Posted on 09/25/2008 3:58:39 PM PDT by Graybeard58
As a member and later chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd shoulders a good deal of the blame for the collapse of the national housing market, the subprime-mortgage-market meltdown and the latest convulsions on Wall Street.
Reams of legislation he has written or advocated affecting the housing, lending, insurance and securities industries have drained hundreds of billions out of the economy, ballooned the federal debt, cost tens of thousands of people their jobs and driven hundreds of thousands of homeowners into foreclosure, bankruptcy or both. For his efforts, Sen. Dodd has been rewarded in the 2008 election cycle with $7.65 million in campaign contributions — he took in $11.7 million in all — from the securities, insurance, real-estate and commercial-banking industries, according to his latest Federal Election Commission filing posted at opensecrets.org.
Sen. Dodd's list of donors reads like a who's who of who's in the stew: Citigroup, $310,294; SAC Capital Partners, $282,000; United Technologies, $263,400; AIG, $224,678; Bear Stearns, $205,600; St. Paul Travelers, $205,400; Royal Bank of Scotland, $203,750; Goldman Sachs, $175,600; Morgan Stanley, $155,000; Credit Suisse, $154,550; Merrill Lynch, $134,950; JPMorgan Chase, $129,150; Lehman Brothers, $128,400; KPMG, $113,100; General Electric, $108,250; Deloitte Touche, $108,000; USB, $101,900; Hartford Finance Services, $101,500; The Hartford, $94,350; Bank of America, $91,300.
With $165,400, Sen. Dodd also tops the list of members of Congress who took campaign cash from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 1989. Sen. Barack Obama, the self-styled agent of change, is a distant second at $126,000 and Sen. John Kerry is third at $111,000. In the top 20 are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obviously, Sen. Dodd had plenty of buyers for the influence he was peddling. And without so much as a thought to the potential devastating economic consequences of his actions, he sold his soul, and sold out his constituents and country. In return, he saved $75,000 on two VIP mortgages from Countrywide Financial.
Long after the horses had left the barn, Sen. Dodd now pledges to "continue to work on solutions to help Americans weather this storm, including strengthening the housing sector, developing a second stimulus package and restructuring the regulation of the financial sector."
To which we say: Haven't you done enough damage?
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
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Prison
Dodd is DIRTY!!!
God bless these brave editors!
What do you expect from someone who made his home in Iowa while a Senator from Connecticut.
As long as it's a life sentence in a North Korean prison.
Otherwise, hot tar and feathers, a cage, and a mob with torches and pitchforks will do.
It’s been known for several decades that Christopher Dodd is a Socialist. Why should anyone be surprised that he has had a hand in this debacle? The New World Order has been in the birth canal for a long time now, and it’s birth is eminent! The world is ready to catch it. GOD BLESS AMERICA! GOD SAVE AMERICA!
Maybe not Frank... he might enjoy it.
The press is protecting him.
HOW MUCH LONGER WILL WE LET THE MSM RUN THIS COUNTRY?
Oh my.....!!!
ping....
Dowd is 2nd to Barney Fwank as the main cause of this. Bill Clinton is also in the top three.
East Hampton CT (the town where the Dems weren’t liberal enough and formed a 3rd party, AND WON Town Council), requesting ping list access.
And to think Chris Dodd was on CNN earlier bashing McCain and Republicans for ruining the deal.
LOL!
Of course CNN didnt report Dodd’s donor list.
I’m just a typical American boy from a typical American town
I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keeping old Castro down
associated press spin doctors are right now trying to discredit McCain trying to work out a solution. In fact, the very people who benefited from these contributions are downplaying McCain’s involvement is getting a solution. Democrats are working hard to cover their tracks:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_s_gambit
WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain’s self-portrait as a bold leader willing to set politics aside to save an endangered financial bailout plan took a pounding Thursday from top Democrats and even some fellow Republicans.
His efforts to re-energize his presidential campaign will partly turn on who wins the public relations battle, destined to play out for days.
