On July 2, President Obama declared, “And finally, because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes. (Applause.) There will be no more tax-funded bailouts — period. (Applause.) If a large financial institution should ever fail, this reform gives us the ability to wind it down without endangering the broader economy. “
The occasion of his bold statement was the signing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.
So imagine our surprise when less than two weeks later Fannie Mae requested $1.5 billion more from the U.S. Treasury. This request came after the 12th quarterly loss by Fannie, and with this money Fannie’s take from the taxpayers’ wallet will grow to a whopping $86.1 billion for one company. Together with its twin Freddie Mac the bailout package is over $200 billion.
Fannie Mae, aka the Federal National Mortgage Association, was created in 1938 as a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) to bolster the housing market by increasing Americans’ access to cheap home loans during the last Great Depression. Freddie Mac, aka the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., was created in 1970 to end Fannie’s monopoly in the secondary mortgage market. Both are mandated by Congress to help increase home ownership.
The problem we have with this housing mandate is that not all Americans deserve, nor are they responsible enough, to go deep into debt to purchase a home.
Everyone understands that mortgage debt stands at the center of the ongoing financial crisis. Responsible analysis concludes that too much credit was extended to too many un-creditworthy buyers of homes. At the center of this debacle stand these government-sponsored private financial firms named Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Neither of these firms were “reformed” by the so-called Reform Act.
Fannie has long been a favorite tool of America’s political left. A revolving door has allowed politically connected White House and Congressional aides to spend time at Fannie becoming fabulously wealthy.
The examples of this revolving door are many, but the most famous and wealthiest is Obama campaign adviser Franklin Raines. Raines served on both the Carter and Clinton White House staffs before becoming Chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae. In the Fannie job this former bureaucrat earned over $100 million.
Raines was eventually pushed out of Fannie in an accounting scandal. He was accused by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulator of Fannie Mae, of manipulating the firm’s accounting so that he and other senior executives could pocket ever-larger bonuses.
While at Fannie, Raines began a program in 1999 to encourage bank loans to individuals with low incomes. He also downgraded credit requirements on loans that Fannie Mae purchased from banks. Raines claimed the program would allow borrowers who were “a notch below what our current underwriting has required” to get home loans. The move was praise by liberals because they believed it would increase the number of minority and low-income home owners. We now know the program is central to the ongoing mortgage defaults still unfolding at Fannie.
So the foreclosure crisis limps on with no end in sight.
To understand Obama’s failure at financial reform, you only have to analyze his rhetoric. At the same July 21 ceremony he boldly proclaimed about the bill, “It demands accountability and responsibility from everyone.” Problem is, on its face this statement is a bold faced lie. Fannie and Freddie have been neither fixed nor reformed and both are bleeding the taxpayers daily.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will soon be facing a public-relations nightmare in his bid for re-election: a TV ad campaign produced by the same strategist whose "Willie Horton" commercial spoiled Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential hopes.
Floyd Brown, author and president of the Western Center for Journalism, created the infamous "Willie Horton" commercial accusing then-Massachusetts Gov. Dukakis of being soft on crime. The ad, which focused on convicted murderer William Horton, who was granted a weekend furlough under Dukakis and who used his freedom to flee, rape and murder, sent the Dukakis campaign flailing to the defensive and is credited with contributing to the candidate’s loss to then-Vice President George Bush.
Now a pair of political-action committees have hired Brown to create a new series of independent-expenditure advertisements that allegedly expose Reid’s record of political corruption and ties to Arab money.
Specifically, the commercial responds to an ad launched last fall that included the CEO of the MGM Mirage casino in Las Vegas, James Murren, praising Reid for calling banks and pressuring them to finance the casino’s failing $8.5 billion construction project called City Center. Murren claims Reid’s efforts saved over 12,000 Nevada jobs.
Longtime Republican political activist Jim Lacy of Dana Point has teamed up again with Floyd Brown, author of the 1988 Willie Horton ad that helped bring down Michael Dukakis. This time they want to try to bring down President Barack Obama. And they’ve got an Impeach Obama Web site to prove it.
“Enough is enough. We’re calling for the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama. And if you agree you can join us right now,’’ begins the message on the site.
Lacy was one of six people candidate Obama listed on his “Behind the Smears” page, during the presidential campaign. These were people who the Obama campaign said played fast and loose with the facts in an attempt to bring down his candidacy. I’ve asked the White House is they have any reaction to Lacy’s latest effort. But the administration tends not to comment on such sites.
Lacy says he’s fully aware that there isn’t any chance now to get Obama impeached. But that doesn’t dissuade him.
“This guy has engaged in activities which have taken away people’s property rights under the first amendment, threatens people’s speech rights and has affected our national security,’’ Lacy said. An election lawyer and former general counsel for the Consumer Products Safety Council, Lacy is a former Dana Point councilman. He says he has the largest slate mail business in the state.
Lacy said he knows there’s no chance under this Democratic Congress that articles of impeachment would be brought against the president, the only way such an action could happen.
“But that doesn’t mean that the reasons don’t exist and there isn’t value in putting the information out,’’ he said. “To the extent that it exposes Obama it helps to undermine his political support.’’
A Lefty Blog Notices and comments on the Impeachment Campaign…
The movement has begun. Floyd Brown, naturally, is the ringleader. Right now they’re a little light on rationale:
Why are we calling for the Impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama?
Radio-personality Tammy Bruce may have said it best:
"… ultimately, it comes down to… the fact that he seems to have, it seems to me, some malevolence toward this country, which is unabated."
Oh… there are many reasons to call for the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama and there is more than just cause to call for his impeachment.
The site mainly continues in this vein. Reasons to impeach Obama? There are so many reasons! Oh, the reasons we have. We could give you so many reasons that you’d be bored to tears.
