If lobbyists are bad, would you not agree that it would be worse for actual bankers pushing subprimes on a campaign be worse?

Penny Pritzker was a banker who tried to save her floundering family bank from subprime loans by ... pushing more subprime loans way back in 2001.

To think that she is expected to be the Secretary of the Treasury is outright criminal.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/919177,CST-NWS-pritz28.article

Here's the best part:

"But a letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times shows that until the end, Pritzker appeared to be taking a leadership role in trying to revive the bank with an expanded push into subprime loans."

Genteel Harvested by Bankers, Insurers, Capitalists and Aristocrats Through Usury

Is bank liquidity in service to usury a good thing or a bad thing? If enforcing and supporting usury by banks is a good thing, who is it good for? If enforcing and supporting usury by banks is a bad thing, who is it bad for?

When millions of bogus loans are made by banks in order to commit a genteel population to the payment of exorbitant interest that they can't afford, that is without equity to the borrower, in order to grow capital for those who own and control the banks and the economy, it is a bad thing; this is what the current banking crisis is all about.

The genteel population does not want to appear poor, so they are harvested by the banking system and the economy to maintain an illusion of middle class prosperity, they work to keep up the interest payments to keep up the genteel middle class illusion, and when they cannot "en masse" make the payments on their mortgages; loans collapse and the greedy bankers, insurers, aristocrats and capitalist that own the banking system and the economy end up holding worthless mortgages, worthless mortgages are then bundled into worthless securities.

Who deserves the help here? -- the greedy usurers: bankers, insurers, capitalists and aristocrats that harvest the genteel population; or the genteel population, who are trying the best they can to live up to the propaganda of the American Dream.

It is the genteel population, the "faux middle class" and the genteel poor that have been harvested by the greedy bankers, insurers, capitalists and aristocrats with bogus mortgages to grow capital for themselves at the expense of the genteel population, not the greedy bankers, capitalists, insurers and aristocrats that are trying to live off of the genteel population like parasitic mistletoe on a tree. It is morally wrong to support the greedy bankers, capitalists, insurers and aristocrats living on and off of the genteel population, and to let them continue to do so until the tree of life of the genteel population has all of the life sucked from it and the genteel population, as a tree of life, dies.

In the United States, those in control always talk about the "middle class" as a vast singularity. However, the "middle class" is in the middle of something that isn't talked about. There are two different classes that the "middle class" is in the middle of; one of the classes is the "aristocratic class", and the other class is the class of the "common population". The class of the aristocracy is a 10% minority and the class of the common population is a 70% majority population; this leaves the "middle class" as a 20% minority population.

In the United States the 70% majority "common population" is regarded by the aristocracy and the middle class as "mean, vulgar and vile toilers" and no one in the common population wants to be a "mean, vulgar and vile toiler", so the common population takes on middle class pretensions; and, by mortgages, loans and credit --purchase "faux middle class" credentials, and become the "genteel middle class".

The next layer of the common population does the same thing and becomes the "genteel poor", and all separate themselves from the "mean, vulgar and vile poor"; when, in fact, all are peasants with pretensions on borrowed money.

We the common population, the 70% majority common population of peasantry must come to terms with being peasants, become united as peasants, live within our means and not allow the prevailing propaganda of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness with freedom and justice for all to fractionalize the 70% majority of the common population; so that greedy bankers, insurers, capitalists, owners and toadies of the American aristocracy and "middle class" can continue to divide and harvest the 70% majority common population by fractionalization and usury.

If we as a common population do not buy into the "middle class illusion", and do not try to separate ourselves as peasants by way of borrowed money, so that greedy bankers of the aristocracy and middle class can harvest us because we are ashamed of being a part of the "mean, vulgar and vile" common population, we can become united as a 70% majority common population of peasants that we are, and we can control politics in the United States, as well as the law of the land; because, if we, being in the majority, are not ashamed of being common population peasants, we can and will as a 70% majority common population of the United States have the voting strength to control the politics and the law of the United States, so that politics and law of the United States works for the benefit of the 70% majority common population of the United States, rather than just for the 20% minority of the middle class and the 10% minority of the aristocracy, as is and has been the case since American aristocrats fought the British aristocrats with common population sinew, blood and muscle to obtain life, liberty and happiness with freedom and justice, for the American aristocracy; and to a lesser degree the "20% minority middle class" at the expense of the "70% majority common population" of peasants of the United States.

