Free Republic

Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco took to the airwaves Sunday to bash President Obama’s immigration policies — blaming him for the recent rash of murders linked to MS-13 gang activities across Long island — while lauding U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent visit to address local law enforcement on the same topic. “In the community of Brentwood, where there is a big El Salvadoran population, we have had over the last nine months or so 11 bodies turned [sic] up,” Sheriff DeMarco told John Catsimatidis during an early morning interview on “The Cats Roundtable.” The victims, many of whom were...

When it comes to the San Francisco Fed, it is best known throughout the financial community as the group of crack economists who spend millions of taxpayer funds to investigate such probing, for kindergarteners at least, topics as: is water wet, do trees make a sound when they fall in the forest, is it still worth going to college, and are hedge funds important in a crisis. Little did we know that, at least some of them, are homicidal psychopaths with suicidal tendencies. Because this is precisely what was revealed moments ago when Bloomberg reported that the chief operating officer...

The government sponsored enterprises in conservatorship, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are generating attention in Congress. For example, here are recent headlines (courtesy of WilmerHale). * Corker and Warren Unite on GSE Reform. Here is their bill. • As described in the Bipartisan Policy Center’s executive summary, the BPC plan would replace Fannie and Freddie with a new government entity that would insure qualifying MBS with an explicit government guarantee that would kick in only if mandatory private credit enhancement, e.g., private mortgage insurance, failed to reimburse credit losses on the re-insured MBS. • FHFA Acting Director DeMarco previously announced...

The never-ending tale of the Administration and Congress pressuring FHFA Ed DeMarco to write down principal on residential mortgages is reminiscent of the Marx Brothers zany, non-nonsensical films like “Duck Soup,” “A Day at the Races,” and “A Night at the Opera.” Even worse, DeMarco seems to be wilting like a month-old celery stalk in the frig. Vicki Needham at The Hill has a nice review of the latest Marx Brothers zany comedy. Frank Keating, president and chief executive of the American Bankers Association: “Principal reductions create an incentive for a huge group of borrowers who have continued making their...

Today, FHFA updated their study of principal reductions and Director Ed DeMarco presented the new results. He did NOT announce any trial program or agreement with the Obama Administration about using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to salvage the housing market. But he did say that an announcement will be out in a few weeks. As I said at Brookings, we have very little empirical evidence (other than anecdotal stories) that principal reductions work. We have not been through 3-4 years of mortgage modifications with principal reductions to see if they are as effective as forbearance in preventing defaults. FHFA...

WASHINGTON — The House passed a revised children's health proposal Thursday, but not by the two-thirds margin that supporters will need if President Bush vetoes the measure as promised. The 265-142 vote was a victory for Bush and his allies, who urged House Republicans to reject Democrats' claims that changes to the legislation had met their chief concerns. If the same vote occurs on a veto override attempt, Bush will prevail, as he did earlier this month when he vetoed a similar bill. Liberal groups continue to run attack ads against Republicans siding with Bush on the issue, which many...