Dirty Democrats

Obama: The Audacity of Hubris: “

Even under normal circumstances, Barack Obama would have had a difficult time meeting expectations for his acceptance speech.  With the speech scheduled on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech and his own historic status as the first African-American on a major-party presidential ticket, Obama had some heavy lifting to craft a speech that would resonate through those themes.  As William Safire notes, though, Obama barely tried, and surrounded the setting with so much stagecraft and fanfare that the Greek colonnade behind him evoked one simple message — hubris:

BY choosing the venue of a vast outdoor stadium as John Kennedy did for his ‘new frontier’ acceptance, and by speaking on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ address, Barack Obama — whose claim to fame is an ability to move audiences with his words — deliberately invited comparison with two of the most memorable speeches of our recent history.

What a mistake.

A speaker must first ask: what is the best setting to make close contact with the person I want to reach? In this day and age, it is not a huge throng wildly cheering on cue. On the contrary, the target is the individual American voter watching a TV or computer screen at home, accustomed to looking over the shoulders of elected representatives, in colorful convention assembled, selecting the party’s nominee.

Instead, Obama’s handlers offered the political version of “American Idol” — the audacity of hype. On the 50-yard line of the football field, at a reported cost of $6 million, they erected a plywood Parthenon, its fake Grecian columns suggesting the White House. At the end, not a traditional balloon drop in a contained hall — enjoyable hoopla — but a fireworks display in the heavens over a mass of humanity in a blizzard of confetti, all too like the collectivist fantasy that opened and closed the Beijing Olympics.

And Safire hasn’t even started addressing the speech itself. Almost alone among the commentariat, Safire picked out the passage where Obama all but accused John McCain of cowardice — a point I noted:

Then came a strange one: “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell — but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.” What’s that supposed to mean — that McCain is a coward, unwilling to lead a charge into the hills of Pakistan? That Obama would? Most post-speech TV analysis, blown away by the sky-piercing fireworks, ignored that low blow; nor was attention paid to his replay of the charge that “naysayers” are motivated by more than his politics: “I don’t fit the typical pedigree.”

Ironically, just before that, Obama said he’d like to have a debate on patriotism and national defense with John McCain. Really? McCain offered a series of town-hall debates, one per week, starting in the summer and running straight through to the election. Obama, who had made this exact same statement in May, ran away from the challenge instead.

John McCain doesn’t need to demonstrate his courage and willingness to defend this country. Obama doesn’t want to face McCain in open-forum debates, even after his childish challenges get answered. Draw your own conclusions.

As for the rest of the speech, Safire says, it offered nothing more than what Obama supporters hear in his stump speeches. He did mention Dr. King, but almost as an afterthought. Instead of offering soaring rhetoric that transcended race, Obama hinted that racism lies at the heart of any opposition to his candidacy, a smear he’s now made four times this summer. Instead of offering specifics, he fell back onto the populist rhetoric that grew tiresome and ineffective for Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards by the end of the primaries.

In the end, the setting provided an unintentional theme of hubris and hype. That sums up Barack Obama and his quest for the presidency, without having ever run anything or accomplished anything in his career.

Sicko Democrats Joke about Hurricane Gustav:

Red State blogger ‘absentee’ had the good fortune to travel from Denver to Charlotte after the Democratic convention with DNC National Chair Don Fowler and Congressman John Spratt of South Carolina. His fortune turned into Fowler’s misfortune, as it turns out the blogger videotaped a conversation on the plane between the two prominent Democrats, who seem pleased about Hurricane Gustav. In fact, Fowler apparently believes it to be divine intervention, as shown in this clip:

The hurricane’s going to hit New Orleans about the time they start. [Chuckle] The timing is — at least it appears now that it’ll be there Monday. That just demonstrates that God’s on our side. [Laughter] … Everything’s cool.

This comes just a day after Brother Michael Moore saw the Face of God in a natural disaster bearing down on New Orleans. Did the Democratic convention hold a seminar in Denver on how to take glee in the misfortune of others, as long as it works for you politically? While we’ve come to expect this from Moore, who is obnoxious even at the best of times, seeing this kind of weird schadenfreude from elected officials and high-ranking party members comes off … rather ghoulishly.