We must as a 70% majority common population of the United States, say NO to the genteel middle class and the genteel poor division of the common population realizing that the "mean, vulgar and vile" designation is a division tactic to divide the common population; we must stay united to maintain our voting strength by living within our means without being subjected to usury for genteel purpose; and with our combined voting strength, take our rightful place of political power and control over the government, the law, and the aristocracy. We must accept who and what we are and quit playing like we are not peasants, when we are ALL PEASANTS: genteel peasants, genteel poor peasants and common poor peasants, -- peasants all.

Ron Paul has been warning of this looming monetary mess for years.

Nobody in DC wanted to have such an "Emperor Has No Clothes" story being discussed.

Nobody in Middle America wanted to hear an uncomfortable message like that.

Well, the fiscal crisis is no longer "looming", but the proposed "solution" from both wings of the Oligarchy Party will be more of what's been going on all along, because the only solution government can ever come up with for bad government manipulation of the economy is MORE government manipulation of the economy.

This tells me EVERYTHING

On May 23, 2006, as a jury in Houston deliberated the case against top Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, a little-known regulatory agency in Washington, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), released a study with the dryly bureaucratic title “Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae.” The document received far less attention than the news from Enron, but its conclusions were stunning. In meticulous detail, it outlined a culture of corruption at the Federal National Mortgage Association — better known as Fannie Mae — that rivals the most serious corporate scandals in recent years. In this case, however, the main players are Washington insiders — some of them prominent veterans of the Clinton administration — and the scandal’s effects could ripple through Congress for years.

Fannie Mae is the biggest single source of money for mortgages in the United States. From 1998 to 2004, the years covered by the OFHEO investigation, it was headed by former Clinton budget director Franklin Raines, whose top management team included former Clinton Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick, sometimes mentioned as a future attorney general in a Democratic administration. During that period, the report says, Raines and his team grossly overstated Fannie Mae’s earnings — to the tune of $10.6 billion — for the purpose of paying themselves big bonuses. “By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets,” the report says, “senior management maximized the bonuses and other executive compensation they received, at the expense of shareholders.”

In doing so, the report says, Raines and his team steered Fannie Mae far afield from its original mission, transforming it from a stable business into a risky one. Fannie Mae has its roots in the New Deal, when it was established to increase the amount of money available for mortgages. Over the years, its main business has been to issue debt and then use the proceeds to buy mortgages from lenders, allowing those lenders to give out new mortgages. Originally a government agency, Fannie Mae went private in 1968, with the goal of “increasing the availability and affordability of homeownership for low-, moderate-, and middle-income Americans,” according to its mission statement.

But Fannie Mae is not just any private institution. It is congressionally chartered, meaning its existence is established in law, it does not have to pay state and local income taxes, and it is not subject to bankruptcy laws. It can borrow money at a lower rate than anyone else except the federal government itself. Given all that, there is a public perception that Fannie Mae is a rock-solid government institution. “There is an implied guarantee,” says Sen. John Sununu, a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee who has sponsored legislation to reform Fannie Mae. “Investors think they are the next best thing to Treasuries.”...

According to the report, Raines became obsessed with propping up Fannie Mae’s earnings per share, or EPS, even if he had to use creative accounting to make it happen. Raines set a series of increasingly higher EPS goals that, if met, would trigger bonuses for the executive team that far surpassed what they received in salary....

It worked. Fannie Mae met its EPS goals, and Raines rewarded his top executives — and most of all himself — with unheard-of amounts of money.

