Free Republic

Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were being paid to police the financial system, an agency watchdog says. The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years, according to a memo obtained late on Thursday by The Associated Press. The memo says 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed. It was written by SEC Inspector General David Kotz in response to a request from U.S. Senator Charles Grassley. An...

By Kerry Picket on April 20, 2010 into Water CoolerEditSubscribe At a press conference on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, dodged questions from reporters about his party's close ties to Wall Street, while he attacked the GOP for the Republicans' Wall Street connections. When asked about the numerous finance lobbyists on Capitol Hill and their efforts with the Democrats, Mr. Reid responded, "There are more than 1500 lobbyists here to work on this bill. Push back is coming from those who don't want any changes in this legislation just as with healthcare. "

Campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to President Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers, according to numbers on OpenSecrets.org. President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. Time magazine even had an article called, "Bush's Enron Problem." The Associated Press ran with the headline, "Bush-backing Enron makes big money off crisis." David Callaway wrote that Enron for Bush was worse than Whitewater for Clinton. But the mere $151,722.42 (inflation adjusted) in contributions from Enron-affiliated executives, employees, and PACs to Bush hardly add up...

Type this search phrase into Google: Goldman Sachs SEC Look at the two paid search results at the top. The first will likely be from Goldman Sachs (makes sense they would buy the key words with their name in it). The second is a link to www.BarackObama.com with the tag line "It's Time for Financial Reform that Protects Main Street. Act Now!" If there was any doubt that the government/SEC actions against Goldman Sachs were politically motivated, there is no doubt now. This is disgusting. The SEC has lost any shred of credibility it had and have become a political...

Barney Frank Gets Tongue-Lashing on Plane Posted by Sean Alfano Congressman Barney Frank endured the not-so-friendly skies Monday on a trip back east from California as a pair of doctors upset over the recent health care overhaul confronted the Massachusetts Democrat, the Boston Globe reported. The verbal row began, apparently, when the doctors, two sisters who are ophthalmologists and were headed to a conference in Boston, began criticizing the bill -- calling it an "Obamanation" -- upon noticing Rep. Frank nearby. "They wanted to talk to me, but I apologized and said I like to read and watch on planes,"...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Rubin, a senior adviser to Citigroup Inc. at the time of its deep losses from subprime mortgages, said Wednesday that he learned belatedly that Citi had $43 billion in high-risk securities on its books. "I do not recall knowing before September 2007" that the bank had held onto the investments composed of repackaged mortgage bonds, Rubin said. In November 2007, Citigroup publicly estimated it would lose $8 billion to $11 billion in the fourth quarter that year from those securities.

An influential voice on Capitol Hill has unexpectedly called into question the safety of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, raising the specter that investors who have lent money to the two firms or bought their mortgage-backed securities could one day suffer losses. The comments by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, come despite the assumption of many investors that investments in the two mortgage finance giants are risk-free. Until now, federal officials -- who took over Fannie and Freddie two years ago to save them from collapse -- have signaled to the market...

The House Oversight and Government Reform committee this week received a list that will capture eyes from Wall Street to Washington. Timothy Geithner’s call log during the tightest grips of the financial crisis show the then-New York Federal Reserve Board chairman made calls calls to U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Obama transition adviser Lee Sachs and Warren Buffet. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and former Lehman Bros. CEO Dick Fuld also spoke with Geithner. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke got calls, as...

Washington, DCJudicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.”  The list, in alphabetical order, includes: 1. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT):  This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 “Ten Most Corrupt” list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him.  In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat.  In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against...

BizJournals April: Vitner: Worst of the recession is over Forbes May, The Recession Is Over http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/04/recovery-indicators-unemployment-opinions-columnists-recession.html Bloomberg June, Treasuries Drop for 3rd Day on Signs Worst of Recession Is Over: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=as7n0AWDEzuQ&pid=20601087 Newsweek July, The Recession Is Over: http://www.newsweek.com/id/208633 FoxNews August, The Recession is Over! http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/25889935/recession-is-over.htm WSJ September, US Stocks Slightly Higher As Bernanke Says Recession Is Over Sep http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090915-711042.html

Harris County taxpayers may have to inject up to $7 million a year into the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority for the next two years due to a financial crisis sparked by the souring of bonds used to build Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and the Toyota Center. Facing balloon payments on $117 million in variable-rate bonds, the authority now is obliged to pay off the debt in five years instead of 23 years. That would require $24 million a year — a figure that, together with more than $30 million in additional obligations, would push the authority to the brink...

