Barney Frank: Playing the Race Card

Here we go (rolling eyes).

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), employing TYPICAL Liberal politics, stated "that Republican criticism of Democrats over the nation's housing crisis is a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated."

Typical, when presented with facts, this is what the Democrats do. They play the race card. Barry Obama isn't qualified? That's a RACIST attack!! The Democrats forced Affirmative Action down our throats through essentially coercion of financial institutions to lend to people with shady histories, no or low incomes, etc? That's a RACIST attack!!!

No, Barney; that's not a RACIST attack, that is a FACT instead. We taxpayers are suffering because you and your liberal minions, since the inception of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, have, under the threat of litigation, forced financial institutions to completely disregard all common sense and lending acumen, in order to put minorities into houses.

To compound the problem, you and your aforementioned liberal minions profited handsomely from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac campaign contributions.

Furthermore, Republicans such as George W. Bush and John McCain have issued warnings for year that, due to poor accounting practices, the above mortgage institutions faced financial peril. The Morning Bell states the following:

"(C)onservatives have been critical of how Fannie, and Freddie Mac, have leveraged their government-sponsored advantages (including exemptions from state and federal taxes, lower capital requirements, and the ability to borrow at rates well below those paid by private companies), to create a co-monopoly in the housing finance sector. When Fannie’s accounting scandal came to light in 2004, conservatives pushed hard for reforms to phase out Fannie and Freddie."

USA Today also adds that Conservatives should be furious that the Democrats, who essentially caused this mess, are getting off untarnished, no thanks to the corrupt liberal Mainstream Media:

"My bottom line: The McCain campaign is underestimating how absolutely furious conservatives are that free markets, and by extension Reaganomics and the last 25 years of American economic policy, are getting the blame for the housing and credit crisis. A real morale killer, they tell me. Over and over. Every day."

John McCain needs to remind the American public of that fact during tonight's debate.

The Economy and the Subprime Mess: "Root of our calamity"

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer stated it appropriately when discussing just how the subprime housing mess contributed the current financial CRISIS.

"For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- who in turn pressured banks and other lenders -- to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity."

Naturally, the Left is blaming the greed of Wall Street. Of course, they played a part; therein lies the problem with Capitalism. But the roots of the housing mess were took hold decades ago, under Democratic leadership and emboldened by Leftist community groups. I made the point yesterday, the Democrats and the Left played as much of a role, IF NOT MORE, than anyone else.

Of course the Democrats are blaming this ENTIRE problem on Wall Street and predatory lenders. What an insane notion. Check out Michelle Malkin's article on the Left Wing Mortgage Counseling Racket. A plethora of mortgage counseling exists and DID exist when the subprime bullshit was going down.

Conservatives in the Senate (the few of them that are left) seem to have just rolled over and accepted at face value the liberal premise that the subprime mess was primarily created by a lack of education–as opposed to high-risk borrowers and lenders consciously making bad decisions and expecting now to be insulated from the consequences of their actions. From the way Harry Reid and company talk about the $100 million mortgage counseling provision, you would think helpless, hapless, vulnerable borrowers are being left adrift with no one to turn to for information.

Furthermore, Malkin adds the following:

As I’ve pointed out several times over the past year, mortgage counseling is a thriving racket that benefits far Left groups ranging from the AARP to ACORN to La Raza and Legal Aid. The Department of Housing and Urban Development funds hundreds, if not thousands, of these groups across the country. In October, HUD announced more than $44 million in new housing counseling grants to over 400 state and local efforts. The White House has increased funding for housing counseling by 150 percent since taking office in 2001.

And now we're on the verge of passing an extremely unpopular $700 billion bailout measure; thanks to unholy alliance with these same Democrats who created this mess and a misguided President George Bush. What does this do? Essentially it serves a dual purpose: 1.) it absolves a g-damn greedy Wall Street that acted in a reckless behavior, but 2.) it also erases culpability on the homeowner's end; they bought houses they couldn't afford with shady credit histories. Furthermore, it exonerates the Democrats who set in motion the events that created this travesty.

