What Do These People All Have In Common?

BPSCG

Penultimate Amazing
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Mar 27, 2002
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This is a quiz, not a poll, so there is no Planet X option.

What do these people all have in common?
  1. Christopher Dodd
  2. John Kerry
  3. Barack Obama
  4. Hillary Clinton
Answer:
  1. They are all United States Senators.
  2. They are all Democrats
  3. They have all tried to get elected President of the United States.
  4. Other
  5. All of the above
And the correct answer:
5. - All of the above. In addition to 1, 2, and 3, they are also the four biggest recipients of donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, hence 4 is also correct.
 
What is the point of this quiz?

1. To contribute useful information.
2. To make a salient point.
3. To show off the OP's grasp of the issues.
4. None of the above.

Answer:
4. None of the above.
 
BPSCG said:
5. - All of the above. In addition to 1, 2, and 3, they are also the four biggest recipients of donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, hence 4 is also correct.
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All four donation totally under $500k. Whereas anti-earmark Palin used $25 million of "Bridge To Nowhere" money on state roads rather than return it.

My tu quoque argument aside, what point are you trying to make here, Beeps? Comparatively speaking to the amounts of donations politicians get, this is minuscule. Do you think they are somehow beholden to the Macs or in their pocket?
 
chipmunk stew said:
What is the point of this quiz?

1. To contribute useful information.
2. To make a salient point.
3. To show off the OP's grasp of the issues.
4. None of the above.

Answer:
4. None of the above.
Click to expand...
I have little doubt that if all the names there had been Republican ones, and maybe the words "Fannie Mae" and "Freddie Mac" replaced with "Enron," you'd be dancing a jig and would have switched on your autobump script to keep this at the top of the list of threads.

Now that Fan and Fred have been taken over by the government, they've been prohibited from doing any more influence buying on Capitol Hill, so I guess my list represents the season's-end standings.

BTW, Barney Frank, their most public water boy, is also in the top 25. Read this if you'd like to see the American version of Baghdad Bob.
 
Upchurch said:
All four donation totally under $500k. Whereas anti-earmark Palin used $25 million of "Bridge To Nowhere" money on state roads rather than return it.
Click to expand...
Better use of the tax money than that bridge, so I give her high marks for being practically minded on that score. If Alaska didn't spend it, someone else would have.

I recall Obama and others making the observation that the nation's infrastructure is in need of attention. Roads are infrastructure.

DR
 
BPSCG said:
I have little doubt that if all the names there had been Republican ones, and maybe the words "Fannie Mae" and "Freddie Mac" replaced with "Enron," you'd be dancing a jig and would have switched on your autobump script to keep this at the top of the list of threads.
Click to expand...
Yes, because that's my MO. :rolleyes:

BPSCG said:
Now that Fan and Fred have been taken over by the government, they've been prohibited from doing any more influence buying on Capitol Hill, so I guess my list represents the season's-end standings.
Click to expand...
All four of the people on your list, with the possible exception of Dodd, supported this move.

So... what was your point again?
 
Upchurch said:
All four donation totally under $500k.
Click to expand...
Oh, so it's okay, then.

Whereas anti-earmark Palin used $25 million of "Bridge To Nowhere" money on state roads rather than return it.
Click to expand...
Please show me how much of that money ended up in Palin's campaign fund.

My tu quoque argument aside...
Click to expand...
Your argument doesn't even rise to the level of a tu quoque. The Fan/Fred money was donations to candidates' campaigns. A less charitable person than I would call it "influence-buying money." And an even less charitable person would call it "bribe money." Fan and Fred were trying to buy favorable oversight from Capitol Hill, and got it, particularly from Frank.

How on Earth does that compare to Palin's redirecting of "Bridge to Nowhere" money to roads Alaska actually needed?

Do you think they are somehow beholden to the Macs or in their pocket?
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Yes.

Read the Wall Street Journal editorial on Barney Frank I linked to above, and see if you can come to any other conclusion about Barney Frank.
 
BPSCG said:
your wsj link said:
But the biggest payoff for Mr. Frank is the "affordable housing" trust fund he managed to push through as one political price for the recent Fannie reform bill. This fund siphons off a portion of Fannie and Freddie profits -- as much as $500 million a year each -- to a fund that politicians can then disburse to their favorite special interests.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Beeps, while the ostrich method seems a worthy critique of Congressman Frank, I will guess that Congressman Frank is not the only Congressman whose district got this money funneled into it, and that Congresscritters from both parties were happy to see the benefits so directed.

FWIW

DR
 
Darth Rotor said:
If Alaska didn't spend it, someone else would have.
Click to expand...


No doubt about that. However, that money could have been used for higher priority needs somewhere else. Of course that implies that Congress appropriates appropriately.

Still, since Alaskans already receive the most per-capita federal dollars, it just makes her look all the more greedy and belies her reformer image. (Or a strong advocate for her constituents, if one prefers to spin it that way.)
 
chipmunk stew said:
All four of the people on your list, with the possible exception of Dodd, supported this move.
Click to expand...
I guess at least three of them recognize there's no point in milking a cash cow when it doesn't have any milk left...

BTW, since Upchurch rather irrelevantly brought up the "Bridge to Nowhere," does anyone know whether Obama voted for it, against it, was absent, or just voted "present"?
 
Darth Rotor said:
Roads are infrastructure.

DR
Click to expand...

Roads are supposed to be paid for out of gasoline taxes. Why weren't they?

Oh! That's right. Palin wanted to give the state residents a bigger disbursement from the oil procedes.

She bought their loyalty with our money.
 
BPSCG said:
So Palin was for it before she was against it.

Obama and Biden were for it before they were for it.
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Palin was for it before congress was against it. Then she was against it, but not against keeping the money for it.

She bilked the taxpayers and now she's using it as an example of "reform". You've got to admit--she's got balls.
 
Darth Rotor said:
your wsj link said:
But the biggest payoff for Mr. Frank is the "affordable housing" trust fund he managed to push through as one political price for the recent Fannie reform bill. This fund siphons off a portion of Fannie and Freddie profits -- as much as $500 million a year each -- to a fund that politicians can then disburse to their favorite special interests.
Click to expand...

Beeps, while the ostrich method seems a worthy critique of Congressman Frank, I will guess that Congressman Frank is not the only Congressman whose district got this money funneled into it, and that Congresscritters from both parties were happy to see the benefits so directed.

FWIW

DR
Click to expand...
DR, I was at first inclined to agree with you on that; the Dems by no means have a monopoly on venality.

But look again at where that money is being siphoned off to: an ""affordable housing" trust fund. Let me ask you, do people who live in "affordable housing" tend to vote Democrat or do they tend to vote Republican?

William Marcy ("Boss") Tweed is probably nodding in approval and admiration, from whatever circle of Hell he's inhabiting.
 
BPSCG said:
DR, I was at first inclined to agree with you on that; the Dems by no means have a monopoly on venality.

But look again at where that money is being siphoned off to: an ""affordable housing" trust fund. Let me ask you, do people who live in "affordable housing" tend to vote Democrat or do they tend to vote Republican?

William Marcy ("Boss") Tweed is probably nodding in approval and admiration, from whatever circle of Hell he's inhabiting.
Click to expand...
Meanwhile, the expansion of power of the executive branch is ignored once again....
 
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