BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE
Posted on 09/28/2008 9:38:31 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache
WASILLA, Alaska - Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated Press investigation shows. When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception — and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard.
She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free "awesome facial" she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The "absolutely gorgeous flowers" she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home. She also stepped in to help friends or neighbors with City Hall dealings.
She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting — and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You got to be kidding me?
Not a word about Obambi’s house purchase scam but Palin got an “awesome facial”?
Do these idiots at AP and Yahoo think that a single vote will switch because of this story?
I should not ask....see tag line...again.
BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE
Media Mum on Barney Frank’s Fannie Mae Love Connection
Democratic House Financial Services Committee Chair promoted GSEs while former ‘spouse’ was Fannie Mae executive
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 of more than $40,000 in campaign donations from Fannie since 1989 – was once romantically involved with a Fannie Mae executive.
Of the eight appearances Frank made on the three broadcasts networks between Jan. 1, 2008, and Sept. 21, 2008, none of his comments dealt with the potential conflicts of interest.
The July 3, 1998, Reliable Source column in The Washington Post reported Frank, who is openly gay, had a relationship with Herb Moses, an executive for the now-government controlled Fannie Mae. The column revealed the two had split up at the time but also said Frank was referring to Moses as his “spouse.” Another Washington Post report said Frank called Moses his “lover” and that the two were “still friends” after the breakup.
Frank was and remains a stalwart defender of Fannie Mae, which is now under FBI investigation along with its sister organization Freddie Mac, American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) and Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) – all recently participants in government bailouts. But Frank has derailed efforts to regulate the institution, as well as denying it posed any financial risk.
He has served on the committee since becoming a congressman in 1981 and became the ranking Democrat on the committee in 2003. He became chairman of the committee, now called the House Financial Services Committee, in 2007.
Moses was the assistant director for product initiatives at Fannie Mae and had been at the forefront of relaxing lending restrictions at the company for rural customers, according to the Feb. 23, 1998, issue of National Mortgage News (NMN).
“Herb Moses, who helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs, has left the mortgage industry,” Darryl Hicks wrote for NMN. “Mr. Moses - whose last day was Feb. 13 - spent the past seven years at Fannie Mae, most recently as director of housing initiatives. Over the course of time, he played an instrumental role in developing the company’s Title One and 203(k) home improvement lending programs.”
In 1991, Frank and former Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., lobbied for Fannie to soften rules on multi-family home mortgages although those dwellings showed a default rate twice that of single-family homes, according to the Nov. 22, 1991, Boston Globe.
BusinessWeek reported in its Nov. 14, 1994, issue that Fannie Mae called on Frank to exert his influence against a Housing & Urban Development proposal that would force the GSE to focus on minority and low-income buyers and police bias by lenders regardless of their location. Fannie Mae opposed HUD on the issue because it claimed doing so would “ignore the urban middle class.”
Much more here...
What an absolute joke the media has become. While the nation looks to the likes of Barney Frank, who admitted he had a prostitution service run out of his apartment, to craft a plan to get us out of this financial mess, the media is worried that Palin might have accepted a gift of fresh salmon from a merchant.
No mention of the Obama Gestapo “TRUTH SQUADS”? No mention of the KNOWN COMMUNIST RADICAL TERRORISTS that make up Obama’s supporters and friends...
I think this goes past sheer incompetence. This has got to be deliberate sabotage. It’s the communist manifesto come to life...
Is there a phrase that means the opposite of: “Damning with faint praise”? Because that would be what this article is. Like the big ‘story’ the media made over Quayle’s ‘potatoe’, this is only going to make people think, “Is this all there is?” She must be squeaky clean if the media, whom we all know are digging as hard as they can, can only come up with a free facial.
Too bad we aren’t running against Bawney Fwank.
This still needs to be put out there in the media to expose the Dem insiders.
She got a facial
Obama got a house loan
Gee, when will they do a story on this, since the markets seem to be more important than gifts:
Bush signs housing rescue law
President enacts controversial measure that aims to help borrowers, bolster the housing market and provide a fail-safe for Fannie and Freddie. July 30, 2008
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/30/news/economy/housing_bill_Bush/index.htm
Didn’t hear about that yet right? 300B btw.