Absentee also reports that the pair had quite a laugh over Sarah Palin’s nomination, but apparently he didn’t get that on tape. They shrugged her off as a non-entity except for the accident of gender, and called her — oddly — “Dan Quayle on steroids”. None of that is rather exceptional, except that one can be sure that their official line will sound at least slightly more dignified, even if just as far removed from reality.

It does seem curious that Absentee had the camera at the ready while the plane was apparently in flight, and that neither Democrat noticed it. This also prompts a question of ethics, which all of us should consider carefully. Should private conversations between politicians get videotaped surreptitiously like this? If so, then perhaps Fowler and many, many others should take better care about having a laugh at the misery of others, even among friends.

Cuyahoga board investigating ACORN registration fraud:CLEVELAND – The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections says it is investigating an organization that registers low-income voters after it turned up evidence of voter registration fraud.

The board doesn’t know how many fake registrations came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. But the board says multiple ACORN workers often handed in voter registration cards listing the same people, but showing them living at different addresses.

The board says an ACORN quota requiring part-time workers to sign up 20 voters per five-hour shift played a role. The organization stopped the registration by the part-timers on Aug. 15.

Officials don’t expect fraudulent registrations to affect the November election because of requirements that voters must show identification at the polls. ACORN says it has registered 86,000 new voters in the Cleveland area.

(Via .)

Mob-loan figure speaks at Democrat ConventionMob-loan figure speaks at convention for agent of Hope and Change
POSTED AT 5:05 PM ON AUGUST 26, 2008 BY ED MORRISSEY
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Charlie Rangel should really be ticked off after the DNC gave a speaking slot to Illinois state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias. Barack Obama told the Ways and Means chair that he had no room for a few words from Rangel, but instead allowed his friend and fundraiser speak on Obama’s behalf. Unfortunately, this highlights another embarrassing connection to crime and corruption in Obama’s past, as Giannoulias figured in a series of loans he personally approved to an organized crime figure in Chicago:

According to a Chicago Tribune article from 2006, Giannoulias “has faced questions about the bank’s multi-million dollar loans to Michael Gioranago, a convicted bookmaker and prostitution ring promoter.” Barack Obama was quoted in the article as saying that he “is concerned by revelations that the bank owned by Illinois Democratic treasurer nominee Alexi Giannoulias’ family gave loans to a Chicago crime figure and said the candidate owes him and the public a full accounting.”

And while Giannoulias claimed that the loans to Gioranago were made “before he became a full-time bank employee”, “newly discovered public records show Broadway Bank made $11.8 million in additional mortgage loans to Giorango just last year. Giannoulias said he oversaw the servicing of those loans.”

Giannoulias also appears to have lied about the bank’s financing of a casino boat marina. And in what may or may not be an ugly coincidence, convicted felon Tony Rezko racked up $450,000 in gambling debts by writing bad checks on his Broadway Bank account. According to Crain’s Chicago Business, “Obama kept his 2004 Senate campaign funds” at Broadway Bank as well.

Giannoulias himself has accepted at least one controversial campaign contribution, from Spiros Naos, an owner of a line of gambling cruise ships, who got ownership of the company after his uncle “was gunned down in an execution-style slaying after selling the gambling fleet to a group that included indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff”, according to the Chicago Daily Herald. After initially defending the contribution as one Greek helping another, Giannoulias eventually returned the money once the media began dogging him about it.

I wrote about this strange and murky story last September at Captain’s Quarters. Giannoulias approved millions of dollars in loans from his family’s bank to Michael “Jaws” Giordano after the latter got convicted on federal charges relating to bookmaking and prostitution in 2004. The loans paid for a casino fleet in Florida in 2005, an odd risk to take for someone who had a record as a pimp and a bookie.

Giannoulias got such a bad reputation that even senior Illinois Democrats refused to endorse him when he won the nomination for his position. However, Obama — the supposed “reform” politician — not just endorsed him but helped him to victory. Obviously, Giannoulias wants to return the favor.

