The hyprocrisy of Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd on the $700 billion bail out

The gall and hypocrisy of D’s like Dodd and Frank just blows my mind. Here they are saying wall street execs must pay the price for their greed and misdeeds, when they were in hock to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the form hefty of political contributions, charitable contributions to the member’s favorite non-profits efforts to expand the organizations’ liabilities at a time when they were already in trouble. Why don’t they offer to return all the political cont5ributions they’ve received from these same organizations.? I’m just disgusted, more so because the mainsteam media seems to have forgotten all this in their reporting on how the D’s are now trying to save Main St.

I remember a great WSJ article about all this:

Fannie and Freddie's Enablers

You'll love this one. In the strange accountability of Washington, the same folks who put taxpayers on the hook for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now demanding ransom to let taxpayers bail them out. It's as if Andy Fastow insisted that Enron shareholders pay his fines after his fraud cost them their life savings.
"I don't know how in good conscience you come up here and ask me to give unlimited lines of credit" to Treasury for Fannie and Freddie without giving Democrats something in return, Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) told the Journal last week. Come again? This is the same Chris Dodd who long resisted tougher regulation while more recently handing Fan and Fred even more room to expand their risk-taking.
At a February hearing, he derided critics who he said were "repeatedly raising alarm bells about the risks Fannie and Freddie pose to the financial system." You may also remember Mr. Dodd as the fellow who got a sweetheart mortgage from former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo, who was thick as thieves with Fannie Mae.
* * *
In any other business, Mr. Dodd would be begging forgiveness. But in Washington he now wants the Bush Administration to bow to his political wishes in return for protecting the financial system from the risks that Mr. Dodd long claimed Fan and Fred didn't pose. His demands include nearly $4 billion in Community Development Block Grants that are a payoff to liberal interest groups. He also wants an "affordable housing trust fund" for more such largesse that could take as much as a $1 billion a year out of Fan and Fred even as they struggle to stay solvent.
Fannie Mayhem: A History
Click here for a compendium of our recent Fannie and Freddie coverage.
Meanwhile, another leading cause of this fiasco, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, has his own demands. He wants to increase the size of the loans Fannie and Freddie can purchase and package as mortgage-backed securities (MBSs), which would allow them to grow market share. Earlier this year he pushed for, and got, a temporary increase in the so-called conforming loan limit to $729,250, allowing Fan and Fred to buy and securitize jumbo loans. Now he wants to make that increase permanent.
Behind the scenes, Mr. Frank is also demanding that the new, more powerful regulator for Fan and Fred not get up and running until next year, though the companies are in trouble right now. Like the management of Fan and Fred, he's assuming an Obama Administration will go easier on the mortgage giants than will the Bush Treasury.
We should add that Republicans aren't much better. A few in the Senate -- Richard Shelby, Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu, Mel Martinez -- fought hard to protect taxpayers going back years. But most of the House GOP has long been in Fannie's back pocket. On May 22, 2007, it was Texas Republican Randy Neugebauer who sponsored an amendment to water down systemic risk protections for Fan and Fred. It passed 383 to 36, with 162 Republicans voting with the companies. Now these same Republicans claim to be appalled by this taxpayer rescue. What a spectacle.
The real priority ought to be protecting taxpayers in return for bailing out these vehicles of Capitol Hill privilege. Taxpayers have already coughed up once, in the form of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's explicit pledge last week to save the companies and let them tap the Federal Reserve's discount window. Now taxpayers are being asked to pay again, via legislation allowing the government to increase its credit line to the companies and to inject capital if needed to save them from failure.
For all of that, taxpayers have so far received nothing -- no stock warrants, no discipline for the management or shareholders of Fan and Fred, no guarantee that the companies won't pocket this bailout and emerge even more powerful down the road. At least Bear Stearns went out of business when it had to be saved by Uncle Sam.
Instead, taxpayers are being asked to trust that a regulator will do the right thing and impose some discipline on the companies after Mr. Paulson's rescue bill passes. But at the same time, Mr. Paulson is saying that the goal is to preserve Fannie and Freddie "in their current form." That sounds a lot like a get-out-of-bailout-free card.
Perhaps this is part of Mr. Paulson's strategy to get the legislation passed without Fan and Fred opposing it. And in its current form the bill would give a new regulator the power to fire managers and put the companies into receivership in certain circumstances. At a minimum, however, the regulator should be given an explicit command to run down their portfolios of MBSs that have made them such risky monsters. And as the credit markets calm down, the regulator needs to limit their business so private-label mortgage securitization takes a greater role in the market and less risk is concentrated in two giant firms. Mr. Paulson should also support Senator Jim DeMint's proposal to bar the companies from the lobbying and campaign contributions that have allowed them to buy political immunity all these years.
* * *
If Mr. Paulson can't get a regulator who can rein in these two -- and put them into receivership if they require taxpayer money -- he should put the political blame squarely on Fannie and Freddie's enablers in Congress.
They made this mess by creating these beasts that combine private profit with public risk. And they made the mess worse by fighting, over many years and despite accounting fraud, any limits on the ability of the companies to grow with taxpayer subsidies. Mr. Dodd and Congress owe Americans an apology, not more ransom demands.

