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The problem with winding down Fannie and Freddie is the GSEs buy about 70% of all mortgages originated in the U.S. and there just isn't enough capital or risk appetite in the private sector to fill the void. "You can't pull that much liquidity out of the mortgage market without crashing it," Muolo says. "If you crash it, home prices will fall by 50% and we'll be in a worse situation than we were three years ago." Given that and the political calendar, Muolo predicts there will be a lot of talk but very little action on Fannie and Freddie...

The National Academy of Sciences creates virtual blacklists of scientists who dare to disagree with 'the consensus.' While most people understand that governmental entities are politicized, there are some we like to think maintain enough integrity to serve the public good. We hope, for example, that the Centers for Disease Control would be free of politicized determinations for what to do about swine flu. And we hope that the Food and Drug Administration were more concerned about whether a drug were beneficial than about how the cost of that drug might influence new healthcare legislation.One such entity we have relied...

Sen. Kerry Predicts ‘Ice-Free Arctic' In '5 or 10 Years’ Friday, July 23, 2010 By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) – Speaking at a town hall-style meeting promoting climate change legislation on Thursday, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) predicted there will be “an ice-free Arctic” in five to 10 years.. “The arctic ice is disappearing faster than was predicted,” Kerry said. “And instead of waiting until 2030 or whenever it was to have an ice-free Arctic, we’re going to have one in five or 10 years.” However, the Web site of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says: “Using the...

BOSTON – Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family's new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, allowing him to avoid paying roughly $500,000 in taxes to the cash-strapped Bay State. If the "Isabel" were kept at the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee's summer vacation home on Nantucket, or in Boston Harbor near his city residence, he would be liable for $437,500 in one-time sales tax. He would also have to pay $70,000 in annual excise taxes. Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993. That has made the state something of a nautical tax haven.

With talk of a price on Carbon, (in reality Carbon Dioxide) just what is the scope of this, and when you see, it then becomes patently obvious that this whole so called debate is not about the environment. It’s just about the money, and just how much money is involved. At the proposed $25 per ton, and there are CO2 emissions of 3.25 billion tons just to produce the electrical power we all need to have access to, then that amount comes in at nearly $82 Billion. Electrical power emits one third of all emissions, so now the total comes...

After a long day’s work, the junk scientist needed some hot second chakra action.Byron York at The Washington Examiner reported, via Ace: The police report of the masseuse’s complaint is 73 pages long and extremely detailed. According to the document, she got a call from the front desk of the trendy Hotel Lucia on the night of Oct. 24, 2006. The hotel had a special guest. Could she come at 10:30 p.m.? She went to Gore’s room carrying a folding massage table and other equipment. Gore, whom she had never met, greeted her with a warm embrace. “The hug went...

For American taxpayers, now on the hook for some $145 billion in housing losses connected to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, that amount could be just the tip of the iceberg. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the losses could balloon to $400 billion. And if housing prices fall further, some experts caution, the cost to the taxpayer could hit as much as $1 trillion. Two things are clear: Taxpayers don’t want to foot the bill, and Fannie and Freddie, taken over by the government in 2008 to stanch the financial bloodletting, need a major overhaul.

Legislation could include a carbon cap on utility companies. With the gulf oil spill creating political opportunity, Senate Democrats will begin crafting a sweeping energy bill this week that could include a first-ever, though more modest, cap on global-warming pollution. Republicans dismiss such a cap-and-trade system as a new tax on households and business — "cap-and-tax," they call it.

Government Regulation vs. Self-RegulationBy: Larry Walker, Jr.The Progressive Obama Administration’s magical solution for all problems American is more government regulation. But is government regulation really better than self-regulation?Companies like BP have a direct interest in the safe, efficient drilling and harvesting of oil. Would it benefit a private oil company like BP to carelessly blow up its own oil well and lose millions of gallons of the precious black gold into the sea? No. Did it benefit Exxon to crash the Valdez and leak millions of gallons of oil off the coast of Alaska? No. So every company has a...

It's already been documented that the media have, at least initially, ignored the allegation that global warming alarmist-in-chief and former Vice President Al Gore faced a sexual assault charge in 2006. But why? Although not know for its enlightening commentary, ABC's June 24 broadcast of "The View" offered an answer for that question. Subbing a moderator for the show's panel was MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough, who explained their decision to ignore it was based on "insufficient evidence" despite the police report documenting the allegation. "This is an interesting story," Scarborough said. "A 2006 police report surfaced of a...

Unlike Katie Couric on Monday night, on Wednesday evening NBC's Brian Williams didn't hide the bad news for President Obama in the network's latest poll, but Williams and Savannah Guthrie sure seemed to lament the public mood's swing against Obama as Williams attributed it to how Obama “had to touch” the gulf oil leak, “he had to own it and now he's getting tagged with how he's reacting to it.” As if Obama had nothing to do with it, Guthrie agreed he's “had a barrage of bad headlines on some of these very issues of leadership, handling a crisis...” “If...

Here is a video of Obama speaking to Organizing for America about the way that they plan to use the oil spill in the gulf to redo the American economy. Does anyone really believe that Obama is trying in good faith to stop the spill or mitigate the damage it is causing?

A stalled climate-energy bill in the Senate got a boost Tuesday from federal regulators who reported it would not be too costly, then from President Obama. "The transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs – but only if we accelerate that transition," Mr. Obama said in his Oval Office speech. He touted a "strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill – a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America's businesses." That's been the billion-dollar question surrounding climate legislation: How much will it cost? The Environmental...

<p>Government-sponsored mortgage purchasers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plan to delist their shares from the New York Stock Exchange.</p>

Obama still supports putting price on carbon 6:19pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama still believes that putting a price on carbon emissions is the only way to make serious progress on climate change, a senior U.S. administration official said on Tuesday. Obama is to deliver a televised speech at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) in which he will aim to restore public confidence in his handling of BP Plc's Gulf of Mexico oil spill and drive forward his ambitious plans to cut U.S. dependence on fossil fuels.

On Thursday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 3217, the financial regulation bill. This is the Democrats’ partisan bill that was reported out of the Senate Banking Committee on April 15 by a vote of 13-10 (no Republicans supported the bill in committee). The cloture vote is set for Monday, April 26, at 5:00 pm. It is doubtful that Democrats have the votes to end debate at this point on the massive 1,400-page bill. The president tried to sell the notion in a New York speech yesterday that this partisan...