Even though his salary never topped $1 million, Raines’s total compensation shot from $6.48 million in 1998 to $8.52 million in 1999, to $13.89 million in 2000, to $18.86 million in 2001, to $18.20 million in 2002, to $24.15 million in 2003, all on the strength of EPS bonuses. Investigators found that of the $90.12 million Raines was paid in that six-year period, more than $52 million came from EPS bonuses.

My concern is that too much attention is paid to financial confusion, and too little to social disintegration. Public trust is perhaps at an all-time low, while political panic and religious hysteria are on the rise. Last time these phenomena converged we had Aryan Nations, Waco and Oklahoma City.

With the Republicans running an openly apocalyptic ticket, and the Democrats running a black man, the violent right-wing underground must be frothing at the mouth. It wouldn't take much for Far Right social movement entrepreneurs to ignite this tinderbox.

Sad to say, reform groups and law enforcement are almost wholly unprepared for dealing with this type of social pathology, and due to their ignorance (and arrogance) almost always make things worse through inappropriate responses.

Lobbyists are to blame for the integration and takeover of the political system by corporations.

Republicans are to blame for the deregulation of the banking and securities industries, offshoring of our manufacturing base, and military misadventures in the name of religion and other neocon craziness.

Democrats are to blame for lacking the courage and above all, the innocence in all of the above matters, to function as an opposition party.

I hope that helps define the teams and players, especially Palin, who is the poorest excuse for a human being that I've ever see waltz across the political stage for her 15 minute dance. And that includes a whole lot of poor excuses.

-Wexler

I think DLC Democrats are to blame for all of the problems, because the Republicans could not have done anything without the cooperation of the Republican-Lite DLC Democrats that had been seeded through the years into the Democratic Party to be led by their Conservative Republican lobbyist led Democratic Leadership Council. You expect Republicans to act like Republicans, but one does not expect Democrats to be so passive and cooperative with the Republicans. Hopefully the people will give the DLC scoundrels what's coming to them sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, but later is OK, just as long as the DLC scoundrels get removed for their irresponsibility to their oath of office and being the cause of our nation having such a difficult time. There needs to be a better way of checking whether a Democrat is a real Democrat or a Republican acting like a Democrat. When a Republican lies and says he is a Democrat, but continuously votes with the Republicans on anything important to the Republicans, then one needs to realize that this person is a traitor to the democratic cause for our nation and have a new election to replace him/her. This is what should have happened with all the DLC, Democratic Leadership Council, Republican lobbyist led Democrats. It is time to be done with them --- all of them.

Irrational emotional driven women, such as Palin and Clinton(according to Morris) should not have leadership positions. They think emotionally, not rationally. Obama is the one. McCain could have to leave office(e.g. stroke) and have Palin take over.

"the cronyism that has been allowed to be accepted ..."

Such as the K Street project? When even the Republican ticket is running against the Republican party why would anyone in their right mind vote Republican?

David,
After what Biden said yesterday, and I quote "We will take your money, you need to give it to us, suck it up and be patriotic so we can distribute to those who need it" I cannot see why anyone would in their right mind vote Democrat. I am not for a socialist Government, are you? It is interesting to me that now that we have had to nationalize two of the largest companies in the US because of Democrat slime balls (who by the way are Obama’s Economic advisors now) and socialists are coming out of the wood work and decrying wealth redistribution as "change we need" is it? I don't think so.

William, how can you say the Dem's are :the innocence in all of the above matters, to function as an opposition party." Ahhh, did you see who ran Freddie and Fannie? Did you see how they cooked the books and took the money? How nieve to say this. Either you are an iddiot or an operative, wither way, your statement is ubserd

William, Will, Willy,

How short and selective memories can be! Lest we forget, it was Clinton who signed the bill in 1999. It was the Gramm-Leach Act. it was his own R. Rubin that endorsed it before taking a job at CitiBank.

I'll give you one small concession. Bush did up the original percentages of sub-prime loans that must be made available to the market.