rights, rights, rights - no responsibilities

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-OR, one more of a long line of liberal politicians talking about how people have a "right" to all sorts of things, claims that Americans have a "right to a policy free of special interest giveaways.", when he, Blumenauer, is speaking for a special interest himself. Then see how Blumenauer turns it all into a fundraising letter so he can support the agendas of special interests that support him. This “everybody has a right” stuff reminds me of all the ads that begin with “You deserve….”. American’s don’t have a RIGHT to anything other than what is guaranteed in the constitution and they don’t “deserve” anything. They have to work for it.

Check out Blumenauer's 6/29/2007 e-newsletter:

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to write for a leading national political blog, Talking Points Memo's Table for One, laying out my case for reforming this year's Farm Bill and offering a Food and Farm Bill of Rights.




Americans have a right to a policy free of special interest giveaways.
American taxpayers have a right to a fiscally responsible policy.
Americans have a right to a policy that serves all farmers.
Americans have a right to a safe and healthful food supply.
American children have a right to good nutrition.
Americans have a right to local supplies of fresh food.
Americans have a right to a policy that promotes energy independence.
Americans have a right to a policy that protects the environment.
Americans have a right to preserve farmland from sprawl.
Americans have a right to a policy that fosters sustainable farming practices.
The initial response to this blog post was both humbling and remarkable. Many of the largest progressive political blogs around the country - including Daily Kos, Eschaton and The Atlantic Online, among others - promoted this effort. In total, hundreds of bloggers and commenters offered their thoughts, ideas and questions about the Food and Farm Bill of. One environmentalist blogger called this "a watershed moment for [agriculture] policy and blogs." The Democratic National Committee even featured the Food and Farm Bill of Rights on both its official blog and on the front page of its Rural Americans page.To build on the initial successes of this effort, I am putting the power of my campaign behind promoting my Food and Farm Bill of Rights and trying to reform this year's Farm Bill so that it reflects the needs of the 21st century rather than the political realities of the 1950s. Over the month, I have advertised across the internet to increase the exposure of my Food and Farm Bill of Rights and get the grassroots involved in the coalition to write a better Farm Bill. And I need your help to sustain this effort. Your contribution of $1000, $100 or $25 today would go a long way in helping me reach out to the grassroots base, whose support is necessary to success in this endeavor. Thank you in advance for your help and support in this matter,



Earl

NY Times political bias showing through

I was not particularly surprised this morning to see that the New York Times, which at the outset referred glowingly to the immigration proposal as a two-party deal (Senators in Bipartisan Deal on Immigration Bill, NY Times, May 18, 2007) and praised Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy's statesmanship and influence, now highlights that the “Bush immigration bill” has been solidly defeated. In today’s front page story, you didn’t even see that Kennedy played a key role until deep into the story. It reminds me of when Bill Keller, the N.Y. Times' Executive Editor, came to speak in Portland and heralded how his paper had no political agenda and was as balanced as could be. I was tempted to stand up and ask him if he ever read his own paper.

