Fred Martinez's Monitor

McCain Tighten Control on Freddie Mac as they Paid Obama and not McCain's Aide, but McCain Aide’s Firm

Saturday Night Live has to do this as printed on the New York Times!

The reality is funnier than anything they could come up with.

Even the Media must get the joke.

It's upright and honest for Obama to get $126,000 from Freddie Mac and be silent about tightening control over Freddie.

But McCain is corrupt for not McCain's aide, but McCain aide’s firm getting money from Freddie Mac while Mccain tightened control over Freddie.

What's the media (or Obama's Pavada) going to come up with next.

McCain is corrupt for not McCain's aide, not McCain aide’s firm, but a second cousin of McCain who once worked for the firm getting money from Freddie Mac while McCain tightened control over Freddie.

Fred

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjFlMDc3MzFlMzk2ZjE5OTZmMzNiOWFkMmVjY2E3YmI=

Obama Claims Freddie Mac Hiring Davis Firm Is Corruption, But Not Taking Freddie Mac Donations

The Obama camp says Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought John McCain by hiring Rick Davis:

"The question that now needs to be answered is this: did Freddie Mac or any other special interests buy access to John McCain by compensating top officials, including Rick Davis?" said Obama-Biden communications director Dan Pfeiffer.


Let me help Dan Pfeiffer with this tough question: No.

You know how we know this? Because while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were paying Rick Davis, John McCain was sponsoring legislation to tighten controls on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, legislation that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac opposed fervently. The legislation McCain backed specifically declared that the new regulatory agency would be assigned to ensure "each regulated entity operates in a safe and sound manner, including maintenance of adequate capital and internal controls."

McCain, speaking then:


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.


You would think McCain was psychic, or something.


One of the reason it went nowhere? The opposition from guys like Barack Obama. You know, the guy taking more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's folk than anybody else except Chris Dodd.

So let me spell it out for you even clearer, Dan. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae didn't have to buy access to John McCain because they had already bought your guy.

http://sharpynews.com/politics/barack-obama/barack-obama-news/so-much-for-honesty-barack-obama/

So Much For Honesty - Barack Obama

The Union Leader in New Hampshire has a great editorial pointing out how Barack Obama’s attacks on John McCain in recent weeks have had no resemblance to the truth.

In the past few weeks, Obama has thrown so many false accusations against John McCain that just keeping track of them has become difficult. And these aren’t innocent errors. They are deliberate distortions of the sort Obama has always said he reviles.

On Thursday, Obama said of McCain, “He has consistently opposed the sorts of common-sense regulations that might have lessened the current crisis.” That’s entirely untrue.

As The Washington Post pointed out in an editorial on Friday, McCain in fact has supported many new regulations of financial institutions, including some that Obama opposed. “In 2006, he pushed for stronger regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — while Mr. Obama was notably silent,” The Post wrote.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/us/politics/24davis.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

09/24 02:01 PM
McCain Aide’s Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac

By JACKIE CALMES and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: September 23, 2008
WASHINGTON — One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

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Stephan Savoia/Associated Press
Rick Davis, left, with Senator John McCain in 2007.


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The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than to speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of his close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis Manafort for the presidential campaign, but as an equity holder continues to benefit from its income. No one at Davis Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

A Freddie Mac spokeswoman said the company would not comment.

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, did not dispute the payments to Mr. Davis’s firm. But she said that Mr. Davis had stopped taking a salary from the firm by the end of 2006 and that his work did not affect Mr. McCain.

“Senator McCain’s positions on policy matters are based upon what he believes to be in the public interest,” Ms. Hazelbaker said in a written statement.

The disclosure comes at a time when Mr. McCain and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, are sparring over ties to lobbyists and special interests, seeking political advantage in a campaign being reshaped by the financial crisis and the plan to bail out investment firms.

Mr. McCain’s campaign has been attacking Mr. Obama for ties to former officials of the mortgage giants, both of which have a long history of cultivating Democratic and Republican allies alike to fend off efforts to restrict their activities. Mr. McCain has been running a television advertisement suggesting that Mr. Obama takes advice on housing issues from Franklin D. Raines, former chief executive of Fannie Mae, a contention denied by Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign.

Freddie Mac’s payments of roughly $500,000 to Davis Manafort, the people familiar with the arrangement said, began in late 2005, immediately after Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae disbanded an advocacy coalition that they had set up and hired Mr. Davis to run.

From 2000 to the end of 2005, Mr. Davis received nearly $2 million as president of the coalition, the Homeownership Alliance, which the companies created to help them oppose new regulations and protect their status as federally chartered companies with implicit government backing. That status let them borrow cheaply, helping to fuel rapid growth but also their increased purchases of the risky mortgage securities that proved to be their downfall.

The payments that Mr. Davis received for leading the Homeownership Alliance were reported in Monday’s issue of The New York Times. On Sunday, in an interview with CNBC and The Times, Mr. McCain responded to a question about that tie between Mr. Davis and the two mortgage companies by saying that he “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Such assertions, along with McCain campaign television advertisements tying Mr. Obama to former Fannie Mae chiefs, have riled current and former officials of the two companies and provoked them to volunteer rebuttals.

The two people with direct knowledge of Freddie Mac’s post-2005 contract with Mr. Davis spoke on condition of anonymity. Four outside consultants — three Democrats and a Republican, also speaking on condition of anonymity — said the arrangement was widely known among people involved in Freddie Mac’s efforts to influence policy makers.

As president of the Homeownership Alliance, Mr. Davis received $30,000 to $35,000 a month. He, along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have characterized the alliance as a coalition of many housing industry and consumer groups to promote homeownership, but numerous current and former officials at both companies say the companies created and bankrolled the operation to combat efforts by competitors to rein in their business. The companies dissolved the group at the end of 2005 as part of cost-cutting in the wake of accounting scandals and, at Freddie Mac, a lobbying scandal that forced out its top Republican lobbyist.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/us/politics/24davis.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss]
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Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.

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On Monday, the McCain campaign attacked The Times for its account of those payments to Mr. Davis, saying the paper was “150 percent in the tank” for Mr. Obama. Mr. Davis said that he had worked not for the two companies but for the advocacy group, which included other organizations as well and, he said, was focused only on promoting homeownership.

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After the Homeownership Alliance was dissolved, Mr. Davis asked to stay on a retainer, the people familiar with the deal said. Hollis McLoughlin, who was chief of staff to Richard F. Syron, Freddie Mac’s chief executive, arranged for a new contract with Davis Manafort at the reduced rate of $15,000 a month, they said.

Mr. Syron lost his job in the government takeover this month. Mr. McLoughlin, who through a spokeswoman declined to comment, was a chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady in the administration of the first President Bush and has longstanding Republican ties.

Mr. Davis’s firm was hired as a consultant, not a lobbyist. Davis Manafort in recent years has filed federal lobbying reports for a number of companies, but not Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.

The only thing that Freddie Mac officials could recall Mr. Davis’s doing for the company was speaking at the October 2006 pre-election forum, attended by midlevel and senior executives who contributed to Freddie PAC, the company’s political action committee.

An electronic invitation to those employees, read to The Times by a Freddie Mac official, said, “Please join us for political food for thought” with Paul Begala, a longtime Democratic consultant, “and Rick Davis, former 2000 presidential campaign manager and current adviser to Senator John McCain.” Mr. Begala, who was also a paid consultant to Freddie Mac until this month, confirmed that the event had taken place.

Several top McCain campaign officials have ties to either Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. So do at least two McCain advisers outside the campaign. The lobbying firm of William E. Timmons Sr., the Republican whom Mr. McCain has enlisted to plan his transition to the White House, earned nearly $3 million from Freddie Mac from 2000 until its seizure, federal lobbying records show. Mr. Timmons is the founder of Timmons & Company, one of Washington’s best-known lobbying shops. The payments to the firm were first reported Tuesday by Bloomberg News.

And Mark Buse, chief of staff at Mr. McCain’s Senate office, is also a Freddie Mac alumnus. He and his former lobbying employer, ML Strategies, registered to lobby for the company in July 2003, and had received $460,000 by the time the association ended after 2004.

Mr. McCain and his advisers have argued that whatever connections Mr. Davis and other campaign officials have had to the mortgage giants, the senator has been an advocate of reforming them.

And they have suggested that Mr. Obama is linked to the companies through donations from their employees and ties to former officials there. Those officials include James A. Johnson, another former chief executive of Fannie Mae, who headed Mr. Obama’s vice-presidential search team until stepping aside after coming under criticism for having received a mortgage on preferential terms from the Countrywide Financial Corporation.

Since his campaign for the Senate, in 2004, Mr. Obama has received about $126,000 in contributions from employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while Mr. McCain has received about $22,000 over the last decade, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

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Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/us/politics/24davis.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin]

posted by Fred Martinez @ 9:30 PM