And, as for Palin, back off. Are you now an Social Anthropology major too? She is what makes McCain look good. Not a lawyer/career politician looking to grease her own pockets. Again, does your memory allow you to recall the relationship BO has w/William Ayers? You know, one of the master minds of the Weather Underground, a known home grown terrorist.

And, it is said that the Republicans are the vile ones. Tsk, tsk.

"William, how can you say the Dem's are :the innocence in all of the above matters, to function as an opposition party." Ahhh, did you see who ran Freddie and Fannie? Did you see how they cooked the books and took the money? How nieve to say this. Either you are an iddiot or an operative, wither way, your statement is ubserd"

I'm going to give you a break here because English is obviously your second language. However, you should READ before you POST.

I said the Dems were "to blame for lacking the courage and above all, the innocence in all of the above matters, to function as an opposition party." This means that they were not innocent, not that they were innocent.

RIF.

-Wexler

Jimmy,

There are adults talking here. Run along.

And learn to read, please, maybe you can do that instead of hanging out on the internet and posting about things you don't understand.

Thanks,

Wexler

PS That's just a suggestion. I'm assuming you want to improve yourself? You can get an order of magnitude of improvement by 1)reading what the person said, and 2) not putting up childlike straw man arguments that don't have anything to do with what was actually said. Normally I charge for this advice, but for you, it's FREE.

So, you're telling me an educated open-minded thinker is not welcome on a left wing post. Lesser men would be hurt.

Look, I read the article, and I am always amused by the dronings of you smarter than thou folks (except of course for MarthaA) on the left side of the aisle. Clinton, and the most of the Dems, were not only "not innocent," he/they were front and center complicit in the act of deregulation.

Just trying to shed a little information to the un...er I mean the self informed. So, I don't need charity, I need you to keep up with me, will ya?

Ps. It looks as though you have garnered a few sycophant followers, "Thank You..." Please, if this is going to be a left wing whine fest, maybe I should drop out.

This is no time for blame, as Senator Obama said this morning. It is time to stand with Sec. Donaldson and Chairman Bernanke.
The deregulation that lead to this economic emergency started with in the Reagan Admistration. Prior to the Great Depression there was very little regulation of our finnancial institutions. After the Depression regulation increased until the 1980's. From that time until now regulation decreased. Those who don't stdy history are condemned to repeat it.

Yeah - it seems that the the same lobbyists support BOTH sides but you didn't mention that did you? Slanted journalism?

What about LOBBYIST BIDEN'S son who got 192M for his client from OBAMA!!

AND the IAFF that is one of the most active lobbyist groups in the country, ranking in the top 25 out of over 4,000 federal PACs in the nation supporting OBama!!

Yeah they are the same ones Obama also promised to get ri of! LOL!!

The group donated $1,321,455 to Democrats in the 2006 cycle alone. The IAFF endorsed John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. How about doing an article on Obama's lobbyists?

Or are you too darn biased to do so?

This was McCain's attempt to prevent the present mess

FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005
The United States Senate

May 25, 2006

Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]: Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

Alas, thanks to the Democrat Party and the special interests of the left, both of these attempts to reform the banking system were still born.

xxxxx

Bush also sent a bill to Congress to head off this disaster

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON

September 11, 2003

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

”There is a general recognition that the supervisory system for housing-related government-sponsored enterprises neither has the tools, nor the stature, to deal effectively with the current size, complexity and importance of these enterprises,” Treasury Secretary John W. Snow told the House Financial Services Committee in an appearance with Housing Secretary Mel Martinez, who also backed the plan.

Mr. Snow said that Congress should eliminate the power of the president to appoint directors to the companies, a sign that the administration is less concerned about the perks of patronage than it is about the potential political problems associated with any new difficulties arising at the companies.

The administration’s proposal, which was endorsed in large part today by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would not repeal the significant government subsidies granted to the two companies. And it does not alter the implicit guarantee that Washington will bail the companies out if they run into financial difficulty; that perception enables them to issue debt at significantly lower rates than their competitors. Nor would it remove the companies’ exemptions from taxes and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws.

