Turn Over The Shit-Smeared Rock And You'll Find... Mark Penn Fellating Trump

Mr. and Mrs. Penn

Yesterday, reporting for the New York Times, Annie Karni wrote of Mark Penn's "inevitable... long-running political metamorphosis." An alternative interpretation of Penn's meeting with Trump last week is that the inevitability is that two sticky-palmed grifters were meant for each other. Him and his wretched wife, Nancy Jacobson, are two of American politics' most dishonest people, stealing massively from anyone they come in contact with foolish enough to take an eye off either of them. We'll get to the latest fraud case working its way against them in a moment. First I just want to list the members of the so-called Problem Solvers Caucus, which Penn once had Trump address. Most of the GOP problem-makers were defeated in November, so the group, which prides itself on having an even number of Dems and Republicans is now way over-balanced with Dems, but since they're virtually all from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, many on their way to the same inevitable "metamorphosis" Penn is in the midst of, it doesn't really matter anyway; does it? First all the ones who call themselves Democrats:

• Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Julia Brownley (New Dem-CA)
• Salud Carbajal (New Dem-CA)
• Tony Cardenas (D-CA)
• André Carson (New Dem-IN)
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Debbie Dingell (D-MI)
• Vicente González (Blue Dog-TX)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Derek Kilmer (New Dem-WA)
• Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)
• Daniel Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)
• Eleanor Norton (D-DC)
• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)
• Jimmy Panetta (D-CA)
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)
• Bradley Schneider (Blue Dog-IL)
• Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR)
• Darren Soto (New Dem-FL)
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)
• Tom Suozzi (New Dem-NY)
• Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Peter Welch (D-VT)

And here are all the Republicans who have signed up for the Mark Penn/Nancy Jacobson cabal:

• Earl Carter (R-GA)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
• Mike Gallagher (R-WI)
• Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon (R-Puerto Rico)
• Dusty Johnson (R-SD)
• David Joyce (R-OH)
• John Katko (R-NY)
• Peter King (R-NY)
• Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)
• Dan Meuser (R-PA)
• Tom Reed (R-NY)
• Lloyd Smucker (R-PA)
• Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
• Fred Upton (R-MI)
• Steve Watkins (R-KS)

Penn consistently paints himself "one of the primary architects of President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign." He's trying to sell himself to Trump as the guy who can get Trump back into the White House. Penn and another scumbag ex-Dem, Andrew Stein (a crooked Trump crony and felon) arrived at the White House together. I've long maintained that one way for Democrats to start winning elections and rebuilding their tattered brand would be to pay very close attention to all the advice they get from Mark Penn-- and then do the exact opposite. Penn has teamed up with Andrew Stein to tell the Democrats all they need to know about how to continue losing. Penn's an ad guy, pollster and political strategist. He's always wrong about everything and his advice very much helped turn the personal brands of both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to shit. He was a key Hillary Clinton advisor in 2008 and most observers of that race give him immense credit for her loss. [Example: he urged Hillary to go subtly racist against Obama.]

More recently, Penn worked with hereditary multimillionaire Andrew Stein-- a former boyfriend of Ann Coulter, a failed, dumb-as-brick New York politician who once famously was caught soliciting the Republican nomination for mayor of New York City and was later arrested for his involvement with a ponzi scheme and endorsed Trump for president-- on their centrism-uber-alles OpEd in The Times. I can't imagine anyone would be surprised to hear Penn and Finkelstein (Stein's real name) denouncing progressives, urging the Democratic Party to move right the way they and all their greed-obsessed cronies have, and rewriting history to glorify their reactionary instincts. Both are masters of collaborationist politics. They would have been perfect advisors to Marshall Pétain in France or Vidkun Quisling in Norway during WWII. And now they've joined up with Trump. What could be more natural and inevitable?

Penn, Jacobson and Stein especially hate Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and everything they stand for-- especially honesty, ethics and opposition to elite corruption, elite corruption being the center piece of Penn's and Stein's entire lives. To them, the Democratic Party has "embraced sharply leftist ideas" and they blame all the losses the party has suffered, on the left instead of on the Republican wing-- their wing-- of the Democratic Party. 'If only the Democrats were more elitist, more corrupt, more bigoted they would still own the working class' is the tired Penn/Stein thesis. Lee Fang had a better explanation of Penn's OpEd at The Intercept in 2017: Penn now invests in Republican advocacy firms-- and profits from the electoral defeat of Democrats. He's a part owner of the GOP consulting firm that advices Trump and developed strategy for the Handel win over Ossoff in Georgia. But certain types of Democrats still take Penn seriously and value his advice. Personally, I hope he takes some of his Problem Solvers Caucus fake Dems with him, especially the real garbage like Gottheimer and Van Drew from New Jersey, Brindisi and Rose from New York and Lipinski and Schneider from Illinois.