Why would Obama have Giannoulias speak at the convention? It invites even more scrutiny into the controversy surrounding Giannoulias, and with it a further examination of Obama’s ties to corrupt fixer Tony Rezko, and Joe Biden’s ties to admitted extortionist Joseph Cari. For a candidate hoping to run on Hope and Change, Obama seems determined to expose himself as a Chicago machine pol with very questionable friends.

(Via Hot Air » Top Picks.)

Nevermind. All that is in there is hot air.

Washington Times

Obama votes cast him left of his own party
Jerry Seper and Joseph Curl
Sen. Barack Obama will portray himself Thursday night as an agent of change for mainstream America, but his eight-year voting record in the Illinois Senate shows the Democrat was on occasion an agent of isolation who took stands – particularly on anti-crime legislation – that put him to the left of his own party.
Mr. Obama was the only member of the state Senate to vote against a bill to prohibit the early release of convicted criminal sexual abusers; was among only four who voted against bills to toughen criminal sentences and to increase penalties for “gangbangers” and dealers of Ecstasy; and voted “present” on a bill making it harder for abusive parents to regain custody of their children, a Washington Times review of Illinois legislative records shows.
“On the one hand, I give him credit for being true to his beliefs. But certainly with concerns that there were, even for his own party in Illinois, he would be to the left on some of those key votes,” said Illinois state Sen. Dave Syverson, a conservative Republican.
The pattern has continued since Mr. Obama joined the U.S. Senate, according to National Journal magazine.
Its respected legislative scorecard rated the Illinois Democrat, based on his 2007 voting record, as the most liberal member of the Senate, even more liberal than Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, a self-described “democratic socialist.” Mr. Obama ranked No. 16 and No. 10 in the previous two years.
His running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, ranked third in the 2007 National Journal survey, with only Sen. Edward M. Kennedy between him and Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama’s left-leaning pedigree has concerned some of his party’s moderate and conservative members. Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma has publicly refused to endorse Mr. Obama, describing the presumptive presidential nominee as the “most liberal senator” on Capitol Hill.
“I think this is an important time for our country,” Mr. Boren has told reporters. “We’re facing a terrible economic downturn. We have high gasoline prices. We have problems in our foreign policy. That’s why I think it’s important.”
Although Mr. Obama has talked about working with Republicans, Mr. Boren said, “unfortunately, his record does not reflect working in a bipartisan fashion.”
Mr. Boren, however, said he plans to support the Democratic ticket on Election Day and will celebrate if his party succeeds in seating the first black president.
The Obama campaign has dismissed concerns about their candidate’s voting record and accused Republicans of trying to “distract, deflect and distort” the record by improperly characterizing votes he cast on several issues, including hot-button criminal justice matters.
The campaign said Mr. Obama was a “strong proponent of tougher measures to fight crime,” such as supporting efforts to increase funding and support for local law enforcement.
His aides said Mr. Obama sponsored laws to remove the statute of limitations for first-degree murder and to extend the statute of limitations for sexual assault; to protect victims of domestic violence; to increase penalties on drunken drivers and white-collar criminals; and to protect victims’ rights.
They also said Mr. Obama has worked on legislation to crack down on sex offenders and drug dealers, and repeatedly voted to lengthen sentences for criminals.
Some Obama critics point to his opposition to the Illinois version of bills to protect babies who were born alive after botched attempts at abortions, requiring a doctor to assist any child who survived.
In 2001, Illinois lawmakers offered three such bills and Mr. Obama voted “present” on each of them, arguing that under the Equal Protection Clause, the proposed laws would “essentially bar abortions.” A year later, he voted “no” on the reoffered bills.
In 2003, after Mr. Obama became chairman of the State Health and Human Services Committee, a new bill was referred to this committee but lost in a 6-4 vote and was never sent to the Senate floor for a full vote. Mr. Obama, according to state records, voted against that bill.
Mr. Obama’s opposition to such a law put him the minority of his own party nationally.
The federal version – the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which guaranteed that live-born infants are afforded full legal rights under federal law, regardless of their stage of development or whether their live births occurred during an abortion – passed the House by a 380-15 vote on Sept. 26, 2000. It was killed later that year in the Senate.
The legislation was reintroduced and passed the House on March 12, 2002, by a voice vote, On July 18, 2002, it cleared the Senate by unanimous consent. President Bush signed the bill into law on Aug. 5, 2002.
“This important legislation ensures that every infant born alive – including an infant who survives an abortion procedure – is considered a person under federal law,” Mr. Bush said at the time. “Today, through sonograms and other technology, we can see clearly that unborn children are members of the human family, as well.”