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session.

After the hearing, Representative Michael G. Oxley, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced their intention to draft legislation based on the administration’s proposal. Industry executives said Congress could complete action on legislation before leaving for recess in the fall.

”The current regulator does not have the tools, or the mandate, to adequately regulate these enterprises,” Mr. Oxley said at the hearing. ”We have seen in recent months that mismanagement and questionable accounting practices went largely unnoticed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,” the independent agency that now regulates the companies.

”These irregularities, which have been going on for several years, should have been detected earlier by the regulator,” he added.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was created by Congress in 1992 after the bailout of the savings and loan industry and concerns about regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy mortgages from lenders and repackage them as securities or hold them in their own portfolios.

At the time, the companies and their allies beat back efforts for tougher oversight by the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Reserve. Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. This year, however, the chances of passing legislation to tighten the oversight are better than in the past.

Reflecting the changing political climate, both Fannie Mae and its leading rivals applauded the administration’s package. The support from Fannie Mae came after a round of discussions between it and the administration and assurances from the Treasury that it would not seek to change the company’s mission.

After those assurances, Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s chief executive, endorsed the shift of regulatory oversight to the Treasury Department, as well as other elements of the plan.

”We welcome the administration’s approach outlined today,” Mr. Raines said. The company opposes some smaller elements of the package, like one that eliminates the authority of the president to appoint 5 of the company’s 18 board members.

Company executives said that the company preferred having the president select some directors. The company is also likely to lobby against the efforts that give regulators too much authority to approve its products.

Freddie Mac, whose accounting is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a United States attorney in Virginia, issued a statement calling the administration plan a ”responsible proposal.”

The stocks of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae fell while the prices of their bonds generally rose. Shares of Freddie Mac fell $2.04, or 3.7 percent, to $53.40, while Fannie Mae was down $1.62, or 2.4 percent, to $66.74. The price of a Fannie Mae bond due in March 2013 rose to 97.337 from 96.525.Its yield fell to 4.726 percent from 4.835 percent on Tuesday.

Fannie Mae, which was previously known as the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, which was the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, have been criticized by rivals for exerting too much influence over their regulators.

”The regulator has not only been outmanned, it has been outlobbied,” said Representative Richard H. Baker, the Louisiana Republican who has proposed legislation similar to the administration proposal and who leads a subcommittee that oversees the companies. ”Being underfunded does not explain how a glowing report of Freddie’s operations was released only hours before the managerial upheaval that followed. This is not world-class regulatory work.”

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.
xxxxxxxx
And then there was the zero support of this bill from the Democrats

These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

I'm with Sen. Sanders, make the people who raped and pillaged this country pay for the friggin' bailouts!
That's what Joe Biden meant when he said, be more patriotic, and pay more taxs".
Blood sucking, unethical, amoral warmongers.
What the heck is Caribou Barbie wearing? One of her shot wolves?
I am so proud that Sen. Obama is acting like I want a President to act. He's not running around spewing crap, but taking the time to learn as much as he can about what can be done about this ecomonic fiasco without hurting the middle-class.
I want someone who can think, plan and keep the country calm, not some medicated, bi-polar, senior senator that got us in this mess!

Are you people out of your minds to still believe in either of these worthless parties! They have both stolen your future and your children s future, wake up and smell the crap. We need a new party and need to replace all incumbents and most of the generals in the military to even come to the point where it may be possible to have a true representative government.
These parties are like Starbucks across the street from each other, no matter which side of the street you buy from it still goes ultimately into the same pocket. Lets get a third party going and get rid of the corporate(wealthy people) welfare system that's getting more expensive by the hour.

Wexler,
You stated it exactly the way I see it.
Now do we insist that the Congress pass laws? What about NO gifts at all?
Entities would sibmit their arguments for and against issues to our lawmakers written and orally presented and recorded by CSPAN.