It's shameful. The Democrats are destroying this country. In addition to this subprime mess, which is somehow pawned off onto Republicans, their devotion to this ungodly Global Warming will bankrupt this country if allowed to continue unfettered. Couple that with their adherence to a dogma that kills babies, protects death row inmates, figurately and literally spits in the face of our military, while ramming progressive values down our throat and stifling free speech, thought, and religion, and we have a recipe for disaster.

And now, we the taxpayers, are paying for everyone else's indiscretions. Query a homeowner, a REAL homeowner; someone who saved for a down payment, pays their mortgage every month faithfully, and who did NOT buy a house that superceded their budget.

These people are demoralized. They did things the right way. Read Michelle Malkin's latest article; it sums up the situation perfectly.

Liberal Lies: The Housing Crisis

In this installment of "Liberal Lies," the Twin Cities Conservative examines the notion that the housing crisis was resultant of Wall Street, poor decisions from the Republicans, and was set in motion during the Bush Administration.

EHHHHH (buzzer sound)...wrong answer.

Now we're hearing, from self-righteous SOB's like Senator Chris Dodd (D-CO), that the housing crisis was preventable and occurred under President George Bush's watch.

EHHHHH (buzzer sound)...wrong answer

Syndicated Cal Thomas, in his article in today's online Townhall.com, states, "It was pressure from the Carter and Clinton administrations that forced Fannie and Freddie to grant more high-risk loans to people who otherwise would never qualify."

Furthermore, Thomas adds:

"Democrats would love to blame the Bush administration for a disaster they mostly helped to create. But, according to the White House, as early as April 2001, the administration warned that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was 'a potential problem," because 'financial trouble of a large (government-sponsored enterprise) could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting federally insured entities and economic activity.' As recently as June of this year, President Bush asked Congress to take the necessary measures to address growing foreclosures. 'We need to pass legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,' he said. In July, Congress passed reform legislation, but it was too late."

Further compounding the problem is Democratic presidential candidate Barry Soetoro/Dunham/Obama and his colleagues in the United States' role in helping create the subprime mess. It was Obama's role as a lawyer within the "left-of-center" Public Research Interest Group, which ultimately forced banks to provide loans to minorities under the threat of racism.

Ultimately, it was Obama and a Democratic Congress that created laws and regulations, which planted the seeds of the subprime housing industry. Columnist Jerry Bowyer states:

"Obama spent his pre-elected career working right in the middle of the complex of law firms and activist groups which use law and regulations to push banks into vastly increasing their lending to Subprime borrowers right in the middle of the golden age of the expansion of the Subprime industry. "

Finally, there was the role of community organizations and civil rights law firms that, according to columnist Bowyer, threatened to cry "racism" if banks did not lend to minorities:

"(T)here simply was no such thing as a developed Subprime mortgage industry until the US congress created it by ordering banks to issue loans to people who were not credit worthy. Community activist groups (such as the Public Interest Research Group and Acorn) and civil rights law firms (such as Miner, Barnhill & Galland) had make their living by accusing banks of racism when the banks hesitated to approve loan requests from minority citizens with poor credit scores.

These "champions of minority rights" worked diligently to pass the Community Reinvestment Act, a law which forces banks to provide home loans to minority neighborhoods, regardless of their credit history, risk factor, neighborhood location, crime, etc. Bowyer states the following:

"The Community Reinvestment Act was created as a result. Initially the act was used, not to get banks to lend to minority households, but to get them to cut checks to ‘community groups’. Left of center activist agencies, which had pushed for the act in the first place, used it as a shakedown tool. So long as the banks kept paying off to the activists, the activists would hold off on sending complaints to the bank regulators’ CRA files.

Eventually, under Clinton, the CRA was renewed and, not surprisingly, made more punitive. Banks were required to make Subprime mortgage loans now too, or else suffer a low CRA rating and be punished accordingly. The Fed played it’s part. The Home Mortgage Disclosure rules created an unfunded mandate for banks to track and publicly disclose the race and gender of it’s mortgage clients. Now the shakedown artists had an easy source of complaints and a club with which to beat the banks into submission. The bankers complied and the Subprime mortgagage market was born."

And now guess who gets to suffer? The taxpayers, as a mis-guided Bush Administration, and a completely "off-it's-rocker" Democratically-controlled Congress are looking to pass a $700 billion bailout bill that rewards Wall Street, banks, and CEO's for bad behavior, while eliminating culpability from Leftist community groups and elected officials, which essentially lobbied for regulations that created the subprime mess.

