The Republican Smear Machine is already hard at work trying to undermine Obama

[Swamp Rat]

Take for example, Rep. John L. Mica (R-FL):

"Mica & Congressional Leaders Call for Special Counsel

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. John L. Mica (FL-07) and other Congressional leaders have called on the United States Attorney General to appoint a special counsel or task force to investigate the role Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their executives played in causing the nation’s subprime mortgage meltdown. Problems originating in those government-backed financial agencies initiated problems in the mortgage industry and are widely acknowledged to be at the root of today’s financial turmoil."

(snip)

"For years, I and other GOP members have called for reform at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The record is clear that over the past eight years, Democrats have consistently blocked those efforts,” continued Mica, the Republican Leader of Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the largest committee in Congress."

(snip)

http://www.house.gov/mica/financial%20crisis%20statement.shtml



http://www.house.gov/mica/Rogues%20gallery.shtml

Mica links to a terse WSJ article by the well-known prevaricator John Fund, but provides no comment:

"Obama's Amazing Fannie Contributions: Getting to the bottom of Congress's role, slowly."

(snip)

"Republicans are already making a list of all of the inconvenient facts that won't be aired until it's too late to influence voters at the ballot box."

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122471228785760071.html

----

Another article on Mica and the GOP's partisan attacks on Obama:

"Obama political bomb ticks as Waxman stalls Oversight hearings until after election"

(snip)

"Florida Representative John Mica (R) managed to enter two exhibits in the hearing records under the objections of Committee Chairman Waxman, both documents were damaging to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign if Mica and other Republicans could have forced Waxman into holding hearings before November 4th.

"Follow the Money", decried Rep. Mica as he held up evidence of culpability before Waxman insisting that it be entered as an exhibit. Document two which Mica managed to get Waxman to accept was a WSJ article refuting that the California Democrat was indeed stalling hearings in order to avoid political embarrassament for Obama that could cost him the election if he were called to testify now.

Waxman waved off Rep. Mica's comments saying it was "partisan politics" and had nothing to do with today's hearing into regulatory management by the top government financial agencies.

Republicans have been increasingly pressing Waxman to hold hearings into the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the fact that Obama and other leading Democrats were knee-deep in what amounted to a trail of bribery, according to Rep. Mica's Exhibit A - "Follow The Money", the Committee Chairman had to finally give in and agree to call a hearing to investigate the collapse of the government-backed mortgage lenders."

(snip)

http://www.axcessnews.com/user.php/articles/show/id/16969

______________________________________________________________

This is just the beginning.

However, sometimes a good defense is a stronger offense, and perhaps Mica has a few skeletons... like his association with Tom DeLay:

Money Trail: He's Baaaack! Tom DeLay Hailed as GOP Hero: Despite Scandal, Indictment, 'The Hammer' Big in Minneapolis

(snip)

"Asked his reaction to DeLay's appearance in Minneapolis, Cong. John Mica (R-FL) declined to answer and then head-butted the ABC camera."

(snip)

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/MoneyTrail/story?id=5707463&page=1

Video of Rep. Mica and his aids attacking the camera:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5709582

[BlooInBloo]

1. Um, DU has exactly ZERO moral highground from which to bitch about this...

Since that's all DU itself is about, these days. They just use a prettier-sounding name for it.

And then they call Obama supporters nazis to top it all off.


EDIT: Turned "right" into "moral highground" for the benefit of idiots-who-think-they're-smart.

[Swamp Rat]

6. What are you talking about?

I posted my concerns regarding republicans attacking Obama and the Democratic Party.

[gaiilonfong]

2. we need to worry more about the Clintons

Hillary has all her friend sleaking nonsense to the press to undermine Obama

[Shakespeare]

4. If you honestly think we need to worry more about the Clintons than the republicans...

...then you must've been in a coma from 1992-2000.

The Clintons are not our enemies. The republicans are, always have been, always will be. And unlike us, they manage (up until very recently) to maintain a united front, which offers them a remarkable degree of self-preservation. Would that we could learn just that one lesson from them.

[snake in the grass]

18. Titanium-foil hat?

Whatever you are smoking, it appears to be damn good stuff!

[gaiilonfong]

20. pomm wheeei

n/t

[alarimer]

24. bullshit n/t

[riley3]

3. This proves that Dems must push for war crime trials

[Peregrine Took]

7. Absolutely. The "nicer" we are the more blantant they will become.

[roseBudd]

5. time to demand Phil Gramm testify to the FSMA 0f 99 & the CFMA of 00

[malaise]

8. Send this to Mica to put into the record as well

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/19/freddie-mac-paid-gop-cons_n_135995.html
<snip>
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.

In the midst of DCI's yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.

[Swamp Rat]

9. Thanks for the link.

:hi::hug:

[malaise]

10. Anytime

:hi: :hug:

[opihimoimoi]

11. KnR 4...need 1 more plz

Come, we go surfing;;;;;;;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2vkwy2vdP4&feature=related

:beer:

[Gregorian]

12. Newt Gingrich is playing this too.

I wish I could do justice to the words I heard him speak. He talks as if Obama is a an enemy of the country. All because he plans on expanding alternative energy research to create an economy less reliant on petroleum. He follows a circuit of logic that not only is false, but fails to acknowledge where the responsibility for the failing economy lies.

I'm glad you posted this. While we fiddle, Rome is smoldering. There's a war brewing. They wanted Palin. Now we've got TWO Harvard grads of superior intelligence in the White House, and they would rather hate than push America forward. Damn them to a fiery hell. I apologize. I cannot find it in my heart to be kind. This is going to be a never ending fight, I fear.

[cliffordu]

13. he thinks he's still a player somewhere along the line....

He needs to be reminded of the hideous mess his brand of republikan gave birth to........


The one we're in right now.

[Swamp Rat]

14. "This is going to be a never ending fight" - Unfortunately, you are likely right.

Herein lies the reason I posted this. We need to continue monitoring them and calling them out until they are worm dirt.

Election week I celebrated. Now I am back to my prior level of vigilance, for the neocons and christofascists are preparing to do their worst.

[EFerrari]

16. I agree. These mofos will NEVER stop. Time to buckle up again. n/t

[Swamp Rat]

17. They keep going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and...

:hi::hug:

[EFerrari]

19. That's perfect. Exactly!

:applause:

[Jim Lane]

15. The "bribery" idea is ridiculous but there is room for valid criticism of Congressional Democrats

Progressives believe in using government to help people. Many Democrats in Congress have applied this generalization to the specific goal of facilitating home ownership by people with borderline incomes. Otherwise, there would have been no reason to continue Fannie and Freddie as entities favored by government.

I think this goal reflects a fetishization of home ownership, a phenomenon seen most clearly in the deductibility of mortgage interest. Of course, no politician could call for slaying that sacred cow, whatever the economists might say.

Consider two examples, each a single mother with two kids.
1) Alice loses her job, can't afford her apartment, and has to move back in with her parents. Four people are living in cramped conditions in a small apartment.
2) Betty can afford to rent adequate housing for her family but doesn't quite qualify for a mortgage.

Which of these two is more deserving of government help? In practice, our government has been doing more to help Betty and those like her. One aspect of this has been Democrats pushing for Fannie and Freddie to do more to help Betty get a mortgage. The attraction was that the cost to the government was indirect because it took the form of increased risk, with an implicit guarantee from the taxpayers, rather than a direct appropriation.

Unfortunately, I don't know what to do about this situation. A truly progressive position would be for the federal government to get out of the mortgage business, let Fannie and Freddie be liquidated or transformed into normal private companies with no special privileges, abolish the tax deduction for mortgage interest, and concentrate resources (direct expenditures and tax incentives) on the building of decent low-income housing. No politician could advocate that program and survive.

[lonestarnot]

23. Nice, and not a word about 300 billion to Saudi Citibank, AIG, the big three. Just advocacy of

privitization of Fanny Freddie and finger pointing at dems when regulation of the too could have gone such a long way back on July 28, 2005.

[Jim Lane]

27. This is one instance where I think regulation is not the answer.

The problem with Fannie and Freddie isn't that they were lightly regulated. The problem is that they were privately owned but publicly backed (with an implicit guarantee). That means that, in good times, shareholders and top executives reap the benefits, but in bad times the taxpayers take the losses. Regulation could have reduced the risk but not eliminated it. There's just no reason the taxpayers should be on the hook in a case like that.

If home ownership is deemed to be an important public goal (which I dispute), than it should be pursued through regular government agencies or perhaps through a government-owned corporation like Amtrak.

You're correct that I didn't mention other entities involved in the current crisis, such as AIG. The OP was about Freddie and Fannie. Avoid topic drift, doncha know. Citibank, AIG, and the big three raise different issues because none of them were created by the government. As to such purely private entities, yes, I do think that regulation should have been much more strict.

[lonestarnot]

21. Time to get back in the saddle I guess. 57 days of theft monetary theft left. Why is Delay big in

Minneapolis? Are people there nuts?

[Swamp Rat]

25. *crunch crunch*

:D :hug:

[joeunderdog]

22. Didn't McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis get $30K/Month

from a group whose purpose was deregulation of Fannie and Freddie?

Hope we get more light shed on that one.

[Swamp Rat]

26. kick

[SalmonChantedEvening]

28. "Well it can't be OUR fault now can it?"

These jackals would blame eunuchs for unwanted pregnancies.

[VP505]

29. When this Republicker Congressman (U.S. Rep. John L. Mica (FL-07) )can

account for all the money that has gone missing in Iraq then this voter will be more than willing to listen to him about Fannie May and Freddie Mac, until then I think he needs to STFU.

[KoKo]

30. Excellent Chart and Links....Thanks for this. We think we "slayed them" but they've just

gone "undercover a bit" and I'll bet they are the source for many of the harpy Mainstream (seeming) articles along with the usual RW Whores articles suspected everything Obama does.

As a lefty you know we criticize when we find a point that we think needs to be made to urge Obama to stick to Dem Values...but every day we see the "usual sources" sending out their "bits of disinfo."

I know it's sometimes hard to tell the difference and we KNOW the Right will do everything to Co-Opt and Corrupt the Left's message to somehow contort it like their own...and that's why posts like yours are so great to read!

:hug" GREAT POST...CONTEXT and LINKS!

R