Hard to disagree with much of what is said here, many good points being made... except one... neither candidate is the answer. Sad but true. Case in point, neither will discuss, let alone support, The FairTax. Anyone reading this, do yourself a favor and read the information avalable on the FairTax, now supported by 73 members of Congress. This country needs change NOW. The FairTax would provide it... and an answer to many of the economic problems we face... not a bandaid... answers.

Will you stop calling BRIBERS
by their preferred pseudonym.
Lobbyists.

Then differentiate between the Politicians who don't, and those who do, accept the proffered BRIBES. The former will be very hard to find.

tomedgar@halenet.com.au

Lots of good points raised. A few specious ones as well.

I just want to 'debunk' hannity's statement that Obama was the top money-getter of these corporations.

There are two ways to get money 'from' a company. One is you get huge donations from the fat cats at the top. This unlimited amount of money is bundled and given to the RNC/DNC for use on behalf of the candidate. This is McCain's money.

The other way is that lots of the peons - secretaries, mail clerks and the like, each give what they can. If you have ever donated to a campaign you know you have to put down where you work. This is where Obama's money comes from.

Republicans like to do this - conflate small donations from the worker bees to the huge bundles received from the fat cats.

Influence - which group do you suppose gets all the access?

I signed on to your site because I thought you were smart and fearless, instead you are generally biased and prejudiced. My grandmother was a democrat and a member of the Jones family but not as blatantly partisan as you appear to be.

Fur collar, I would expect no less from her, I'm surprised no one threw paint on her!

T Jefferson once said:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dengerous to our liberties than standing army" and Ron Paul keeps worning America but he was pushed aside.America is going through
very bad time because neither the government nor the people
learned from past history or even listen to anybody's advice.I would like each one of you to watch this very important video about wall street & the economic system.

http://www.larouchepac.com/firewall

I think the scary thing about Sarah Palin is that she does not seem to be well read at all. The Republicans can argue that Obama is inexperienced, but he has been out there campaigning for a long time, and has a grasp of boyh national and international issues. When governor Palin talks, she seems to be flying by the seat of her pants, and seems to think if she says it with force, It will carry more weight, which is actually a trait McCain has too.

Excellent post Martha. That was dead on.

Wall Street woes are due to Jewish speculators. Look at the stock brokerage houses, and banks, mostly Jewish. They are also the ones that contribute money to the Democratic Party, hence the coming war with Iran.

Where is Obama going to get the $20 BILLION for treating the women who get ABORTIONS each year. That would be 1.5 MILLION women. 96% of Women who get ABORTIONS develope SEVERE DEPRESSION--PTSD - ( just like soldiers comming home from War Zones ) ALCOHOL AND DRUG ADDICTIONS--DIVORCE ETC. THE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES ARE ""HUGE "". Physicians have been studying these post-ABORTION women for 25 years. The cost for Mental Health-and Physical Health issues are extremely expensive.
Who do we tax to get this $20 BILLION each year.
There have been 54 MILLION ABORTIONS IN THIS NATION SINCE 1974 !! 54 MILLION THAT WE KNOW OF.
THE COSTS OF TAKING CARE OF POST ABORTION WOMEN , ARE EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE.

Thank you. Rich

David M.
You are sad little man, and, a sorry excuse for a American patriot. You obviously have no respect, or love, for America. This is obvious from your preference that America continue to travel down the same road of destruction--the road that republicans have led her down during the past eigth years. By the way, have you asked that Palin give back the millions she received for the "Bridge to Nowhere"? I expect not.

The Democratic party gets over 30% of their political contributions from the Wall Street Jewish traders and Franny May and Freddie Mac. They are the problem.

Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, 11 so far un-reported banks that have failed. The worst terror attack since Pearl Harbor and subsequent war profiteering by our illustrious VP's company. A country so bankrupt every dollar we are spending is borrowed from Communist China and Middle Eastern countries rendering us beholding to our enemies. War crimes and Crimes against Humanity committed in our names.

