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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (60718)	3/7/2009 11:03:15 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224724

Let The Inquisition Start With Frank By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY \| Posted Friday, March 06, 2009 4:20 PM PT Oversight: Congressman Barney Frank says he wants some of those responsible for our current financial meltdown to be prosecuted. And we couldn't agree more. First up in the court dock: Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. Even by the extraordinarily loose standards of Congress, it takes some chutzpah for someone such as Frank to suggest that he'll seek prosecutions for those behind the housing and financial crunch and for what he called "a strongly empowered systemic risk regulator." Frank: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's point man in Washington. Frank: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's point man in Washington. For Frank, perhaps more than any single individual in private or public life, is responsible for both the housing market mess and subsequent bank disaster. And no, this isn't partisan hyperbole or historical exaggeration. But first, a little trip down memory lane. It was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two so-called Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), that lay behind the crisis. After regulatory changes made to the Community Reinvestment Act by President Clinton in 1995, Fannie and Freddie went into hyper-drive, channeling literally trillions of dollars into the housing markets, using leverage and implicit taxpayers' guarantees. In November 2000, President Clinton's Housing and Urban Development Department would trumpet "new regulations to provide $2.4 trillion in mortgages for affordable housing for 28.1 million families." The vehicles for this were Fannie and Freddie. It was the largest expansion in housing aid ever. Still, from the early 1990s on, many people both inside and outside Washington were alarmed by what they saw at Fannie and Freddie. Not Barney Frank: Starting in the early 1990s, he (and other Democrats) stood athwart efforts by regulators, Congress and the White House to get the runaway housing market under control. He opposed reform as early as 1992. And, in response to another attempt bring Fannie-Freddie to heel in 2000, Frank responded it wasn't needed because there was "no federal liability there whatsoever." In 2002, Frank nixed reforms again. See a pattern here? Even after federal regulators discovered in 2003 that Fannie and Freddie executives had overstated earnings by as much as $10.6 billion in order to boost bonuses, Frank didn't miss a beat. President Bush pushed for what the New York Times then called "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago." If it had passed, the housing crisis likely would have never boiled over, at least not the extent it did, taking the economy with it. Instead, led by Frank, Democrats stood as a bloc against any changes. "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis," Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, said. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing." It's hard to say why Frank did all this. It could be his close ties to the Neighborhood Assistance Corp., a powerful housing activist group based in Boston, which controls billions in loans. Or that he received some $40,100 in campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie from 1989 to 2008. Or that he has been romantically linked to a one-time executive at Fannie during the 1990s. Whatever the case, his conflicts are obvious and outrageous, and his refusal to countenance reforms of Fannie and Freddie contributed mightily to today's meltdown. If you're looking for a culprit in the meltdown to prosecute, no one fits the bill better than Frank. ibdeditorials.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (60718)	3/7/2009 6:59:49 PM
From: jmhollen	3 Recommendations Respond to of 224724

Franken is an arsehole. If you like his BS act and libbo-commie positions, then you certainly have a lot in common. .

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (60718)	3/8/2009 11:06:05 AM
From: lorne	2 Recommendations Respond to of 224724

Ken...Does franken attend the same mosk? FBI Watching Somali Muslims In Minneapolis CBS Evening News: 20 From Same Mosque Have Repatriated, One Became A Suicide Bomber; Mosque Officials Deny Radical Agenda MINNEAPOLIS, March 3, 2009 by Dean Reynolds cbsnews.com (CBS) On election night last November, the outcome was wildly celebrated by Somalis living in Minneapolis, 70,000-strong, mostly refugees from their war-torn country. It is the largest Somali community in the United States, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds. But the evening was noteworthy for something else, too. That night, the latest in a line of young Somalis who grew up here, departed unannounced for Somalia itself, joining a civil war in a country few had ever seen and causing concern in the United States. Hussein Samatar's 17-year old nephew left without a word to his family. "He was an A student," says Samatar. "He has everything to hope for to attend any Ivy League school that he wanted to. Why he would do it is a mystery to us." Some 20 vanished last year - all American citizens - an exodus the FBI has noticed for a troubling reason. "A man from Minneapolis became what we believe to be the first U.S. citizen to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing," said agency director Robert Mueller. The October attack by 27-year-old Shirwa Ahmed killed 30 near Mogadishu, and there is alarm that the skills acquired abroad could be brought back to America. "He could have done it here," says Omar Jamal, a Somali advocate in Minnesota. "We don't see anything that would have prevented him from doing this right here in the heart of Minneapolis." This much seems clear: "It appears that this individual was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota," Mueller said. The missing men all came from one local mosque, according to the FBI. But officials at the mosque deny that they play any role in turning young people into radicals, Reynolds reports. This week they held an open house to answer critics and confront recent harassment. "We absolutely deny that such things happen in this mosque," says Omar Hurre, executive director at the Abubakar Islamic Center. But Somalis here are deeply troubled. Who is behind this exodus? Who is paying for it? And who may be the next to go?