Take a look at the initial part of the NY Times story from today's (June 29) paper and ask yourself if the treatment is balanced:

Immigrant Bill Dies in Senate; Defeat for Bush

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

By ROBERT PEAR and CARL HULSE
Published: June 29, 2007
WASHINGTON, June 28 — President Bush’s effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration policy, a cornerstone of his domestic agenda, collapsed Thursday in the Senate, with little prospect that it can be revived before Mr. Bush leaves office in 19 months.
The bill called for the biggest changes to immigration law in more than 20 years, offering legal status to millions of illegal immigrants while trying to secure borders. But the Senate, forming blocs that defied party affiliation, could never unite on the main provisions.
Rejecting the president’s last-minute pleas, it voted, 53 to 46, to turn back a motion to end debate and move toward final passage. Supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to close the debate.
Mr. Bush placed telephone calls to lawmakers throughout the morning. But members of his party abandoned him in droves, with just 12 of the 49 Senate Republicans sticking by him on the important procedural vote that determined the fate of the bill.
Nearly one-third of Senate Democrats voted, in effect, to block action on the bill.
The vote followed an outpouring of criticism from conservatives and others who called it a form of amnesty for lawbreakers.
The outcome was a bitter disappointment for Mr. Bush and other supporters of a comprehensive approach, including Hispanic and church groups and employers who had been seeking greater access to foreign workers.
Supporters and opponents said the measure was dead for the remainder of the Bush administration, though conceivably individual pieces might be revived.
The vote reflected the degree to which Congress and the nation are polarized over immigration. The emotional end to what had been an emotional debate was evident, with a few senior staff members who had invested months in writing the bill near tears.
“The bill now dies,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who helped write the measure.
The outcome also underscored the challenge that Mr. Bush faces in exerting authority and enacting an agenda as members of his party increasingly break with him and Democrats no longer fear him. Having already given up on other ambitious second-term plans like overhauling Social Security, the administration has little prospect of winning any big new legislative achievements in its final months.
The collapse also highlighted the difficulties that the new Democratic leadership in Congress has had in showing that it can address the big problems facing the nation. In this case, Democratic leaders asserted that the failure of the immigration bill reflected on Mr. Bush, and not on their party.

Give me a break!

John Leo
Let the Segregation CommenceSeparatist graduations proliferate at UCLA.13 June 2007

Commencement weekend is hard to plan at the University of California, Los Angeles. The university now has so many separate identity-group graduations that scheduling them not to conflict with one another is a challenge. The women’s studies graduation and the Chicana/Chicano studies graduation are both set for 10 AM Saturday. The broader Hispanic graduation, “Raza,” is in near-conflict with the black graduation, which starts just an hour later.
Planning was easier before a new crop of ethnic groups pushed for inclusion. Students of Asian heritage were once content with the Asian–Pacific Islanders ceremony. But now there are separate Filipino and Vietnamese commencements, and some talk of a Cambodian one in the future. Years ago, UCLA sponsored an Iranian graduation, but the school’s commencement office couldn’t tell me if the event was still around. The entire Middle East may yet be a fertile source for UCLA commencements.
Not all ethnic and racial graduations are well attended. The 2003 figures at UCLA showed that while 300 of 855 Hispanic students attended, only 170 out of 1,874 Asian-Americans did.
Some students are presumably eligible for four or five graduations. A gay student with a Native American father and a Filipino mother could attend the Asian, Filipino, and American Indian ceremonies, plus the mainstream graduation and the Lavender Graduation for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students.
Graduates usually wear identity-group markers—a Filipino stole or a Vietnamese sash, for instance, or a rainbow tassel at the Lavender event. Promoters of ethnic and racial graduations often talk about the strong sense of community that they favor. But it is a sense of community based on blood, a dubious and historically dangerous organizing principle.
The organizers also sometimes argue that identity-group graduations make sense for practical reasons. They say that about 3,000 graduating seniors show up for UCLA’s “regular” graduation, making it a massive and impersonal event. At the more intimate identity-group events, foreign-born parents and relatives hear much of the ceremony in their native tongues. The Filipino event is so small—about 100 students— that each grad gets to speak for 30 seconds.
But the core reason for separatist graduations is the obvious one: on campus, assimilation is a hostile force, the domestic version of American imperialism. On many campuses, identity-group training begins with separate freshman orientation programs for nonwhites, who arrive earlier and are encouraged to bond before the first Caucasian freshmen arrive. Some schools have separate orientations for gays as well. Administrations tend to foster separatism by arguing that bias is everywhere, justifying double standards that favor identity groups.
Four years ago Ward Connerly, then a regent of the University of California, tried to pass a resolution to stop funding of ethnic graduations and gay freshman orientations. He changed his mind and asked to withdraw his proposal, but the regents wanted to vote on it and defeated it in committee 6–3.
No major objections to ethnic graduations have emerged since. As in so many areas of American life, the preposterous is now normal.

