Free Republic

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

Video here.

Democrats are giving Republicans the hearing they’ve been demanding to dig into the failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it won’t happen until after the election. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) Monday announced that he will hold a hearing into the collapse of the mortgage giants on Nov. 20, and plans to call several of the firms’ ex-CEOs, including Fannie Mae's Franklin Raines. Republicans view the two companies as Democrats’ political Achilles heel amid a financial meltdown that has led to calls for more regulation of the financial sector. The GOP dubbed the companies...

So far we know that the meltdown of Frannie and Freddie, abetted by Wall Street greed, caused the larger financial panic. Yet, there is little outrage that a Franklin Raines or Jim Johnson gave money to oversight members of Congress, hid behind a mantle of political-correctness in boasting about home ownership for everyone, and then cooked the books and borrowed to the hilt to justify mega-bonuses for themselves and their friends. I don’t think a special prosecutor will ever look into the maze of conflict of interest problems of a Barney Frank, or the political associations of a Franklin Raines,...

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...

Worse than the AIG Spa Vacation (updated)Thomas Lifson October 09, 2008 The last few days we have been treated to hyperventilation over the outrage of AIG executives attending a lavish sales incentive meeting at a ritzy California spa. I hope that Henry Waxman and his committee will be evenhanded in exposing this outrage. But I bet they will ignore Raines. Franklin Raines, the Democrat who inflated Fannie Mae earnings in order to pay himself fabulous bonuses, earning $90 million dollars, is feeling none of the real estate market pain he helped to create for so many others. The Washingtonian reports:...

No sooner had the $805B bail-out bill passed the House than Pelosi went to the TV cameras and promised show trials under Henry Waxman to pin the blame for this mess (on Republicans). She then praised Barney Frank's courage and leadership in delivering the country from the evil of Republicans in general and Wall Street in particular. Denny Hoyer then spoke of how we must never let the greedy lenders destroy the economy and that he is going to make sure that never happens again. James Clyburn assured viewers that Congress will make sure that no one loses their home...

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-democrat-fingerprints-are-all-over-the-financial-crisis-949653.html

It was no surprise that my son plans to vote for Obama. He's been veering left throughout his college years. We had a rather heated discussion about Obama on the phone. I told him that Obama was a socialist. His response was "maybe a little socialism won't hurt". Here is my written response. Dear Son, When we discussed Barack Obama and I said he was a socialist, I remember that you responded that "maybe a little socialism won't hurt." We are now in the midst of an economic crisis of global proportions, the results of which will impact much of...

Alcee Hastings used to be a federal judge. Then he got impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Now he's a congressman from Florida. People have a right to vote for whomever they want, even one of the six federal judges in America ever to be removed by Congress. But with friends like Hastings making the case for him, Barack Obama doesn't need enemies. Participating in a panel discussion in Washington this week sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council (I don't even want to ask why they invited him — maybe everybody else was busy trying to...

Democrats Defend Fannie/Freddie from Regulation - 2004 Video Rep. Maxine Waters, 2004: "We’ve been through nearly a dozen hearings where frankly we were trying to fix something that wasn’t broke. Mr. Chairman we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and in particular at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL36nwCSYUM

Per AP, Freddie and Fannie are facing a Grand Jury as a U. S. Attorney's Investigation is underway. Folks, this is huge! It is now a SCANDAL, the repercussions of which are TEN to TWENTY times the impact of the Enron Scandal!!! We need to write to the editors of our newspapers and publicize this every way possible. Of course, we need to trace the money path through Dodd, Frank and company, directly to the annoited one. Get excited, this is great news!

[note: this article is from July 23, 2008] A $25 billion bailout of government-backed mortgage giant Fannie Mae is now planned. But Fannie Mae has such political power that its crooked managers will probably never be held accountable for their fraud in any way, unlike the Enron executives who went to jail. Instead, its lending authority will likely expand under federal mortgage bailout bills. Paul Gigot, a Wall Street Journal editor, describes the personal vilification he has received over the years after the Journal began warning, prophetically, that Fannie Mae was engaged in fraudulent accounting, and that the taxpayers might...

Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association and Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, own about half of America’s $12 trillion mortgage market. Even though Fannie Mae goes back to President Roosevelt’s New Deal, it is commonly known that the present focus of both Fannie and Freddie are “creations of the congressional Democrats (particularly the Congressional Black Caucus) and the Clinton White House, designed to make mortgages available to more people,” meaning minorities. Jesse Jackson, according to the National Legal and Policy Center, has had a cozy relationship with Fannie and Freddie since 1998, when he accused Freddie...

John McCain's campaign is under fire for his campaign manager's ties to Freddie Mac. Rick Davis's lobbying firm, it turns out, was still receiving monthly payments until very recently, despite previous assurances that the relationship had ended three years ago. Meanwhile, McCain is running television ads tying Sen. Barack Obama to Franklin Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who was forced out for misstating the company's earnings. Obama vigorously protests that Raines isn't really one of his advisers, though Raines had previously said that he advised the campaign. But McCain doesn't need to focus on Raines. Obama selected another Fannie...

Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson STILL advising Obama, Further this was reported by e-mail from Tom Daschle to Democrat insiders to see updates daily on political progress from the campaign, by Tom Daschel and Jim Johnson. Gibson also reported today that Franklin Raines was still advising Obama on housing! As you all well know that Jim Johnson was in charge of Fannie Mae with Franklin Raines. They also were paid very well with Johnson getting in excess of 20 million dollars and Franklin Raines getting 90 million dollars in executive pay.

This is probably an article that the New York Times wishes it didn't have in its archives because it reveals the true culprits behind the current Fannie Mae meltdown. You will find "uncomfortable" truths in this September 30, 1999 article by Steven A. Holmes starting with the title, "Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending," that you won't find in current editions of the New York Times (emphasis mine): In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase...

Fannie Mae CEOs Raines, Johnson got exemptions from standard requirements. Two Barack Obama advisers, Franklin Raines and James Johnson, received preferential home loans as industry favors, apparently in deference to their executive positions heading Fannie Mae. Raines and Johnson, as "friends of Angelo Mozilo," the chief executive of Countrywide Financial Corp. ...were funneled millions of dollars for personal home loans. Mozilo himself made exceptions from Countrywide policy to provide the two Fannie Mae CEO's "sweetheart deals." Countrywide was acquired by Bank of America in January in an emergency rescue ... Johnson earned $21 million in just his last year at...

Most important was corruption and mismanagement at the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac), which together controlled 90 percent of the secondary mortgage market. Fannie and Freddie went broke because they bought billions of dollars worth of subprime mortgages, on which borrowers defaulted when the housing bubble popped. Fannie bought most of its bad mortgages from Countrywide Financial, whose CEO, Angelo Mozilo, gave sweetheart loans to senior executives of Fannie Mae. Fannie and Freddie cooked their books so senior executives would be paid millions of dollars in bonuses to which they...

The McCain campaign is clearly exaggerating wildly in attempting to depict Raines as a close adviser to Obama on "housing and mortgage policy." If we are to believe Raines, he did have a couple of telephone conversations with someone in the Obama campaign. But that hardly makes him an adviser to the candidate himself -- and certainly not in the way depicted in the McCain video release.