Lawmaker Accused of Fannie Mae Conflict of Interest
Friday , October 03, 2008
By Bill Sammon
WASHINGTON —
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.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
--MORE--
October 02, 2008
No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates
The Obama and McCain campaigns jointly negotiated a detailed secret contract dictating the terms of all the 2008 debates. This includes who gets to participate, as well as the topics raised during the debates. We speak to Open Debates founder and executive director George Farah. [includes rush transcript]
Guest:
George Farah, executive director and founder of Open Debates. He is the author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates.
Rush Transcript
--MORE--Monday, September 29, 2008
This will be a very brief entry, one I could not resist.I could not stop laughing, today, as irony upon irony played itself out before my eyes.
The $700 billion financial bailout bill was defeated in the House, today, NOT by Democrats, but, by Republicans, instead. When they went into session, today, the Congressional House of Representatives and their bi-partisan Congressional leadership and Administration thought they had the necessary numbers of votes to pass the bill with a majority Democrat and a very small minority, a handful of Republicans voting yes.
So, why did the vote go down the tubes, today?
--MORE--
Media Mum on Barney Frank's Fannie Mae Love Connection
Democrats Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Economic Crisis
Added: September 27, 2008
Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis.
At a 2004 hearing see Democrat after Democrat covering up and attacking the regulations to protect Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (their Cash Cows) that are now destroying our economy because the Democrats let them cheat.
Force banks to write down assets and have the government take equity stakes via preferred stock. This is the way Buffett invested in Goldman (he was comfortable with the carrying value of its assets). It's the way the Sweden did it. It's also the way any responsible private market investor would invest.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Dems bury resolution due to war fears
The House Democratic leadership has effectively shelved a resolution calling for what critics say would amount to a naval blockade of Iran because of concerns that it could provoke another war, officials on Capitol Hill said.
Even though the document would not be a law but a "statement of policy" aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the Democratic leadership is worried that it could be viewed by the Bush administration as a green light to use military force against Iran, officials said.
Howard L. Berman, California Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he has concerns about the current text and will not bring it before the committee until those issues are addressed. That, in effect, blocks the document from reaching the floor.
--MORE--
At the August Democratic convention, absent among the prominent speakers was former president Jimmy Carter — who was prevented from addressing the crowd because he criticized Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Advertisement
My criticism of the Democrats' shunning of Carter, however, does not imply an endorsement of his appalling presidential policies. Our “patron saint” of human rights supported a number of brutal Third World regimes, and in Afghanistan he initiated what would become the largest CIA operation in history, funding the Mujahideen before the Russian invasion in 1979. The ultimate “blowback” from this intervention was 9/11.
As for the convention, Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation reports Carter was deliberately snubbed by Obama Inc. The Forward, a weekly Jewish-American news magazine, saw “The sidelining of Carter (was) driven by recognition ... that giving the former president a prominent convention spot might alienate Jewish voters. Carter, of course, had dared use the word ‘apartheid' in discussing Israel's abysmal treatment of the Palestinians.” Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, stated: “The party is very sensitive ... to ever conveying that this is anything but a pro-Israel party.”
--MORE--
Offshore Drilling: Government's own report predicts a "two tenths of one cent" price reduction after 18 years of drilling. That's $0.002!
We tried offshore drilling and oil prices doubled
House Democrats will allow offshore drilling ban to expire
- Story Highlights
- Ban on offshore oil drilling expires on October 1
- Democrats will not include extension in $600 billion spending bill
- Republicans had targeted drilling ban on campaign trail
- Democrats crafting a second stimulus package
From Deirdre Walsh
CNN Congressional Producer
CNN Congressional Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After months of high-pitched battles with Republicans over the issue of offshore drilling, House Democrats have given in and decided to allow a 26-year ban on drilling to expire at the end of the month.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, told reporters Tuesday that a massive $600 billion stopgap funding bill slated for a House vote on Wednesday will not include any language on drilling, effectively lifting the ban on October 1.
Democrats pushed to add a proposal passed in the House of Representatives last week to open up areas at least 50 miles offshore to drilling if states agree, but the White House objected.
