Someone just forwarded me this invitation.  I love birthday cake!

From: Heather Podesta <heatherpodesta@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 14:44:35
To: XYZ
Subject: Mr. Chairman -- Keep the Party Going

Dear Friends,

Please join us on Wednesday, June 13, at 8:00 am for a breakfast honoring Congressman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY). Rep. Rangel is Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. We are thrilled for this opportunity to celebrate and honor a truly dedicated and hard-working public servant. Serving as Dean of the New York Delegation, Charlie is the fourth-longest serving Democratic member of the House. He is also celebrating a 77th birthday on Monday.

We hope you can join us for what promises to be an intimate and belated birthday party. The event will be held at the Phoenix Park Hotel, 520 North Capitol Street, and the suggested contribution is $2,500 PAC and $1,000 personal. Checks can be made out to "Rangel for Congress." Please forward this invite to someone who may also be interested in attending or contributing.

Thank you for your consideration,

Heather

Here's who Heather Podesta is.  Yes, Podesta should be a familiar name.  She's the wife of big name lobbyist Tony Podesta, who is the brother of Clinton White House Chief of Staff and current Center for American Progressive head John Podesta.

Progressives have a lot of work ahead of us.

Oh, and if you have $1000 for a breakfast or $2500 from your PAC, I'm sure it's going to be yummy. They'll probably have bacon. Mmmm.

This is a problem.  Both Charlie Rangel and Max Baucus are looking to renew Bush's Fast Track authority to negotiate trade deals.  As Sirota has pointed out, Baucus just reversed himself on the issue this week.  I just cannot understand why these people think it's a good idea to give Bush more authority, or why they think these trade agreements are going to help anyone except a small group of corporate elites.  

I mean, I know they are talking about making sure there are environmental and labor standards, but here's what I need to know, aside from the fact that developing countries are going to be impoverished by Doha (according to Oxfam, h/t Baldrick).

World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy visits Washington next week to confer with U.S. negotiators and the business community about ways to move the long-running talks forward. Lamy will have lunch with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Monday, and then plans to sit down with U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab Wednesday. Negotiators for major players in the talks, launched in 2001, have set yet another deadline for wrapping up the talks. They now hope to conclude a deal by year's end.

The WTO is meeting with the US Chamber of Commerce and Bush's trade representative.  That's interesting.  And then there's this.

Rangel was vague, however, on whether a Doha-only fast-track extension would have to include enforceable International Labor Organization (ILO) standards, an issue that has stalled broader negotiations between lawmakers and the administration. The Doha talks, focused on helping the world's poor, do not include labor issues.

The Center for American Progress likes Rangel's approach.  I don't get it.  Why do we need fast track?  Why does Congress need to hand over authority to Bush?  Why can't Bush negotiate an agreement and subject it to normal Congressional approval?  And why does anyone in their right mind think that an agreement is going to come out of this process that actually has enforceable provisions on labor and the environment?  These business groups have shown that they will lay down in the middle of the road in front of an approaching army rather than accept any constraints on their behavior.

What's the urgency here?

In an unrelated by kind of cool note, Trade Representative Susan Schwab's former husband was a professional magician.  

I've been going through the NAFTA debate from 1990-1994, and almost no one in politics comes out well.  Characters that are notably bad include Bill Bradley and Al Gore.  Characters that are spectacularly bad include Bill Clinton and Bill Richardson, who actually pioneered some of the K-Street whipping tactics Tom Delay later used in the House.  The story connects business coalitions to Daley's urban Chicago machine (Rahm) to the current crop of Democratic media-pollster-consultants (Mandy Grunwald, Carter Eskew, Stanley Greenberg) to a horrible trivializing media establishment.  And looking at it now, the insiders involved in the fight on the pro-NAFTA side got really rich through their relationships with defense contractors, telecom, and pharma.  

