On its Real Time Investigations blog <Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or , the Sunlight foundation posted a thorough analysis of who has contributed to House and Senate committee members who are debating this historic Bailout legislation. Sunlight's research uses data from the Center for Responsive Politics (which receives funding from Sunlight) to examine how much of the campaign cash raised by members of the House Finance and Senate Banking committees has come from the industries at the epicenter of the crisis - finance, insurance and real estate - over the course of their careers. Sunlight's findings include:


   * Since 1989, Sen. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has raised $13,163,356 from employees, their family members, and PACs from the Finance, Insurance & Real Estate sector out of a total of $43,344,186 - 30.3 percent of his total take

   * Since 1989, Sen. Richard C. Shelby, ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, has raised $4,240,502 from employees, their family members, and PACs from the Finance, Insurance & Real Estate sector out of a total of $20,741,533 - 20.4 percent of his total take

   * Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee has received $2,430,361 of 7,800,282, or 31.1 percent

   * Rep. Spencer Bacchus, ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee has received $3,579,199 of $8,478,461, or 42.2 percent.

As Barack Hussein Obama took a handsome share of Fannie Mae contributions, (number 2 in total contributions in only 3 years in the Senate from Fannie Mae CEO's (two of them are/were on his election team)), one can only conclude the "Change" he wants is an even larger share of the contributions...

To be “fair,” there are just as many Republicans with their snouts in the contribution trough, but there’s a BIG FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE here with respect to the present subprime and liquidity problems.  Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank were in charge and the committees they chair were responsible for the oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  These problems have happened on their watch and they’ve been in their respective committees governing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac policy for more than 10 years.  They’ve also opposed any changes to the rules governing Fannie and Freddie, and these two government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) were responsible for over 70% of the subprime loans.

New Related Topic

The Senate Mark Up is out with a fresh version the Bailout plan and it looks like the Senate will vote on it tonight.  Here’s the gambit…  As the Senate has taken adult leadership over this problem, Senator Dodd will be handcuffed to vote for the Senate markup no matter how it’s written, and as there are an equal number of available votes in the Senate (Kennedy is med down), the VP will likely get to cast the swing vote.  As it sounds like they've included the right kind of changes to the House bill that will make it easy for all the republicans to vote in favor...  The trap will be baited.

Ah...  but there's the rub...  If the Senate is able to pull this off in the name of bipartisanship, and their version includes among other things, loans vs buyout, cutting capital gains tax for two years, suspending Mark to Market, and increase in the FDIC insured amount from $110K to $250K, the trap will be set.

If the Senate version passes and goes to the House on Thursday, the loud sucking noise will be coming from Pinkie Pelosi and her politburo, as this version will receive nearly 100% backing from Republican members of the House, and the trap will spring shut on the liberals when they will again show a lack of leadership and bipartisanship by voting against the Senate version.  

Perfect… This will be wonderful ammunition for McCain-Palin to use in the upcoming election.

V/R, Batch