Democrats Responsible for the Economic Crisis?
Posted by Eric (September 26, 2008 at 5:28 pm)
You’ve got to see this video (via Druge):
YouTuber “TheMouthPeace” links the current economic crisis to the Community Redevelopment Act passed under Carter and expanded in 1995 by Clinton, which required banks to increase their sub-prime lending.
Also shows that George Bush in 2003 and John McCain in 2005 tried to rein in Fannie Mae, only to be thwarted by Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and—yes—Barack Obama (who, incidentally, received 29 times as much cash from Fannie Mae as McCain.
I don’t know if this guy’s analysis is correct, but some of the facts he brings out are both stunning and maddening—maddening, because I’m not hearing anything from the McCain campaign about this stuff.
Check it out and pass it on.
I think that McCain is trying to get this out, but isn’t particularly effective because he doesn’t really know this stuff nor has he been particularly interested in it. He tried to reign in Fannie/Freddie in 2005, but read this article:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
It’s a 1999 article that reads like its the beginning of the crisis and is somewhat consistent with this video. Give loans to people who may or may not repay the loan, with the security of the house. Even if they don’t repay, you get the house and it’s worth more than the mortgage, because of course housing prices are going to always go up. Or at least that was right until ’06.
Comment posted September 27th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
This has generally been debunked…with a bulk of the subprime mortgages (3 out of 4 on average) being given out by institutions not regulated by the CRA anyway.
Additionally several studies on this issue have showed a definite correlation between lack of oversight and the bust in the market. Of course, if you are going to pull up a heavily edited film off of Drudge and offer it as evidence when as you well know…
1) Jim Johnson was appointed by Obama to vet his vp and resigned after a week. The end of the association.
BUT, Rick Davis lied to the everyone and said he had nothing to do with Fannie/Freddie and we all know what has come out in the last two weeks. Davis received money from Fannie/Freddie up until they went bankrupt last month…
2)Raines himself has admitted to maybe speaking to Obama once or twice…Raines himself has said it…
As for the “donations” these are donations from individuals who work for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and not from the companies themselves. A distinction worth noting.
Regardless, McCain and Palin are finished…he should have absolutely chosen a different VP candidate and he would still be in this race. But her lack of even the simplest thing (like today’s Supreme Court question on CBS news) is beyond frightening. Bush v Gore, Brown v Board of Ed, Miranda Rights, Dred Scott…nothing…she couldn’t name a single one.
Sorry, Eric, but someone with no intellectual interest in stuff like this needs to stay in Alaska and not in Washington. McCain made a huge mistake, and it has cost him this election.
Comment posted October 1st, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Actually, Jim, she was asked what other decisions do you disagree with. I’m not sure that she would have been wise to site, Bush v. Gore, Brown v. Board, or Miranda (Dred Scott, on the other hand would have been a fine answer, or Casey v. Planned Parenthood). http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/01/eveningnews/main4493062.shtml
Comment posted October 1st, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Jim—Welcome back.
I think I presented this video pretty even-handedly. Whether the CRA caused or contributed to the financial crisis, what’s really interesting is the information about Republican efforts to address the Fannie/Freddie problem years ago.
But if it’s really all the Republican’s fault, I’d like to know:
1. What specific executive orders or legislation was enacted by the Republicans to gut the regulations under Clinton which would have averted this crisis.
2. What specific legislation was passed by Democrats in the past two years of their majority that would have averted this crisis, but which was vetoed by Bush.
Because, you know, the last time I checked, we had a system of checks and balances, with three branches of government in competition with each other. What did the Democratic Congress do, once they were in power, to turn back the six years of allegedly irresponsible economic policy under the Bush and the Republican Congress?
And I’m not sure what any of this has to do with Sarah Palin. McCain’s campaign was moribund before he picked her. You don’t like her, I get it. (Interesting that Couric doesn’t grill Biden about SCOTUS history, big surprise.)
Comment posted October 1st, 2008 at 10:23 pm
In the words of Sara Palin “I’ll get back to you”…seriously though, the system of checks and balances means nothing when one party hold the majority of the power (as the Republicans did from 2000 – 2006 holding the majority in the legislative branch, and the executive branch, and arguably a right leaning judicial branch…so the checks don’t mean anything.
ERIC-SHE DID GRILL BIEN ON SCOTUS history, that was the point, she asked them both the EXACT SAME QUESTION! Of course Biden answered…the video and transcrpt are available here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/01/eveningnews/main4493062.shtml?source=mostpop_story
So, don’t think the right wing media was treating their darling unfairly, they weren’t. They asked both vp candidates the EXACT SAME questions. Palin, of course, has no intellectual curiousity and is a borderline simpleton and couldn’t answer. Additionally, her answer about what newspapers and magazines she reads was equally ludicrous (“all of them”)…Biden is obviously well versed in American history, Palin knows nothing. Hell, she thinks the founding fathers wrote and put the word “God” into the Pledge of Allegiance…she is a brutal joke on the American people.
Comment posted October 2nd, 2008 at 7:21 am
Jim writes: “Biden is obviously well versed in American history”
See my most recent post. Nor does Biden have a clue what Roe v. Wade (and it’s always overlooked companion case Doe v. Bolton) actually says, or how it has been interpreted by SCOTUS.
His answer on that was ludicrous. But because in the MSM’s narrative Biden is a sage expert on U.S. law history (all of a sudden), his “interpretation” goes unquestioned.
