WHY WON'T PELOSI AND HER CREW LET THE DEMOCRATS SOLVE THE MORTGAGE CRISIS? ARE THE BLUE DOGS THAT POWERFUL?

The menu of reasons to dismiss Al Wynn as a hopeless hack and Big Business Interests pimp is so extensive that anyone with an ounce of sense will find plenty of reasons to oppose him and support Donna Edwards. But the one that first got me going was his aggressive support for the credit card-written bankruptcy bill. What's a Democratic representative from a middle class, predominantly African-American, overwhelmingly Democratic, suburban district doing pushing a Republican bankruptcy bill. His campaign donations, of course, tell the story. Wynn's a whore for dozens of business groups, whose bidding he routinely does, regardless of the interests of his constituents. Among his big financial contributors are the real estate industry, commercial banks, and investment firms.

But today I received a thank you note from a woman in MD-04. She was thanking me for sending her an e-mail Blue America sent her asking her to contribute to Donna Edwards' campaign. She donated $5 and sent this note.

My husband and I live in a part of Montgomery County represented by Congressman Wynn. We don't have much to give but we count ourselves among the formerly middle class who recently lost our home to a predatory lender. I am happy and honored, determined and pissed and hopeful to have sent what we could towards the $100,000 goal. I can't thank you enough for what you are doing.

I had over 100 e-mails this week very much like that. These aren't going to be Al Wynn-voters. But Wynn is hardly the only reactionary, corrupt Democrat who is at least partially to blame for the sub-prime lending crisis in our country. Matt Stoller over at OpenLeft has done some great work on this issue. Do you want to know what a Blue Dog is? A Blue Dog is a Democrat who blocks reform that would help families in crisis because of the mortgage lending meltdown. Although the House Judiciary Committee is ready to send a reform bill to the full House, there are enough reactionary Democrats threatening to join Republicans to make it pointless.

The reason the subprime mortgage meltdown is so problematic is because homeowners can't renegotiate mortgages for primary residences in bankruptcy court. If you declare bankruptcy, you still can't get out from under your mortgage debt, which essentially enslaves people whose home value has dropped lower than their debt amount.

The good news is that Brad Miller, Linda T. Sánchez, Barney Frank, and Mel Watt have a bill in Congress that empowers bankruptcy courts to restructure mortgages for primary residences. You can find out more here and here. It's a very sane and reasonable approach that lets people declare bankruptcy and get out from under horrific levels of debt.

Knowing how vulnerable he is, electorally, Wynn has sat by mum, while his political allies have done their best to sabotage the assistance most Democrats want to offer homeowners who find themselves in dire straits a reasonable way out-- the way they always, always, always offer "reasonable" ways out for Big Business (usually in the form of massive taxpayer-funded bailouts).

Instead of offering you a list of the Democrats most actively working to screw over homeowners-- many of them the regular suspects who are always opposing everything and anything progressive, from ending Bush's wars to extending civil rights to minorities, let me give you each of their names with the legal bribes they have taken from the Finance/Insurance/Real Estate industries whose interests they are serving:

Lincoln Davis (TN):
2006: $79,600
2008: $89,486

John Tanner (TN):
2006: $292,579
2008: $127,396

Tim Mahoney (FL):
2006: $183,850
2008: $213,565

Jim Matheson (UT):
2006: $455,600
2008: $117,344

Allen Boyd (FL):
2006: $165,042
2008: $57,550

Jim Marshall (GA):
2006: $166,401
2008: $90,342

David Scott (GA):
2006: $300,152
2008: $157,741

Bean, Melissa (IL):
2006: $404,527
2008: $400,851

Mike Ross (AR):
2006: $170,139
2008: $56,700

Baron Hill (IN):
2006: $110,934
2008: $65,650

Mike Thompson (CA):
2006: $168,413
2008: $116,919

Bart Gordon (TN):
2006: $119,750
2008: $48,250

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD):
2006: $162,848
2008: $59,400

Charlie Melancon (LA):
2006: $186,265
2008: $56,700

Dan Boren (OK):
2006: $113,370
2008: $98,200