--MORE--
By Steve Bousquet, Tallahassee Bureau Chief
Published Tuesday, September 16, 2008 7:26 PM
TALLAHASSEE — A new pitch for John McCain's presidential campaign aimed at older Democratic voters is causing complaints by Democrats and concern by elections officials.
The piece, paid for by the Republican National Committee and authorized by McCain, tells voters it is seeking to double-check their "unconfirmed" party affiliations while asking for money. A letter signed by McCain tells the Democrats: "We have you registered as a Republican."
"I was a little bit shocked and a little bit surprised," said recipient Bill Smith, 81, of Tampa, who calls himself a lifelong Democrat and has been registered at his current address since 2000. The retired plant engineer is one of about a dozen senior citizens that Democratic Party leaders identified as recipients, all of them longtime Democrats.
--MORE--
Obama campaign cries foul after Republicans block Iran divestment bill
Myth of Iran wiping Israel off the map dispelled
Published: 09/19/2008
Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked an amendment that would have enhanced Iran sanctions.
Democrats have for months been trying to pass two sanctions-related bills that had passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. House of Representatives: One would have further isolated Iran's energy sector in a bid to get the Islamic Republic to stand down from its suspected nuclear weapons program; the other, authored by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Democratic presidential nominee, would have made it easier for companies and pensions to disinvest from Iran.
The Bush administration opposed the bills because it resists infringement on executive foreign policy powers, and also because it is conducting its own sensitive negotiations with Europe, Russia and China to isolate Iran. Pro-Israel insiders have said that Republicans also did not want to hand Obama a legislative victory in an election year.
--MORE--
New Jersey callers dialing Democrats get sex chat offer instead
Wed Sep 17, 11:54 PM
By The Associated Press
NEWTON, N.J. - A misprint in a telephone book has led to some callers dialing a phone sex service while trying to reach a New Jersey political organization.
A listing for the Sussex County Democratic Committee in Embarq's white pages sent people to a sultry female voice inviting them to pay for sex chat. Embarq spokesman Glenn Lewis told The New Jersey Herald of Newton that a transposition error caused the last three digits of the Democrats' phone number to be misprinted.
He said the listing has been corrected in Embarq's directory assistance database.
--MORE--
Sam Stein
September 17, 2008
One of the Senate's most progressive members ripped John McCain on Tuesday for offering a phony populist self-portrayal in the wake of the current crisis in the financial markets. In the process, Sherrod Brown of Ohio raised the Republican nominee's involvement in the Keating Five scandal as evidence that voters couldn't trust McCain's record on both the economy and ethics.
"It is not so much his economic proposals but his economic record," Brown said of McCain. "His main adviser is Phil Gramm -- he was his mentor in the Senate -- and you just tie it all together. Of course John McCain supported the oil industry, he has oil lobbyists working for him. Of course John McCain supported these trade agreements, he has got Wall Street people working for him... It is all wrapped up together. John McCain is a creature of these interest groups in Washington. He is no maverick and, from the Keating Five on, his ethics have been questionable. He's not a maverick and Barack has got to just keep hammering on that."
In referencing McCain's involvement in that 1980's Savings and Loans controversy, Brown has gone where the Democratic nominee himself has only tread subtly. During his speech on Tuesday, Obama drew parallels between that industry collapse and the current stumbles of the housing and financial sectors.
--MORE--
Obama may actually change of couple of things. One thing he will be unable to do is change the corrupt Demcratic leaders Pelosi and Reid.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Representative Charles B. Rangel will not step down from the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Rangel’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, told reporters during a conference call today that the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, supports his decision to remain in the chairmanship.
Davis added: “Mr. Rangel believes, I believe and his colleagues believe that making inadvertent errors with no intention to conceal, no personal enrichment and no corruption of the public trust, is not disqualifying. He is prepared to let his constituents make the final judgment on his fitness to serve. Whatever the facts are, he has not dishonored the House, he has not dishonored himself he has not done anything intentionally wrong.”
