Posted on 12/29/2004 5:46:40 PM PST by Congressman Billybob
Two events happened this week which seem unrelated, yet they are quite close. Both illustrate the opposite of the Christmas spirit. One was the firing of the CEO of Fannie Mae; the other was a UN official calling the US “stingy” for pledging $35 million for Asian flood relief.
Of course, there was the usual overlay of incompetence of the American press in covering these matters. We’ll cover that as we go along. Let’s begin with the golden parachute for Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae.
Two weeks ago, Raines was fired as CEO of Fannie Mae (FNM) by the mortgage finance company's board of directors, as a result of gross misstatements in its financial statements. He and the CFO were dismissed for cooking the books since 2001 to the tune of about $9 billion, or about one-third of Fannie Mae's profits in those years.
When called before Congress in October, Raines said he would “be responsible” and “hold myself accountable” if there were serious accounting problems at the agency. There are limits to his contrition. It came out this week that the Board had offered him a multi-million dollar golden parachute.
The part of the story the MSM has neglected to report is the hard-wired Democrats who were on the Board when Raines began to play games with the financial statements.
Jamie Gorelick, late of the 9/11 Commission, was one of those Board members. She has a history of disaster wherever she goes. As Assistant Attorney General under Janet Reno, she wrote the legal memorandum which put up “the wall” between the CIA and FBI which hid the terrorist plans from discovery.
As Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae she was also on its Board, and received bonuses based on the apparently good performance of the national mortgage company. There is no more suggestion that she will give up her bonuses based on bad numbers, than that Raines will give up his golden parachute after being fired.
The other grinch story in this week comes from the UN.
UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland called the United States and other Western nations "stingy" with relief funds for the victims of the floods in Asia and Africa. He is the top UN official for relief. He specifically criticized the United States for promising only 0.13% of its GNP (gross national product) for such efforts, whereas Norway (his country) was committing 0.9% of its GNP.
MSM reporters in the habit of attacking the Bush Administration at every opportunity have repeated Mr. Egeland’s “stingy” criticism. The press have also reported his claim that he didn’t really say that. (I’ve read the full transcript. He DID.) The US commitment of $35 million, its “initial” pledge, was by far the largest in the world. Plus, the US provides 20% of all UN funds. And it is also the world’s largest source of private philanthropy.
Now, one nation really was truly stingy. France pledged a whopping total of $135,000. That’s right – thousands, not millions. It is such an embarrassingly low number that Fox News, in broadcasting a table, erroneously labeled it as millions.
The idea of sending millions of dollars in relief money through the UN comes at a time when Kofi Annan and others at the UN are stonewalling the $21 billion in graft and bribery on their watch, the biggest financial fraud in human history.
The connection between the Fannie Mae players and the UN ones is this: Both groups of actors are in the business of “public service.” Yet their actions show they are seeking to fatten their resumes, wallets, and apparent status, at the expense of those they were hired to serve.
Both groups are takers, not givers. They use their positions to take whatever they can get for themselves, and circle the wagons when anyone attempts to call them to account.
These grinches are doing worse than merely stuffing coal in our civic stockings. They offer us nothing, they pick our pockets, and they criticize us for expecting better behavior from them. They are not merely biting the hand that feeds them. They are gnawing it off, up to the elbow.
The people of America should insist that our official representatives, the Congress, wake up and smell the selfishness. People like Raines and Gorelick need to be driven out of “public service” with a switch, and forced to disgorge their ill-gotten gains on the way out. And the same goes for Jan Egeland and Kofi Annan of the UN.
Our slogan should be, no more grinches.
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. CongressmanBillybob@earthlink.net
Both subjects here are of strong interest to Freepers, especially the Norwegian moron at the UN who had the effrontery of calling the US "stingy."
Billybob
More reasons that I think the US should withhold aid to EVERYONE except Israel for one year. After the year is up, then we'll take applications for renewing the aid packages.
Only a year? I prefer ....forever.
Not a bad plan.
It's amazing how these BA____DS cover each others ass 's
The two from FANNIE MAE should both go to jail just like the people at ENTON when they cooked the books. Their parachutes should be forfeit. But since they are quasi govt. employee's it will probably never happen.
should be ENRON, sorry.
My queendom for a Conservative Woodward/Berstein equivalent can will expose this woman, and MAKE the MSM listen, for all her dirty deeds.
A belated Merry Christmas to you oh wonderfull Congressman Billy Bob and the hopes for a Very Happy New Year.
I wonder were Ms. Gorelick will turn up next, eh?
Best Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Good article.
Yes. rather than fixed sums of foreign aid to specific nations each year, there should be a certain amount of discretional aid. The countries that do what we want get the aid, the countries that cross us, don't.
That would cut government spending, too.
The only country that should be guatanteed US aid is Israel, as you said.
Bluntly, he's a lousy businessman. He rose well above his level of incompetence, and we're all going to be paying for it for a long, long time.
bump
bttt
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