Free Republic

Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd has been in typically indignant form this week, opining on the financial crisis. Before his Tuesday hearing on Bernard Madoff, he demanded that regulators get to the bottom of any crime: "American investors deserve an explanation and the responsible parties must be held accountable!" And yesterday the Connecticut Senator denounced Wall Street bonuses and said, "I am urging -- in fact, not urging, demanding -- that the Treasury Department figures out some way to get the money back." Pardon us, Senator, but how about taking your own advice?

Stall, and hope they forget. It’s been over seven months since it was revealed that Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) got a sweetheart deal on his Washington, D.C., townhouse directly from Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of troubled subprime-mortgage lender Countrywide Financial. Participating in the “Friends of Angelo” program saved Dodd about $75,000 on his mortgage, and raised more than a few eyebrows about whether Dodd should be accepting such hefty gifts from entities he’s tasked with overseeing and regulating. Since the scandal broke last June, no action has been taken by the Senate to formally ascertain if...

Even though the US congress has been mucking up the banking industry since 1916, few Americans are familiar with GSE’s, (Government Sponsored Enterprises). As a result, the people have hired the same people who destroyed the US economy to begin with, to fix the US economy. Those people are now attempting to save the nation from complete economic collapse via the same failed economic policies that caused the crisis… History repeats for benefit of those who have not yet learned the lesson Although the US Constitution affords the federal government no such power whatsoever to engage taxpayer revenue in banking...

The worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression is not a natural phenomenon but a man-made disaster in which we all played a part.In the second part of a week-long series looking behind the slump,Guardian City editor Julia Finch picks out the individuals who have led us into the current crisis Alan Greenspan, chairman of US Federal Reserve 1987- 2006Only a couple of years ago the long-serving chairman of the Fed, a committed free marketeer who had steered the US economy through crises ranging from the 1987 stockmarket collapse through to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, was lauded with...

Bernard Ponzi-Madoff stole 50 billion dollars from people, which is clearly the largest, most vile scam in U.S. history -- unless, of course, you consider what Fedzilla has done and continues to do with impunity. Fedzilla is using hundreds of billions -- possibly more than a trillion-- of our tax dollars against our wishes to prop up private industries due to the financial meltdown caused by Fedzilla as a direct result of its willful lack of fiduciary oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Big Brother is a felon. The shady, negligent and, in my opinion, criminal behavior by the...

Oh, the sheer irony of Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Nancy Pelosi complaining that the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) lacks transparency. These three Democratic congressional leaders were among the most vocal in seconding President Bush¹s warning last fall that economic catastrophe was right around the corner if the administration¹s $700 billion TARP proposal wasn¹t adopted as soon as possible. And Frank, Dodd and Pelosi were among those cheering loudest when Congress approved TARP over conservative objections that the bill handed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson $700 billion to spend as he pleased, with barely a whiff of transparency or...

Dodd, NAACP meet on housingTuesday, January 6, 2009 6:01 AM EST By Elizabeth Benton, Register Staff HARTFORD — Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., met with state NAACP members Monday on the housing crisis, where he assured those in attendance he would seek greater “bottom-up” assistance. Citing statistics showing African-Americans were targeted for subprime loans and were significantly more likely to enter into subprime loans, NAACP state conference President Scot X. Esdaile asked that lenders not be permitted to receive federal bailout funds until ending discriminatory lending practices. “My major concern is the ‘bottom-up.’ Main Street instead of Wall Street,” he...

With the opening of the 111th Congress yesterday, all of Washington is tingling with the allure of a fresh start. Not so fast. We've got some leftover business from the 110th Congress -- namely, Chris Dodd's July 2008 promise to release the details of his sweetheart loans from Countrywide Financial. The Connecticut Senator got favored treatment from the subprime mortgage purveyor, even as he was a power broker on the Banking Committee that regulates the industry. When the news broke, the Senator first denied that he sought or expected preferential treatment. He later admitted that he knew he was considered...

An Illinois court will eventually decide if Governor Rod Blagojevich is guilty of corruption. But on at least one issue he is more law-abiding than Majority Leader Harry Reid and fellow Democrats: the seating of Roland Burris to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate. Mr. Blagojevich appointed Mr. Burris to represent Illinois on Tuesday, ahead of the official start of the 111th Congress next week. This was certainly an act of brash defiance given that nearly everyone had warned the Governor not to do so after he was heard on tape contemplating the sale of the seat for personal...

Humorous (yet frightening) depiction of a nationalized U.S. car manufacturer. Pics after the jump......

Isn't it time that U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd came clean and released documents on two mortgages hew received from Countrywide Financial Corp. that has already sparked a Senate ethics inquiry? Following a meeting in Westport on Monday with Fairfield County labor leaders, Connecticut's senior senator once again hedged on saying when he would release the documents. Dodd continues to say the information will be forthcoming but he refuses to say when. Well, it's been five month since the disclosure that Dodd and another senator may have received preferential treatment in 2003 on mortgages from Countrywide Financial, which was later...

My younger sister has often complained to me that, during their working careers, she and her husband had difficulty making ends meet, financially. In response, I’ve tried to convince her that those who have a little money… or even a lot of money… have a far more difficult problem: i.e., holding onto what they have. No man has done more to prove my point than Bernard Madoff, the head of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, a Wall Street investment advisor admired and trusted by some of America’s wealthiest individuals and foundations. No man has done more to destroy the...

As the federal government keeps promising to come up with $14 billion or so to help the domestic auto industry keep one foot out of the grave, talk has swirled that there would have to be changes at the top. A federal "car czar" is on tap to sweat the details, like which people and products stay and which go, so the CEOs have been in the crosshairs – with the bull's eye squarely on General Motors' Rick Wagoner. Wagoner has headed what's soon to be the world's No. 2 automaker since 2000, closing down Oldsmobile, pumping up SUV sales...

In 2008, more than 2 million Americans have lost their jobs because of the recession triggered by the Chris Dodd Bear Market. Since July, the economy has contracted at a rate not seen since 1991. Thank you, Congress, for wrecking the economy. The federal budget deficit for fiscal 2008 was $438 billion; for 2009, it is likely to come in north of $1 trillion. In 2008, the federal debt, not including unfunded entitlement liabilities, surpassed $10 trillion for the first time, and is fast approaching $11 trillion. The federal debt increases by $3.65 billion a day. Thank you, Congress, for...

With the 2006-08 election season quickly receding, it's time to take stock on how Chris Dodd did. To recap: While the housing and lending industries, overseen by the Banking Committee he chairs, were crumbling, Sen. Countrywide took 2007 off to run for the Democratic presidential nomination, eventually moving to Iowa to be closer to the voters he really cared about. Hey, with nearly $17 million in campaign dough, with his Senate pay and expense checks still coming in, and with all the money he'd saved on his mortgages, he could afford it. The more than $16 million spent bought him...

Mr. Subprime himself proclaims to the automaker that it's time for new leadership. His recent claim to national fame — or is that infamy? — is related to his involvement in the subprime mortgage meltdown. As the head of the Senate Banking Committee, Dodd was one of the stooges involved in overseeing what was going on over at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. His partner in crime was his House counterpart, Barney Frank. So while Dodd is busy preaching about how GM needs an “out with the old, in with the new” restructuring policy, he conveniently ignores his own questionable...

Democrats, including president-elect Barack Obama and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, received more money in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other members of Congress. You couldn't tell that from an Associated Press article published Sunday which completely blamed Republicans for the lack of regulation and oversight of Freddie Mac. In fact, when you add it all up, Pete Yost's "AP IMPACT: How Freddie Mac Halted Regulatory Drive" is more like a blog posting at a Netroots website than something that should come from the nation's leading wire service (h/t NBer Dana Brown): Internal Freddie...

U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd called on a top auto executive to resign in exchange for bailout money from the federal government. Dodd said General Motors' chief executive officer Rick Wagoner -- who has been with GM since 1977 -- should be replaced if the faltering auto company is to receive any money from the government. "I think he has to move on," the Democratic senator said of Wagoner during an interview Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "If you are really going to restructure this, you've got to bring in a new team to do this," he...

<p>They hide in plain sight, and no one will police them for reasons that speak to corruption that has insinuated itself deep into the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The Bush Justice Department won't touch them, and it's not just because that entity will be changing the guard in less than two months.</p>

It's only the biggest financial scandal in the nation's history