How Freddie Mac Halted Regulatory Drive Largely By Lobbying Republicans »
Posted By ybdogsct 11 months ago in Business & Finance
Freddie Mac and its sister company, Fannie Mae, are in financial collapse and under government control. Congress is investigating how it all happened.
Freddie Mac enlisted prominent conservatives, including Gingrich and former Justice Department official Viet Dinh, paying each $300,000 in 2006, according to internal records. In 2005, Freddie Mac hired Republican political consultant Frank Luntz.
Freddie Mac thwarted efforts to bring a tough regulatory bill sponsored by Senator Chuck Hagel by secretly paying a Republican consulting firm, Washington-based DCI Group, $2 million to kill Hagel's legislation. The covert lobbying campaign targeted Republican senators in 2005-06. According to the newly obtained records, DCI's deployment was part of a broader campaign that targeted mainly Republicans on Capitol Hill. The internal Freddie Mac documents show that 17 of the lobbying firms and consultants paid in 2006 were specifically directed to focus on Republicans and four on Democrats.
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Endoscopy11 months ago
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ybdogsct11 months ago
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My mistake. If I knew how to unshare a story, I would as it is off-topic in the Islam Group.
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Of course, applying your own standard, if you weren't interested in reading the story, you shouldn't have clicked the link and posted a comment. -
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ADAGUY11 months ago
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Eagle_Eye11 months ago
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ybdogsct11 months ago
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EAGLE EYE:
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"Very interesting.......I heard it was all the Dems fault and now I see the Newt had his icky fingers in it."
That's precisely why I posted this story -- to debunk some of the misconceptions and talking points floating around the news, radio, and web.
In fairness, some Republicans were actually trying to pass regulatory legislation. Those Republicans included Chuck Hagel and John Sununu. But they were outnumbered and outgunned by those Republicans being lobbied by Freddie Mac via the DCI Lobbying Group. -
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Eagle_Eye11 months ago
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"According to confidential company documents obtained by The Associated Press, Reps. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., spent the evening in hard-to-obtain seats near the Nationals dugout with Freddie Mac executive Hollis McLoughlin and four of Freddie Mac's in-house lobbyists."
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Why is this stuff just now coming out? I think we are going to get some real "Nightmare" stories of how seriously corrupt and evil the last 10+ years have been.
I use 10+ years because this all started before Clinton was president and the GOP so seriously tied him up with the sex thing that I do now believe, IMHO, they were using it as a smoke screen to continue screwing the people. By keeping the nation preoccupied with Clintons sex life they were able to take focus off of their deregulation, lobbyists, etc.
I think we are in really serious trouble, it is going to get really bad and worse before it gets better. IMHO -
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Lurch11 months ago
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I think it no coincidence that Newt "I cheated on my cancer wife while smearing Clinton" Gingrich is making a comeback in Republican circles of late.
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Anybody who can sell out his country that badly for pure profit and political gain is a ringer for Republican Party Leadership. Newt, you got what it takes! -
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CHAM11 months ago
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ybdog. Good Post. But a few omissions, probably accidental, but let me elaborate. That DCI Lobbying Firm that was paid $2 Million to stop the regulation is owned by Doug Goodyear.
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Recognize the name? Read any of my past posts about McCain and Freddie and Fannie? If you have you might recall that I was carrying on that Doug Goodyear was McCain's selection to manage the Republican Convention. Think about that. And I believe that McCain's Campaign manager ( Rick Davis ) also received $2 Million to help. I kept crying about this guy being in McCain's inner circle. Not just "guilt by association".
Anyone besides me think it odd that McCain was one of the four sponsoring the regulatory limits while at the same time a couple of his inner circle was being paid big bucks to stop it?
I voted against McCain and his Twit.-
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ybdogsct11 months ago
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CHAM:
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"Good Post. But a few omissions, probably accidental, but let me elaborate. That DCI Lobbying Firm that was paid $2 Million to stop the regulation is owned by Doug Goodyear."
Oh, don't worry. I've posted articles about Doug Goodyear before too. In fact, here are a few gems I posted several months ago as a reminder:
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/05/30/obama-ta...
http://www.newsweek.com/id/136321
"Doug Goodyear, McCain's selection for GOP Convention Chair, is CEO of DCI Group, which earned $3 million lobbying for ExxonMobil and GM.
DCI was paid $348,000 to represent Burma's military junta, which was condemned by the State Dept. for its human-rights record and remains in power today. His firm created a PR campaign to burnish the junta's image, denouncing 'falsehoods' by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses.
Goodyear's firm also pioneered 527 groups, precisely the kind of operations that McCain, in his battle for campaign-finance reform, has denounced.
Ironically, Goodyear was chosen for the post after the McCain campaign nixed another candidate, Paul Manafort, who runs a lobbying firm with McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis."
