Fannie Freddie and liberal secrecy

Something that's faded from a lot of people's consciousness and never even made it to the consciousness of many, is the Democrats' dirty laundry in the monumental failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  It, as much as Obamacare should play a major role in the 2012 presidential election.  Thankfully, the Washington Examiner brings us a timely reminder as a result of some more secretive efforts of the Obama administration.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don't originate mortgages, but they end up owning most of them because they buy them and then resell them as securities, which are "guaranteed" by the government.

That guarantee is possible because Fannie and Freddie both began as "government-sponsored enterprises." Both were taken over by the federal government at the height of the Great Recession of 2008 after housing prices fell, millions of mortgages went into foreclosure, and home sales fell into a downward spiral that continues to this day. Since the takeover, taxpayers have shelled out in excess of $152 billion to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat. Just last month, Fannie Mae said it would need another $4.6 billion in federal aid after posting a fourth-quarter 2011 loss of more than $2.4 billion.

With those facts in mind, it is incredible to find the Obama administration claiming in federal court that Fannie and Freddie are exempt from the federal Freedom of Information Act because they aren't government agencies. That claim was made in response to an FOIA request filed last September by Judicial Watch, the conservative watchdog group, seeking documents from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie.

The secretiveness is the tip of the iceberg.  What the Democrats are being secretive about is the real story.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were being tooled as wealth-redistribution tools.  Arguably for the purposes of the poor a la the progressive agenda driven Community Reinvestment Act, but more directly for making administrative bureaucrats rich. 

Who knows what else has been going on at these former GSEs?  It's time to find out more.

Barney Frank - OUT!

I'd like to say not a moment too soon, but actually, this is several moments, several moves, too late;

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will announce Monday that he is not seeking reelection, ending a 32-year career in the House.

Frank, 71, is the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee and the architect, with former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), of the sweeping Wall Street regulatory reform law enacted in 2010...

His legislative legacy is likely to be the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that passed in 2010 in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown that sent the economy into a tailspin in 2008. Hailed by the Obama administration, the law has drawn sharp criticism in the Republican presidential nomination fight, and one leading contender, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), even suggested that Frank be jailed, along with Dodd, for their support of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the lead-up to the financial crisis.

A crisis of his making (in significant part), with a 'cure' of his making, is sure to drive more problems in the future.  Sure, the guy had a quick wit, but he does not deserve praise for his supposed brilliance.  He was part of the problem in the financial mess the country finds itself in now. 

Mortgage Forgiveness Horror

Ed Morrissey has a piece at Hot Air today about an Obama August surprise:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/08/05/is-obama-about-to-forgive-billions-in-mortgage-principal/

Rumors abound about how the government is going to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive mortgage principal of underwater mortgages to the tune of $800 billion. That is indeed a horror on so many levels I don't even know where to begin.

Tea Party Santelli redux

House Republican Leader John Boehner has an excellent post on gopleader.gov, about the latest Rick Santelli outburst. Rick Santelli, you might remember last year was the inspiration, or at least the spark for the Tea Party movement. On CNBC, Santelli unloaded Democrat Rep. Paul Kanjorski. It was a simple, irrefutable argument.

Whose Fault Was It? Exhibit E: Not Wall Street!

Whether you think Wall Street is the villain in the economic crisis of 2008-2009 or not, you need to know this, from the NRSC.

Democrats are cozy with Wall Street. But as a reminder, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at least complicit, far more to blame than Wall Street. Democrats don't want to get rid of Fannie and Freddie though - they control them after all. Even more so now. Don't let the Democrats distract you from the truth;

Don't let them blame Bush, Greenspan or Wall Street. They are at fault and are trying to distract you from that fact.

Whose Fault Was It? Exhibit B: Maxine Waters

There is no problem with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.



More to come.

Conservatives Beware - It's A Trick

I mentioned recently I've become a bit jaded and suspicious of viewing things for what they seem on the surface rather than discovering what really lies beneath. Such is the case with the seeming chaos on the left since the Brown win in the Massachusetts special election for the U.S. Senate.

While it's true that they could be thrown off balance by the 'surprise' win by the GOP. They could be in disarray and at each others' throats over the loss and over what to do next. It certainly seems that way.

Then again, it could be a crafty ploy. Okay, it's probably not. But when in history have you seen Keith Olbermann taken to task by Jon Stewart? Or Howard Dean by Chris Matthews? Or other examples, with such frequency? When did Nancy Pelosi start saying she hasn't got the votes? It's suspicious.

Maybe they've got their plans for next steps drawn up already. Surely they had a plan B for health care and are getting it ready to spring it on us? Alright, that does sound paranoid. But there is something to be said for conservatives staying engaged and ready. November is still over 9 months away. It's easy to become complacent and to end up caught off guard. Just ask the Democrats. The real lesson for conservatives to be taken from the fallout of the Massachusetts election is to keep the momentum going, and to keep the effort up. In football terms we just got a first down, but the end zone is still November.

Even if it isn't a trick, we needn't start fooling ourselves the way the liberal Democrats did. For that same reason, I'm not buying the fact that they haven't learned some sort of lesson from their defeat last Tuesday.

Just as the summer and fall of 2009 were the battle of health care, so too will the spring and summer of 2010 shift to a new battle ground. Be ready. The next big battle will be about jobs, and economic solutions.  It will last throughout 2010.  The Democrats' approach; populism. The White House has remembered there's a bigger villain than themselves in the public's eyes - the banks. Prepare to see them villified. It puts the GOP in a tough position. Obama is going to try very hard to be a populist and get the focus on the big bad banks instead of Democrat shortcomings. The GOP can fight it and look like they're defending the bad guys, or hop on board and let Obama suddenly look post-partisan and able to get things done by reaching across the aisle. Think of that win - we've learned, so now you can trust us now. You still can't trust Republicans. But, oh yeah, we can work with them.

How does the GOP counter that? By not joining and not fighting either. They've got to agree that there is a problem. They've got to say the real reason for the problem is not regulation or de-regulation, the problem is the type of rules that have governed the banks and more particularly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They've got to put forward, vocally, continuously and simply, their own positions and their own solutions, and make sure the focus stays on the root cause of the bad legislation. This is a problem caused by liberal policies. Those policies still need to be changed.

Freddie Mac Suicide

The CEO of Freddie Mac, David Kellerman, was discovered dead this morning from an apparent suicide.

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212224782.shtml

The reason for the suicide is not yet known.

Mr. Kellerman was acting CEO and had been at Freddie Mac for 16 years.

The Right's (better) Krugman

The conservative movement has a plethora of economists backing its point of view. We've got our better version of Keynes in Milton Friedman. We've got Adam Smith. But who do we have in the 2000's that is our answer to Paul Krugman (NY Times liberal economist and pundit)?

Well, there's Peter Wallison. Who, you might ask, is Peter Wallison? He's the guy in 1999 who predicted a Fannie Mae and mortgage market collapse.

He's this guy;



Why bring this up now? Because he is asserting (rightly so) that the direction on the current financial crisis with respect to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is 180 degrees wrong.

This cannot be repeated enough.

Watch these.



Remember them.



Understand them. Repeat them (like this).



Be sure people you know understand the implications.