City Journal, Spring 2007, Vol. 17, #2

Origin of blog name

Truth is so slippery
I keep falling down on it

It runs through my fingers like grease.
When I think I've got it,
it's gone.
I define my relationship,
it changes.
If my friend has been consistent
in his actions for twenty years
inevitably he will alter
as I dare to predict him.
The River runs south
till you jump in,
then it turns north,
takes you with it.
Hard, that cold lesson.

Author: Brenda Shaw

Some thoughts to occupy you.
Under the 400+ page immigration bill that is supposed tomake things better (not sure for who):
-illegal aliens would be eligible for in-state tuition at all state universities
The Senate bill incorporates the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act). The DREAM Act effectively repeals a 1996 federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1623) that prohibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens. Ten states are currently defying this federal law. Section 616 would allow these and all other states to offer in-state tuition rates to any illegal alien who obtains the Z visa and attends college.
When the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the proposal last week, many were still not clear about its details because it was still largely made up of oral agreements. But once the 471-page bill was produced and distributed late last week, conservatives were alarmed by some of the provisions. None so much as the proposal to make illegal aliens eligible for in-state tuition costs. "This means that while American citizens from Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Massachusetts have to pay out-of-state tuition rates if they send their kids to the University of Virginia or the University of Alabama, people who have illegally immigrated into the country do not," Mr. Sessions said. "How much sense does that make, to have people here illegally and they have more benefits than those who are here legally?"

-Even if you’d been caught and thrown out of the US, an illegal alien would be eligible to stay
Title VI's amnesty extends even to fugitives who have been ordered deported by an immigration judge but chose to ignore their removal orders. More than 636,000 absconders are now present in the country, having defied the law twice: once when they broke U.S. immigration laws and again when they ignored the orders of the immigration courts.The Senate's bill allows the government to grant Z visas to absconders. Though the bill appears to deny the visa to absconders in Section 601(d)(1)(B), Section 601(d)(1)(I) allows U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials to give an absconder the Z visa anyway if the absconder can demonstrate that departure from the United States "would result in extreme hardship to the alien or the alien's spouse, parent or child."

-illegals would be eligible for the earned income tax credit (so if they are low-wage, you and I would give them money so they could pay to get U.S. citizenship)
The current version of the immigration bill, backed by the White House and a bipartisan group of senators, would let holders of temporary work visas be eligible for the tax credit if their income was low enough to qualify.

Islamic charitable giving

Ethnographers at Intel Corporation in Oregon are doing some fascinating research. A set of podcasts by the researchers were just posted on an Oregon State University podcast site, including a fascinating discussion of "Islamic Charitable Institutions" by Hsain Ilahiane, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Iowa State University and Visiting Faculty, People & Practices Research, Intel Corporation. Access the podcast at http://podcast.oregonstate.edu/