As Karni mentioned, Penn has even adopted Trump’s "deep state" conspiracy theories for his appearances on Fox, where he accuses Democrats of sabotaging the Trump administration from within the government.

In an email, Mr. Penn played down the significance of the visit. “I tagged along with my friend Andrew Stein at his request to one of his meetings, and for the first time to meet the president,” he said. “I have had hundreds of meetings with presidents and I don’t relay their conversations but this was a cordial meeting and no advice was given or taken-- but old-time politics was discussed.”

Mr. Penn added, “Despite my misgivings about the Mueller investigation, let me be clear as a lifelong Democrat under no circumstances would I work paid or unpaid for President Trump nor was this meeting about that in any way.”

...[H]is fallout with the onetime reigning brand in Democratic politics began during Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, where he clashed with other advisers and was ultimately removed as the chief strategist. Over the past year, like Mr. Schoen and Mr. Morris, he too has won praise on the other side of the political spectrum as he has become seen as a heretic on the left.

Mr. Penn has been praised internally at the White House, and by the president himself, for his fulsome attacks on the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. In his appearances on Fox News-- he has been banned from appearing on MSNBC and CNN-- and in his opinion pieces in the conservative-leaning opinions pages of The Hill, Mr. Penn has accused Mr. Mueller of overreaching in his investigation.

But an actual sit-down meeting with the president in the Oval Office was, for some former colleagues of Mr. Penn, the inevitable outcome of what they see as his rightward lurch. “Some people are loyal to Republican red, some people to Democratic blue and some capitalism green,” said Philippe Reines, a longtime aide to Mrs. Clinton, who served as her gatekeeper in the Senate and at the State Department.

Mr. Penn currently runs the Stagwell Group, a private equity firm, and claims his political career is behind him, even though his firm owns two public affairs agencies that have worked for both Democratic and Republican officials.

I'm glad to see Mark Pocan finally see the light and jump ship, leaving Penn and Jacobson and their anti-progressive Problem Solvers, though that's probably where he learned to love New Dems. It's hard to believe that Debbie Dingell, Peter Welch and Eleanor Norton are still along for the ride. Penn is the prototypical Fox Democrat, a real shitbag always working to pull the Democratic Party rightward-- for which he gets paid-- and handsomely so-- by wealthy conservatives. His wife, a professional fundraiser, is even worse. And aside from the Problem Solvers, they are the couple from hell behind the corporately-funded No Labels cabals. Their web of dark money PACs and SuperPACs finance the Republican wing of the Democratic Party with money from-- for example-- Republican billionaires like the Murdoch family. And they make their living by taking a cut from every penny that comes in.

In the past cycle, Penn and the Mrs. were behind the sewer money-- from charter school fanatics, hedge fund managers and GOP financiers-- that flooded into Democrat primaries against Marie Newman in Chicago, Alan Grayson in Orlando, Deb Haaland in Albuquerque, Matt Heinz in Tucson and Susan Wild in the Philly suburbs. They are behind shady conservative PACs like United for Progress, United Together, Forward Not Back, Progress Tomorrow, Patriotic Americans PAC, Citizens for a Strong America, etc, entirely funded by contributions from 5 and 6-figure right wing donors, such as Rupert Murdoch, his son James Murdoch, Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, hedge fund manager Louis Bacon, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan Selig and Wheels Inc. executive Jim Frank and like-minded sleaze bags trying to turn the Democratic Party into another corporately-owned arm of Wall Street, just like the GOP.

Late last year Penn and Jacobson were behind the failed Moulton coup against Pelosi. Ryan Grim put up a related blockbuster at The Intercept: Who's The Mystery Man Behind The Latest Pelosi Putsch? It's Mark Penn. Grim's right on target: "a small group of billionaire-backed Democrats, part of the so-called Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress, has launched a last-ditch effort that threatens to derail Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s election as House speaker. They’ve framed their challenge to Pelosi, a California Democrat, in terms of good government and high-minded bipartisanship. Yet the force behind their campaign is one of the most toxic and notorious partisan warriors the Democratic Party has produced in the past three decades: political and corporate consultant Mark Penn." No bullshit about "moderates," especially not when he introduced Penn-protégé and Wall Street whore-- founder of the Problem Makers Caucus-- Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)

The links between Gottheimer and Penn go back decades. Gottheimer was Penn’s assistant in the Bill Clinton White House in the 1990s. Then in 2006, when Penn was CEO of the consulting firm Burson-Marsteller, he hired Gottheimer as an executive vice president, with Gottheimer reporting directly to him. When Penn became chief strategist of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, he brought on Gottheimer as an adviser. In 2012, Penn set up shop at Microsoft, where he built a guerrilla PR operation to do battle in Washington with rival Google. There, too, he brought on Gottheimer.