Billing himself on the 2008 presidential campaign trail as the law-and-order candidate who consistently supported and voted for bills aimed at strengthening the nation’s criminal justice system, Mr. Obama doesn’t mention several votes from his eight years in the Illinois state Senate that Republicans are determined to use to paint a different picture.
On numerous occasions, according to a compilation of his state legislative votes, Mr. Obama voted “present,” “no” or not at all when several major crime bills were offered. For instance, Mr. Obama was the only member of the Illinois Senate who:
cDid not support a bill permitting the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to report suspected child abuse while protecting the identity of the facility or person providing the information. The bill, SB-853, was approved by the Senate by a vote of 54-0-1, with Mr. Obama voting “present,” and 117-0-0 in the House. Known as the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act, it was signed into law by Illinois Gov. James Edgar in July 1997.
cVoted “present” on a bill in committee requiring criminals to serve consecutive sentences for separate crimes involving convictions for severe bodily harm or sexual assault but didn’t vote at all when the measure came to the floor. The bill, HB-1558, was passed in the Senate by a 54-0-0 vote and the House by a 118-0-0 vote. Mr. Edgar signed the bill into law in July 1997.
cVoted “present” on a bill making it harder for abusive and neglectful parents to regain custody of their children. The bill, HB-1298, passed in the Senate by a vote of 57-0-1 and the House by a vote of 99-4-22. Gov. George H. Ryan signed the bill into law in January 2000.
cDid not vote on legislation to prohibit convicted sex offenders from serving on school boards. The bill, HB-338, was approved by the Senate by a 58-0-0 vote and the House by a 106-0-0 vote. Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich signed the bill into law in May 2003.
The records also show Mr. Obama voted “no” on a bill allowing police officers to execute warrants and enter buildings without knocking if there was a reasonable belief a weapon would be used against them; voted “present” on legislation requiring that minors who commit gun crimes on or near a school be prosecuted as adults; and did not vote on a bill requiring fingerprint background checks on school bus drivers.
Mr. Obama was the only member of the state Senate to vote against a bill to prohibit the early release of convicted criminal sexual abusers; and was among only four who voted against bills to toughen criminal sentences, increase penalties for criminals whose offenses were committed in the furtherance of gang activities, and increase penalties for the delivery of Ecstasy and other designer drugs.
Mr. Obama, according to the records, voted “present” more than 125 times during his eight years as a state senator. His voting performance prompted Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, his rival during the Democratic primary campaign, to suggest on the campaign trail that Mr. Obama was a “talker rather than a doer.”
At one point, Clinton campaign launched a Web site known as www.votingpresent.com to criticize Mr. Obama, portraying the Illinois Democrat as cowardly in opting to vote present when it came to contentious legislation.
“I don’t think people want a lot of talk about change,” Mrs. Clinton said during a December campaign trip through Iowa. “I think they want someone with a real record – a doer, not a talker. After eight years of incompetence, they don’t want false hope; they want real results.”
It was neither the first nor the last time Mrs. Clinton would question Mr. Obama’s record as an Illinois senator or to suggest that the numerous present votes showed that he was a man of words, not action.
The Obama voting records have been gathered by numerous Republican opposition researchers over the past few years, including those of Jack Ryan, whose 2004 U.S. Senate campaign against Mr. Obama ended after unseemly details of his marriage were made public in divorce court.
Obama campaign officials, queried about their candidate’s Illinois voting record, cautioned that a present vote can be a signal to other legislators that a bill needs to be corrected or that other concerns had to be addressed.
They also dismissed suggestions that Mr. Obama was attempting to duck the issues, saying he cast more than 4,000 total votes in the Illinois Senate.
“Over more than a decade in public office, Barack Obama has successfully led the way on difficult issues from welfare reform, to the reform of a broken death penalty law in Illinois to a battle for long-overdue ethics reforms in Washington,” campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.
“Among the thousands of votes he cast in the Illinois Senate, he used the ‘present’ vote on occasions when he believed bills were drafted in an unconstitutional manner,” he said. “On other occasions, he voted ‘present’ as part of legislative strategies, such as ones crafted by pro-choice forces in Illinois to thwart maneuvering by the opponents of a woman’s right to choose.”
In response to written questions about his voting record on criminal justice bills, the Obama campaign said he voted “present” or did not support several of the bills because many either breached the state’s confidentiality laws, allowed false reports to be made to law enforcement authorities for swifter police response, exposed citizens to unnecessary liabilities, lacked specific definitions, or failed to offer the necessary background information to accomplish what they were supposed to do.