They get a bit more specific, but not much:
Are you terrified at Barack Obama’s campaign to change our country into a third-world nation?
Are you willing to sit back and watch Obama bulldoze our great nation?
Are you willing to let him construct a totalitarian regime… fascism, socialism, Obamaism… take your pick?
I like the conflation of socialism with fascism. (I’ve never been to Sweden but I assume it’s basically like Nazi Germany.) Jonah Goldberg’s book is clearly a massively influential text. Of course, I’d note that it’s a bit tautological to assert that "Obamaism" is a totalitarian ideology that justifies Obama’s impeachment. But I’m sure the details will be filled in over the next few years, as this notion inevitably moves closer to the GOP mainstream. Michelle Bachmann, Steve King, Jim DeMint, what say you?
EO Publisher Floyd Brown, was a part of the recent Supreme Court Case
A controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling today that loosened restrictions on corporate campaign spending and had President Barack Obama fuming in the other Washington has strong ties to this Washington.
In fact, the legal case’s connections get even far more local than that – leading to a home in University Place, where conservative political consultant and columnist Floyd G. Brown hailed the high court’s decision as a “huge, huge victory for free speech.”
Brown, a Washington native, founded the Washington D.C.-based conservative nonprofit, Citizens United, in 1988 and served as its president until 2000.
He also worked with the group in 2007 while it produced, “Hillary: The Movie,” an unflattering portrait of then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that was timed to appear during her presidential campaign. The film ultimately led to the legal case, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, that prompted Thursday’s 5-4 court ruling.
The decision, which declared limits on so-called independent expenditures by corporations violate First Amendment free-speech rights, essentially means more money can be spent on federal elections, including this year’s midterm congressional elections. It will free corporations and unions to spend from their own treasuries on ads and other advocacy efforts.
“This gives corporations the same rights that individuals have,” Brown told me during a telephone call this afternoon.
“I know there’s a lot of people, especially political insiders, who want to control free speech, because it frightens them,” he said. “They want to protect their turf and incumbency. But I think this is going to enhance politics by getting more people involved.”
By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown, Western Center for Journalism
“Christmas has always been a very special day for as long back as I can remember,” Ronald Reagan once reminisced, writing in a letter. “Maybe this was due to my mother and her joyous spirit about the day.”
Although President Reagan could have spent his White House Christmases with family at his beloved ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif., he instead stayed in Washington, D.C. This way, his sacrifice allowed Secret Service agents and other aides to spend Christmas at home with their families. He was a thoughtful person.
Reagan grew up in a desperately poor family. His father was a shoe sales clerk who had trouble keeping a job, partly because he was an alcoholic. “There were very few decorated trees in the years of my growing up, Reagan said when recalling his childhood. But never defeated, my mother would with ribbon and crepe paper decorate a table or create a cardboard fireplace out of a packing box. And she always remembered whose birthday it was and made sure we knew the meaning of Christmas.”
His mother Nelle was an optimistic Christian woman who always looked for the positive side in every situation. President Reagan explained, no matter how bad things were for their family, his mother was always finding someone worse off than them. Reagan’s most vivid early memory of his mother was of her taking a covered dish to a needy family. Nelle was always gladly helping others.
Perhaps those lean years are one reason why Ronald Reagan once said a particular Christmas gift was especially memorable for him, calling it “a gift truly in keeping with the spirit of the day. It became his favorite gift. His older brother, Neil, gave it to him after struggling to find a suitable gift for his brother. At the time, they both were middle-aged adults with successful careers.
Neil solved his dilemma by writing a letter. In the letter, Neil told his brother he had found a truly needy family with small children “who wouldn’t go to bed with dreams of Santa Claus in their head.” Ronald Reagan recounted how his brother Neil changed that and “became Santa himself, providing a Christmas from tree to turkey plus toys and gifts for all.” Included in Neil’s letter was a very detailed, blow-by-blow account, describing the “joy of the children and the grateful happiness of their mother.”
This act of charitable giving by Neil reads like the ending of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” thus becoming President Reagan’s most unforgettable Christmas gift. He called it “a gift that will never grow old,” as he enjoyed re-reading the letter and thinking about the family’s reaction to Neil’s generosity.
Helping and serving others gives true joy and happiness, not only to the recipient, but even more so to the giver. Maybe Neil’s gift was particularly touching to Reagan because he knew what it was like to go without. Today, there are still families out there who are in difficult circumstances, facing a bleak Christmas. A gift like Neil’s may be the perfect gift for you to give to that someone in your life who has everything. Your church or locally based charities such as the Salvation Army are aware of needy families. You could make a difference and receive special Christmas joy by giving to a family who has hit hard times. Then, write a letter similar to Neil’s describing the family’s reactions, and give it as a gift. This is the true spirit of Christmas.
While speaking to the nation on Christmas Eve 1984, President Reagan said families and friends across America will join together in caroling parties and Christmas Eve services. Together, he said imparting his usual optimism, we’ll renew that spirit of faith, peace, and giving which has always marked the character of our people.
At the end of his tale, Dickens writes, “it was always said of [Scrooge], that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May this be said of all of us. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
On July 2, President Obama declared, “And finally, because of this law, the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes. (Applause.) There will be no more tax-funded bailouts — period. (Applause.) If a large financial institution should ever fail, this reform gives us the ability to wind it down without endangering the broader economy. “
James Lacy is also the treasurer for ExposeObama
A Lefty Blog Notices and comments on the Impeachment Campaign…
Are you terrified at Barack Obama’s campaign to change our country into a third-world nation? 
EO Publisher Floyd Brown, was a part of the recent Supreme Court Case
