1 Boring Old Man

McCain Tries To Blame Financial Crisis On Democratic Takeover Of Congress In 2007

In an interview with right-wing radio host Michael Medved this past Friday, McCain agreed with Medved’s assertion that “the economy was really progressing pretty well under most of President Bush’s term” before Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007:

MEDVED: Let me ask you one other thing senator, which again, I think is on the minds of lots and lots of our listeners. The economy was really progressing pretty well under most of President Bush’s term. Then the Democrats took over in Congress in 2007 and now we’re in this horrible crisis. Coincidence?
MCCAIN: No, it isn’t.

McCain went on to place the blame for the financial crisis on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, claiming that Democrats “were willing co-conspirators with this game of three-card monty that went on and then it collapsed.” Medved and McCain’s claim that “the economy was progressing really well” before Democrats took control of Congress is laughable. As Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Christian Weller’s economic snapshot from December 2006 shows, the economy was already in rough shape:

• Famly Debt Was Rising: By September 2006, household debt rose to an unprecedented 130.9% of disposable income. From March 2001 to September 2006, personal debt relative to disposable income grew each quarter by 1.6 percentage points—almost five times faster than in the 1990s. In the second quarter of 2006, families had to spend 14.4% of their disposable income to service their debt—the largest share since 1980.
• The Housing Market Had Slowed: The supply of homes for sale each month averaged 6.9 months of supply for the six months ending in October 2006—the largest supply since 1991.
• Savings Had Plummeted: The personal saving rate of -1.3% in the third quarter of 2006 marked the sixth quarter in a row with a negative personal saving rate.

As for McCain’s claim that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the central cause of the current economic crisis, McClatchy thoroughly debunked it over the weekend, writing that “private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis.”

But it was different then. There were many more people waiting to hear this kind of drivel – business types, conservatives, religious right people, anti-culture sorts, etc. This time, the failure of the Bush Administration has been so global that there aren’t so many people looking for their daily "Talking Points." There are people exhausted by the Wars, looking at their savings going down the tubes, paying erratic and arbitrary prices at the gas pump, people out of [or nearly out of] a job, people who are just tired of being lied to or told what to think.

It’s still uphill, retorting the waves of misinformation that pour out of McCain’s Republican Machine, but not like four or even eight years ago. This allegation is simply wrong, that’s all. If McCain had said, "You know, the Democratic Congress of the last two years didn’t see this coming either. I think we all share some blame for dropping the ball." That would’ve been fine. And he would’ve been dead right…

Judge: GOP’s voter purge a ‘violation of federal law’

The American Civil Liberties Union is trumpeting a judge’s decision in Michigan which brings to a halt the practice of eliminating voters from rolls if their mailing address is found to be invalid. Recently, the GOP chairman in Macomb County, Michigan, detailed a plan to use a list of foreclosed homes to challenge voters. His pronouncement drew an immediate backlash, with predictions that the plan would "backfire."

It has.

The suit, filed by ACLU national and ACLU of Michigan, along with the Advancement Project, aimed to protect voters whose registration cards were returned to government offices by post as ‘undeliverable.’ Judge Stephen J. Murphy of the U.S. District Court of Michigan’s Eastern District concluded that the program of eliminating these voters from rolls is in violation of federal law.

The voter purge program, better known to elections integrity experts as ‘voter caging,’ is a long-storied GOP tactic employed against minority, student and low-income voters. In September, the Obama campaign filed a lawsuit in Michigan challenging the illegal tactic…

Federal court: Ohio must check voter registrations
^{Full federal appeals court sides with Ohio GOP, says elections chief must verify registrations}

A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered Ohio’s top elections official to set up a system by Friday to verify the eligibility of new voters and make the information available to the state’s 88 county election boards.

The full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld a lower court ruling that Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner must use other government records to check thousands of new voters for registration fraud.

A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit had disagreed last week, but the full court’s ruling overturns that decision…