Posted on 09/17/2008 12:52:26 PM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
Lehman Brothers collapse is traced back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two big mortgage banks that got a federal bailout a few weeks ago.
Freddie and Fannie used huge lobbying budgets and political contributions to keep regulators off their backs.
A group called the Center for Responsive Politics keeps track of which politicians get Fannie and Freddie political contributions. The top three U.S. Senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats and No. 2 is Barack Obama.
Now remember, he's only been in the Senate four years, but he's still managed to grab the No. 2 spot ahead of John Kerry - decades in the Senate - and Chris Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
Fannie and Freddie have been creations of the congressioanl Democrats and the Clinton White House, designed to make mortgages available to more people and, as it turns out, some people who couldn't afford them.
Fannie and Freddie have also been places for big Washington Democrats to go to work in the semi-private sector and pocket millions ...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, and so on take massive piolitical contributions from them and, in return, they turn a blind eye to what they were doing, don't push for reforming them, and let America pay the price for their willful blindness.
I thought Barack Obama was some kind of reformer? Sure he is. He - in the No. 2 spot in no time - took huge political contributions from Fannie & Freddie, truned a blind eye, did not reform them or call for reform, and let Americans see their investments drain away - while taxpayers get to spend billions for a bailout of them.
Barack Obama ought to be ashamed of himself.
What say you?
McCain’s campaign needs to get out in front on a few things.
It’s really sad that they haven’t already, really, as they have squandered precious time and are allowing perceptions about McCain to sink in and harden. It looks like McCain’s campaign is reacting politically on 0bama’s turf. This is the wrong thing to do. Instead, McCain should be playing experience up again. But not ‘experience’ in general, but rather his specific legislative experience.
McCain sponsored a bill in 2005 to reform Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, so why is he playing defense to 0bama on this issue? What was 0bama doing in 2005? I doubt he even knew what Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were back then. McCain needs to be presenting himself as a knowledgeable and experienced manager who has seen these problems coming for a long time, because he is, and he has. Why his reaction has been what it has been makes no sense at all. It’s not reinforcing confidence in him as a leader who can be turned to in troubled times. If McCain frames the situation in easy to understand terms, and makes the case for his own expertise in dealing with these issues — something 0bama simply cannot match — then McCain wins this argument. But so far, 0bama is clearly winning it, and that’s a damn shame. Instead of turning to populism and pandering, McCain should be turning to experience and knowledge.
McCain talks about making pork barrelers ‘famous’. Well, right now he should be making Franklin Raines famous. Very famous. And Robert Rubin. Both of these men are responsible for the banking crisis, and both men are 0bama advisers. McCain needs to lead a charge against them.
McCain needs to be placing the blame squarely on Rubin and the Clinton administration for repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, instead of blaming Bush. Simply blaming Bush won’t help. In fact it hurts McCain. Because no matter how much McCain distances himself from Bush, he is still going to be more closely tied to Bush’s than 0bama. To the extent that Bush’s policies are blamed, it harms McCain.
The correct way for him to distance himself from Bush is as a manager. He should blame not Bush policies, as that only sticks to himself, but Bush’s management style and priorities. If he wants to distance himself from Bush, it should be as a serious manager who is more interested in solving problems than playing politics. It’s not Bush’s overall philosophies that are unpopular. It is the way he implemented them — or didn’t.
McCain should paint a picture of how he would govern day to day as a manager behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office that differs from both Bush and 0bama. It’s called Leadership. McCain has a huge Leadership advantage over 0bama, so he ought to be exploiting it right now.
McCain should also be calling for more than a commission to look into the problems on Wall Street. He should be calling for a special prosecutor to investigate these 0bama advisers. Right now, Nancy Pelosi is putting together a team of all of the Democrats in congress who are responsible for the meltdown to place the blame on Bush. McCain should not be part of their chorus. He should be offering an alternate view. He should be placing the blame on the guys Nancy has appointed to cover up their mess.