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/07/03/carl-lin...
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB217/indi...
http://www.thelangreport.com/featured/carl-linder-...
"Carl Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain's Ohio Victory Team.
A report by the Organization of American States states that Lindner's firm also engaged in arms trafficking, helping to deliver 3,000 Nicaraguan AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to the AUC in 2001. According to federal prosecutors, when company officials realized the arrangement was illegal, they switched to making the payments in cash.
McCain has described FARC as 'one of the worst' terrorist groups."
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/07/03/carl-lin...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...
"Longtime uber-lobbyist Charles R. Black Jr. is John McCain's man in Washington. Black was Jonas Savimbi's man in the capital city. His lobbying firm received millions from the brutal Angolan guerrilla leader and took advantage of Black's contacts in Congress and the White House. Black and his partners were at times registered foreign agents for a remarkable collection of U.S.-backed foreign leaders whose human rights records were sometimes harshly criticized.
What the firm achieved was quickly dubbed 'Savimbi chic.' Foreign-agent records document hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on behalf of UNITA, including $76,491 for limousines, $13,675 for photography and $216,186 for lodging at the Grand Hotel and the Waldorf-Astoria.
McCain 'portrays himself as Mr. Clean, and then he has all these lobbyists around him who are connected to a lot of not-so-clean people.'"
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/05/30/obama-ta...
"McCain's help for Keating came after Keating had donated $112,000 to McCain from 1982 to 1987, had taken McCain and his family on nine trips, including three to the Bahamas, and had gone in on a business deal with McCain's wife and father-in-law.
In 1982, Keating held a fund-raiser for him, collecting more than $11,000 from 40 employees of American Continental Corp. In 1983, as McCain contemplated his House re-election, Keating hosted a $1,000-a-plate dinner for him, even though McCain had no serious competition. When McCain pushed for the Senate in 1986, Keating was there with more than $50,000. By 1987, McCain had received about $112,000 from Keating and his associates.
The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center."
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/07/03/carl-lin...
http://citizensforethics.org/node/29942
"The FEC has fined a 527 group that aired ads during Barack Obama's 2004 Senate campaign. The Empower Illinois Media Fund violated campaign rules by raising money to defeat Obama without registering with the FEC as a political committee or complying with federal contribution limits and reporting requirements. The group agreed to shut down and pay the fine."
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Painesright11 months ago
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Um, they didn't need to lobby the Democrats because they were already OPPOSED to regulating Fannie/Freddie.
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To argue that this is a problem caused only by Republican is beyond denial... it's downright delusional!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs=related-
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ybdogsct11 months ago
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Actually, they didn't lobby the Democrats because between 2003-2005, Democrats did not control the committees in the Senate and the House whose responsibility it was to provide oversight for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
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Make no mistake about it: REPUBLICANS controlled the committee. REPUBLICANS could have brought forth the desired legislation with or without the Democrats. But it was the REPUBLICANS who killed Hagel's bill in committee because they were being lobbied by DCI.
Republicans could have passed the bill even if Democrats voted along party lines to reject it. The Democrats simply lacked the votes to do anything so your "argument" is tantamount to revision by obfuscation.
This is odd coming from the alleged "party of personal responsibility," don't you think?
LOL.
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Painesright11 months ago
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Sorry, that was a faulty link. This one should work:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs -
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Painesright11 months ago
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Here's another good one, just to keep things fair and balanced...
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0=related -
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CHAM11 months ago
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Painesright. Ybdog again forgot to mention that the deregulation plan and bill was developed and delivered by McCains Senior Advisor, one Phil Gramm. Another in McCain's inner circle.
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But you see Paines, Ybdog had so much to report that its easy to overlook many things - say like the Air Force Tanker deal, you know the $40 Billion Contract for the Air Force tanker, that McCain got the specs changed so that the American Company couldn't win over the European Company. Would have been a loss of about 30,000 American jobs if Boeing hadn't been able to overturn the decision and get it re-evaluated.
Yes McCain was so dirty that I'll bet George didn't vote for him. Now that would be the pot calling the kettle black.-
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Radiofreeeuropa11 months ago
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Overall deregulation has been a republican mantra ever since Reagan. The Democrats seemed to have been brought on board coming from an angle that it would "help the poor". This has played out the way republicans will eventually be for allowing gay marriage, (not for the same reasons democrats do) but because it's profitable.
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We must face the truth, that industry lobbyists convinced all those who supported this awful policy change, sold it to their respective suckers with whatever reasoning and promises it took to get them on board. The industry itself is primarily to blame for seeking to change sound economic principles to flimsy ones.
Government aided and abetted. Both parties for different reasons. They all failed to provide sensible oversight. There are no real good guys in this story.