As for the Republican majority, at no point since the election of George Bush have the Republican’s held a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The Democrats could have blocked any of the disastrous deregulation measures they refuse to specifically name which allegedly created this crisis.
Comment posted October 2nd, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Eric-
You, of course, avoid my point. Palin is a circuitous talking woman of average intelligence, with zero intellectual curiousity and dubious motives. She knows nothing of the MOST BASIC American history.
The media has been far too kind to Palin. From her asinine answer on reading “all of them” in regards to billing rape victims for the rape kits in Wasilla to winking at the audience and wiggling her nose-she is a first rate buffoon and should be nowhere near the oval office.
As for Biden’s knowledge of history, I’ll put it up against Palin and McCain’s anytime.
Comment posted October 3rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Jim, the media made the rape quit an issue even though there is no evidence 1) that she knew about the policy and 2) that any rape victim was ever charged. Indeed, all the evidence shows that no one ever was charged.
Biden’s knowledge of history includes FDR going on TV in 1929 to explain the cause of the stock market crash, claims that we spend more money in one month in Iraq than we have in Afghanistan, and that the US and France have driven Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Just because he says these things with a smile and an air that he knows what he’s talking about doesn’t mean that he’s anything but a blowhard.
Comment posted October 3rd, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Brian-
Palin ignores reality and lies her way through everything — from the Bridge to Nowhere routine she put on for weeks to her make believe trade missions to Russia to her paranoid vision of Russian planes flying over Alaskan airspace to saying Alaska provides 20% of the U.S. energy (it’s 3%). These aren’t flubs or gaffes, these are LIES. Lies to me to you to anyone stupid enough to watch her lips move and listen to the mispronounced words come out. She said she would happily cooperate with the Troopergate investigation going on, of course this is another LIE…and of course she isn’t.
Biden can say all sorts of idiotic things, he can talk and talk and talk and a whole plethora of crap might come out of his mouth, but his intent is never to LIE or deceive. That is the difference. Palin is a liar and McCain is a liar. I am ecstatic that after 8 years of Republican idiocy that has collapsed the economy, put us in an endless war and made us the laughingstock in the international world–I’m so glad that America is finally waking up. It took Katrina, a 6 year war, the bankruptcy of a half dozen financial institutions, and McCain’s make-believe “suspended” campaign for Americans to realize what blowhard liars McCain and Palin are and how they would absolutely destroy this country.
Comment posted October 4th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
As opposed to Biden and Obama who just make crap up… “let me be clear, I warned about x in 2005, but wasn’t listened to…” No evidence of any of it, just pure lies, swallowed whole by a press in the tank for this glib fool.
“I would have voted for the Born Alive Protection Act if it had the neutrality language.” Senator, it did have that language. “Somebody’s lying about my record.” No sir, here’s your vote. So give it a rest about lies.
Comment posted October 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Brian-Obviously you and I will never see eye to eye on this, but if we are going to get into a discussion of which side has made more up…your side would win in a landslide. Just about every word out of their mouths has been a lie or an utterly complete fabrication.
Comment posted October 5th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
That’s just silly. Name one misstatement that was as substantive as the BS Biden repeatedly said that we spend more in a month in Iraq than we have in 6 years in Afghanistan. It’s not true. It wasn’t true when Obama said that Al Qaeda is stronger now than at any point since 2002. These are objectively false statements that everyone just passed on because calling them on it might interfere with the press’s mandated Obama cakewalk.
Comment posted October 6th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Okay, Jim, so Joe Biden says something that doesn’t square with the truth and, well, he’s just goofy that way. Palin or McCain does so, and they’re a couple of pathological liars hell bent on destroying the country.
Please.
Comment posted October 6th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Eric-
Squaring with the truth and intentionally lying are two different things.
For example, today McCain said “my fellow prisoners”…he meant to say Americans…this wasn’t a lie. It doesn’t “square with the truth”, but is an honest mistake by someone who is still haunted by something that happened 40 years ago. I would never call this a lie, this is a flub or gaffe.
Palin saying OVER AND OVER AGAIN that Obama pals around with terrorists is a LIE. It wasn’t a one time slip-up, it wasn’t a mistake, it was a calculated lie. Just like repeating the bridge to nowhere LIE…
Comment posted October 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I guess if you don’t equate having your political coming out party hosted by terrorist as paling around, then it’s a lie. If you don’t count getting named to a board on the basis of the terrorist’s recommendation as paling around, then it’s a lie. I think those things pretty closely jibe with paling around.
Mayor Richard Daley said Obama and Ayers are friends. Is he a liar as well? http://tinyurl.com/4qk3rl
Comment posted October 8th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
So, Jim, are you saying that (a) Bill Ayers is not an unrepentant domestic terrorist or (b) he’s not pals with Barrack Obama?
And what about Obama’s lies about his own abortion record?
Also—to go back to an earlier topic—which Supreme Court decisions would you have told Couric you disagree with? Just curious.
Comment posted October 9th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Okay-
On Ayers..I am saying that Ayers is in fact NOT Obama’s pal…there’s countless articles and investigative resources that have proven this.
They sat on the Annenberg Foundation together, Annenberg is a Repubican who has contributed to McCain…so if we play the guilt by association game, McCain then would also be guilty.
As for him being unrepentant…it is widely accepted that Ayers quote about “not doing enough” was taken out of context and was actually in reference to doing more to stop the war in Vietnam as opposed to “planting more bombs…”
As for Supreme Court decisions I would have disagreed with..isn’t it obvious:
Bush v Gore.
Comment posted October 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm