Speaking to CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley, Senator McCain talks about the current Wall Street crisis, names a surprising choice he’d like to see head the Securities and Exchange Commission, discusses his proposed tax cut and budgets cuts, mentions his disapproval of a political office in the White House, and points out differences between himself and President George W. Bush. He also opens up about his faith, and talks about his “rebellious” time as a young man. To read a transcript, please visit CBS 60 Minutes.

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Senator Obama, speaking to CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft in Elko, Nevada, talks about the economy, health care, his list of top priorities should he be elected, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the threat of a nuclear Iran. He also addresses questions about his experience, and talks about how race is impacting – or could impact – this election. For a transcript of the interview, please visit CBS 60 Minutes.

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Scott Kleeb, the Democratic candidate for the Nebraska US Senate seat, will be in San Francisco tomorrow night.

Etiquette
1108 Market St.
Monday, September 22nd
7 to 10pm

Tickets are $50 for general admission, $25 for students or seniors. Beer provided, you must, however, bring your own boots. For more on Scott Kleeb, please visit his campaign website. Scott, like myself, is a historian and progressive pragmatic working class Democrat.

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Fannie Mae, formerly the Federal National Mortgage Association, was established by Mr. Franklin Raines’s namesake, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as a New Deal agency with the job of maintaining an adequate supply of mortgage financing. During the 1960’s it was transformed into a shareholder-owned corporation. That began a period of rapid growth in which Fannie Mae played a dominant role in the development of the secondary mortgage market, which allows mortgages to be traded like securities.

In recent years, under Mr. Johnson, a prominent Democrat who ran Walter F. Mondale’s 1984 Presidential campaign, Fannie Mae has established itself as perhaps the most politically astute of big corporations. By hiring some of the best lobbyists in town, spreading campaign contributions around and relentlessly selling members of Congress on what Fannie Mae is doing to help homebuyers in their states and districts, it has consolidated and exploited the advantages granted to it by Washington. At the same time, it has shaken up the housing finance industry by attacking a wide variety of impediments to homeownership, from discrimination to high closing costs.

The company has repeatedly neutralized efforts to re-examine or scale back the benefits of its Government-chartered status, including its exemption from state and local income taxes and the widely held assumption — nowhere written down — that the Government would bail out Fannie Mae if it ever got into financial trouble. — The New York Times on May 17, 1998

So it was written and so it has come to pass. On May 17, 1998, the New York Times profiled then incoming CEO Franklin Raines and Fannie Mae. The article makes for chilling reading for it hints at potential problems that have largely come to pass at Fannie Mae and the mortgage industry. The tale is one really of corruption and of political ties between Fannie Mae and the Democratic party establishment. That Fannie Mae engaged in fraudlent activity during the tenure of Franklin Raines is beyond a shadow of a doubt. Here’s the Washington Post on May 26, 2006:

Fannie Mae engaged in “extensive financial fraud” over six years by doctoring earnings so executives could collect hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses, federal officials said yesterday in a report that portrayed a company determined to play by its own rules.

Regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, in announcing a settlement with Fannie Mae that includes $400 million in penalties, provided the most detailed picture yet of what went wrong at the congressionally chartered firm.

They portray the District-based mortgage funding giant — a linchpin of the nation’s housing market — as governed by a weak board of directors, which failed to install basic internal controls and instead let itself be dominated and left uninformed by chief executive Franklin Raines and Chief Financial Officer J. Timothy Howard, who both were later ousted.

And here’s the problem for Obama, he has received more money from Fannie Mae since coming to the Senate than any other Senator, so much in fact that Obama now ranks second only to Senator Dodd of Connecticut who collected his tidy sum over 18 years. It is highly ironic that the malfaesance at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which caused the fall of the House of Lehman may propel Obama to the Presidency but when this scandal comes fully to light, it may yet destroy the Democratic party. These quid quo pros have to be stopped. The level of cozy between CEOs and political leaders is all too cozy for the health of the American Republic.

And over on Uppity Woman, there is an excellent post highlighting McCain’s unheeded warning on the troubles at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Corruption knows no party.

The New York Times article from 1998 is below the fold: (more…)

An interesting new meme has appeared on the left. You might call it the “if Obama loses” meme. The idea being pushed by many Obama supporters is that it would be an undeniable effect of deep seated racism. We hear it from governors, gasbags and the kool-aid crowd. We hear it from deep thinkers and, um, others. Many of us find this curious in the extreme. We have been saying Obama would lose since the primary.

I was an early Obama supporter. The wrapper is impressive. The problems for me started when I looked more closely. Once I got a my mind around the baggage Obama was carrying it was my opinion that he could not win a general election. Since my concern has always been winning I switched my primary support to Edwards, I voted for him, and then later to Senator Clinton because that is who I thought was most likely to win in the general. This primary season more than any I can remember has shown the difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties. The Republicans nominated the one candidate who had a chance to win in spite of the fact they hated him. The Democrats chose to nominate the one candidate who had a chance of losing because they like him. I am honestly baffled by the idea that Obama is some kind of perfect candidate. In a piece that makes a point or two I agree with Richard Miniter says:

Too many think that elections turn on identities, not ideas.

If Obama loses–and it is still a big ‘if’–too many liberals will fail to heed the message that voters have been sending them since 1981. Seventy percent of the country is tired of 1960s liberalism. Indeed many find the hippie vision frightening: A country too ashamed of itself to fight its enemies, too unsure of itself to praise its own history, govern its children or corral its criminals, and too resentful of the rich to allow the economy to make more of them.

And I predict that, if Obama loses, liberals won’t ask the key question: If, instead, we had tried 1990s Clinton-DLC liberalism, would it have worked?

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Here are a dozen articles from both the US and international media about the US Presidential race. Highlights of each article provided with a link to the full article.

The Incredible Shrinking Obama
By Rex Murphy in Toronto’s Globe and Mail.

Journalists used to tell stories, now they plumb narratives. Narrative is a pretentious borrowing from the abstraction-clotted world of academic criticism, where texts are interrogated, authors are dead and high-toned fatuousness is king. I’ll see your postmodern and raise you a meta.

Mr. Obama’s campaign, however, has renewed narrative’s trendy fizz. It is the very Perrier water (or is it San Pellegrino now?) of the better campaign reportage. Take no hike up Pundit Mountain without it. From the moment, the Obama surge took forceful shape, everyone – reporters, the scholars of blogland, the partisan howler monkeys of cable-news cage matches – has chattered on about Mr. Obama’s narrative.

Trouble is, most of the story of the campaign isn’t so much coming from the candidate himself as it is created by all those who, most in worshipful terms, have talked, written and reported on or about him. The Obama campaign is one great text generator, the grand fable of his fans.

Same-Sex Marriage Ban Is Tied to Obama Factor
By Jesse McKinley in the New York Times.

Could Senator Barack Obama’s popularity among black voters hurt gay couples in California who want to marry?

That is the concern of opponents of Proposition 8, a measure on the November ballot that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, which was legalized in May by the State Supreme Court.

Add Black homophobes to my list of worries.

Meltdown Puts Obama Back in Driving Seat
By Dennis Staunton in the Irish Times.

THIS WEEK’S meltdown in the markets has produced few winners but if the ill wind that has blown away half the investment banks on Wall Street has benefited anyone, it is Barack Obama.

After two weeks in the doldrums in the wake of the Republicans’ unexpectedly buoyant convention and the emergence of Sarah Palin as a fresh political star, the Democrats are back on top in the race for the White House.

Obama has regained the lead in national polls and wiped out McCain’s advantage in a number of key battleground states as the economy drives every other issue out of sight.

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Here is the Sunday, September 21st, 2008 edition of what’s making news and interesting reads from around the world. Also please note that off to the left there are two widgets with updates on news from Asia and the world in a separate page: Around Asia & Around the World New Feeds.

Rebels in Nigeria’s Delta Region Strike an Oil Pipeline
Militants in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria said Saturday that they had hit another oil pipeline, continuing a streak of attacks that have badly damaged the country’s largest oil producer, Royal Dutch Shell. More on this story from the New York Times.

Polls in Britain Point a Tory Rout of Labour
Gordon Brown is set to lead Labour into an election bloodbath so crushing it could take his party a decade to recover, according to the largest ever poll of marginal seats which predicts a landslide victory for David Cameron. Eight cabinet ministers, including the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary, would be swept away in the rout as the Tories marched into Downing Street with a majority of 146, says the poll, conducted for PoliticsHome.com and exclusively revealed to The Observer. Seats that have been Labour since the First World War would fall. The story in the UK Guardian. Meanwhile, the embattled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has launched what he hopes will be his comeback, as the Labour Party met in Manchester for its annual conference. Battered in the polls and bruised by in-party fighting, Brown is fighting for his political life. This story from Euro News.

Swaziland Holds Parliamentary Elections
Swaziland held its parliamentary elections today whilst yesterday police arrested a number of union leaders for planning a border blockade ahead of polls. More from Afrol News.

Anwar Ibrahim Presses for No Confidence Vote in Malaysia
Malaysia’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is demanding that Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s administration subject itself to a confidence vote in parliament by Tuesday, claiming he has enough reformist lawmakers to topple the government. Abdullah has dismissed the challenge, and a major crackdown could follow. The story from the Asia Times.

Japanese Candidates for Premiership Make Final Pitch
Front-runner Taro Aso and his rivals in the race to be Japan’s prime minister made final appeals Sunday, one day before the ruling party picks a new leader it hopes can revive its fading fortunes. More from Agence France-Presse.

Al Qaeda Likely Behind Pakistani Hotel Bombing
The bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which has left up to 60 people confirmed dead and hundreds injured, is likely to have been carried out or supported by Al Qaeda, according to a US intelligence official. More from Euro News.

The Battle for the North Pole
Climate change is freeing the Arctic of ice — and spurring a global competition for the natural resources stored beneath. Countries that border the sea are staking new territorial claims and oil giants are dispatching geologists. But what will the tug-of-war mean for the indigenous people and wildlife? Der Spiegel looks at the unfolding polar race.

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