To conclude and condense, the financial and mortgage industries should have known this was unsound to begin with. Government failed to provide prudent regulation. It .
happened because of corruption between lobbyists and government officials. And as pointed out by Cham and ybdogsct; McCain and his campaign were very dirty in this affair.
Don't expect people who oppose government to run it well.
Republicans think Government is the source of all problems, they subvert and sabotage at every opportunity. This is not a criticism, it serves the idealogy well. But voters need to consider how wise it is to appoint a racist to a committee that seeks to bolster good relations between races, to elect someone who hates animals to oversee the SPCA, or someone who hates government to government office. (Unless of course the goal is in fact sabotage.)
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jovial11 months ago
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Great post, ybdog! They even had me believing it for a while there. One thing I have to give the conservatives, they sure know how to twist a story around. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I bookmarked this story. You provided the fodder I needed against the conservatives I know that have been repetitively blaming Democrats for this mess.
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nostalgia11 months ago
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There is no twisting - it is simply another bipartisan failure with both sides lining up to blame the other side in hopes of diverting attention away from the wrong doing of "their party"
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Wake up and look at how your own House member and Senators voted and who they took money from
Unless you are willing to do that, nothing in DC will ever change
If you believe Dodd and Frank are not part of the problem, you have been duped again
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DarkWizard11 months ago
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ybdogsct,
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Thank you for the invite and great story. I think we will see a wave of prosecutions coming down the pike once the transitional period is over. I've read that as many as 400 people are on the FBI's radar for investigation into illegal activities related to this economic crisis. I'm sure some of those will be government officials and politicians too. I'm sure the number of people being investigated will probably go up as more data is uncovered in to these dirty practices.
Be sure of one thing. No matter how many Republicans are directly involved or found guilty, the right-wing faithful will have a spin showing that somehow it's still really the Democrats' fault. -
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gamahuche11 months ago
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nostalgia11 months ago
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"How about an agreement to eliminate the euphemism "lobbying" from the American language and replace it with the honest English "bribery"
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Really??
How about banning ALL members of government from ever becoming lobbyists - especially elected officials??
Can you explain to me why this pattern of employment is even allowed??
Tom Daschle:
Elected to the House of Representatives in 1978
Went on to serve in the Senate until he lost his re-election bid in 2004
Post-senate career - Senior Policy Advisor with the K Street law firm Alston & Bird, Health care interests, including CVS Caremark, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Abbott Laboratories and HealthSouth, are among the firm's lobbying clients
Daschle will be Obama's Health and Human Services secretary - he'll deal with healthcare when he was a lobbyist for the healthcare industry
Daschle was recruited to join the K Street law firm Alston & Birdby the former Republican Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole. Daschle has refused to discuss his salary, but Dole, performing a similar role at the firm, has said he makes in the region of $800,000 to $1 million per year
Why was Dole allowed to take this position when his wife was in the Senate?
All smells to high heaven doesn't it? -
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Spadecaller11 months ago
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Here Here! G.
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For years I have been sick of the fact lobbying is considered a "reputable practice". It's freaking bribery. It always was and it always will be. Bribery is illegal but if you change its description to "lobbying" it's supposed to make it respectable. Horse Sh!T. -
SwampFox-82ndComment removed: Retracted by user
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cowboygrandpa11 months ago
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All you have to do is mention Gingrich and my dander gets up !!!!!
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Slime ball SOB who directed attention of Clinton while cheating on his sick wife !!!!
That ass hole is going to enjoy a very hot place in eternity one he earned all by himself !!!
Of course the Republicans are for big business, it is the only way to steal millions of dollars in bribes yearly.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were the Republican poster children for out of control greed, yet the Reublicans pushed for them to remain mostly unregulated. Then tried to blame the Democrats.
Wow !!!! Thank God the slimeballs are out of power !!!! Now lets get busy and reform the laws they destroyed with their greedy ways !!!!
Oh yeah, if you see Newt Gringrich coming your way just say Satan, get thee behind me !!!!-
SwampFox-82ndComment removed: Retracted by user
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cowboygrandpa11 months ago
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SwampFox-82nd:
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Amen brother !!!!
A lot of good men died in a lot of foreign lands as well as in this land for our freedoms !!!!
I'll be damned if I roll over for either party !!!!
It is just that I see so many lying chickensh*t Republican politicians that I want to stick their nose in the sh*t they don't seem to mind putting others in !!!!
It is all a big SNAFU when they get involved.
Love to go fishing, getting ready to take my grandson to do some stream fishing in about a month. I know a little place where I can always find trout !!! LOL
Mmmmmmmmmmm sure is good cooked in a lemon butter served on a bed of rice pilaf !!!!!!
This time of year the rabbit is good as well. Rabbit stew !!!!! Mmmmmmmmmmmm !!!!!!
