Free Republic

Representatives and senators should have been answering questions from the automakers about why they approved government policies that have played the biggest role in driving American carmakers toward extinction. . . . Why did members of Congress — such as House Banking Chairman Barney Frank, Senate Banking Chairman Christoper Dodd and others — raise fuel economy standards, adding more than $85 billion in costs as the industry was restructuring itself? If the reason was forcing automakers to deal with higher gasoline prices, perhaps the politicians could explain why they have made fuel more scarce by blocking domestic drilling for oil...

Is it news when a radio talk-show host who is a former Republican state senator and gubernatorial candidate accuses the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee of mortgage fraud? WELI, New Haven's No. 1 AM-radio station, has come under fire for refusing to broadcast an interview between its now-former talk-show host, Tom Scott, and Democrat Christopher Dodd. In the interview taped Oct. 29, Mr. Scott accused Sen. Dodd of mortgage fraud for taking two cut-rate mortgages from predatory lender Countrywide Financial in 2003 under a program reserved for members of Congress and other big shots. Media reports say the interview...

The state budget outlook gets grimmer by the week. Projected deficits for the next two years have grown by $200 million since last week, and now the governor's budget office says the combined shortfall for the next three years will be $9.6 billion, another figure that will rise sharply once the full fiscal effect of the Chris Dodd Bear Market is known. These deficits are unprecedented in state history. They dwarf the $1.4 billion Rainy Day Fund. They are the consequence of years of unbridled government spending and fiscal malfeasance of the highest magnitude. And they will never be closed...

18-Nov-2008 Notice of Delisting or Failure to Satisfy a Cont Item 3.01 Notice of Delisting or Failure to Satisfy a Continued Listing Rule or Standard; Transfer of Listing. (a) On November 12, 2008, Fannie Mae (formally, the Federal National Mortgage Association) received a notice from the New York Stock Exchange (the "NYSE") that we had failed to satisfy one of the NYSE's standards for continued listing of our common stock. Specifically, the NYSE advised us that we were "below criteria" for the Exchange's price criteria for common stock because the average closing price of our common stock during the 30...

A news-talk radio station in New Haven, Connecticut, is refusing to air a spirited interview between a conservative host and the powerful chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd. NBC News reports that a federal criminal investigation into possible wrongdoing by mortgage giant Countrywide Home Loans now includes scrutiny of Countrywide's VIP program that gave special mortgage deals to government officials, including Senators Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) and Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut). Connecticut conservative radio talk-show host Tom Scott says up until now, fellow senators and the media have not questioned Dodd about his personal scandal. "I have asserted publicly...

Tom Scott conducted the interview. WELI killed it. Now you can hear it. Scott, one of Connecticut’s leading conservative voices of the past three decades, was the last local on-air voice at WELI-AM... Scott hosted a weekday 5 to 7 p.m. drive-time talk show until Oct. 29. That was the day he taped a combative interview with U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut ... The interview focused on two controversies that have dogged Dodd recently: He received personal “VIP” loans from Countrywide Financial, a predatory lender he was supposed to be regulating as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. And...

Dodd will stay in Banking postBy PETER URBAN Staff writer Article Last Updated: 11/06/2008 10:57:11 PM EST WASHINGTON -- Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd said Thursday he intends to remain at the helm of the Senate Banking Committee next year rather than take on a new assignment in the post-election leadership shuffle. After taking a day to consider his options, Dodd decided against succeeding Sen. Joe Biden as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and will instead remain chairman of the Banking Committee -- a post he assumed in January 2007 when Democrats regained the majority in the upper chamber....

Senator Still Stonewalling On Curious Loans. Since the Dodd story broke in June, the five-term senator has offered contradictory fragments of explanations and intentions. Scheherazade after a six-pack of Red Bull would not have told more desperate tales. Dodd gallops the gamut from calling the allegations of special treatment "outrageous" to pledging repeatedly and specifically to release documents related to the $800,000 in sweetheart deals he got from Countrywide. Still claiming "there's nothing there," Dodd refuses to say whether his Senate campaign committee's payments of $60,000 last summer to a Washington law firm, which has a history of representing Democratic...

Dodd says his mortgages were standard Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., says he did not receive special treatment from Countrywide Financial in obtaining nearly $780,000 in mortgages in 2003. These transactions were standard transactions at standard rates, Dodd said Wednesday, adding he could say little about the two mortgages on his home because of an ongoing bipartisan Senate ethics inquiry. Dodd said he would at the appropriate time publicly release documents related to the mortgages he received when he was a senior Democrat on the Senate banking committee of which he now is chairman, the Hartford (Conn.) Courant reported Thursday....