Also McCain should be highlighting 0bama’s recent comments about McCain’s ‘outrage’ at Wall Street, where 0bama says that cutting taxes is an odd way to ‘punish’ them. McCain needs to put these words into perspective. 0bama is saying that investors should be PUNISHED, and the way to do that is raise their taxes. That view speaks volumes about 0bama. McCain needs to point that out.
Finally, FOX News puts this out to the Mainstream.
Thank You John Gibson.
Let us hope that FOX will take off the kid gloves towards Hussein.
I believe that the shape that we are in this country is not the fault of a broken Washington, but the fault of all of us citizens for being too lazy about our responsibilities. We expect some Washington slicker to fix things for us. What does that lead us to?
It leads to Christopher Dodd and sweetheart deals with Countrywide.
It leads to Clinton Cronies running Fannie and Freddie into the ground while turning it into a cash machine for friends. It leads to Charlie Rangel and his shenanigans. It leads to empowering people like Pelosi
who have done absolutely ZERO for common folks.
Then she wants a congressional investigation to find out what’s wrong. Oh, did I mention Obama’s man Joe Johnston? If the PEOPLE get fed up enough with where we are at and what these people are shoveling on us then they need to stand and fight. I say BRING ON THE INVESTIGATION NANCY!! Because this is outrageous. YOU, NANCY ARE SITTING ON A POWDER KEG OF CORRUPTION and you sit there and think the American public is too stupid to see it. Republicans on the Hill need to bring up all of this during her “investigation”. What about Jamie Gorelick? What about Obama being the second highest recipient of contributions from Freddie and Fannie? Let’s talk about that during your investigation to get to the truth. Let’s talk about you slamming the gavel and going on a 5 week vacation while all of this was brewing. Yes, Let’s have an investigation. It is high time that Republicans started tying the Democrats to corruption and for being the party that is asleep at the wheel. Throw in Al Sharpton if you like, even though he’s not an elected official, he runs around as if he were a surrogate for the Democratic party. Is he paying his fair share Nancy? Is he even an honorable tax paying citizen like the rest of us or is he using his status as a “pastor” to launder money?
This campaign needs to be about the people standing up to 8 years of nothing but bashing
Negatively, stonewalling and corruption- not from the Republicans but by the Democrats.
They have no ideas- If they did have ideas they could have implemented them and spared the country the run up in gas prices and the housing crash and melt down on Wall Street. But they did not. All they can offer instead of leadership is more bashing more negativity
More of absolutely nothing.
Nice work Gibson! Thanks for getting it out there.
I agree with all except the WSJ. They’ve been bashing Palin since she was announced.
Please don’t spam every thread with the same message. Thanks.
Very well said! The corruption and criminal activities carried on by Democrats has destroyed many of our institutions and are on their way to nationalizing oil, medicine and almost as many industries as they can bring under the destructive umbrella of the “government”. Socialism is the ONLY thing Obama brings to the elections and no one is standing up and explaining what is really going in with Fannie and Freddie along with Lehman Bros. Their hands are filthy with corruption and nothing is stopping their war on America.
I guess this is what the big “O” means when he says we need shared sacrifice for the common good. Pelosi, Dodd, Rangel, Shumer, Streisand will never associate with us common folk. We sacrifice higher chunks of our productivity while they line their pockets and stay in gated enclaves paying $28000 a plate for Obama.
“Ought to” is for those with souls that might be saved. Obama’s mission is to destroy the United States. And with the democrat Congress, he seems to be succeeding.
It’s actually not the same, I have refined it with each additional posting.
It is a message that urgently needs to reach the McCain campaign, though.
Some of us are trying to collect links to all the “FannieGate” posts at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2083158/posts?page=1
take the money and run. who cares about small investors.lets pay them for being greedy.
Obama has always been on the government dole. He cant live without it. He is also a fake.
Raines (who should be in jail) and Johnson are both still advisors to Obama.
“McCain sponsored a bill in 2005 to reform Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac”
Can you tell me the Bills name and Number?
Thank you!
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