully vague about some of his plans, but I think I heard him say that government is responsible for educating a child from birth — from birth — to its first job. Universal pre-school. And there were hints as well of universal college, universal healthcare and a universal service corps. It all sounds very appealing, until you realize that these plans involve universal government.?

One speaker who is more focused on 2010 (find the slogan here): ?The stimulus, the omnibus, the budget — it?s all one big down payment on a new American socialism,? House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, plans to say, per excerpts provided to The Note. ?They lay the groundwork for everything in these bills: expanded welfare, government-run health care, ?green? jobs — the works. They even want you to pay your irresponsible neighbor?s mortgage. All of it is being done on the backs of our children and grandchildren. All of these bills seek to replace our economic freedom with the whims and mandates of politicians and bureaucrats.?

The Washington Post?s Joel Achenbach: ?Socialism in America: That’s a big theme we’re picking up as we dip into the Conservative Political Action Conference, which kicked off this morning at the Omni Shoreham. The presence of thousands of conferees proves that conservatives still do exist in this country, though they’re not exactly happy warriors at the moment. They’re more like shipwreck survivors, marooned on a desert island.?

?Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff,? said former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark.

How to rally these troops: ?With all due respect, Sen. McCain dramatically suspended his campaign, flew back to Washington, not to champion those congressional Republicans, but to join meekly Barack Obama in voting for the bailout, a bailout that most Americans opposed,? he said Thursday at CPAC, per ABC?s Tahman Bradley.

Keeping troops in line, on the other side: ?Leading progressives are putting congressional Democrats on notice that they will recruit and support primary challenges to vulnerable incumbents who become ?more responsive to corporate America than to their constituents,? ? ABC?s Teddy Davis reports.

Said Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the liberal DailyKos blog: ?We don’t want a repeat of 1994 and we don’t want our own version of 2006. . . . I?d like everyone to be primaried.?

Laura Bush sat down with ABC?s Jonathan Karl, for her first post-White House interview: ?We really miss the — all of the great people that worked for us that we spent every day with and got to know so well. George is on the BlackBerry to them now all of the time,? the former first lady said. ?But, you know, it’s a very, very different life, especially for the president who had every problem in the world on his desk one day, and then an empty desk the next day.?

KARL: ?And is he having a hard time adjusting??

BUSH: ?Not really. I don’t think so. I mean, it’s — I think that I’m sort of having to adjust in not feeling stressed all of the time. I think — I didn’t realize how stressful that life was until I went to bed one night and thought, now what am I going to do tomorrow? Got in bed and sort of worried and then remembered, I didn’t have anything to do tomorrow except unpack boxes and have fun and see my friends.?

(And why ever could newspapers be in trouble: ?The only thing we don’t have are the newspapers. It has been slow to get The Dallas Morning News delivered,” she said. “People bring the newspaper to us later in the day. It’s just not being delivered yet.”)

You know it?s bad a Treasury when Paul Volcker speaks up on staffing shortages: ?There is an area that I think is, I don’t know, shameful is the word,? Volcker said Thursday, per ABC?s Matthew Jaffe. ?The Secretary of the Treasury is sitting there without a deputy, without any undersecretaries, without any, as far as I know, assistant secretaries responsible in substantive areas at a time of very severe crisis. He shouldn’t be sitting there alone.?

ABC?s Jake Tapper asks Treasury to respond, on ?Good Morning America? Friday: ?Which deputy secretary, undersecretary, and assistant secretary positions have been filled and have not been filled??

?They got back to us later, confirming no additional senior staff had been hired,? Tapper reported.

It?s not just Treasury: ?As President Obama rolls out one of the most ambitious agendas in US history, federal agencies are struggling to administer hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of new projects and to enact sweeping policy changes with a mere handful of senior staff members in place, in part due to an increasingly tough vetting policy initiated by Obama himself,? Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender report in The Boston Globe. ?Only about 70 people have been formally nominated to fill the roughly 500 senior posts in the Defense, State, Treasury, and Education departments and dozens of other government agencies, according to White House records. Dozens of nominations are still pending as FBI and White House officials scrub potential nominees’ tax returns, financial ties, and former activities in government.?

If he won?t jump . . . ?Gov. Pat Quinn said Thursday if embattled U.S. Sen. Roland Burris doesn’t step down within the next two weeks, he wants lawmakers to approve a special election that could effectively remove Burris from office,? Rick Pearson and Monique Garcia report in the Chicago Tribune. ?Quinn, appearing on ?The Steve Cochran Show? on WGN-AM, said he spoke to the top two Democrats in the General Assembly about the possibility of moving ahead with legislation to set up a special election, which would take advantage of a clause in the U.S. Constitution’s 17th Amendment.?

Sunday on ?This Week?: Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va. — plus Karl Rove on the roundtable.

Sam Donaldson retires from full-time work at ABC on Friday, when he?ll host ABC NewsNOW?s ?Politics Live? for the final time.

More highlights inside of six minutes than most newsmen could fit in six lifetimes.

And my homage to Sam — a superb newsman who has no false modesty because there?s nothing false about him.

The Kicker:

Tweet of the day: ?Win a free Wii from Newt for fighting card check. Booth 623 by #rebuild #efcafail.? — Patrick Ruffini.

?I miss plumbing tremendously.? — Samuel ?Joe the Plumber? Wurzelbacher, taking Washington, one fan at a time.

Bookmark the link below to get The Note?s daily morning analysis:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/the_note/index.html

For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note?s blog . . . all day every day:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/

Follow The Note on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thenote