Congressman Barney Frank's Honorable, Tough Stand Against GOP Propaganda

Good Morning Papamoka Bloggers - I've been blogging a lot about the causes of the credit crisis, and although I hate to beat the proverbial dead horse, I simply have to post another article about how the Republicans are using race to explain away their own mistakes related to predatory lending and the credit crisis.

One of my favorite Congressman, Barney Frank, the man who recently suffered the obnoxious slings and arrows of that Fox "News" moron, Bill O'Reilly, supported my assertions yesterday that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that is racially motivated.

According to the AP's Glen Johnson reporting from Boston yesterday, the Massachusetts Democrat and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is "appealing to its base by blaming the country's mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act."

He said the blame "is misplaced, because those loans are issued by regulated institutions, while far more foreclosures were triggered by high-cost loans made by unregulated entities." As my regular bloggers know that is a point that I've been banging away at for over a month now.

The Republicans refuse to acknowledge that regulatory protections were in place to insure against fraud and credit problems. They act like the Community Reinvestment Act and other legislation left lenders unprotected and vulnerable like sheep ready for a slaughter. To anybody who has read the legislation and the accompanying regulations (see my earlier posts) the assertions are wrong - or lies if you will.

Do you Republicans even listen to yourselves? The whole idea is crazy. It was caused primarily by a lack of oversight by the Bush Administration over the past eight years. Other causes involved Republican-led deregulation signed by Clinton in 1999 (he was wrong too), a housing bubble (caused by the lack of oversight and subsequent, over-confident market forces), and ultimate mismanagement and greed.

After a lot of homework, including a review of recent congressional testimonies, I would say the causes are pretty much in that order. The poor people who took the loans are the least guilty, unless they lied - also the fault of the predatory lenders in my opinion. Aren't there ways to find out if people are lying?

Frank said Republicans controlled Congress for 12 years and passed no regulation, while Democrats passed a Bush administration Fannie and Freddie regulation package since gaining control of the House and Senate in January 1997. Frank is rightly accusing the Republicans of race baiting their constituents. "They get to take things out on poor people," Frank said at a mortgage foreclosure symposium in Boston. "Let's be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn't hurt them either, from their standpoint. This is an effort, I believe, to appeal to a kind of anger in people."

Frank dismissed charges the Democrats failed on their own or blocked Republican efforts to rein in the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I agree with him. I researched and discovered that both parties attempted Fannie and Freddie reform legislation from their own party perspectives, and both failed over the years due to a lack of compromise. Much of it was caused by the Bush Administration and its demands for massive structural changes designed to help Wall Street, and less industry regulation that Democrats felt threatened a system that has worked well for decades. Despite the congressional conflict, the crisis still grew out of a lack of Bush oversight.

House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called Frank's remarks "a lame, desperate attempt to divert Americans' attention away from the Democratic party's obstruction of reforms that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and helped our nation avoid this economic crisis."

Mr. Boehner, the only lame and desperate things here are you and your party. You guys are willing to lie, cheat and steal to get your way. You are lying to the American people about the cause of this crisis, and you are attacking an honest man like Barney Frank to beat him in November and back up your absurd, deceitful, conspiracy theory that poor people brought down Wall Street.

Barney Frank did not cause this crisis. More than twelve horrible years of Republican "leadership" caused this crisis. The same leadership that brought us war, tragedy, and corruption on a massive scale. It is time the Republicans stop blaming others for what they caused, and take responsibility for their failures.

Rovian tactics like "muddying the waters" to make everybody look bad in this situation will not work. It was Bush and the Republicans. I hope you take the time to learn what I've learned, and vote them out of power in November.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's West Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

John McCain, Rick Davis, Freddie Mac Connections

Why didn’t I get the memo that the Three Stooges had reunited again? Apparently, the new version of the Stooges is all about the money trail that has lead this nation down the road to a very expensive bailout. What a freakin’ knee slapper that is! Then again maybe this isn't so funny, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has this informative interview on the facts behind this McCain/Davis scandal...

Video Link



It seems that Rick Davis, the campaign manager for John McCain has some skeletons in his closet over at Freddie Mac. Follow the money and you find the source of the problem. Over at the New York Times they have let the horse out of the barn on Freddie Mac still paying Rick Davis (Lobbyist) former firm $15,000 per month for doing… Nothing?

McCain Aide’s Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac

By JACKIE CALMES and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: September 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than to speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of his close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

-SNIP-

From 2000 to the end of 2005, Mr. Davis received nearly $2 million as president of the coalition, the Homeownership Alliance, which the companies created to help them oppose new regulations and protect their status as federally chartered companies with implicit government backing. That status let them borrow cheaply, helping to fuel rapid growth but also their increased purchases of the risky mortgage securities that proved to be their downfall. - New York Times

Obviously the McCain campaign is going to deny these accusations and rightfully so. If Davis goes down then so does McCain. So what do they do from here? Let’s play “Where’s Waldo?” Davis is ducking out of campaign appearances and scheduled events for the time being. I wonder why? Over at the Chicago Sun Times they have the starting point to not place your guess…

WASHINGTON--John McCain campaign manager Rick Davis--under the spotlight because of his work for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--is skipping a Wednesday lunch with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

On Tuesday, word came that McCain political director Mike DuHaime will substitute for Davis because he is "heading out on the trail" today. - Chicago Sun Times

It’s beginning to look more and more like the McCain for President campaign has a self destruct button. First they trot out the mother of all liars Sarah Palin with her bridge to nowhere and endless “Thanks, but no thanks” stump speech, now they have Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, dodging the press over his connections to Freddie Mac?

One of the things in Presidential politics is the association of guilt even if it isn’t true. George Bush and Karl Rove perfected it in 2000 and 2004! Rick Davis may not have worked for his lobbying firm for a couple of years but he still receives dividends from the performance of that firm. So yes, he does have financial gains from the Freddie Mac contract.

One of the bigger questions in this whole mess is the fact that Freddie Mac blindly paid Davis former firm $15,000 per month for access to John McCain as a candidate for President because of Davis. If $15, 000 per month is the going rate to buy a candidate for President then I’m sure that we are in fact in an economic depression. I’m thinking that President Bush and V.P. Cheney’s lobbyist were paid at a much higher rate per month. No bid contracts for Iraq just don’t miraculously appear on just one certain companies doorstep for nothing! Frankly, maybe we need to do a bailout for lobbyist too! Poor bastards…

Papamoka

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