Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Rosa DeLauro introduced a package of bills Tuesday in response to President Barack Obama's call for a new national focus on community service. The two Connecticut lawmakers, who often work closely with nonprofits and service groups, announced four bills that open up national service opportunities to a wide range of age groups — from children to people who are at or near retirement age. "Having the president on your side is not a bad thing," Dodd quipped, as he talked about the measures. "He stands with us."

President Obama will pledge Tuesday night that the nation "will rebuild, we will recover," as he delivers an address to a joint session of Congress and with a nervous nation watching at home. "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Mr. Obama will say, according to excerpts of his remarks. In lofty language, Mr. Obama is expected to promise a new path forward...

Looks like those sweetheart mortgages Chris Dodd snagged from Countrywide as a “Friend of Angelo,” its CEO, aren’t the only sugar-coated real estate deals from which the senior Connecticut senator has benefitted. The intrepid Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant, who has been dogging Dodd’s Countrywide dealings, has now turned up an Irish real estate deal sweeter than Bailey’ Cream–but with the whiff of a week-old flounder. I’d encourage folks to read Rennie’s entire story in the Courant. Here’s the Cliff Notes version: * Dodd is great friends with New York high-roller Edward R. Downe, Jr. * Downe gets convicted...

Ireland does not easily give up its secrets. That may have been one attraction it held for Sen. Christopher Dodd in 1994 when he became an owner of a refuge on nearly 10 acres on the Irish west coast. The murky tale includes a felonious inside trader, a Kansas City businessman, a presidential pardon and what appears to be a financial bonanza to Dodd during the Irish property boom. The saga of Dodd's lucrative Irish odyssey reveals that his two 2003 sweetheart loans from subprime mortgage titan Countrywide Financial were not the first time he enjoyed a financial advantage from...

From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us. What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the market's "greed." That makes great moral melodrama, but it turns the facts upside down. It was precisely government intervention that turned a thriving industry into a basket case. An economist specializing in financial markets gave a glimpse of the history of housing markets when he said: "Lending money to American homebuyers had been one of the least...

Connecticut's senior senator, Chris Dodd (D), is seen as being politically vulnerable right now and it looks like the Republicans are lining up for the opportunity to give him a run. ... "They don't believe his explanation when he tried to explain how he got two sweetheart mortgage deals with Countrywide," [GOP Chairman] Healy said. And just yesterday Dodd had to announce he was giving $27,500 to charity because that's the amount accused financial scammer Allen Stanford and his employees gave to Dodd's campaigns.

Vice President Joe Biden was expected to be Washington's loose cannon in chief, but his old Senate buddy Christopher Dodd of Connecticut is proving to be the master of disaster. Dodd flapped his gums in a television interview yesterday and promptly sent the stock markets into a tailspin, further battering America's bruised investors. Thanks, pal. It was downright dumb for the powerful chairman of the Senate Banking Committee to loosely throw around the concept of nationalizing U.S. banks, even for a brief period of time. Said Dodd in a Bloomberg TV appearance: "I don't welcome that at all, but I...

We have all been had. It seems that so many people I have talked to don't understand the enormity of what has been done, and what congress is trying to do to us now, that I decided to sit down and write it all out. How did we get here? 1) in 1977 the Community Reinvestment bill passes a democrat Congress and is signed by Jimmah Caaaaartar. This opened federal dollars to organizations like ACORN. 2) ACORN is the brainchild of a couple of very evil people named Cloward and his wife Piven. They stated that the best way to...

Mortgage deal may hurt Dodd in 2010By JOSH KRAUSHAAR | 2/17/09 4:38 AM EST Is Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) really in trouble? **SNIP** A 56 percent majority of Connecticut voters said they were less likely to vote for him because of the mortgage controversy. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they were not satisfied with Dodd's explanation of allegations that he received preferential mortgage treatment. “Sen. Dodd is vulnerable. His approval has sunk to a new low. More voters disapprove than approve of the job he is doing for the first time in 15 years of polling,” said Quinnipiac Poll Director...

I have decided to start a thread focusing on edible weeds. Many of the common plants we see everyday are edible, and while most are not hugely palatable or nutritious, a few are truly very good. If you would like to post a recipe, please post recipes related to these plants only. As always, an extreme amount of caution is advised. It's probably true that 90 percent or so of plants are actually edible, there is a small percentage that if you eat them, you WON'T have to worry about eating again! Oleander comes to mind, it would take less...

Just about everything the banking, financial and automotive industries touched in 2008 turned to dust, but they did get a quite handsome return — 267,208 percent — on one investment: politicians, including Sen. Christopher Dodd and Rep. Christopher Murphy. The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political greasings at opensecrets.org, says the $114.2 million those industries devoted to lobbying in 2008 and to campaign donations in the recently ended election cycle netted them $305.2 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, with more on the way. The center said the companies that donated the most got the most, and...

HARTFORD — New Quinnipiac University polls show a growing distrust of Sen. Christopher J. Dodd but soaring popularity for Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The poll reported that 54 percent of state voters aren't satisfied with Dodd's explanation of sweetheart loans he got from a failed mortgage lender. Worse, 51 percent of voters aren't inclined to vote to re-elect Dodd should the Democratic senator choose to run next year. "The numbers are bad news for Senator Dodd. He is in real trouble. Clearly, he is vulnerable," said Douglas Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University poll. Republicans in Connecticut and Washington, D.C....

Connecticut voters split 41 - 42 percent on whether they think Sen. Christopher Dodd is honest and trustworthy and disapprove 48 - 41 percent of the job he is doing, his first negative approval rating in a poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. ... Sen. Dodd A total of 42 percent of voters say they "definitely" or "probably" will vote to reelect Sen. Dodd in 2010, while 51 percent say the "probably won't" or "definitely won't" vote for him. By a 54 - 24 percent margin, Connecticut voters say they are not satisfied with Sen. Dodd's explanation of allegations...

Gov. M. Jodi Rell, halfway through her term, would defeat all Democratic challengers by at least 21 percent, while U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd has sunk to new low in public approval, according to the latest Quinnipiac University Poll. The poll, a recent survey of more than 1,600 voters released Tuesday morning, found that a week after her warnings of major financial problems facing the state, Rell has a 75-percent approval rating and would beat any likely Democratic challengers in 2010 by 21 to 40 points. In what could be very bad news for Democratic challengers to Rell -including James...

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd went one contrivance too far last week at his carefully choreographed press event to explain his mortgage deals with Countrywide Financial. Dodd has engaged in so many contradictions in trying to manage the gathering storm that he probably did not recognize his stunning blunder. At his Monday event, Dodd wouldn't let reporters have copies of the selected documents he let them glimpse. Instead, Dodd released a report from a Chicago firm hired with campaign funds to review his mortgage transactions. The report is carefully constructed to vindicate the Dodds and even make them appear to have...

Stunning Blunder Just Another Strand In Web Of Explanations. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd went one contrivance too far last week at his carefully choreographed press event to explain his mortgage deals with Countrywide Financial. Dodd has engaged in so many contradictions in trying to manage the gathering storm that he probably did not recognize his stunning blunder. At his Monday event, Dodd wouldn't let reporters have copies of the selected documents he let them glimpse. Instead, Dodd released a report from a Chicago firm hired with campaign funds to review his mortgage transactions. The report is carefully constructed to vindicate...

Just in time for the Oscar’s, Chris Dodd makes his bid for Best Actor in a Corrupt Role . . . On this weekend’s Journal Editorial Report on FNC, host Paul Gigot interviewed Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant, who has been closely following the story of the sweetheart deal Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, received from Countrywide Financial under the “Friends of Angelo” program, a reference to Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. The segment opened with a clip of Dodd speaking with reporters at a recent meeting at which he made available a carefully selected set of papers...

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has finally, sort of, kind of, ended 193 days of stonewalling about his sweetheart loans from former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. At least he did if you were a fast reader and were one of the few reporters he invited to his Hartford office yesterday to review -- but not copy or take -- more than 100 pages of documents related to his 2003 mortgage financings through Countrywide's "Friends of Angelo" program. These are the files that Mr. Dodd pledged to make public after the news broke last summer that the Chairman of the Senate Banking...

It was six moths ago when Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd admitted to America that he had the IQ of a slug (either that or he thinks that his constituents were stupid). It had been disclosed that the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Received TWO VIP Loans from Sub-Prime Lender Countrywide Inc. The Loans were at favorable interest rates. THE CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE, Chris Dodd, said he didn't realize that VIP treatment meant favorable rates. COME Freaking ON. He is CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE, we were really to believe that he has no Idea of...

URBANA, Md. (AP) - The Justice Department says it foiled a plot by a fired Fannie Mae contract worker in Maryland to destroy all the data on the mortgage giant's 4,000 computer servers nationwide. The U.S. Attorney's Office says 35-year-old Rajendrasinh Makwana, of Glen Allen, Va., is scheduled for arraignment Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on one count of computer intrusion. U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein says Makwana was fired Oct. 24. Rosenstein says that on that day, Makwana programmed a computer with a malicious code that was set to spread throughout the Fannie Mae network and destroy all...