I Was So Very Wrong!

I have been patiently waiting for the Congressional Hearings or the criminal trials for ACORN to be announced since they have been publicly exposed giving advice on avoiding taxes, getting fraudulent loans for houses, and smuggling Salvadorian 13 year olds into the country for prostitution.

But instead, Maxine Waters proposed an amendment that gave 5 slots in the Consumer Financial Protection Agency to representatives of "consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, or representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgages." Which definition sounds a lot like 5 people from ACORN or one of its subsidiaries.

The amendment was adopted by Barney Frank's House Financial Services Committee.

To read the details go Mark Tapscott's article at The Washington Examiner.

When The Cat’s Away, The Mice Will Play

While the US media spent 12 days keening for Michael Jackson, our Congressional Clowns continued their headlong rush to pass additional damaging legislation.

The financially destructive Cap and Trade bill passed the House with provisions that prove the “green” movement is more about control of citizens than about the environment. Some of the items seldom mentioned are regulations that force bureaucrats to inspect your home in person before allowing you to obtain a building permit to remodel anything. Then they get to come again before you can put it on the market; if they decide anything is amiss, you have to correct it before it’s advertised.

Those freedom restrictions are in addition to increasing utility costs for every household and increasing costs on everything that’s manufactured in America and thus eliminating jobs in the process.

Not only was it passed without being read, the staffers had not even finished writing the bill before the final vote was taken.

The media didn’t mention those items because what little time they had left after covering Michael Jackson’s family, friends, influence, music, wealth, will, lawsuits, and needle marks was used to advertise the “need” for Democrat versions of health care reform. As frequently happens nowadays, competing bills by Republicans like Dr. Tom Coburn that promote natural market forces to effect savings in health care were deemed unworthy to be brought to public attention.

But, the coup de grâce was delivered by our dear friend, Barney Frank. He used the distractions in the news to introduce TARP for Main Street Act of 2009. As has become routine, the name of the bill does nothing to reveal its outcome. It’s anything but a bill for Main Street.

When Congress passed the TARP bill last fall, the law was written to force banks to pay dividends and loan payments to the general fund of the Treasury to reduce the public debt. Its supporters repeatedly reassured us that TARP was really an investment and we would eventually enjoy a profit.

But Barney’s fingers got itchy when a little bit of money began to dribble into the coffers the second week of June. So he introduced a bill to change the original intention of the TARP bill and instead use the money to fund some of his favorite causes. To wit:
1. Use a billion or so to fund a low-rental housing project that was previously mandated, but not funded. (Hasn’t fifty years of low rent housing proven to be ineffective in every city in the US?)
2. Give $1,500,000,000 to ACORN and other groups for the purpose of “neighborhood stabilization.” (That means that many neighborhoods inside the city are “stabilized” rather than allowed to "gentrify.”)
3. Allocate $2,000,000,000 to subsidize people who are delinquent on their mortgages. (In addition to the money that has already been allocated to allow dead beats to stay in their homes a few months longer.)
4. Hand over another $2,000,000,000 to "stabilize multifamily properties that are in default or foreclosure." (Assisting deadbeats with bigger bills.)

It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

Barney Frank VS The Truth

Two of my favorite writers team up in one article when Walter Williams reviews Thomas Sowell’s new book, The Housing Boom and Bust. The review and the book both explore the causes of the housing crisis we face today. Unlike Barney Frank’s bald face lie, the problem was not lack of regulation, but legislative interference with established and reasonable financial regulations. Unfortunately the US public seems to accept Frank's false history that shields recalcitrant legislators (especially Frank himself) and their follies from facing the consequences of their actions. Every citizen needs to read the review and the book. We will lose all of our freedoms if we leave the foxes in charge of the hen house, i.e., allow the current politicians to run our country without serious oversight on our part. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance against all enemies, domestic and foreign.

Beware of ACORN Supporters

Most Americans are truly upset that in spite of proven fraud and numerous indictments, ACORN continues to receive ever increasing clout and funding from the federal government. The American Spectator has a great article up explaining the $8,500,000,000 they will receive under current spending bills. Note that our dear Barney Frank recently lied about this figure on the Lou Dobbs show.

Note also that Glenn Beck has attacked ACORN and its many affiliations on his television show recently. If you go to his website, you can find a list of about 90 written articles, video clips, and audio segments about this group.

10 Items on The Barney Frank Rap Sheet

1. This week, instead of answering a student’s question at Harvard, Frank lashed out at a “right wing conspiracy” because he dared ask Rep. Frank if he had anything to do with the financial crisis.

2. When the financial crisis of 2008 first hit the news, Barney Frank self righteously proclaimed the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac meltdown was a result of 12 years of Republican rule when they refused to reform the two entities.

3. In 2003 when the Bush Administration asked for more oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Frank, ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, vehemently defend both institutions as being completely sound and in no need of investigation. He also insisted that if there were problems, the federal government had no obligation to bail them out.

4. During the nineties Barney Frank frequently pressed for fewer restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, a action now considered a primary cause of the collapse of the housing market. In fact, he blocked Republican attempts to exercise more control over the agencies’ policies.

5. During the nineties his live in partner was Herb Moses, a Fannie Mae executive who also pressed for fewer restrictions. But both Moses and Frank assured skeptical Republicans that there was no conflict of interest just because one partner happened to make laws that controlled the other partner’s place of employment.

6. In 1989 he was involved in a major scandal when it was discovered that his live-in partner was running a gay prostitution business from Frank’s home.

7. Although the House conducted an investigation of the “Call Boy” charges, Frank was merely reprimanded because he claimed to not know of the business. Fellow Democrats helped paint him as a victim who had merely tried to help another human being by giving him a place to live.

8. Interestingly enough, the media paid far less attention to this situation than to Mark Foley’s emails to former pages. Mark Foley was drummed out of office in disgrace. Barney Frank received a whopping 66% of the vote in his district during the next election.


9. He has voted against Partial Birth Abortion, against the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, and against the criminalization of transporting minors across state lines for abortions by non family members.

10. In 1987 he “outed” himself by voluntarily admitting to being a homosexual. He had first won his Congressional seat in 1980, running of the slogan, “Neatness Isn’t Everything.”

You need to judge all future Barney Frank actions in light of his past, especially when the mass media seems to have collective amnesia about anything that happened two weeks ago.