Chris Dodd Under Investigation for Sweetheart Mortgage Deal NBC news reports that the Justice Department has begun an investigation into whether Countrywide Financial Corp used the 'Friends of Angelo (Mozilo)' program to buy influence with Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Kent Conrad (D-ND), and others. According to a senior Countrywide official who handled its VIP program, there was no way Dodd and Conrad could not have known they were getting a special deal: ...Feinberg says part of his job was to hammer home to the V.I.P. clients that they were getting special deals. "You spoke in a manner that was different...

Remember a month ago when Congress rejected the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 777 points? Remember how Democratic congressional leaders said that was a sign that the bailout had to pass or financial Armageddon surely would follow? Well, Congress approved the bailout Oct. 3 after larding it up with about $150 billion in earmarks, and financial Armageddon happened anyway. The stock market, as measured by the Standard and Poor's 500 Index, fell more than 20 percent. In less than a month. It was the hardest down leg so far in the Chris Dodd...

Sen. Christopher Dodd's bewildering odyssey of entitlement, evasions and deceptions continued last week. He shed more credibility as he staggered through new excuses for concealing from the public documents related to his cut-rate mortgages of nearly $800,000 from subprime giant Countrywide Financial. On Wednesday, Dodd announced he wants to wait until the Senate Ethics Committee completes its investigation of his mortgage deals. There's no Senate rule requiring Dodd to remain silent during the investigation. There's no legitimate reason for Dodd to withhold from the public the array of documents, e-mails and letters from the mortgage swag bag Countrywide gave him.

Timeline proving that the mortgage industry crisis is the Democratic socialist experiment. Another socialist experiment failed, this time a massive federal effort, imperiling the whole US banking industry. Facing this economic disaster, can an informed American people put their trust Obama’s socialist ideology to bring remedy? Will they bring in an acetylene torch to put out the fire? http://eyesandearsweekly.blogspot.com/2008/10/narrative-for-change-proven-failure-of.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fear and anger about the U.S. economy may cost the Republicans big-time in next month's election -- and give Democrats a 60-seat majority in the 100-member U.S. Senate for the first time 30 years. With their polls rising, Democrats have a plausible shot at gaining nine seats to hit 60, which could provide the votes needed to clear Republican procedural hurdles and move quickly to keep campaign promises. "Imagine what we can accomplish with a filibuster-proof Senate majority," Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, who polls show is leading Republican rival John McCain, wrote in a fund-raising appeal...

UPDATE: US Sen Dodd To Introduce Consumer Protection BillBy Patrick Yoest Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said Tuesday that he plans to unveil a legislative package including consumer protection measures pertaining to credit cards, predatory lending, bankruptcies and subprime mortgages. Dodd, D-Conn., said that he will seek passage of the package - either on its own or as part of an economic stimulus bill - as soon as mid-November, when the Senate will hold a lame-duck work session after the Nov. 4 election Dodd framed the package as a counterpart to a...

The radical socialists have stolen our retirement money, they have stolen the values of our homes, they have ruined and closed our banks and stolen the value of our vote, and, now, the polls say, they will apply the final coupe de grace with an Obama victory in November. First they infiltrated our schools and colleges and our media; then the liberal Democrats passed laws that extorted and forced banks into giving home mortgages to persons who had no chance of repaying these loans – to people with little or no income – in the guise of “fairness”. It’s not...

Once, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seemed a relatively quiet backwater of politics and finance. Now the world echoes with the collapse of banks that stumbled into the American subprime lending mess, and any political connection to Freddie and Fannie can be almost as toxic as their loan pools. Minutes into Tuesday’s debate, John McCain was calling the failure of the two federally chartered mortgage giants “the match that started this forest fire.” The Republican accused Barack Obama of taking a hike while McCain and other lawmakers pushed for reform in 2005. McCain’s ads, meanwhile, try to tar the Democrat...

Sen. Dodd to visit Greater Bristol Chamber of Commerce Oct. 22 Special to the Press 10/09/2008 BRISTOL - With the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry packaged and delivered, U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., will be in town Oct. 22 to go over the details at the Greater Bristol Chamber of Commerce's Egg & Issues breakfast. Dodd, who had to cancel a similar engagement here a couple of weeks ago because of the financial/credit crisis confronting Congress, was a major player in forging the final measure as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, The breakfast will be Oct. 22...

For most of my life I've been told that the government was to protect our rights and freedoms in the United States, how is it doing these days? Not well as I see it and here's why: Socialist government now is to raise us all from cradle to grave so we can all be equally unhappy. Government now knows best what to do with your money; you are too ignorant! Do you really want this government to run your health care? They tried to run the mortgage industry, see where that got us - $800 trillion in debt and no...

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism. Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation's wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government. The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their...