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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.

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.