Liberal Lies: Barry Obama's work as a community activist

I came across an email forward, while slamming Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a hick and trophy wife, touted Democratic presidential candidate Barry Soetoro/Dunham/Obama's record as a community activist.

Yuck, I think I just threw up in my mouth. Here's an excerpt from the email, highlighting Obama's "work:"

• If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
• If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

Typical Leftist dreck...wouldn't you say? Need we mention the many shortcomings of Barry Soetoro/Dunham/Obama? Whether it's his "work" as a community activist and the pressure he placed on mortgage lenders to give money to at-risk potential home-buyers, or his ties to ACORN. Furthermore, how long did Obama work as a "community organizer?" A day? Two? (veiled sarcasm).

Noted author Michelle Malkin states, "Let me clarify something. Nobody is mocking community organizers in church basements and community centers across the country working to improve their neighbors’ lives. What deserves ridicule is the notion that Barack Obama’s brief stint as a South Side rabble-rouser for tax-subsidized, partisan non-profits qualifies as executive experience you can believe in."

Furthermore, she goes on to say, "What deserves derision is “community organizing” that relies of a community of homeless people and ex-cons to organize for the purpose of registering dead people and shaking down corporations and using the race card as a bludgeon."

What about Obama's extensive ties to ACORN? According to SperoNews:

Obama has had extensive experience as a community organizer. In the 80s, he was the lead organizer of the Developing Communities Project, a campaign funded by Chicago’s south-side Catholic churches and formed on the organizing principles of Saul Alinsky. He spent another four years building an organization in Roseland and the nearby Altgeld Gardens public housing complex.

ACORN is another community-organizing network with Alinskyian roots. Before going off to law school in the early 90s, Obama directed ACORN’s partner organization, Project Vote. Meeting with ACORN leaders in November, he reminded them of this, saying, “I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”
ACORN, an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, considers itself the nation’s largest community organization. Its Political Action Committee, ACORN Votes, announced its endorsement of Senator Obama’s run for the US presidency in February 2008.

Is that something to be proud of? Check this out, courtesy of Malkin:

ACORN Watch: 1,100 suspicious voter cards in NM

By Michelle Malkin • September 17, 2008 06:19 PM

The friends of Barack Obama.

ACORN Watch: The community organizing fraud continues

By Michelle Malkin • September 15, 2008 11:21 AM

Stealing elections.

ACORN Watch, Pt II: Obama hid $800,000 payment to ACORN through “Citizen Services, Inc.”

By Michelle Malkin • August 22, 2008 11:46 AM

Follow the money. Connect the dots.

ACORN Watch, Pt I of the day: More voter fraudsters in Milwaukee

By Michelle Malkin • August 22, 2008 10:49 AM

Fraud-a-palooza.

ACORN Watch: Voter fraud and mortgage scams on your dime

By Michelle Malkin • August 7, 2008 12:41 PM

Obama’s old friends.

ACORN Watch: New whistleblower affidavits

By Michelle Malkin • July 31, 2008 04:20 PM

Your tax dollars at work.

And what about his role in the subprime mortgage mess? Author Jerry Bowyer reports that "(Obama)" went to work for the New York branch of the Public Interest Research Group. PIRG is one of those left of center activist groups who, among other things, uses the legitimate concept of 'fair housing' to force banks into making bad loans. PIRG has actively lobbied for a stronger (yes, you guessed it) Community Reinvestment Act."

What's the Community Reinvestment Act? Bowyer responds that it is "a law which compels banks to make home loans in minority neighborhoods to people who were poor credit risks."

Yes, brilliant work as a "Community Organizer."

How much of this do you know? Answer: you don't. The corrupt liberal Mainstream Media has done its damnedest to cover up Obama's indiscretions, whether it's his, ahem, "work" as a community activist, or his ties to dirtbags like Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, or Bill Ayers.

They don't want you to know this. Instead, in thinly disguised attempts to reshape and distort the news, they want you to believe that this "community organizer" who while purporting to be a Washington Outsider and self-proclaimed change agent, is the "Chosen One" sent by the Almighty Himself to save this country (or "change" this country if keeping to the "Obamasiah" theme).