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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

More McCain Ties to Freddie Mac

posted by on September 23 at 17:55 PM

Perhaps this is why the McCain campaign worked so hard earlier this week to paint The New York Times as out to get their man? Because they knew another shoe was likely to drop in the Times, and they wanted it to be perceived as part of a vendetta, not as a solid piece of investigative journalism? Anyway, here’s the other shoe:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, 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 people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee composed of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the coming midterm congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s his firm, Davis & Manafort, was kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain.

RSS icon Comments

1
Posted by Danisparanoidandhysterical | September 23, 2008 6:02 PM
2

Let's here it for the paranoid and hysteriacl in thew world..

with out you.. there would be nothing worth raising our eyebrows over...

Posted by d.b.kieneker | September 23, 2008 6:12 PM
3

I imagine in my mind Uncle Sam shaking down, -upside down- from their ankles, the Republican party. And it makes me smile.

Posted by Non | September 23, 2008 6:17 PM
4

What a fucking shocker... not.

You'd think the Carly Fiorina $45 mil payoff, and th fedit Phil Gramm conection would be enough, but the McCain SpoogeWagon sloshes on...

Posted by Karlheinz Arschbomber | September 23, 2008 6:23 PM
5

I can't wait for the debate!!!

Posted by monkey | September 23, 2008 6:36 PM
6


The only real "different" stand a candidate could take would be 100 percent opposing the AIG bailout.

Neither candidate has done that.

So what is the point of criticizing.

They are both the puppets of the insiders.

Posted by John Bailo | September 23, 2008 6:51 PM
7

As much as it would be nice to make this crisis entirely about the evil Republicans and how they've fleeced the American people, both political parties have enough connections to the mess to keep the finger pointing and counter finger pointing going for a long while. For example:

Raines, Johnson, Preitzger (sp?).

Dodd and Obama were the top recipients of contributions from Fannie/Freddie.

Barney Frank insisted there was no problem with Fannie/Freddie as Democrats in Congress blocked moves to put in oversight a few years ago.

Biden voted in favor of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, President Clinton signed it.

Now that is not to say that there weren't lots of mean old Republicans making hay as well, I'm just saying that we need to recognize that it took a bi-partisan effort to fuck us up this badly.

Posted by PopTart | September 23, 2008 6:54 PM
8

15k a month. Not bad for a no show.

Posted by snarky | September 23, 2008 7:09 PM
9

PopTart@7

You have more perspective than Eli, the "journalist."

Posted by Danisparanoidandhysterical | September 23, 2008 7:49 PM
10

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN00190:@@@P

Eli, do you do any original reporting? You're as radioactive as Josh Feit and ECB.

Posted by Eliisastupidfuckingcreduloushack | September 23, 2008 8:06 PM
11

What does Cumo have to do with this? He 'regulated' F and F through HUD to increase home loans to the poor in the name of social engineering and Bushie sold it as the Ownership Society. Both parties hands are filthy.

Posted by danrand | September 23, 2008 10:14 PM
12

Got Socialism?

With John McCain and his henchman Karl Marx Rove you do!

It's what they're about - Socialism, for the Party Elites, paid for by the middle class taxpayers who don't deserve tax cuts.

Posted by Will in Seattle | September 24, 2008 12:17 AM
13

Still, not nearly as obnoxious as Franklin Rains's massive payola to Obama. Nor as obnoxious as Barney Frank saying the institution was alive, well, and solvent.

Posted by raindrop | September 24, 2008 8:05 AM
14

FASCISM is the merger of government & corporate power. this is FASCISM, not socialism.

Posted by max solomon | September 24, 2008 9:14 AM

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