How we got here, send it out:
Vid of Fannie hearing 2004
http://www.texasrainmaker.com/2008/09/27/throw-the-bums-out/
Hearing from September 2003 on an administration proposal to alter the regulation of GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. See Congressman Barney Frank’s opening statement, which begins at 4:40. It’s rather amusing. Here’s an excerpt of his opening statement:
I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.
I must say we have an interesting example of self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of the critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say that the problem is that the Federal Government is obligated to bail out people who might lose money in connection with them. I do not believe that we have any such obligation. And as I said, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy by some people.
So let me make it clear, I am a strong supporter of the role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in housing, but nobody who invests in them should come looking to me for a nickel—nor anybody else in the Federal Government. And if investors take some comfort and want to lend them a little money and less interest rates, because they like this set of affiliations, good, because housing will benefit. But there is no guarantee, there is no explicit guarantee, there is no implicit guarantee, there is no wink-and-nod guarantee. Invest, and you are on your own.
Now, we have got a system that I think has worked very well to help housing. The high cost of housing is one of the great social bombs of this country. I would rank it second to the inadequacy of our health delivery system as a problem that afflicts many, many Americans. We have gotten recent reports about the difficulty here.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping make housing more affordable, both in general through leveraging the mortgage market, and in particular, they have a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing, and that is what I am concerned about here. I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable goals. I worry frankly that there is a tension here.
The more people, in my judgment, exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see. I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disastrous scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the Federal Government doesn’t bail them out. But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing.
Barney Frank opposed regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003, but no one reminds him
Frank ‘no crisis.’ As Power Line reminds us to day, The New York Times reported on Sept. 11, 2003:
‘’These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,’’ said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ‘’The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
McCain on May 25, 2006, backed specific legislation to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
“I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”
The Gubmint is full of charlatans!
O.K., now let’s talk about all the nice deals that Obama got from his Chicago buddies. Oh wait!
This would be a good story too:
September 24, 2008
Categories: Barack Obama
Johnson to lead Obama briefing
Former Fannie Mae chairman Jim Johnson was dumped from Obama’s vice presidential search team, but he’s still playing a behind-the-scenes role on the campaign.
Former Senator Tom Daschle, a top Obama backer, emailed a select list this afternoon that he and Johnson would be leading a briefing intended largely for Clinton’s campaign brain trust next month.
“Jim Johnson and I have scheduled another informal breakfast discussion and update on the campaign early next month,” he wrote to a list including Senator John Kerry, James Carville, and Richard Holbrooke, as well as Clinton’s former top campaign aides, including Howard Wolfson, Geoff Garin, and Harold Ickes.
Johnson’s involvement comes at a moment when political association with the failed mortgage giants is particularly toxic. He was already the subject of a McCain ad attacking Obama.
The October third breakfast is also a mark of the continuing effort to bring the ex-Clintonites into the Obama fold.
NOTE: These are regular briefings, as Marc Ambinder has reported, though Johnson hasn’t previously been cast in a leading role.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Johnson_to_lead_Obama_briefing.html
The Ambinder link as referenced above:
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/every_few_weeks_former_sen.php
In 2002, shortly before accounting irregularities were exposed at both companies, Frank said, “I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems,” The Wall Street Journal reported. After the Freddie Mac accounting scandal in 2003, Frank said, “I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis.”
But there was a crisis, thanks in large part to Frank, Sen. Charles Schumer and others on the leash of these companies. In Congress, they made sure there was no additional oversight, no additional limit on executive behavior and compensation, and no further restraint on the growth of the companies’ mortgage-backed-securities portfolios, among other changes.
In fact, Frank & Co. made matters worse by pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to take on greater risk. They wanted more loans to people who might not qualify for traditional bank financing. And, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, Frank “pressured regulators to ease up on their capital requirements — which now means taxpayers will have to make up that capital shortfall.”
Flowers, a facial, and even a salmon.
That’s it, I’m voting for O/B
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