Catholic Bishops Rebuke Biden and Pelosi: ”

Irritated by pro-choice Democrats, who proudly proclaim their Catholicism, the Archbishop of Washington D.C. is castigating House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for misstating church history and the Archbishop of Denver is giving a warning to vice presidential hopeful Joe Biden not to take Communion.

“

(Via Dallas Blog RSS Feed.)

Washington Times

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Lobby ties counter Biden’s ‘outsider’ label
Jim McElhatton (Contact)
EXCLUSIVE:
DENVER | Sen. Barack Obama is trying to portray himself and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., as the “outsider” ticket of the year, but Mr. Biden’s 35-year career in the Senate may make that a difficult sell. One need look no further than Mr. Biden’s relationship with his lobbyist son and his law firm to see why.
Mr. Biden’s campaign has hired lawyers from his son’s firm to do its legal work. His son’s firm lobbied for the University of Delaware and, in turn, Mr. Biden championed federal funding for lucrative projects, known as earmarks, in congressional spending bills.
In addition, Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, once worked for MBNA, the giant credit-card company, whose employees are the elder Biden’s largest source of campaign contributions and whose side Mr. Biden took in a controversial bankruptcy-law fight.
All of which makes Mr. Biden a veteran of the types of insider fights that “outsiders” are supposed to eschew. “He’s no stranger to how the system works,” said David Williams, vice president of policy for the Citizens Against Government Waste.
Republicans are seizing on the ties between Mr. Biden and his son’s lobbying firm, calling Mr. Biden “a model Washington insider with numerous connections to lobbyists and special interests,” said Danny Diaz, spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
But Mr. Obama’s campaign, which refuses donations from federal lobbyists, downplayed the criticism and said that the senator’s son has never lobbied his father on behalf of any clients or employers.
“All the Republican spin under the sun can’t change the fact that Joe Biden has a 35-year record fighting for people when powerful interests have stood in the way of the public interest, whether it’s drug companies, oil companies or insurance companies,” Obama spokesman David Wade said.
According to Federal Election Commission records, employees of Oldaker, Biden & Belair LLP have done legal work for Mr. Biden’s political campaigns. This year alone, the lobbying firm earned $140,000 in legal fees from Mr. Biden’s presidential bid.
Last year, the former treasurer for Unite Our States, Mr. Biden’s political fundraising committee, was Phu Huynh, a lawyer who works at Oldaker, Biden & Belair. David McNitt, former custodian of records for the Biden campaign fund, also works at the lobbying firm as a legislative assistant. The firm did not return phone calls Monday for comment.
The University of Delaware over the years has paid more than $1 million in lobbying fees to Oldaker, Biden & Belair and the National Group, an affiliate.
This year, Mr. Biden and and fellow Delaware Democrat Sen. Thomas R. Carper secured two earmarks worth more than $400,000 for the university, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan group that tracks earmarks and opposes congressional spending that it considers excessive.
The university has received more than $5 million in earmarks since 2004, the group said.
University spokesman Neil Thomas said R. Hunter Biden was part of the Oldaker, Biden & Belair law firm that created the National Group, “but he did not directly work with” the university.
Mr. Thomas said the university decided to drop its lobbying contracts this spring and will no longer employ a Washington lobbying firm. The university praised the elder Biden’s efforts on its behalf.
“As a Delaware senator, Senator Biden has always been responsive to representing the University of Delaware’s interests on federal matters,” Mr. Thomas said. “He and his staff have been supportive of a number of university funding priorities, and that support predates the university’s hiring of the National Group.”
Some employees of the lobbying firm who have contributed to Mr. Biden’s campaigns won’t be allowed to do so now because they’re federal lobbyists, and Mr. Obama has banned lobbyist from contributing to his campaign.
William Oldaker, who gave $4,600 to Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign, has lobbied for dozens of clients over the past decade, including powerful corporations such as Delta Air Lines, Xerox Corp. and tobacco giant Phillip Morris, Senate records show.
Some of Mr. Biden’s biggest political support has come from the financial services industry, including more than $200,000 from employees at MBNA Corp. in Delaware. The New York Times reported that Mr. Biden’s son also has worked as a consultant for MBNA from 2001 to 2005.
Mr. Biden also supported a bankruptcy bill favored largely by Republicans and MBNA, while Mr. Obama has criticized the legislation on the campaign trail.
Mr. Wade, the campaign spokesman, said Mr. Biden’s son never lobbied his father on MBNA, either.
“I want to be crystal clear. Hunter Biden has never lobbied Senator Biden’s office or committees, period,” Mr. Wade said. “He’s never worked on a client issue where other members of the firm have lobbied the office. Hunter has never lobbied for MBNA. Senator Biden has been as strong a supporter of ethics reform as the Senate has known, and his office follows all ethics laws right down to the letter.”
Mr. Wade also said Mr. Biden “took plenty of hard knocks” from MBNA, the state’s largest employer, by demanding changes in the bankruptcy legislation.
“Senator Biden improved the bill for low-income workers, women and children,” Mr. Wade said. “There were times when he believed amendments on both sides would have blown up a bipartisan compromise backed by three-quarters of the Senate. At those moments, Senator Biden had to make the tough calls, and he voted to pass a bill.”
The 2005 law that Mr. Biden supported overhauled the bankruptcy system and made it harder to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy – which consumer groups widely opposed, but which benefited banks and credit-card companies.
On Monday, Mr. Obama railed against banking lobbyists for blocking mortgage industry reform that, he said, could have averted the current housing industry crisis.
“I’ve been saying we need to crack down on the mortgage lending and financial institutions for years, but the problem was that the banks and the financial institutions … all spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions,” Mr. Obama said.
• S.A. Miller contributed to this report.

“Plastic my son, Plastic” (or Barack Obama & the Biden/MBNA family): ”

I guess I have to take a break from following my own senior senator Chris Dodd (D-Countrywide) since he skeddalled off to Ireland and may have slipped back into the country while eluding the press.

Now I have another ethically challenged Senator out there, and I can share my knowledge of the financial services field to explain this latest faux pas.

The line in the title is from The Graduate, but plastic in the form of credit cards has made many young men in Delaware (a hotbed of finance) very rich. One, of whom, was Senator Joe Biden’s son.’

‘A son of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden was paid an undisclosed amount of money as a consultant by MBNA, the largest employer in Delaware, during the years the senator supported legislation that was promoted by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer groups.

David Wade, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said that ‘after working in the Clinton administration in the Department of Commerce on Internet privacy and online commerce issues, Hunter consulted for five years as an expert on these very same issues at a time of enormous expansion in online banking.’

At the time Hunter Biden was receiving consulting payments from MBNA, he also was a Washington lobbyist at a firm he had co-founded.

‘He was not a lobbyist for MBNA, and his work had absolutely nothing to do with the bankruptcy bill. Zero. Nothing,’ said Wade.’

http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080825/ap_on_el_pr/biden_mbna

<!–break–>

hey, Mr. Wade, sellin any bridges tonight?

Fact is Hunter Biden needed a job out of school ,and MBNA came through, big time

Hunter Biden joined MBNA as a management trainee after graduating from Yale Law School and rose to be an executive vice president. Now a partner in Oldaker, Biden & Belair, a lobbying and law firm, he receives a $100,000 annual retainer from MBNA to advise it on ‘the Internet and privacy law,’

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/business/07mbna.html?pagewanted=4&ei=5007&en=7f97bc61437c4057&ex=1393995600&partner=USERLAND

Now Delaware is a tiny, clubby state, but Biden’s relationship with MBNA has been so close to incestuous one wonders if they moved off to one of those far western’polygamy-oriented cult’compounds’

MBNA has been the No. 1 donor to Senator Biden’s campaigns since 1993

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/business/07mbna.html?pagewanted=4&ei=5007&en=7f97bc61437c4057&ex=1393995600&partner=USERLAND

Biden sold his home in Wilmington for $1.2 million’to a top MBNA executive

Biden disputed the claim and provided the local paper, the Wilmington News-Journal, with an appraisal of the house fixing its value at $1.2 million—exactly the price that the MBNA executive, a man named John Cochran, had paid. The home deal, it appeared, was on the up-and-up.

but….

it appears Cochran simply paid Biden’s full asking price. And, according to people familiar with the situation, the house needed quite a bit of work; contractors and their trucks descended on the house for months after the purchase.

and…

It appears that MBNA indirectly helped Cochran buy the Biden house. According to a statement in the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission—in which it is required to detail the compensation of top officers—in 1996 MBNA reimbursed Cochran $330,115 for expenses arising from the move

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDU4OTdhMTFhN2YwZTY3MmMzNGFhYzc3ODdhOTA0ZjQ= (this was in the pre-bubble 1990’s—doesn’t sound like some Lackawanna County fixer-upper to me)

and how did Biden repay this generosity…..by becoming MBNA’s lackey boy on Capitol Hill

‘He has actively supported the company’s favorite federal legislation, the Bankruptcy Reform Act, which would make it more difficult for consumers to escape their credit card debt.

Senator Biden shepherded the bankruptcy legislation along by taking the unusual tack of inserting it into a foreign relations bill in 2000, said his spokesman, Norm Kurz. But Mr. Kurz added that Mr. Biden said he would have backed the bill whether or not he was from Delaware or had received MBNA donations (clearance sale on bridges, it seems)\s

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/business/07mbna.html?pagewanted=4&ei=5007&en=7f97bc61437c4057&ex=1393995600&partner=USERLAND

(FYI, since credit cards are unsecured debt, the old pre-reform bankruptcy law caused much of this debt to be wiped out soon after a Chapter 7 filing; hence the interest by credit card companies to force more Chapter 13 repayment plans; which is the present law)

Now’why would someone running on ‘hope and change’ align himself with a self-dealing Corporate Democrat?

Just last month Obama lambasting bankruptcy reform and one of its unbought supporters, Senator McCain

‘Like the president he hopes to succeed, Sen. McCain does not believe the government has a real role to play in protecting Americans from unscrupulous lending practices,’ Obama said. ‘He would continue to allow the banks and credit card companies to tilt the playing field in their favor, at the expense of hardworking Americans.’

Obama’s campaign pointed to a series of Senate votes in 2005 to accuse McCain of ’siding with banking industry lobbyists’ while opposing measures that the Democrat’s campaign said would have helped families struggling to pay medical bills, seniors in bankruptcy fighting to keep their homes, and victims of Hurricane Katrina.

‘

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-08-obama-bankruptcy_N.htm

How dare Senator McCain vote in favor of your running mate’s favorite legislative priority!

Let’s go to the videotape:

Joe Biden:

* makes big money from selling his house to MBNA

* depended on them for campaign contibutions

*’his son just happens to get a highly lucrative job and lobbying contract from them

* and this had nothing with the most pro-bankruptcy reform record in the Senate

How, again Mr. Obama, is John McCain the ‘out-of-touch’ guy with middle America?

“

(Via The Next Right.)