All the elements of the war with Iraq were there in that fight.  Through it all, I'm struck by just how pathetic and callow a figure Dick Gephardt cuts, and how badly labor and the environmental movements handled themselves from a strategic standpoint.  David Bonior, Ralph Nader, Lori Wallach, Sherrod Brown and Marcy Kaptur come out reasonably well.  But it strikes me that the political system today is broken in ways that we haven't even begun to understand.

For instance, I just don't understand this.

A senior U.S. Democratic lawmaker said on Tuesday he believed Congress would give the Bush administration a limited extension of fast-track trade negotiating authority to finish current world trade talks.

"We are prepared to give a restricted fast-track, limited to the Doha convention," House of Representative Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, said in remarks at a National Press Club luncheon...

After his speech, Rangel said the Bush administration would need to make a formal legislative request before Congress would act on the issue. The length of any renewal would depend on the time estimated to complete the Doha round, Rangel said.

Rangel also made clear he does not want the White House to frame its request in a way that blames Congress for the death of Doha if fast track is not renewed.

Can anyone who knows Charlie Rangel explain why he's doing this?  The guy just started a PAC with Baucus to attract business donations in the wake of his ascension to the Ways and Means Chair.  I'm honestly curious as to what Rangel is thinking here, both in terms of being excessively friendly to business interests and being afraid of a backlash from a trade deal that isn't widely understood (or in all likelihood very popular).  I'd particular appreciate comments from people who know trade issues or are from New York and know Rangel.

Update [2007-4-19 9:43:58 by Matt Stoller]: This is an interesting comment from debcoop.

Charlie has always been a little more free trade than other progressives. I know that he's interested in helping some of the islands in the Caribbean and he feels that some free trade agreements may help them over helping China or other Asian manufacturers.

As chairman of ways and means he has a lot of authority in this area. And I may be giving him more progressive cred than warranted, but I think he thinks the horse is already out of the barndoor on globalization so you might as well get as much benefit to folks as is possible.

Charlie also does indeed want to raise money for the party and he wants to do it through him. He loooves being Chairman of Ways and Means. It's why he ran again this time, why he worked so hard raising money in 2006 and it impacted his marriage. His wife wanted him to stop....and well they're not together anymore. He wants to stay chairman.

And remember Charlie has been in congress a long time. He remembers a more congenial, bipartisan time.

With the recent successes of Congressional Democrats at passing legislation that, if signed into law, would fundamentally change American policy towards Iraq and which, at the least, for once and for all puts Republicans on the record as supporting an unending U.S. military presence in Iraq, it is possible to overlook the fact that the new Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate are having tangible effects upon other areas of American politics. The prosecutor purge scandal, which is being watched more closely by Americans than other previous scandals like the one that centered on the fall of the savings and loan industry or those surrounding Tom DeLay, Jim Wright and Dan Rostenkowski, and upon which the vast majority of Americans agree with the Democratic insistence that Bush administraton officials testify when subpoenaed by Congress, is a good example of this -- but it's not the only one. In Wednesday's issue of The Hill, for instance, Ian Swanson reports on the tough stance House Democrats are taking on the issue of trade, which provides a stark contrast to the willingness of Republican Congresses past to accept any trade legislation put forward by President Bush no matter how deleterious such bills would be to most Americans.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) yesterday unveiled a set of conditions he said must be met before the administration's trade agenda in the Democratic Congress moves forward.

Rangel presented the wide-ranging policy, which covered everything from labor rights to port security, at a noon meeting of the Democratic Caucus where the points won an endorsement, he said. Rangel previously shared such policy details in separate meetings on March 23 and Monday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Following the caucus meeting, Rangel presented his ideas to U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, as well as to top Ways and Means Republicans, with a simple message.

"All we have said was that we have won the election. We are in the majority. It just makes sense that we should not have to beg for consideration of things that we think would be good for trade and good for America," Rangel told reporters.

[...]

Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), who chairs the Ways and Means trade subcommittee, said that text in the pending free-trade agreements (FTAs) must be altered to meet Democratic demands, and that Democrats would work to meet the end-of-month deadline. He also indicated other options could be considered.

Levin said fast track could be extended if the administration were willing to fit the Democratic principles into the current fast-track authority, but he questioned whether the administration would agree to such terms.

In recent years, Iraq has not been the only area of policy that the Bush White House has sought to dominate by executive fiat and Congressional Republican submission. But that has largely changed since Democrats assumed power on Capitol Hill as evidenced by these strong statements by Rangel and Levin, as well as other recent instances such as Barbara Boxer's smackdown of Jim Inhofe at the Congressional hearing on climate change at which Al Gore testified.

And getting beyond the overarching discussion of what Democratic control over Congress has done to change Washington, the move by Rangel and Levin to force the administration's hand on trade, requiring the White House to rework trade agreements so that they are not stacked against the American worker, many American businesses, America's national security and the environment in the world (not to mention workers and others in the countries with which the deals have been negotiated), is much needed in this country today. I will not argue that there are not some benefits to the liberalization of trade barriers. But to do so without regard to workers' rights, the environment and the safety of nations signing such deals can in fact go far to weaken the countries involved. So if the Bush administration is not willing to go back and renegotiate its pending trade agreements, it won't be such a great loss to America -- or other nations, either -- if the deals are put on hold for a couple years until a saner administration is in office.

Ain't I a Woman?

-- Sojourner Truth

Welcome to Sista Scola in what is becoming Woman Weekend at MyDD. I am Woman, hear me blog. Feel the Femininity. Of course, I too am Jerome Armstrong in reality. It's sort of like Eddie Murphy in the Nutty Professor. I find inspiration for the character of "Jill" in my big butt and bad attitude.

Please Note: This will be my last MyDD post until 2007. In the meantime, I lift a frosty glass of soy egg nog (or as I like to call it -- "snog") to you and wish you the happiest of possible holidays.

Lead Story --

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rounds up Hispanic workers using racial profiling in TX leaving at least 400 child citizens without parents. Just in time for Feliz Navidad. Latina Lista, MigraMatters, Pachacutec @ FireDogLake, and Atrios have the story. I'll let the Unapologetic Mexican guest-blogging at PatriotBoy have the last bitter, satirical word: I Pack the Meat That Todo El Mundo Eats

Congressional Black Caucus Members This Week --

* The Washington Post writes a love letter this week to the most powerful black legislator ever: Prometheus 6 and others comment on Charlie Rangel's (co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus) "awesome" profile.  

* Dollar Bill Jefferson does not re-join Rangel on the Ways and Means committee despite inexplicable appeals from the CBC. (Jack and Jill Politics)

* According to the Washington Times, Nancy Pelosi met with incoming CBC chair Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) who urged Pelosi to address the astonishing lack of diversity in Hill staffers. Among thousands of staffers, the Times reports that only about 50 minority staffers of any race can be found in Capitol Hill offices.

According to a running joke one House staffer shared with The Times, "the only people who hire blacks and Hispanics around here are blacks, Hispanics and Republicans."

I've been writing a fair amount recently about the alignment of forces in the House that look poised for conflict after the (we're supposing) Dem win next week.

The kerfuffle over the remarks of Ellen Tauscher a day or two back and other noises off suggesting that the Blue Dogs will be making their presence felt have added to the expectancy.

Today, we get the Post suggesting not only that it'll shortly be seconds out in the Hoyer/Murtha fight for Majority Whip, but that Rahmbo is supposedly contemplating trying to take down Caucus chairman Clyburn.

Over the last year, Speaker Pelosi has moved from manually aided lefty druther to odds-on bet.

And, to prove it, the Lioness garners profiles in the Post (on A1 on Saturday) and the LA Times (ditto).

But the Speaker-elect may well be up to her - knees, shall we say? - in internecine strife well before she gets to park her posterior in her chair of office.

You know you're in trouble when even that concern troll Wolf Blitzer starts actually practicing journalism on you.  

Check out this little gem, in which Blitzer grills Patrick McHenry (R-NC), demanding evidence to back up his insinuations that the Democrats had something to do with the timing of the Foleygate scandal/coverup coverage:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/10/08 /blitzer-to-gop-rep-yes-_n_31229.html