Blunt Steps Away From Claim That Pelosi Speech Cost a Dozen GOP Votes

Don't we all wish we could say exactly what is on our minds. But thankfully wisdom, experience and common sense help us restrain. Nany Pelosi is a very powerful women who needs to take a persuasive speaking 101 class. When you want people to take up your cause --don't criticize, belittle or disrespect the very people whose support you need. I didn't say I disagreed with Nancy's comments but her timing was very off.

Having had some time to look at what Pelosi said, I suspect she knew she was defeating the bill. She had allowed several of her own associates to vote against it to protect their seats. She then flies in the face of the idea that bipartisan tone would win the day. Frank, an official with more fingers in the fund pies than his party admits, played the catcher.

She knew what she was doing. She was buying Obama the election with our 401ks. Barney is being Barney.

And it’s working.

Let me get this right, The banks loan money to people who can't pay it back. After it all shakes out. The banks are holding up credit to people who can pay it back. If the people who can pay it back don't bail out the ones can't pay it back the banks will hold us hostage until we do bail them out? I'll eat dirt for the next ten years before I would bail out the stupid people who did this. I have the solution, close Wall Street and take the money away from those dumb#####.

I for one am not for the bailout until the TRUTH comes out that in 1999 Fannie/Freddie were deregulated to increase minority home ownership. Beginning in 2003 republicans made 17 requests with 2 bills to regulate Fannie/Freddie but democrats shot it down. Meanwhile the heads of the banking and financial committees Dodd and Barney along with ALL viable presidential nominees Kerry, Obama and Clinton took huge money and lobbied against the bill killing it.

Then Fannie/Freddie make a ton of bad loans in 2005-2007 and now democrats try blaming republicans when everything crashes. The crash is due to "social justice" which the democrats refused to regulate because it would "defeat their goal of increased poor and minority home ownership."

Here's a quote from Dodd who obviously has 0 foresight and has no business being on the banking committee. I know some of you will empty your heads pretend you didn't see that THE HOUSING CRISIS IS PRIMARILY DEMOCRATS FAULT FOR REFUSING TO REGULATE FANNIE/FREDDIE IN RETURN FOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS and keep commenting on Bush but this post is for the independants and moderates anyways who matter.

2003 statements from the article -

''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.

For those of you buying yesterday's party line (which Blunt is trying to back away from today given how absurd it makes the Republicans look) that Nancy's speech hurt the GOP's feelings and made them vote against it, why was it that not a single GOP member of the House who spoke after her (nine did) made a single comment about her supposedly outrageous speech?? Because this is all hogwash they came up with afterwards.

regulate* these agencies; i swear I didn't typo that sometimes these forums seem odd

'Fannie and Freddie have done just fine over many, many years, providing the resources for many first time home owners. They crashed because of precisely what Speaker Pelosi and everyone else has said: a corporate culture in this Administration wherein every institution was operating on greed, corruption, deregulation, and incompetence. Name the entity, from FEMA to Freddie and Fannie, to the Dept of Justice, and it has all been going wild and wooly, i.e., America burning while Bush and his Republicans fiddled."

LOL. No Fannie and Freddie for several tyears have been loaning to people with bad credit or low incomes to increase minority ownership and selling the bundled mortgages to the banks. In 2003 and 2005 republicans attempted to regular these agencies but paid off democrats like Dodd and Barney killed the legislation.

I suppose its easier to go off on some misguided Bush diatribe though as it doesn't require actually thinking about hte situation.

If 95 democrats voted no, why is this the republicans fault alone?

Posted by: Judy NY | Sep 30, 2008 9:47:27 AM

Because this bill is political suicide and the repubs promised bipartisan support for the good of the country. The Dems put up a 60% majority yes vote, the repubs put up a 67% no vote and killed this bill.

Talk about party over country...those repubs are sick in the head.

If 95 democrats voted no, why is this the republicans fault alone?

Hmmmm...just brainstorming here..but..maybe we should not let these other big companies buy up the huge conglomerates... equalling more big huge comglomerates that if...they fail..will also have such a detrimental effect on our economy....maybe we should keep these finance companies contained..maybe creating more of them..and sharing the risks...and..if it is loans that are keeping the economy handcuffed...why not loan the money directly...so the taxpayers make the money....instead of giving it to the problem childs we don't trust...

Fannie and Freddie have done just fine over many, many years, providing the resources for many first time home owners. They crashed because of precisely what Speaker Pelosi and everyone else has said: a corporate culture in this Administration wherein every institution was operating on greed, corruption, deregulation, and incompetence. Name the entity, from FEMA to Freddie and Fannie, to the Dept of Justice, and it has all been going wild and wooly, i.e., America burning while Bush and his Republicans fiddled.

One has only to look at McCain's campaign to see how inept and devoid of leadership and sound judgements in the interest of the country this "regime" has been.

All financial experts are telling us that the bail out plan is NOT about Wall Street but about Main Street. Without this plan, we have no credit, no interest on savings, no payroll; everything affects us because, there is no Wall Street without the tax payor working and supporting the economy.

Seven days ago, "the fundamentals of the economy were sound". Suddenly, McCain is the savior and parachuted into Washington to save his dying campaign. At the expense of each of us. He took the offer by Obama to issue a joint statement of support of the efforts in Congress to reach an agreement on the plan, with the 6 points stipulating transparency, tax payor investment, mortgage owners' relief, CEO compensation limits, etc, and, within 2 hours, co-opted them as strictly his own, "suspending his campaign", asking for a photo op meeting in Washington, and slamming Obama for "non-involvement". He is not trustworthy and he is not an honest broker. Obama never should have reached out to him.

The Speaker was right. The response by the House Republicans confirms that their motivation is political and ego driven. This economic crisis did not happen overnight. At the last minute, the Republicans are looking at developing another proposal. And Trump, this morning, says this morning's crisis, precipitated by yesterday's failure to pass the bill, is GOOD for the economy because it caused a drop in oil prices by OPEC. I guess it depends on one's perspective. If now we can afford to buy gasoline to go to work but there is no job to go to and no cash/credit with which to buy the gasoline, then we should be celebrating?

I am sorry. You all can write all the hate comments you want that are not relative to the current issue in an attempt to score points, but this is not a sporting event or an American Idol show. It is not a contest of candidates. It is a serious choice of government for the next 4 years. I have no confidence in the Republicans and certainly not in McCain/Palin. In my opinion, Bush/Chaney paved a road to nowhere and McCain/Palin will be the bridge to nowhere that finally gets us there.

The Speaker wants both parties to pass this critical bill that was proposed by the Republican president and the Treasury Secretary. The Republicans cannot weasle out of taking the shared responsibility and need to be accountable. And to correct the comment made earlier, the vote was NOT with the majority of Democrats voting against it. It was in fact, exactly the opposite. Almost the same majority number of Democrats who voted to pass the bill was switched with the same number of Republicans voting against it.

Bush and Paulsen is what we are left with to solve this mess, both Republicans. Both, sitting around for years, months, weeks, doing nothing about this, the MBA president and the Goldman-Sachs CEO. Like Brownie, they have done "a heck of a job".

An unjust war in one country; a neglected war in another; the Dept of Justice in disarray; a CIA agent outed; the abuse of our privacy rights; the drowning of a beloved city; the use of torture to stain our "moral authority"; the complete loss of respect in the world; nuclear proliferation run rampant in countries that should not have them; more enemies than ever before and fewer friends; an economic crisis of gigantic proportions, and the Republicans in Congress "got their feelings hurt" so, took their toys and went home to campaign for their re-election.

If you are happy with this being the new norm, then, go ahead and use all the background noise of made up reasons why you cannot support real Change in the presidential election. But, be prepared for the final destination once you put that bridge in place.

The GOP sound like 2-year-olds. "That big ol meanie Pelosi pointed out that deregulation caused this so I'm going to screw the American people!"

Boo hoo. The 90-odd Dems told the truth about their "no" votes--the uprising of their contituents gave them little choice.

No such honesty from the GOP. (Well, look at who they want to be President--I guess honesty is a character defect in the GOP.)

Hokie Freak

The fact that he is half white has zero to do with his racial preference, and or mindset. According to his own writings he chose to seperate himself from his mothers race, and image. Hello? Anybody home in Hokie ville???? He joined a black lib church, called his grandmother "a typical white person" Get a clue.

OBAMA: "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I
began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites"

"THAT HATE HADN'T GONE AWAY," he wrote, BLAMING WHITE PEOPLE,- SOME CRUEL, SOME IGNORANT, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives"

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more
politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist
professors and structural feminists."

"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an
ugly direction."

IF just one speech make their decision sway, what kind of congressmen are they?

Come on, Republicans, you are just afraid of losing your election, so you choose the country's downfall.

No, more than half of the Democrats did NOT vote no. Two-thirds of the Democrats voted YES. Two-Thirds of the Republicans voted NO. Please get your facts straight.

So the Republicans got mad about what Pelosi said, but was anything she said false?
Like Truman, she doesn't give them hell, she just tells the truth and they think it's hell.

Americans You are destroying the world's economy. Grow up, please!!!!

Funny that republicans are being blamed because I think there were enough dems that could have voted yes to pass the bailout also, more then half of the dems voted no also. I saw a t-shirt with this saying that hits the nail on the head "Nobama, keep the change".

Bev - Funny you should mention racism, because it is your candidate who chose to join and remain in a racilaly paoarizing church for 20 years, while aligning himself with radical left sometimes racist ideologues including his wife.. So what were you asking Bev?

It's obvious that the Republicans made a political miscalculation. The sad thing is that it's going to have a direct effect on the average Americans job security right before the holiday season. The Republicans run the risk of making this election a landslide. They had better carefully weigh whether it's worth it to the country and to them to push for partisan changes to deregulate financial accounting rules or completely privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.