AP IMPACT: Mortgage firm arranged stealth campaign

AP on Yahoo ^ | 10/19/08 | Pete Yost - ap

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.

In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI's chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.

Freddie Mac's payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent Hagel's bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005. All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it.

[NormsRevenge]

fwiw .. a very long piece from Pete Yost.

[Mike Darancette]

In the end, there was not enough Republican support for Hagel's bill to warrant bringing it up for a vote because Democrats also opposed it and the votes of some would be needed for passage. The measure died at the end of the 109th Congress.

McCain, R-Ariz., was not a target of the DCI campaign. He signed Hagel's letter and three weeks later signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.

Talk about spin! The bill passed out of committee on a straight party line vote. No Democrat ever voted for it and no Republican ever voted against it. Of course this twit didn't tell us that to get a vote in the Senate 60 Senators are needed to support. There were not 60 Republicans in the Senate.

McCain is 100% righteous in this, I hope the story has legs.

[VRW Conspirator]

...a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation...

I knew it! It's the republicans fault.

[Anti-MSM]

Interesting story if you get past the early paragraphs that tries to imply the downfall of Fannie and Freddie was due to Republicans. It does point out that Democrats were against the legislation to regulate it.

It is curious that they would wait until way down the article to mention it and there is no mention that McCain wrote a letter years ago addressing the need to regulate Fannie and Freddie.

[NormsRevenge]

The editorial wing of Amalgamated Propaganda worked overtime on this one, it seems.

[Chet 99]

Good going on McCain-Feingold, Senator!

Now the wave of the future will be untraceable $100 donations from “Mickey Mouse” and “Fred T. Sanford”.

[Chet 99]

oops.. replied to wrong thread. LOL.

[NormsRevenge]

No problemo.. a bump is a bump, after all. :-)

[NormsRevenge]

I hate having to excerpt articles , hopefully more folk will read the entire article as you have.

The left and their mouthpieces&foils are shameless

[gusopol3]

watch out or you’ll get bunny with pancake on head awarded to you.

[org.whodat]

McCain is 100% righteous in this, I hope the story has legs.

Do you know the name of one of the people who worked to kill this bill??? You just may find him in McCain's election office. Never as a question you don't know the answer to.

[Azzurri]

Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.

Horrible, HORRIBLE journalism. The first sentence implies it was Republicans who wanted to kill the regulation. In fact, it was the opposite. I've seen this same story posted on several websites, and on some of them the HEADLINE was "Freddie Mac Secretly Paid Republican Consulting Firm to Kill Legislation Regulating Mortgage Industry" or something to that effect. The AP is so blatantly biased that they have no credibility, and yet they get so much play nationally and do influence public opinion greatly. This is disgusting journalism.

[Dems_R_Losers]

Freddie Mac did hire a lot of Republican lobbyists. Fannie Mae hired mostly Democrats. They pretty much played a divide-and-conquer game. This story may be true, but I worked on this legislation and Republicans almost unanimously supported it. Freddie Mac wasted their money. Fannie Mae didn't.

Also I cannot believe the hiring of this firm was secreat. It would have to have registered as a lobbyist. No way Freddie Mac would have hired a firm and not registered or disclosed it.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm...whom else would they give money to try to influence Republicans - they didn't need to worry about 'rats, and they just needed to assure that enough 'pubs signed on to keep the total number opposed above 40% to make sure any filibuster couldn't be broken.....

[sgtyork]

—Do you know the name of one of the people who worked to kill this bill??? You just may find him in McCain’s election office—

What a BS innuendo only post.

[Terry Mross]

I stopped reading when I saw the word “republican” in the same article with Hegel.

[palmer]

I stopped reading when I saw the word “republican” in the same article with Hegel.

If you had continued a few more sentences you would have seen it was Hagel's bill to reign in F&F.

[erk]

In case the McCain campaign and Republicans are reading this, I will say it loudly:

Fannie Mae had to hire a firm to focus on the Republicans because they already had the Democrats in their hip pocket!

Furthermore, McCain was a co-sponsor of the bill.

[palmer]

"Today," the report added, "the senator is aware of the issue and ... at the moment he is undecided." Allen's deputy chief of staff "has said that the senator will take into consideration before he decides that Freddie Mac is located in Virginia and is one of the largest Virginia employers."

Another Allen failure.

[Trust but Verify]

Fannie Mae had to hire a firm to focus on the Republicans because they already had the Democrats in their hip pocket!

Ding, ding, ding!! We have a winner!!