McCain Op-Ed: Lobbyists Like My Campaign Manager Are ‘Primary Contributors’ To Fannie-Freddie Crisis
McCain Op-Ed: Lobbyists Like My Campaign Manager Are ‘Primary Contributors’ To Fannie-Freddie Crisis
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) write today in the Wall Street Journal that the “bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is another outrageous, but sadly necessary, step for these two institutions.” They pledge to end the use of “taxpayer backing to serve lobbyists, management, boards and shareholders” and call lobbyists “primary contributors” to the crisis:
We will make sure that they are permanently restructured and downsized, and no longer use taxpayer backing to serve lobbyists, management, boards and shareholders. […]
[The federal bailout] terminates future lobbying, which was one of the primary contributors to this great debacle.
The feigned outrage of McCain and Palin at the inaction of Congress and the influence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lobbyists is ironic considering the fact that “at least 20 McCain fundraisers have lobbied on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” in recent years.
More troubling is the fact that McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, “served as president of an advocacy group led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” that worked to cripple regulatory initiatives in Congress because the two institutions feared that “Congressional meddling would lower their healthy profits.” As the Politico reported in July:
Davis headed the Homeownership Alliance, a lobbying association that included Fannie, Freddie, nonprofit groups, real estate agents, homebuilders and consumer advocates. … [The group] worked to oppose congressional efforts to tighten controls on Fannie and Freddie.
In July 2003 for example, Davis “wrote to the American Banker, taking issue with an opinion piece…arguing that Fannie and Freddie should operate with greater transparency.” Such transparency and greater regulatory controls might have averted the current crisis.
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Who in the msm will be the first to point out this hypocrisy?
waiting …….
September 9th, 2008 at 10:29 amI’m really amazed God does not strike these people dead right on the spot.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:31 amThe more the McStain team disses the press, the more likely they are to point out their lies.
But I’m still waiting.
PEACE
September 9th, 2008 at 10:32 amI’d really like to see an Obama ad, showing each of his lobbyist advisors in a Wanted poster mug shot, with each of the companies they’ve lobbied for side by side with the picture.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:32 amThen a chyron, “Change? Change? Change?…”
And the electoral race is really tightening up…
September 9th, 2008 at 10:34 am281 ~ 230
A McPutz presidency = an administration of lobbyists, by the lobbyists, for the lobbyists.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:42 amAnother domino falls as mccains hyprocricy is catapulted forward:
Lehman tumbles as uncertainty grows
September 9th, 2008 at 10:43 amwell, if Mme. Palin ever needs a real job, I know a couple of landscape contractors who’d hire her to move earth with that jaw. That’s GOTTA be a half-yard bucket on her…
September 9th, 2008 at 10:44 amspencers mom Says: The more the McStain team disses the press, the more likely they are to point out their lies.
I think we might be under-rating the power of the internet. At lot of people are learning about the McCain-Palin trainwreck of corruption from online news sources, and talking about it - even on MSM news sites.
If this weren’t so, then why have networks like CNN started including viewer comments on their shows? They’re starting to look more like internet news with feedback, albeit censored feedback, but still. I think that we can’t be irrelevent in here if the MSM is trying to act like us…
September 9th, 2008 at 10:44 amAnd the electoral race is really tightening up…
281 ~ 230
Please excuse my ignorance but is there a “magic” number of Senate seats whereby the Senate can override a Presidential Veto? Is it 60? Just curious. Thanks.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:45 amFoxSnooze is dutifully broadcasting the “Me Too Express” right now. That Failin’ Palin sure does love to pad her resume. She is piling up new fiction on the RNC Propaganda Channel faster than the legitimate press can debunk it.
Talk about “catapulting the propaganda”.
And I just love the revelation that she charged per diem for 312 nights as governor so that she and her family could travel back and forth to their home in Wasilla. Looks like she’s been padding her bank account, too.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:45 amAnother Democratic ad has just written itself. Obama doesn’t need ad writer, the Republicans write them for them.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:45 amFrom the wall street journal. Too late but confirms what many of us believed all along:
Significant New Information Details CIA Criminal Culpability in Allowing the 9/11 Attacks!
September 9th, 2008 at 10:45 amlivelong, it does take 60 senators to invoke cloture. Right now it looks like we’ll have 55, excluding Liebernamm (I-Israel).
September 9th, 2008 at 10:48 amBut, if the Senate chooses to allow the fillibuster to occur, then the fillibusterers must continuously speak on the floor of the Senate, something I’d love to have the obstructionist Republics do so the nation can watch them 24X7 ruining the nation.
livelongandprosper Says:
Please excuse my ignorance but is there a “magic” number of Senate seats whereby the Senate can override a Presidential Veto? Is it 60? Just curious. Thanks.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:45 am
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67 votes overrides a veto, 60 votes invokes cloture on a filibuster.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:48 amThis is a CBS article. Read the comments, there are more pro-Obama people than pro-McCain. Plus, Plouffe is right - the polls don’t factor in the record number of new voter registrations.
On election night, I’m allowing my students the time to go vote by starting class after the polls have closed.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:51 amThe GOP is going to steal this election.
What are you going to do about it?
September 9th, 2008 at 10:51 amCorporate Jesus Says:
The GOP is going to steal this election.
What are you going to do about it?
September 9th, 2008 at 10:51 am
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Working at the polls on election day. If nothing else, I can make sure that my district has a free and fair election.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:54 amCorporate Jesus Says: What are you going to do about it?
What do you suggest?
September 9th, 2008 at 10:54 amHipocracy? Stretching the truth? Taking the “spin” to new levels?
September 9th, 2008 at 10:57 amLet’s call it what it really is.
McCain/Palin are liars.
67 votes overrides a veto, 60 votes invokes cloture on a filibuster.
Thanks hussein toasterhead. It would seem incredible that any one party could get 67 Senators and not win the Presidential election.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:59 amtokin librul Says: “That’s GOTTA be a half-yard bucket on her…”
Tokin,
Judging from all the crap that comes spewing out of that bucket, you may be underestimating her capacity.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:10 amRemember the Bear Stearns bailout? $32 Billion of Fed money was infused to another lender so we could avoid Fred & Fannie failing.
Yeah, that worked out well.
‘All you need is Greed’…Greenspan, Gramm, Paulson, Bernacke, et al
September 9th, 2008 at 11:11 amHow is this race so close? Obama should have drilled the nails into McCain’s coffin weeks ago!
Leave it to the Democrats to do what they do best: Snatch defeat from the jaws of victiory.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:25 amhussein toasterhead,
Who counts the votes? Electronic tabulators ARE hackable…
Here in Seattle, we have tabulators count paper ballots. The very same hackable tabulators discussed HERE.
.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:25 amWhy does this whole scenario look like a couple of drunkards promoting temperance?
September 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am.
Why don’t McBush/Falin’08 discuss the lobbyists that are running the campaign as being the very type of lobbyists, according to the “maverick”, that have wrecked the mortgage industry?
Oh, that’s the MSM’s job…
… nvm.
.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:28 amMcCain Op-Ed: Lobbyists Like My Campaign Manager Are ‘Primary Contributors’ To Fannie-Freddie Crisis…
…And we’re *very* proud of the work they’re doing, stealing everything that isn’t nailed down!
September 9th, 2008 at 11:29 amI sure am getting sick and tired of seeing McCain all over Palin. Would he be as close to a male running mate?
September 9th, 2008 at 11:31 amNettles Says
September 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am
How is this race so close? Obama should have drilled the nails into McCain’s coffin weeks ago!
___________________________________________________________
There are a number of factors. Here’s a partial list:
1. Inaccurate polls are making the race look closer than it really is. Because new voters and voters with cell phones are rarely (if ever) polled, this skews the polls toward McCain by as much as 5 to 8 points.
2. McCain and Palin are in the middle of their post-convention bounce. It’s temporary.
3. Palin is dazzling for the moment, but her high favorability numbers will drop as more information about her becomes reported.
4. The press is manipulating the news atmosphere to keep the race as close as possible, and they are doing it by bashing the frontrunner and doing puff pieces on the underdog.
5. There are a LOT of low-information voters out there, dumbed down by flaws in our education systems (nobody is taught how to think anymore) and by bread and circuses in general.
6. There are still people out there who are afraid of the idea of a scary black man becoming president.
I’m sure you can think of more.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:35 amWho Lied Today? Says:
I sure am getting sick and tired of seeing McCain all over Palin. Would he be as close to a male running mate?
September 9th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Probably.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:35 amWho Lied Today? Says
September 9th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I sure am getting sick and tired of seeing McCain all over Palin. Would he be as close to a male running mate?
______________________________________________________
Probably he would if a male running mate was getting higher favorables than he was. Haven’t you seen him hugging Dubya?
September 9th, 2008 at 11:36 amPolls? Schmolls. The Republican corporations that run most of the so-called public opinion polls decided that the Palin show at the RNC was probably the best time to start shading and rigging the polls…
In terms of lobbyists and the absurd artificially high price of oil, Phil Gramm, McCain and Bush were the leaders in deregulating both the energy markets and the real estate mortgage markets.
Below is my take from a couple of months ago about the effects of uncontrolled electronic speculation in the oil futures markets:
We’re being ENRONed again: this time by oil futures contracts speculators who are unnecessarily and very profitably driving up the price of crude oil and hence retail gasoline prices. Curious as to why you are suddenly paying over four dollars a gallon for gasoline? No, it’s not due to “supply-and-demand,” no, it’s not due to “OPEC,” nor is it due to “peak oil.” It’s due to totally unregulated electronic oil futures trading in world markets. Check out the very lucid article that explains the unseen financial machinations in oil futures markets written by F. W. Engdahl on May 2, 2008, entitled, “Perhaps 60% of Today’s Oil Price is Pure Speculation.” It may be viewed at .
http://www.financialsense.com/ editorials/ engdahl/ 2008/ 0502.html
In a nutshell, he suggests that the Bush Administration dropped the ball in January 2006, when they allowed totally unregulated electronic trading of oil futures contracts in New York. Previously these electronic trades had been made at the London Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Futures Market. With that decision by the Bush Administration, all of the world’s oil prices were then opened to upward pressure from speculative futures contracts. In essence, oil futures contracts made by speculators, banks, hedge funds and pension funds all competed with real demand on the spot markets and had the effect of driving up both wholesale oil prices and retail gasoline prices. Speculators have made billions of dollars on their trading of oil futures contracts. All of their profits come right out of our pockets.
Even with a stable oil supply, there is a slow worldwide increase in demand for oil, which creates a long-term upward pressure on oil prices. However, with the relentless saber-rattling and war-mongering by Bush and Cheney in the last several years, and the more recent war talks by McCain and the Israelis, the oil futures markets are rife with speculation and paranoia. This war talk keeps ratcheting up the prices on the oil futures contracts and hence the wholesale spot market prices. It is an endless spiral of greed and paranoia.
As long as there is no tough and effective oversight of the electronic oil futures markets by the Bush Administration, the oil prices will climb endlessly. These oil prices will be quickly followed by hikes in the retail gasoline prices at the pump. The 60% speculation share of the $4.25/gallon gasoline price, is about $2.55/gallon, which is what we consumers are paying to these oil speculators as a “service fee.” Not a bad “fee,” since the speculators produce no usable goods or services…Just a few large greedy oil futures traders helping themselves to your gas money.
Without this added-on oil futures “service fee,” you would be paying about $1.75/gallon for gasoline. Write, call or smoke-signal your Representatives and Senators today and suggest that they read the June 2006 report by The U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations entitled, “The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices.” Then demand that they investigate and then force the Bush Administration to firmly regulate the computerized oil futures contracts trading in New York, London and Dubai.
This electronic oil price futures scandal is costing US drivers about $969,000,000.00 per day! That number is based on 60% speculation fee of a gasoline price of $4.25/gallon and on US 2004 consumption of 380,000,000 gallons/day. Tell you Senators and Congresspersons to simply shut down this unregulated electronic oil futures contract trading market. Then the price of gasoline will slowly drop to about $1.75/gallon…The only way that oil price futures contracts make money is if the price of oil goes up in the future, say, 30, 60 or 90 days later. This futures market serves no social need. It is just for corporate greed. The corporate speculators are probably also gaming/ENRONing the wheat and corn futures markets the same way.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:46 amMax-1 Says:
hussein toasterhead,
Who counts the votes? Electronic tabulators ARE hackable…
Here in Seattle, we have tabulators count paper ballots. The very same hackable tabulators discussed HERE.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am
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I don’t know yet. I just signed up last week, so I haven’t gone to any training sessions yet - there will be a bunch in the next two months, so I’ll be learning the local procedures soon.
However, we do use electronic touch-screen machines here, which is why I’m very eager to learn how they work and how the votes are tabulated and what happens to the vote counts at the end of the day. I’m very concerned about the possibility of vote hacking, so I’m trying to research as much as I can - any other info you have would be appreciated. I’m also concerned about the many low-tech methods of election fraud - everything from not having enough machines in certain districts to aggressive enforcement of parking violations against people waiting on line to vote.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:47 amIf you are wondering what in the heck is going on with the polls these days, read this article:
http://www.usnews.com/ articles/ opinion/ 2008/ 08/ 29/ pollsters-schizophrenia-and-the-convention-bounce.html
September 9th, 2008 at 12:21 pmIn teh words of Jim Varney’s characterf Earnest: “Wake Up, Amurika!”
September 9th, 2008 at 12:28 pmThose McCon/Pullin lobbyists expect bills, not change.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:29 pmMore on how the polls can be skewed. I previously gave a link to an article by David W. Moore. The used to be the Senior VP at Gallup and he has written a book about how polls can skew elections. His book is The Opinion Makers. Here’s a link to David’s blog. It’s some interesting reading:
http://skepticalpollster.com/
September 9th, 2008 at 12:45 pmEveryone is missing the point here. Two giant privately held leders are going down. Their preferred stockholders, the people who should bail them out - are not. The American people are instead. Why? Do the stock holders not have the dough? No. That’s not the problem. The problem is the Chinese government is the biggest shareholder and they are all too happy to watch the Fannies go under. This is the problem when you sell America’s assets off to foreign investors and ship all your jobs there too - you have no leverage. The global economy at work - to our collective detriment again. If you don’t at least try to protect some things you will have nothing left to protect.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:27 pmYep, Lawyer Smith. American tax money is going to prop up investments held by China, Japan, the Cayman Islands, Russia, Israel, and oil rich Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.
Dubai can now make money off your mortgage payment and your car fill up.
http://peureport.blogspot.com/ 2008/ 09/ domestic-taxes-prop-up-foreign-swfs.html
September 9th, 2008 at 2:06 pmWhen they took this photo, I bet his hand was on her a$$.
September 9th, 2008 at 3:36 pmfrom your link:
They’ve stacked their payrolls with top Washington power brokers of all political stripes, including Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis; Democrat Barack Obama’s original vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson; and scores of others now working for the two rivals for the White House.
So far this election cycle, Freddie Mac’s political action committee and employees have contributed $555,567 to Senate and House candidates, and Fannie Mae’s PAC and employees have given more than $1.1 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
In total, the two companies have spent $170 million on lobbying over the past decade, according to the Center, although they have scaled back in recent years. Last year, they paid $14.1 million in lobbying fees, a significant decrease from a high of more than $26 million in 2004. The connections of both campaigns to the well-entrenched mortgage companies highlight the difficulties the candidates face in selling voters on an outsider message
A spokesman for the Obama campaign declined to comment, noting only that former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson stepped down from his campaign post in June. His resignation came in the wake of charges that he collected more then $7 million in home loans at special, below-average rates.