--MORE--
Shatter the Illusions
By Peter Chamberlin
The illusion is a shield, a curtain to hide the preparations being made off-stage from the spectators, to seal the fate of mankind. The stage hands know that one day the curtain will be lifted on their epic tragedy, revealing all that is now hidden. Our task is to expose the men behind the curtain before they can stage their final act.
It is time for Americans to grow-up and learn to think for themselves. All our lives we have had it so easy, with the ever-growing “nanny state” keeping us safe from the big bad world, making our decisions for us. This is the year of change. Nothing will ever be the same after this next election.
This is not saying that either of these two candidates will make a difference on anything important, it is simply a hard fact that “the powers that be” have decided that November 4, 2008 is to be a pivotal day in human history. After that day, the tyrants’ hands will be loosed from all restraining considerations, no political force will be able to deter the internationalists’ conspiracy from completing the global empire. The American people must be made to face this fact now, before the day of reckoning arrives.
--MORE--
Offshore drilling is headed for a vote
Ban in jeopardy as Democrats shift position
By Paul Kane, Washington Post | September 15, 2008
WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats, balancing political reality against a policy they have long opposed, are on the cusp of approving legislation that would open the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to oil drilling as close as 50 miles offshore.
With votes scheduled this week in the House and Senate, Democrats have essentially given up defending the current ban on drilling within 200 miles offshore along both coasts. Instead, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, they are offering a mix of proposals that would allow drilling, with the waters off Massachusetts, Virginia, and Georgia most likely to be the first affected.
Environmentalists and industry analysts disagree over the impact the various legislative proposals would have on oil production, with industry experts contending that the most precious reserves still would be off-limits. But both sides agree that because of the politics of $4-a-gallon gasoline this summer and a pending legislative deadline, the nearly 40-year drilling ban is in jeopardy.
--MORE--
Lieberman Unwelcome at Party Lunches
By John Stanton
Roll Call Staff
September 9, 2008, 12:47 p.m.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) have agreed that Lieberman will no longer attend Democrats’ weekly caucus lunches or the biweekly chairmen’s lunches used to formulate policy, senior Democratic aides said Tuesday.
Link
Sean Penn at Ralph Nader Super Rally
August 27, 2008 held at Denver University Magness Arena during the DNC to Open the Debates
http://www.votenader.org/issues/
Not much change in the platform of Obama's Democratic Party
Delegates celebrate in Denver during the Democratic National Convention on August 25, 2008. Photo by Rachel Feierman/DNC.
Denver — When it comes to the Middle East and Sen. Barack Obama's Democratic Party platform, things are staying pretty much the same – which, in this case, is the kind of change pro-Israel activists can believe in.
The platform committee appears to have heeded recommendations by the National Jewish Democratic Council advising the party not to veer too far from previous platforms when it comes to the Mideast.
"The Middle East planks of previous platforms have been carefully crafted and have served us well as a party and a country," Ira Forman, the NJDC's executive director, advised the committee in July.--MORE--
Related
The Democratic Party Platform's Missing Plank
In the states where America's wealthy congregate, politicians can't seem to see any wealthy people when the time comes to decide who to tax.
August 11, 2008
By Sam Pizzigati
Governors don’t usually deliver primetime TV addresses. That’s something Presidents do. But late last month New York Gov. David Patterson did take to primetime — to declare a state budget “crisis” and call lawmakers back to Albany for a special session.
New Yorkers, pollsters announced last week, share the governor’s unease. A whopping 86 percent agree that the state has a fiscal crisis. New Yorkers also agree on a solution: tax the rich. By a 78 to 18 percent margin, New Yorkers favor hiking taxes on households that make over $1 million a year.
State taxesThose households currently abound in the Empire State. New IRS statistics, released July 31, show that New York has the nation’s most top-heavy distribution of income in the entire United States.
--MORE--
| |||||
 | |||||
 | |||||
| |||||
| Joseph Biden, Democrat | |||||
| |||||
| |||||
 Current position: Senator for Delaware (elected 1972) Curriculum vitae: Memorable quotes: --MORE-- | |||||
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
mparent7777_1- CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
- Marc Parent
Syndicate