Top Democrats in Congress ridiculed McCain’s claim Wednesday that negotiations were going nowhere, necessitating his hasty return to Washington to intervene while suspending his campaign.
“It was somewhat stunning” to receive McCain’s phone call with that message, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Talks were proceeding fine without him, Reid said.
Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chief House Democrat on the bill, said, “all of a sudden, now that we are on the verge of making a deal, John McCain airdrops himself to help us make the deal.”
Even the House’s Republican leader, John Boehner of Ohio, passed up a chance to praise McCain’s leadership powers shortly before the two men met in the Capitol at midday Thursday. Asked by reporters if McCain could help win House Republican votes for the proposed package, Boehner shrugged and said, “Who knows?”
Other Republicans gave McCain more credit. “They got something done this morning only because McCain came back,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. But DeMint later called the proposal “a trillion-dollar Band-Aid that does not contain a single item that will stimulate our economy.”
President Bush’s biggest worry is House Republicans, many of whom seemed unimpressed Thursday with McCain’s heightened interest. Several said it was essential that both McCain and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, back the bailout plan together.
“If McCain and Obama would stand together and take this off the table” as a sharply partisan issue, then wary House Republicans might get on board, said Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.
Framing the issue in those bipartisan terms, however, complicates McCain’s bid to differentiate himself from Obama on leadership issues.
In truth, McCain has faced a no-win situation for days. To support the bailout or a similar plan would put him at odds with millions of voters and many House Republicans at a time his campaign is sliding in the polls. Also, McCain has struggled to distance himself from the unpopular Bush, and embracing the administration’s plan would clearly not help.
Obama has an easier path. No one will accuse him of being a Bush clone even if he ends up siding with the administration on this issue. And Democrats in general are more receptive to government regulation of powerful institutions.
McCain’s other option was worse. Opposing the main thrust of Bush’s plan would have opened him to fierce accusations of walking away from a national crisis. And if a congressional impasse triggered more Wall Street catastrophes, as the administration said it would, the criticism would have been still worse.
McCain’s only real option was to say, “I’m the leader, I’m going to put country first,” said Republican consultant John Feehery.
McCain tried to do that late Wednesday. Going before TV cameras shortly before Obama did, he signaled his likely support for some version of the costly plan and urged Bush to convene a meeting including Obama. Bush did so, giving McCain and his backers a chance to claim some leadership credit.
“It seemed like this deal yesterday was very close to dead,” McCain adviser Mike DuHaime told Fox News on Thursday. “I think you’ve seen tremendous progress since he made that announcement.”
McCain met separately with House and Senate Republicans in the Capitol Thursday. He did not attend meetings where the bailout legislation was being hashed out, and some rank-and-file lawmakers saw little impact from his visit.
“What do I know?” said Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., when asked later about the affect of McCain’s detour to Washington. Perhaps, he said, the combined efforts of McCain and Obama would give enough political cover to wavering lawmakers to bring more votes to the bailout package.
Meanwhile, Democrats scoffed at McCain’s Wednesday night claim that “no consensus has developed” behind the administration proposal, making his intercession important.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters that McCain called her and urged the White House meeting because “nothing was happening and there was no progress being made on all of this.”
“And I said, ‘Well, Senator, I have good news for you.’” Pelosi said. “’Quite a bit has been done.’”
Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, previously had called on McCain to take a stand on the bailout proposal. By the time McCain called him on Wednesday, Reid told reporters Thursday, progress was well under way.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said his boss gave McCain a cool reception. It included reading to him a statement that Reid had just released criticizing McCain’s plans. “We need leadership, not a campaign photo-op,” said the statement that Reid read to its intended target.
Even if McCain fully embraces a bailout package, many Republican candidates elsewhere on ballots will not go along. Rep. Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican who is retiring, said he probably will vote for the bailout legislation that eventually emerges.
But the Republican running to replace him, LaHood said, “is running against it. Everyone’s running against it.”
To which we say: Haven’t you done enough damage?
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