Why anyone would vote Republican is really beyond me. The Dems have disappointed me with their spineless decision not to impeach the criminals but to reward the Repubs with another four years to completely gut our Democracy is not an option.

For those with a memory longer than a gnats, 12 years of Reagan/Bush pt.1, left the country in a shambles. Savings and Loan companies falling like dominoes and the taxpayers picking up the tab. Divisive class/race politics keeping the American people distracted while the Government chipped away at our freedoms to protect Us from Them.

I think the present situation is even worse. We now live in a police state where we are simply sheep to be fleeced.

It's time Americans stop looking for an enemy and stand together for our common cause.

This may come as surprise to some but the American people are partly to blame for wanting to live above and beyond their means maintaining an illusion of wealth. They listened to our illustrious President when, after the attack of Sep. 11, urged us to be patriotic and keep shopping.

This "pro-life" garbage was debunked long ago.

Can't you even come up with something new?

You remind me of Palin: tell a lie, have it debunked, repeat it anyway; have it debunked again, and repeat it yet again, etc.

A lie is a lie, and constant repetition won't make it any less untrue - (though it will make the liar appear increasingly stupid with each re-telling).

Sorry, folks: I'm more accustomed to threaded comments. The preceding was aimed at Rich Aanderud

(Massimo: I'm sure you're sincere in what you believe, but you may not know that Lyndon Larouche is the icon of the American Nazi Party. Don't be led astray by their BS.)
The US and its neo-colonial empire is in serious decline (& many in the world wouldn't think that was a bad thing, myself included). The predatory Free Market Capitalist (Neo-Feudalism) system is a failure and it and the corporatocracy that really does govern the US must be thrown out or this corrupt government and economic system, which guarantees the top 1% of the people own 60% of the wealth, will just continue as it always has. The people, because of the failure of the "news" media to inform them of the real issues and the choices, have been led into believing this conservative dead end by, as Mr. Wexler so aptly put it, a cynically corrupt and greedy fat-cat GOP and a cowardly Democratic Party (both now wholly owned by corporate American) who have never stood up to these neo-con bullies and defended the people who they claim to be the real representatives of since Reagan battered them into submission with the "liberal" club. Consequently, the USAmerican people have had 28 years of right wing rule (Clinton could hardly be counted as anything much different) with no real opposition and no one who has come forward to defend the progressive ideals that could make the US actually become the country it has always claimed to be, but has failed so miserably to do. Right now, Europe is the only hope for the future of this planet, the US is an obstacle to peace and hope and prosperity for all. Ralph Nader is the only candidate with any real ideas for change and for a better future.

BARAK OBAMA HAS ALSO BEEN WARNING ABOUT THE IMPENDING FINANCIAL CRISIS AND THE RISING NUMBER OF SUB-PRIME LOAN FORCLOSURE FOR SOME TIME NOW. THE PROBLEM IS THE ADJUSTABLE RATE MORTGAGE, THE ARM
FIRST OFF THE RATE ONLY ADJUSTS ONE WAY, AND SECOND IT IS MIS-NAMED. IT SHOULD BE CALLED THE BALLOONING MORTGAGE.

I think they should have let Freddie and Fannie go completely bust. Renting is a much cleaner arrangement in terms of keeping a roof over your head anyway, no confusion about deed and title to the land etc. You'll get robbed monthly for the rest of your life, someone else will have a nice boat out of the deal, but you'll never have the delusion of actually 'owning' the property/building etc. That way, you can concentrate on something else, like how YOU can make your own biofuels and bust ANOTHER monopoly...