On Sunday, Obama shied away from commenting on the specific proposals, but cautioned regulators to give top priority to the interests of homeowners.
Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and a chief policy adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton, is rumored to be a possible attorney general in an Obama administration. She was vice chairman of Fannie Mae and sat on its board of directors.
and from my link:
http://www.openmarket.org/ 2008/ 07/ 23/ fannie-maes-thugs-vilified-whistleblowers-told-avalanche-of-lies/
Fannie Mae’s Thugs Vilified Whistleblowers, Told Avalanche of Lies
Posted by Hans Bader
A $25 billion bailout of government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae is now planned. But Fannie Mae has such political power that its crooked managers will probably never be held accountable for their fraud in any way, unlike the Enron executives who went to jail. Instead, its lending authority will likely expand under federal mortgage bailout bills.
Paul Gigot, a Wall Street Journal editor, describes the personal vilification he has received over the years after the Journal began warning, prophetically, that Fannie Mae was engaged in fraudulent accounting, and that the taxpayers might some day have to pick up the tab. (To award themselves millions of dollars in bonuses, Fannie Mae’s managers used Enron-style fraudulent accounting). Fannie Mae’s managers, he notes, were ”unique in their thuggery” and arrogance.
When conservative Congressmen tried to rein it in, Fannie Mae responded with an avalanche of lies and political reprisals. It told Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan’s constituents that he wanted to raise the rates on their existing mortgages, a complete fabrication. And when Florida Congressman Cliff Stearns began investigating its fraudulent accounting, it got jurisdiction over its accounting practices transferred to another committee run by Michael G. Oxley, who worked in tandem with liberal stalwart Barney Frank to cover up the abuses at Fannie Mae and kill any reform legislation.
(Congressman Michael Oxley was the co-author of the devastatingly-costly and wasteful Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which ”created more busywork for accountants than real protection against abuses,” according to David Ignatius in the Washington Post. Oxley received generous donations from the big accounting firms, which were responsible for failing to detect Enron’s fraudulent accounting. The Sarbanes-Oxley law has made those firms fabulously wealthy, increasing the volume of work they receive by making auditing of public companies needlessly complicated. The big accounting firms now must be paid to evaluate and supervise companies’ “internal controls,” such as which employee has access to which computer password. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has cost the stock market over a trillion dollars in value, and imposed ongoing compliance costs exceeding $35 billion per year, while diverting attention away from corporate incompetence at mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, a close Fannie Mae ally. It also created an unaccountable agency, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, to create mountains of red tape to enrich big accounting firms at the expense of productive businesses. Like Fannie Mae, it is nominally “private” to evade accountability and open-government laws (even though in reality, it is a governmental agency, and unlike Fannie, qualifies as such under the Supreme Court’s Lebron decision).
Fannie Mae was run by liberal power brokers like Franklin D. Raines who even now are unrepentant about their thuggery and accounting fraud. Franklin Raines recently took to the pages of the Washington Post to attack as “ideologues” the banking experts in the Bush Administration who had long and prophetically warned about the dangers of Fannie Mae’s risky practices. I published a letter to the editor in response criticizing Raines for his utter gall in lecturing whistleblowers about how Fannie should be managed. But amazingly enough, he continues to be treated like a financial hotshot. Law Professor James Lindgren has a post about Fannie Mae aptly entitled “Fannie Mae’s Thugs.”
Plenty of this to go around and stick to everyone, so be sure to enjoy the slime stuck to your candidate as well. I love the sexist messages in your comments, sounds like you don’t think a woman can get ahead without using her sexuality, thats gonna hurt you on election day, so keep it up.
September 9th, 2008 at 4:37 pm