Peace my brother !!!!! -
hefaa1Comment removed: Hard Banned
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nostalgia11 months ago
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What happened when there was an attempt by Sen. DeMint to add an amendment to the housing bailout bill this summer that would ban GSEs from hiring lobbyists???
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Anyone know??
Senate Republicans Push Ban on GSE Lobbying
Seven Republican senators sent Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) a letter on Wednesday urging the Majority Leader to include a ban on lobbying and political activity by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in legislation aimed at bolstering the two mortgage giants.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has threatened to hold up the housing legislation unless it is amended to include a provision prohibiting the two companies from lobbying Congress.
Sen. Reid responded in by sending an e-mail to business lobbyists, asking K Street for some help.
"We are informed that Sen. DeMint would like to seek an amendment to the House amendment," wrote a Reid staffer. "While we have not seen Sen. DeMint's amendment, it's fair to say that such an amendment could complicate debate and delay passage of the housing bill."
“If American taxpayers are forced to buyout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, their lobbying and political activities should stop,” explained DeMint, who introduced the idea of a ban last week. “If we plan to use taxpayer dollars to buy shares of these troubled companies, they should be treated like other federal entities.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0708/Senate...
This isn't a problem with one party or the other
This is a case of politicians from both parties showing their greed
You have to look at individual members of Congress and assign blame REGARDLESS of the party they belong to -
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THOMNH6211 months ago
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this is a case of the left creating an economic disaster and blaming everyone else, it was the community reinvestment act that started it all. Watch closely and learn if your open minded if not then you are not open to the truth and keep spouting your lies.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4=iv_id=e...-
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CRYMTYPHON11 months ago
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Giving poor Americans afordable mortgages did not wreck the American economy.
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8 years of war charged to the deficit
while giving tax cuts to the rich who re-invested in asia and central amercia, -
tax cuts that were again charged to the deficit, -
- that broke the bank.
Just like we said it would.
We said it here; in Propeller; we were very clear.
And cons replied that the economy was fine,
we were spitefully painting the bush economy bleak,
deficits weren't so bad, what we needed were even more tax cuts, and less regulation, -
Don't tell us about Carter 40 years ago.
Tell us why you were wrong the last 8 years, -
and how you intend to make things right. -
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tchef11 months ago
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The Bush administration itself ignored warnings about the mortgage crisis. They wanted to keep the housing boom going for as long as they could because it was the only thing holding up the economy.
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http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/bush-administ...-
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nostalgia11 months ago
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Try reading this with links to all of the warnings from the Bush administration:
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Bush Administration Warnings About Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
http://exposingliberallies.blogspot.com/2008/09/bu...
Of course you are probably more interested in keeping your head in the sand -
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JohnGault11 months ago
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We need to stop with the finger pointing. This is not a party line issue. Blame can be put on both sides and on ourselves. The Government did not force us to take out these loans. They did not force us to take the equity out of our homes and spend it.
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We elect our officials based on the decisions that they make (well myth, hoping it were true) So do research on YOUR official on what they did and vote accordingly.
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lanewalk11 months ago
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I'm constantly surprised by being given information which would indicate one party is responsible for a problem when it is normaly, as in this case, both parties which makes it easier for one to point the finger at the other than defend their own responsibility in creating the problem.
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In this case, the needed support from the major democrats on the banking committee was already bought so naturally they lobbied to get support from members of the party that had somme members who were vocally supporting legislation they didn't want passed.
Both Clinnton and Bush introduced legislation to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and neither could get it passed.
Neither party has clean hands in this.-
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CRYMTYPHON11 months ago
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I had to read that 4 times, slowly, before I disagreed with it.
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You sound wonderfuly fair; let's not point fingers, everyone has a share of the blame, etc.
But Ybdogsct has done his homework a little too well here,
and a little too clearly.
If both parties have some blame, the portions are very unequal.
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CHAM11 months ago
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"Neither Party is Clean in all this." I couldn't agree more. But since I am neither Republican nor Democrat, it's probably easier for me to say that.
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But I do blame the Republicans the most because they had both the Senate, the House, and the White House for six years and when they could finally deregulate ( as was their plan from yore ) they did so and brought our country to its knees.
Supposedly the Republican Party, the party of the Religious Right couldn't muster up enough moral citizens to do good for the country. Instead they and their Christian claimers enabled the most immoral and vile Government this country has ever had to suffer thru.
For this I have called for the end of the Republican Party. Let them go into the dust bin of history having been branded exactly as they should "The party of Special Interests" as opposed to the Party of the People.
And four years from now if the Democrats have decided to swill in the fruits of immoral, unethical, corrupt, special interest Governance, hopefully long before then Americans will be forming a party to send the Democrats to live with the Republicans in the dust bin and let a new party emerge, one that actually will keep its Fidelity with the people who they are supposed to represent - those who elected them.
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