Gottheimer had the full-throated support of both Bill and Hillary Clinton when he ran for Congress in 2016, with Hillary Clinton calling him “something of a family member.”

No Labels launched what it called “The Speaker Project” in this past June, proposing a sweeping set of rules changes that lawmakers should demand before agreeing to elect the next speaker, which by then was presumed to be a Democrat. The next month, the Problem Solvers Caucus embraced the plan. In September, Penn went on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News to talk up the project. “There’s a problem-solvers group that is looking to have some influence if the result is close, in terms of changing the rules and naming the speaker,” Penn said.

A lawsuit this summer by former No Labels contractors who alleged that they were bilked by the group claimed that Penn was was “calling the shots” at the organization. Penn, according to the Washington Post, has denied involvement with the operation of No Labels, and the group rejected the assertion that he was in charge. Neither No Labels nor Penn responded to The Intercept’s questions about Penn’s relationship with the group.

But aside from the claims of the contractors, there are also direct links between groups Penn owns and No Labels’s political activity. Penn is a minority owner of the consulting firm Targeted Victory, which the group contracted with for some of its 2018 campaigns. No Labels uses an affiliate, Victory Passport, for its online fundraising. Penn’s firm Harris Interactive does the group’s polling; SKDKnickerbocker, of which Penn is an owner, produces and places the group’s television ads, as it did in its campaign to support the re-election of Rep. Daniel Lipinski in Illinois, according to the lawsuit. Hilary Rosen, an SKDK partner, said that the firm does not produce ads for No Labels.

The New Center, a think tank launched by No Labels to house its 501c3 nonprofit operation, listed Mark Penn as a contact for inquiries about its invitation-only “ideas summit.” Penn is managing partner and president of the Stagwell Group, the holding company that owns SKDKnickerbocker. Penn regularly talks up the great work of No Labels during his appearances on Fox News.

...Penn is notorious in Washington as the metaphorical devil on the shoulder, whispering toxic advice into the ears of Democratic candidates. Penn and Jacobson were both early players in the Democratic Leadership Council, a faction that emerged within the party in the 1980s to push it to align with corporate money and to move in a more conservative direction. He’s perhaps most well known for urging his client, Hillary Clinton, to attack Barack Obama as un-American during the 2008 presidential primary.

In a now-famous 2007 memo to Clinton, Penn noted that there had been much coverage in the media of Obama’s “boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii… geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light. Save it for 2050.”

In other words, Penn argued, an appeal to diversity wouldn’t work politically for another half-century. “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values,” he wrote.

How Penn planned to isolate Obama’s alleged otherness is a window into how he views the kind of glossy, good government rhetoric now deployed by No Labels-- its meaning is found less in what it says than in what it doesn’t. He advised Clinton that “we give some life to this contrast without turning negative” by elevating the values she grew up with as uniquely American. “Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America to the middle class in the middle of the last century.”

That, Penn argued, would make an implicit contrast with Obama, who allegedly lacked those values-- “fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back”-- due to his lack of American roots. “Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t. Make this the new American Century, the American Strategic Energy fund. Let’s use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let’s add flag symbols to the backgrounds,” he advised. “We are never going to say anything about his background-- we have to show the value of ours when it comes to making decisions, understanding the needs of most Americans-- the invisible Americans.”

Clinton, clumsy in her rhetoric, would occasionally make the subtext into text. In a 2008 speech in West Virginia after she beat Obama in Indiana, she said, “Senator Obama’s support among working-- hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.” (Obama went on to win Indiana in the general election.)

A more effective dog-whistler, in the 2016 campaign, would boil the Penn approach down to just four words: “Make America Great Again.” Donald Trump was named by No Labels in 2016 as an official “Problem Solver.”

A Trump surrogate accepted the award, even though two months earlier, Trump had spoken at a No Labels conference and delivered a speech larded with Trumpisms. (Since his 2017 swearing in, Gottheimer, the Problem Solvers Caucus chair, has voted with Trump more than half the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.)

Today, among Democrats, only fellow Blue Dogs Collin Peterson and Henry Cuellar vote more frequently with Trump than Gottheimer. The Problem Solvers are putting all their energy into two problems right now: sabotaging the Green New Deal and sabotaging Medicare-For-All. This is the polar opposite of these shit-heads: