$700 Billion Blame Game

Congressional candidates twist facts to pin the financial crisis on opponents.

By Justin Bank | factcheck.org

Oct 21, 2008 | Updated: 1:59 p.m. ET Oct 21, 2008

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Summary
We find House and Senate campaigns are taking liberties with the facts as they seek to assign blame for the nation's financial mess.

A Democratic ad in Kentucky accuses Republican Senate Leader McConnell of conduct bordering on the criminal, but falsely accuses him of taking $4.4 million from "big banks."

A Republican ad in Pennsylvania claims Democratic House member Kanjorski sponsored a bill to "slash oversight" and "banks made millions." In fact, the bill never made it out of committee.

Many ads imply that mere acceptance of campaign donations from financial institutions is evidence of guilt. A Republican challenger's ad in Kansas shows a suitcase full of cash and says "he failed to stop them," with no specifics offered.

A Democratic ad in Wisconsin assigns blame for the "bailout on Wall Street" to the Republican candidate, even though he's a state legislator who had no role in Washington's handling of the affair. It connects him with "failed Bush economic policies" on the grounds that he supports making tax cuts permanent.

These four are among many congressional ads that are trying to fault an opponent for the crisis.

Analysis
Fingers are pointing in all directions as Democrats and Republicans try to blame each other for the financial crisis that led Congress to enact a $700 billion rescue package. Their ads are filled with images of suitcases full of cash, of Wall Street signs and of foreclosure notices. Democrats accuse their opponents of failing to regulate banks, and Republicans accuse theirs of going soft on two federally chartered mortgage agencies. Each side accuses the other of being influenced by campaign donations.

We've said before that no one individual or political party is solely responsible for the economic crisis. But each side tries to make blame a simple matter, even at the expense of the facts.

DSCC Ad: "Wild"
Announcer:Some places it would be considered a crime, but not in Washington. Wall Street's big banks gave Mitch McConnell $4.4 million for his campaigns, and he fought for less regulation of Wall Street. McConnell opened the gate and Wall Street went wild. And now, our entire economy is at risk. Maybe it's time we bring Mitch McConnell back to the corral. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.

Hate to Regulate?
Ads from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have targeted at least two incumbent Republican senators for accepting contributions from the financial sector while fighting for "less regulation" of Wall Street.

One such ad tells us that "Wall Street's big banks gave Mitch McConnell $4.4 million for his campaigns." But that's not true. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Sen. McConnell of Kentucky has received $4.4 million in contributions from the financial, insurance and real estate sectors – a much broader group than "Wall Street's big banks."

As evidence for its claim that McConnell "fought for less regulation of Wall Street" and that he "opened the gate and Wall Street went wild," the ad cites McConnell's vote for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. But that law wasn't what caused the meltdown. We examined that legislation in our previous report, ultimately noting that "economists on both sides of the political spectrum have suggested that the act has probably made the crisis less severe than it might otherwise have been."

As for the ad's assertions that in "some places" McConnell's acceptance of campaign contributions from the financial industry and his actions in the Senate "would be considered a crime": Perhaps so, but by that standard practically any House or Senate member of either party could be called a criminal just for taking donations from groups whose interests they support. In the U.S., that's perfectly legal.

Lou Barletta for Congress Ad Attacking Paul Kanjorski
Announcer:Paul Kanjorski pocketed millions in contributions from his friends at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other banks. Then Kanjorski sponsored a bill to slash oversight on the banking industry. His friends at the banks made millions. Now, after they've sucked up all of the money, Kanjorski wants you to bail his rich friends out. Kanjorski, millions for him and his friends taken out of our pockets.

Lou Barletta: I'm Lou Barletta and I approve this message.

"Millions" from "Banks"
Republicans, for their part, are linking Democrats to a more specific couplet of culprits: the Federal National Mortgage Association ("Fannie Mae") and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac"). For example, in Pennsylvania's 11th congressional district, challenger Lou Barletta released an ad saying his Democratic opponent, incumbent Rep. Paul Kanjorski, "pocketed millions in contributions from his friends at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other banks." That's false. The total isn't "millions."

To back up its claim, the ad shows on screen an article from the Wilkes Barre Times Leader. But the article actually reported that Kanjorski has received "$96,000 in campaign donations from mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 1989."

On its Web site, the Barletta campaign states that Kanjorski has received $2.7 million since 1989 – "millions," if you will. But to get to that total the campaign lumps together "the subprime mortgage, banking and insurance industries and realtors." And of course, real estate agents and insurance companies are not "banks."

Member Comments

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Posted By: Nowforsomemoretruth @ 11/03/2008 11:14:10 PM

The problem with Obama is a simple one. One association does not a radical make. But in Obama's case, the list of left-wing radical mentors and associates is seemingly endless, (Davis, Ayers, Wright, Khalidi , etc., etc.) with a new revelation practically every day. With that trend, a picture begins to emerge, and that picture is that Obama is as steeped, not in just left-wing political thought, but in radical left-wing economic and race ideology, to the same extent that Pat Robertson was steeped in the ideology of the radical Religious Right. I would not have voted for Pat Robertson for dog catcher, and for similar reasons, I will not vote for Obama.
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Posted By: Krohn @ 11/02/2008 11:24:48 PM

The Wall Street crisis was planned the night of Obama's meeting at Bill Ayres home to put Obama in The White House. Together they put a beautiful plan into place.

This Strategy was first elucidated in the 1966 issue of 'The Nation' Magazine by a pair of radical Socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

David Horowitz summarizes it as:

"The strategy of forcing political change through an orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of Capitalism by overloading the Government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
unquote

Obama begin with ACORN by funneling millions into their organization. He then trained ACORN to stage protests in banks to force them to issue risky loans or they would be threatened to face racial charges. ACORN was trained to intimidate financial institutions into giving ???Ninja??? loans to people with NO assets, NO job and NO income, who couldn???t afford these loans.

That caused the housing bubble two years ago it was by ACORN's actions they were able to destroy our credit system.

As this played out, D-Barney Frank and D-Chris Dodd were able to cover up the millions of improvident loans to these bad risky house buyers. And Barney Frank and his chums successfully were able to block all of President Bush's attempts to put a rein on this problem.

So Fannie & Freddie was forced to purchase all these failed subprime mortgages.

Then both Frank and Dodd denied that there were any problems, and refused the Bush Admin. requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the 'minute they failed'.

Democrats then blamed Bush saying it happened on his watch knowing it would hurt the Republican Party in the election setting it up that Barack Obama could use this to his advantage.

Karl Marx once compared a Revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.

Barack Obama is that Marxist mole !
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Posted By: Concerned Canadian @ 11/02/2008 6:03:32 PM

Obama's Links To Radicals Starting To Surface!! www.newsmax.com/timmer

Obama-Farrakhan Ties Are Close, Ex-Farrakhan Aide Says

A former top deputy to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan tells Newsmax that Barack Obama???s ties to the black nationalist movement in Chicago run deep, and that for many years the two men have had ???an open line between them??? to discuss policy and strategy, either directly or through intermediaries.

???Remember that for years, if you were a politician in Chicago, you had to have some type of relationship with Louis Farrakhan. You had to. If you didn???t, you would be ostracized out of black Chicago,??? said Dr. Vibert White Jr., who spent most of his adult life as a member and ultimately top officer of the Nation of Islam.
White broke with the group in 1995 and is now a professor of African-American history at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
White said Obama was ???part of the Chicago scene??? where Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and radicals would go to each other???s events and support each other???s causes.
???Even though Chicago is the third-largest city in the country, within the black community, the political and militant nationalist community is very small. So it wouldn???t be uncommon for [Obama and Farrakhan] to show up at events together, or at least be there and communicate with each other,??? White told Newsmax.
The Anti-Defamation League has denounced Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam as a ???hate group.???
Farrakhan has called Jews ???bloodsuckers,??? ???satanic??? and accused them of running the slave trade. He has labeled gays as ???degenerates.??? In a 2006 speech, the ADL again condemned Farrakhan when he said: ???These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in moral strength. ??? It's the wicked Jews the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality. It's wicked Jews, false Jews that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic!"