Posted on 12/01/2011 6:10:36 AM PST by Kaslin
When Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., announced his intention not to seek re-election after a 32-year career, not one of the nightly news broadcast network anchors found time or space to mention either Frank's central role in the housing meltdown or his congressional reprimand. Not one. Similarly, an Associated Press article headlined, "Democratic Rep. Barney Frank Announces Retirement," mentioned the reprimand, but nada on Frank and the housing collapse.
ABC called him "one of the most familiar, powerful and colorful characters on Capitol Hill." NBC said, "Among his legacies -- besides his legendary sharp tongue -- he was the first member of Congress to publicly acknowledge he was gay, back in 1987." In a nearly 30-paragraph press release -- uh, news article -- headlined, "Barney Frank, a Top Liberal, Won't Seek Re-election," The New York Times sanitized, purged and whitewashed.
The "all the news that's fit to print" newspaper, America's most influential, left out a few things.
Frank relentlessly defended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the "government sponsored entities" at the center of the housing meltdown. National Review editorialized: "It is as a champion of a different kind of pay-for-play operation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that the congressman did the most damage to the country." Economist Thomas Sowell wrote last year, "No one contributed more to the policies behind the housing boom and bust, which led to the economic disaster we are now in, than Congressman Barney Frank."
Sowell explains: "His powerful position on the House of Representatives' Committee on Financial Services gave him leverage to force through legislation and policies which pressured banks and other lenders to grant mortgage loans to people who would not qualify under the standards which had long prevailed. ... With the federal regulators leaning on banks to make more loans to people who did not meet traditional qualifications -- the 'underserved population' in political Newspeak -- and quotas being given to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more of these riskier mortgages from the original lenders, critics pointed out the dangers in these pressures to meet arbitrary home ownership goals. But Barney Frank counter-attacked these critics."
Whom did Frank blame when the housing meltdown -- and Freddie and Fannie's role in it -- became obvious even to Frank? "Right-wing Republicans," he said.
The Big Three nightly news anchors and the Times also managed to avoid any mention of Frank's congressional reprimand for fixing the parking tickets of a male prostitute.
"Representative Frank," writes National Review, "was reprimanded by the House for making misleading statements to a Virginia prosecutor on behalf of the prostitute -- whom the congressman eventually put on his own payroll -- and for having fixed dozens of parking tickets on this behalf." Frank denied knowing that his lover, a convicted drug dealer, was running a prostitution business out of the congressman's house. The boyfriend, however, insisted that Frank knew about it.
But wait, there's more. NR also notes: "(Frank) was sexually involved with a Fannie Mae executive during a time when he was voting on laws affecting the organization. The final cost of the Fannie/Freddie bailouts will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and the real damage that the organizations did to the U.S. economy -- and the world economy, for that matter -- probably is incalculable."
UCLA political science professor and economist Tim Groseclose estimates that the pro-liberal mainstream media add 8 to 10 percentage points to the ratings of a Democratic candidate in a typical election. The bias comes in many forms, including simply leaving relevant things out, thus helping to shape public opinion that aids Democrats and hurts Republicans.
The coverage of Frank's retirement shows how this is done. How would consumers getting their news from ABC/NBC/CBS/Times learn that Frank was reprimanded by Congress? They wouldn't. How would consumers getting their news from ABC/NBC/CBS/Times learn about his central role in the housing meltdown? They wouldn't.
At a 43 percent Gallup approval rating, President Barack Obama presently governs with the worst approval rating at this juncture of any president since Harry Truman -- including Jimmy Carter, whose popularity temporarily spiked after the Iran hostage crisis. Imagine where Obama's numbers would be if the media did not serve as a public-relations arm of the administration.
But thanks to the media's love and support, the bullying Congressman Frank gets to leave Congress with his head high instead of what he deserves -- the deep and widespread scorn of the American people.
But there's worse news.