Top Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008

Name
Office
Party/State
Total

1. Dodd, Christopher J
S
D-CT
$133,900

2. Kerry, John
S
D-MA
$111,000

3. Obama, Barack
S
D-IL
$105,849

4. Clinton, Hillary
S
D-NY
$75,550

5. Kanjorski, Paul E
H
D-PA
$65,500

Free Thinker :I don't believe in anyone any more but this man knows about economy and he spoke about the problem before it happens !I know we'll not see any changes from either party.Republicans
and Democrats are two sides to one single coin & the only thing they have in common is
to be elected or Re-elected.
Voting for the lesser of two Evils,still an Evil.both parties prevent any chance of establishing a third party.
what else for a people who believe in Democracy can do
to change the system ?
America has nobody better to offer to its people other than
McCain who's another copy of the current leadership &a public speaker who speaks English better than the presiden !at the end, we shouldn't blame anyone but the people.

McCain and Palin don't have to. They know their voters only care
about what they say their moral views are. (I asked an Evangelical Christian last night why she thinks Palin is qualified to run our country. Her response was "She is against abortion, she is a soccer mom, she has similar views to me, and the president has all kinds of staff members helping them, so, it doesn't matter.) This woman has a master's degree also, so she is not an unintelligent woman.
These people don't care about economic policies, not really. If Obama presented a brilliant one and had all reviews in the press about it, they would dismiss it simply because they think he does not have what they perceive to be the "right" Christian values. These people are blindly right. They don't even have an open enough mind to question their values or the politicians who supposedly have the same views.

When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a "California-style energy crisis" if the rate increase wasn't approved—but without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known. "It's corporate money trying to hoodwink the public," the state's Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice then—but may soon get more scrutiny—is that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama.
Last week, Obama hit John McCain for hiring "some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington" to run his campaign; Obama's aides say their candidate, as a foe of "special interests," has refused to take money from lobbyists or employ them. Neither Axelrod nor his partners at ASK ever registered as lobbyists for Commonwealth Edison—and under Illinois's loose disclosure laws, they were not required to. "I've never lobbied anybody in my life," Axelrod tells NEWSWEEK. "I've never talked to any public official on behalf of a corporate client." (He also says "no one ever denied" that Edison was the "principal funder" of his firm's ad campaign.)
But the activities of ASK (located in the same office as Axelrod's political firm) illustrate the difficulties in defining exactly who a lobbyist is. In 2004, Cablevision hired ASK to set up a group similar to CORE to block a new stadium for the New York Jets in Manhattan. Unlike Illinois, New York disclosure laws do cover such work, and ASK's $1.1 million fee was listed as the "largest lobbying contract" of the year in the annual report of the state's lobbying commission. ASK last year proposed a similar "political campaign style approach" to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. One part of its plan: create a "grassroots" group of medical experts "capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position," according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didn't get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world. "There's no way with a straight face to say that's not lobbying," says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency.

Axelrod says there are still huge differences between him and top McCain advisers, including the fact that he doesn't work in D.C. But his corporate clients do have business in the capital. One of them, Exelon, lobbied Obama two years ago on a nuclear bill; the firm's executives and employees have also been a top source of cash for Obama's campaign, contributing $236,211. Axelrod says he's never talked to Obama about Exelon matters. "I'm not going to public officials with bundles of money on behalf of a corporate client," Axelrod says.

martha, let's give a little credit here to the rewrite of the banking rules in 1999 by PHIL GRAMM, Republican and chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Until 2006 the Republicans were TOTALLY in charge...the Dems do not have a veto proof position to overturn any veto from Bush and the Republicans today. So what you got is what you got...a Republican President, a Republican majority in both houses, since 1994 until 2006...get your facts and majorities straight. The Publies held the reins of government and they screwed up miserably by dereging everything they could and eliminating oversight. I can hardly wait for the day when we start seeing documentaries and reports on all the mis-spending in Iraq, due to the same reason...NO OVERSIGHT!

Julie, you are right on...they (the rabid rightwing religious fanatics) are America's version of the Muslim fanatics of the Taliban. Blind emotions drive their thinking and choices. Also a great deal of pious, judgemental, intolerance for the rest of us out here in America.

Kathy....$15,000 from 2006 until July 2008 for McCain's Campaign Manager,Rick Davis, who was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae.