OT - "Is Barack Obama Crazy?" continued......... - Page 20

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr4VZ8xCzOg

 Maggiemae, you continue to show your ignorance. The dems couldn't block anything in the House of Reps when the republicans control it 6 out of 8 years Bush was president without help from republicans. When you look at the donations republicans were getting them too. It's funny how the fact 9 of the top 20 donors were republicans.  That fact doesn't matter to you. The reason this country is in the shape it is because of stupid people like you who put politics over facts. The fact is republicans were getting their butts greased just like the dems. 

trace755 you drink too much cool-aid.......

barney frank and his BF'ing ilk blocked every attempt to fix Freddie and Fannie. it was completely sickening. the media also did everything they could to sway the dumb ass public that all was well.......when in fact acorn and others including obama forced banks to loan money to people who couldn't afford it.....

in between acorn's demonstrations in bank lobbies, and obama's law suits, the media and barney frank and his friends, our banking system didn't have a chance.

it all started back in Jimmy Carter's time when he started the downtown renewal act. Clinton made it much, much bigger. In 21 Separate speeches Bush warned the public, yet these speeches were not broadcast through the democrat media.......

 Sita'smom. How did Barney Frank block anything? For 6 years Republican closest queers controlled the house of Representatives.  There is no filibuster in the house so a republican or republicans had to join Barney Franks and the dems to stop any reform of Fannie & Freddie..Again over the last 20 years  8 or 9 out of the top 20 recepients of campaign cash from Fannie were Repubilicans

All Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008

Name Office State Party Grand Total Total from
PACs Total from
Individuals
Dodd, Christopher J S CT D $165,400 $48,500 $116,900
Obama, Barack S IL D $126,349 $6,000 $120,349
Kerry, John S MA D $111,000 $2,000 $109,000
Bennett, Robert F S UT R $107,999 $71,499 $36,500
Bachus, Spencer H AL R $103,300 $70,500 $32,800
Blunt, Roy H MO R $96,950 $78,500 $18,450
Kanjorski, Paul E H PA D $96,000 $57,500 $38,500
Bond, Christopher S 'Kit' S MO R $95,400 $64,000 $31,400
Shelby, Richard C S AL R $80,000 $23,000 $57,000
Reed, Jack S RI D $78,250 $43,500 $34,750
Reid, Harry S NV D $77,000 $60,500 $16,500
Clinton, Hillary S NY D $76,050 $8,000 $68,050
Davis, Tom H VA R $75,499 $13,999 $61,500
Boehner, John H OH R $67,750 $60,500 $7,250
Conrad, Kent S ND D $64,491 $22,000 $42,491
Reynolds, Tom H NY R $62,200 $53,000 $9,200
Johnson, Tim S SD D $61,000 $20,000 $41,000
Pelosi, Nancy H CA D $56,250 $47,000 $9,250
Carper, Tom S DE D $55,889 $31,350 $24,539
Hoyer, Steny H H MD D $55,500 $51,500 $4,000
Pryce, Deborah H OH R $55,500 $45,000 $10,500
Emanuel, Rahm H IL D $51,750 $16,000 $35,750
Isakson, Johnny S GA R $49,200 $35,500 $13,700
Cantor, Eric H VA R $48,500 $46,500 $2,000
Crapo, Mike S ID R $47,250 $40,500 $6,750
Frank, Barney H MA D $42,350 $30,500 $11,850
Bean, Melissa H IL D $41,249 $34,999 $6,250
Bayh, Evan S IN D $41,100 $16,500 $24,600
McConnell, Mitch S KY R $41,000 $40,000 $1,000
Maloney, Carolyn B H NY D $39,750 $16,500 $23,250
Dorgan, Byron L S ND D $38,750 $30,500 $8,250
Miller, Gary H CA R $38,000 $31,500 $6,500
Rangel, Charles B H NY D $38,000 $14,750 $23,250
Tiberi, Patrick J H OH R $35,700 $32,600 $3,100
Bunning, Jim S KY R $33,802 $29,650 $4,152

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Hearing from September 2003 on an administration proposal to alter the regulation of GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. See Congressman Barney Frank's opening statement, which begins at 4:40. It's rather amusing. Here's an excerpt of his opening statement:

I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.

I must say we have an interesting example of self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of the critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say that the problem is that the Federal Government is obligated to bail out people who might lose money in connection with them. I do not believe that we have any such obligation. And as I said, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy by some people.

So let me make it clear, I am a strong supporter of the role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in housing, but nobody who invests in them should come looking to me for a nickel--nor anybody else in the Federal Government. And if investors take some comfort and want to lend them a little money and less interest rates, because they like this set of affiliations, good, because housing will benefit. But there is no guarantee, there is no explicit guarantee, there is no implicit guarantee, there is no wink-and-nod guarantee. Invest, and you are on your own.

Now, we have got a system that I think has worked very well to help housing. The high cost of housing is one of the great social bombs of this country. I would rank it second to the inadequacy of our health delivery system as a problem that afflicts many, many Americans. We have gotten recent reports about the difficulty here.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping make housing more affordable, both in general through leveraging the mortgage market, and in particular, they have a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing, and that is what I am concerned about here. I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable goals. I worry frankly that there is a tension here.

The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disastrous scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the Federal Government doesn't bail them out. But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing.

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trace, I have been following your valiant attempts to counter the wing-nuts. You are of course right that the gigantic deficits were caused under Republican presidents starting with Reagan - facts are stubborn things! The national debt doubled under W - again, it is a fact. The Republicans controlled the House and/or Senate through most of the years when W was prez.

But here is my consolation as I listen or read about the wing-nuts and their extreme views. Let them keep it up and they will become even more of a fringe party with its strength only in the South and the South East. This will ensure that they stay out of power as they alienate the vast majority of the country who are moderate. When you have Cheney and Rush L say that Colin Powell is not a good Republican and should leave the party, it is clear that they will not tolerate any diversity of opinion. They have alienated the Hispanics who are the fastest growing minority in the US. The blacks have voted for Democrats for decades. The under 35 demographic is strongly trending away from the Republicans.  No Republican can take a position that opposes the Christian fundamentalists and hope to survive politically.

I voted for Obama and there are some issues that I don't agree with him on - especially in terms of his wish to move to a single-payor system for health-care. I worked in the health-care industry before I retired and I know for a fact that the single payor systems will ultimately lead to rationing of care eg the UK and to a lesser extent in Canada. Despite all its problems, the US healthcare system has a lot going for it - the problem is with the 50 million who are uninsured or under-insured and what is needed is to find a way to provide coverage for these people.

But despite my reservations about Obama's healthcare preferences, I think he is doing an excellent job given the MESS he inherited. When I see someone write "You know -- and many know now -- electing "O" as President was a huge mistake", it shows a loss of touch with reality. Obama was elected with 52% of the vote and his job approval rating is currently over 60% so that would be a strange way of people recognizing the "huge mistake" they made in voting for him!

My dream ticket for the Republicans for 2012 is Gingrich/Palin - a dream ticket because it would be as flawed a ticket as one can come up with and so easy for the Democrats to beat. Just imagine Gingrich - a brilliant guy  - but totally polarizing and about as strong on the "family values" front with his three marriages as Guliani and Palin who would turn off the majority of Americans like she did  the last go around!

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Did the earth move for you? [Mark Steyn]

The other day I was lunching with an actress pal in London and she started going on about the "gay mafia" allegedly in control of "Doctor Who" at the BBC. And I involuntarily rolled my eyes, because showbiz types are always going on about this or that field of endeavor being sewn up by some gay clique.

But I must say this is impressive: Last week in this space, I made a jocular reference to a global economy "so vulnerable that only the stalwart action of Barney Frank stands between it and ten years of soup kitchens". I tittered too soon. It turns out the entire planetary meltdown is due to Congressman Frank's sex life:

Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions... Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie...

Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.

"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover."

The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."

Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector... Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.

Perhaps not the most felicitous way of putting it. Nevertheless, while the old Moses parted the red sea, the new Moses drowned us in one. Spectacular.