The ranking Democrat who stands to inherit his position on the powerful House Financial Services Committee is none other than hyper-lefty Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. Waters is currently under an ethics investigation for not disclosing her financial interest in a community bank for which she successfully obtained a bailout. After accusing, without evidence, oil companies of price fixing, she threatened to "socialize" them -- or, as she explained to the oil execs, "Basically, taking over and the government running all of your companies."
On second thought, maybe Frank wasn't so bad.
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
Thomas Sowell
Well, I certainly agree with untouchable, in the physical sense. But what's to prevent some ambitious prosecutor from going after him?
Barney Frank was corrupt in the Classical sense. A devious political operator, financially corrupt to benefit himself and his friends/lovers, and sexually deviant and a slave to his concupiscence.
He would make the perfect movie-version of the prototypical corrupt Roman Senator hanging around the public baths - fat, nasty, perverted. All he needs is a toga.
Where’s Barney?
Sub-Prime Barney, with the goo, goo, googly eyes.
Indeed!
Powerful, entrenched politicians do not just “resign.” Rep. Frank either foresaw his upcoming defeat in the 2012 elections, or was presured to leave by a Democratic Political Machine which saw him as a liebility in the coming year.
Powerful, entrenched politicians do not just “resign.” Rep. Frank either foresaw his upcoming defeat in the 2012 elections, or was presured to leave by a Democratic Political Machine which saw him as a liebility in the coming year.
Will not miss him at all.
With Frank, they scraped the bottom of the barrel... with Waters, they lifted the barrel and scraped underneath!!
Actually, he did admit that the redistricting that happened this year was causing him more stress than he could handle.
Reading between the lines, he lost his “guaranteed” seat and didn’t want to be humiliated by losing it.
Barney just couldn't bear the thought of separation from his new love in MA. That's right, if he continued to serve he'd have to leave his boyfriend's behind.
Barney just couldn't bear the thought of separation from his new love in MA. That's right, if he continued to serve he'd have to leave his boyfriend's behind.
Barney Frank said today he will not seek re-election in 2012 in a move he said was triggered by redistricting that left him with too many new constituents
I tend to wonder if your frequent lack of comment means I shouldn’t bother either, however in this case I’ll make an exception.
“The final cost of the Fannie/Freddie bailouts will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and the real damage that the organizations did to the U.S. economy — and the world economy, for that matter — probably is incalculable.”
U.S. and world economy is usually spelled with the names of individuals belonging to those economies.
Incalculable is the operative word, and therefor us Christian professors, have a whole lot of forgiving to do. I’ve been singing, “Barney you done me wrong” for a lot of years.
Barney spent the past fifteen years in Congress using the levers of state power to force banks to make trillions of dollars of bad loans to unqualified “sub-prime” borrowers while getting Fannie Mae to “securitize” them to make it appear as a no-risk deal to the banks. This eventually bankrupted Fannie Mae, so Barney and his commie colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee (i.e., Lacy Clay (D-Banksters) championed a zillion dollar bailout. He then co-sponsored legislation that is sure to strangle the banking system to death, once and for all, with regulation, as a means of diverting attention from the fact that he, more than any other individual, is responsible for the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
It’s a good bet that Massachusetts socialists (oops, I mean, “liberals” ) will replace him with someone who is just as obnoxiously communistic and at least thirty years younger.
We are upside down on our mortgage, and still can’t sell our house without taking a huge loss. We rent it, but it’s like a huge money sucking machine. We are going to have the albatross of this house hanging on our necks for years to come. It could greatly affect our retirement. And we worked hard and saved, saved, saved, all our lives to have the wherewithall to buy the house.
I absolutely despise him. I really pray he gets what he has coming to him. I think most Americans believe that he’s a total scumball.
He is a coward. Afraid to fight for his seat when it might be for the first time in his life be competitive. He might lose but he already lost by running away. Outside Congress he won’t be as well protected by the press on all his criminal activities and he needs to be held accountable for what he has done with Fannie and Freddie. That should be a high priority in the new administration in 2013. It would help solve issues with the economy.
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