During an impassioned debate on the House floor Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank characterized Republican opposition to the Pay for Performance Act as a manifestation of "a psychological disorder" and compared GOP lawmakers to "kids who have had a toy bear or a security blanket" taken away.
Ah, the dirty little secret is out. That $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill was in part simply a variation on congressional pork - except this time the recipients were banks with friends in high places.Thanks Banking Queen.
One of those powerful friends was Rep. Barney Frank (D-Newton), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. And one of the recipients of a $12 million infusion of federal cash was the troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston - a bank that had already been accused of “unsafe and unsound banking practices.” Its CEO, Kevin Cohee had also been criticized by regulators for “excessive” pay that included a Porsche.
Frank admits he included language in the TARP legislation specifically designed to bail out OneUnited. He also acknowledges contacting officials at the Treasury Department about the bank’s bailout application.
“I believe it would have been a very big mistake to put the only black bank (in Massachusetts) out of business,” Frank said. Besides, he insists, “It was a case of the federal government causing the problem.”
Causing the bad loans OneUnited made? Or would that go back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Frank so staunchly defended earlier on?
Frank has never failed to amaze us with his ability to defend the indefensible and to staunchly uphold the double standard. It’s his special talent.
Barney Frank lectures on charm. Come soft on the gay issue and Mr. Frank will turn on you like Andy Dick on a boyscout.
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) thinks that President-elect Obama picked same-sex marriage opponent Rick Warren to give the inauguration invocation because Obama "overestimates" his ability to unify people.Actually Barney, I think the clinical name for what you suffer from is "post co#k sucker depression".
"Oh, I believe that he overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences," said Frank, the first House member to come out of the closet voluntarily.
"But my one question is, I think he overestimates his ability to take people, particularly our colleagues on the right, and, sort of, charm them into being nice," Frank said. "I know he talks about being post-partisan. But I've worked, frankly, with Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, the current Republican leadership. The current Republican leadership in the House repudiated George Bush. I don't know why Mr. Obama thinks he's going to have them better than George Bush.
"And so, to be honest, when he talks about being post-partisan, having seen these people and knowing what they would do in that situation, I suffer from post-partisan depression," Frank said jokingly.
This guy is a disgusting and dangerous individual. He better be corrupt, because no self-respecting gay man is going to snuggle up to him unless he's kicking out large sums of cash.Frank yesterday dismissed McCain's words as "an appeal to prejudice" that he said reminded him of past Republican efforts to raise voter concerns about the prospect of congressmen Charles Rangel and John Conyers, who are black, becoming committee chairs.
"I'm flattered by this," said Frank, who is gay. "But I don't think I'm the single most important member of the House after Nancy Pelosi. There are also a lot of straight white men who are committee chairmen."
McCain's chief speechwriter, Mark Salter, shook his head when asked to respond. "We're bringing him up for his quotes," said Salter. "We're prejudiced against wasteful spenders and tax hikers."
Barack Obama likes to cite the fact that McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time. Can we assume then, that if Barney Frank wants to cut military spending by 25%, then so does Obama? After all, while I don't have the numbers, I'll bet Obama has voted with Frank at least 90% of the time. Come on McCain! Call this douchebag out!
And now we know the explanation for Barney Frank's actions:
Here was Barney Frank in 2003 saying that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis:
And here was Barney Frank last night acting indignant and refusing to accept any blame for the financial crisis:
And here is the possible explanation for his incompetence and malaise:
Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.Unfriggin' believable! We've been sold down the river because some "man" was trying to get in another man's pants? Strange. They "broke up" the same year Moses left Fannie Mae. I'm just sayin'.
So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.
"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard."
A top GOP House aide agreed.
"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."
Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.
"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover."
The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."
Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.
Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.
Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.
"I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," Clinton said recently.
Beatdowns of epic proprotions...
O'Reilly just hammers Barney Frank...Watch Frank the pole smoking lisper get his ass kicked...
Dick Morris works Alan Colmes like a sex slave
And to think, Americans are on the brink of giving the Democrats total power.
Posts
All Comments