Let's not mince words here: The entire finance and real-estate "industry" is filled with massive, pernicious fraud, and we now have only one question remaining - will The Government do its lawful and mandated job, that of prosecuting the bad actors, or has it joined with the fraudsters, become one with them, and thus, declare itself as a gang of mobsters rather than a legitimate government? The latter, of course will beg only the question of what should be an ordinary American's response. Let's start with what may be one of the most outrageous yet least-actionable examples: Alan Greenspan. Alan...

The B-Cast: How Obama's 'Coalitions of Power' Are Key to 'Stealthy Agenda'

The Community Reinvestment Act, first passed in 1977 under Jimmy Carter, was intended to increase minority homeownership. It grew out of charges that banks were "redlining" entire inner-city neighborhoods as bad credit risks. Banks now were forced to perform outreach to these areas. In the '70s and '80s, banks could show that they were trying to do that by advertising in minority newspapers and having representatives sit on the boards of local groups. In other words, they were rated on the effort made and not on the results achieved. Creditworthiness still mattered. In 1995, as Howard Husock pointed out eight...

JOHN KING (host): If you pick up Maureen Dowd's column in The New York Times this morning, she goes through Congressman (Joe) Wilson's statement, some of the other things, and she says in her -- she has come to the conclusion, quote: "Some people just can't believe a black man is president and will never accept it." Does the president believe that some of these attacks are based on his race? WHITE HOUSE PRESS SEC. ROBERT GIBBS: I don't think the president believes that people are upset because of the color of his skin. I think people are upset because...

On Friday, I stated Barney Frank Says Ron Paul's Audit The Fed Bill Will Pass In October. Quite a few others made the same mistake as noted by RonPaul.Com in Misinformation Alert: Barney Frank Never Said That HR 1207 Will Pass In October. Several blogs and forums reported during the past 24 hours that Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, said that Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve, HR 1207, will pass in October. Incorrect Reports about Barney Frank’s Statement on HR 1207 * Washington Times: Barney Frank says Ron Paul bill will pass* Politico:...

Are journalists playing favorites with some of the key political figures involved with regulatory oversight of U.S. financial markets? MSNBC’s Chris Matthews launched several vitriolic attacks on the Republican Party on his Sept. 17, 2008, show, suggesting blame for Wall Street problems should be focused in a partisan way. However, he and other media have failed to thoroughly examine the Democratic side of the blame game. Prominent Democrats ran Fannie Mae, the same government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that donated campaign cash to top Democrats. And one of Fannie Mae’s main defenders in the House – Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a recipient...

Leading conservative economist Bruce Bartlett writes that the Obama-hating town-hall mobs have it wrong—the person they should be angry with left the White House seven months ago. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where is the evidence that everything would be better if Republicans were in charge? Does anyone believe the economy would be growing faster or that unemployment would be lower today if John McCain had won the election? I know of no economist who holds that view. The economy is like an ocean liner that turns only very slowly. The gross domestic product and the level of employment would be pretty much the...

Perhaps it's the Russ Feingold influence. Feingold, when he served in the Wisconsin Legislature before traipsing off to Washington, was the bulldog behind legislation that outlawed gifts and other perks to legislators, things like free dinners and drinks, pen sets and the like, or even a cup of coffee. The idea was that legislators ought not be beholden to anyone except the people who elected them. Conversely, lawmakers are not to lavish favors on lobbyists and other influence peddlers. So by law they are to pay for their own meals and reimburse their hosts when they get something of value...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Two key Democrat senators were cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee on Friday from year-long investigations about whether mortgages they obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The bipartisan committee, which supported the decision unanimously, did scold the senior lawmakers, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., for not being more careful in their dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised...