Thursday, November 12, 2009

Opinion

Robert Schlesinger

John McCain, Rick Davis, and the Glass Housing Crisis

September 19, 2008 05:50 PM ET | Robert Schlesinger | Permanent Link | Print

Reader Comments

Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005

"John McCain co-sponsored a bill to put a stop to this and it was killed- by the Democrats- who were lining their pockets."

that bill was introduced Jan 2005 by Hagel. McCain did not sign on until 5/2006, 10 months after it died in committee (16 months after it was introduced. He knew full well it was going nowhere.

The Republicans had control of this committee 11 to 9 over the Democrats so had the Republicans chosen to move this bill they could have.

This was introduced during the 109th Congress, of which both the Senate and House were controlled by the Republicans. This could have easily passed both, and could easily have been signed by the President.

I will leave it up to you to ponder why it never gained any steam (pssst. l o b b y i s t s, shhhh).

Niether McCain or Obama is to Blame

I have no use for either McCain or Obama - each for different reasons. But I must say the blind partisanship is more than a little goofy.

Neither of these guys is responsible for this mess... We, the people, the politicians, and corporate America, wanted real estate to continue to go up forever and everyone bought into the insanity of "all gain and no pain". The ultimate crazy Ponzi scheme.

Time to stop dancing and pay the piper... but we can't even do that. All hooked on the feel good, credit, ever increasing equity monkey.

Sober up America.

John McCain's lobbyist ties threaten his reformer image

John McCain's lobbyist ties threaten his reformer image:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/20/mccains_lobbyist_ties_pose_threat_to_reformer_image/

Lobbyists Are Running The McCain Campaign

All of the TOP PEOPLE in the McCain campaign are lobbyists for large corporations, including Big Oil, and FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

Campaign CEO - Rick Davis, a partner at lobbying firm Davis Manafort

National Campaign Director- Christian Ferry and associate at lobbying firm Davis Manafort

National Political Director- Mike Dennehy, who founded The Dennehy Group, a New Hampshire lobbying firm

National Finance Director- Susan Nelson lobbyist working for Loeffler Group LLC. Continued taking monthly lobbying payments after starting with McCain''s campaign.

Senior Policy Advisor- David Crane. A Senior Executive at The Washington Group, a corporate lobbying firm with 2006 billings of $10.4 million.

Senior Foreign Policy Adviser - Randy Scheunemann. He is McCain''s PRIMARY Foreign Policy Adviser. He is also a lobbyist for FOREIGN COUNTRIES, including Georgia (that was just in a war with Russia).

National Finance Co-Chair Tom Loeffler Owns one of the most lucrative and influential lobbying practices in Washington.

Regional Campaign Manager- Doug Davenport ran DCI''s lobbying practice. Was forced to leave when it was exposed that he LOBBIED FOR the REPRESSIVE REGIME IN BURMA.

Campaign Spokesman- Charlie Black who is chairman of BKSH & Associates, with lobbying billings of $7.6 million in 2006

Barack Obama has no lobbyists on the payroll or serving as key advisers.

McCain is a Liar not a Leader

While we go through one of the biggest crises in financial history, McCain's is spreading lies while Obama works to solve the problem. We now see that Mcain's campaign manager Rick Davis helped cover up this crisis when he worked for Freddie Mac. Raines never advised Obama, like McCain claims. Johnson also did not make Obama's VP pick. He stepped down from the Obama campaign two months before Biden was selected. McCain received $170,000 in contributions from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, while Obama received less than $16,000. McCain's deregulation push led directly to this crisis and the Bush administration and Republican majorities compounded the problem. If McCain thought there was a crisis, why did he not push the Republicans to act when they could? He was gaming the system, just like he did with Charles Keating. Why has he said hundreds of times in this campaign, "the fundamentals of our economy are strong, my friends?" McCain knew they were not strong and he thinks he can suddently turn around and and blame Obama for 26 years of bad policy that he helped engineer. All he can do is claim guilt by association against Obama, who never did anything espoused by Rezko, Ayers, Wright, Raines, Johnson, or any Republican boogey man. McCain, however, was a close personal friend of Charles Keating and received massive contributions from him, as well as business favors. McCain interference with bank regulators allowed Keating to beat tax-payers out of $3.4 billion. Now McCain will cost of trillions more bailing out the banks. This will have a devastating effect on the U.S. economy.

Alee Martin of New York

You poor soul. When it comes time for you to retire I certainly hope there is a good mental institution for you to check into as we retired people do not need any more retards out here

John Mcain

We all know Mcain's bio...POW, war hero...etc. Does anyone know if he has ever suffered from PTS?

Campaign contibutions

Well, guess what? Politico reports that at least 20 McCain fundraisers have lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pocketing at least $12.3 million over the last nine years. For example -

• Aquiles Suarez, listed as an economic adviser to the McCain campaign in a July 2007 McCain press release, was formerly the director of government and industry relations for Fannie Mae. The Senate Lobbying Database says Suarez oversaw the lending giant’s $47,510,000 lobbying campaign from 2003 to 2006.

• The lobbying firm of Charlie Black, one of McCain’s top aides, made at least $820,000 working for Freddie Mac from 1999 to 2004.

• The McCain campaign’s vice-chair Wayne Berman and its congressional liaison John Green made $1.14 million working on behalf of Fannie Mae for lobbying firm Ogilvy Government Relations. Green made an additional $180,000 from Freddie Mac.

• Arther B. Culvahouse Jr., the VP vetter who helped John McCain select Sarah Palin, earned $80,000 from Fannie Mae in 2003 and 2004, while working for lobbying and law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP.

Alex Martin

To all of you out there.

Mr. Martin claims to be from NY.

Please know that most New Yorkers can distinguish knowing someone's name from being his BFF.

Franklin Raines is not connected to Obama

You can spread the lies, but hopefully you don't believe them yourself.

McCain is a fool.

He’s not just out of touch with our economy, global politics and simple geography. He is out of touch with reality. He thinks that we forgot he is for deregulation. He thinks that we forgot that he is deep into the culture of greed and corruption. How anyone could vote for someone so damaged is beyond me.

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Robert Schlesinger is a deputy editor at U.S. News and World Report and oversees all opinion editorial content. He is the author of White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters.

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