Barack Obama is marching around the country imperiously pointing his finger at George Bush and John McCain for the mortgage meltdown when he knows full well that those two repeatedly tried to fix the mess only to be stopped over and over again by his own actions along with his Democratic colleagues. This IS the Big Lie. The election may very well turn on this issue. People have lost their homes, the economy is on the brink of total collapse, and bad times bode well for an agent of change. That is, unless it gets out that the agent of change was in the hip pocket of the mortgage companies who kick started the economic landslide. This is precisely what is going on here. Obama et al were eagerly collecting big dollars from Fannie and Freddie in exchange for senatorial protection. Protection from the Bush Administration which was trying desperatly to reign in the mortgage practices of these companies.

While the media tells us that not voting for Obama is racist, our economy is falling around our heels. When the so-called journalists look up from His feet to notice, they only recite His mantra that it’s all Bush’s - and by extension, McCain’s fault. No fact checking, no looking up the congressional record for these hard-charging reporters. I am genuinely disturbed by what is going on in this election. Bias has always - and will always - exist, but it has NEVER been so brazen. Never has there been so little attempt at even the appearance of fairness. Imagine just for a moment that McCain had been recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and that he acted in the Senate to block new regulations on them. Imagine the outcry from the media. Imagine the investigations. There would be calls for him to step down and renounce his candidacy for goodness sake.

There are some out there doing their job - just don’t look for it on the networks or the major newspapers. The following is a good example of someone doing their job:

‘Crony’ Capitalism Is Root Cause Of Fannie And Freddie Troubles
By TERRY JONES
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, September 22, 2008 4:30 PM PT

In the past couple of weeks, as the financial crisis has intensified, a new talking point has emerged from the Democrats in Congress: This is all a “crisis of capitalism,” in socialist financier George Soros’ phrase, and a failure to regulate our markets sufficiently.

Well, those critics may be right — it is a crisis of capitalism. A crisis of politically driven crony capitalism, to be precise.

Indeed, Democrats have so effectively mastered crony capitalism as a governing strategy that they’ve convinced many in the media and the public that they had nothing whatsoever to do with our current financial woes.

Barack Obama has repeatedly blasted “Bush-McCain” economic policies as the cause, as if the two were joined at the hip.

Funny, because over the past 8 years, those who tried to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the trigger for today’s widespread global financial meltdown — were stymied repeatedly by congressional Democrats.

This wasn’t an accident. Though some key Republicans deserve blame as well, it was a concerted Democratic effort that made reform of Fannie and Freddie impossible.

The reason for this is simple: Fannie and Freddie became massive providers both of reliable votes among grateful low-income homeowners, and of massive giving to the Democratic Party by grateful investment bankers, both at the two government-sponsored enterprises and on Wall Street.

The result: A huge taxpayer rescue that at last estimate is approaching $700 billion but may go even higher.

It all started, innocently enough, in 1994 with President Clinton’s rewrite of the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act.

Ostensibly intended to help deserving minority families afford homes — a noble idea — it instead led to a reckless surge in mortgage lending that has pushed our financial system to the brink of chaos.

Subprime’s Mentors

Fannie and Freddie, the main vehicle for Clinton’s multicultural housing policy, drove the explosion of the subprime housing market by buying up literally hundreds of billions of dollars in substandard loans — funding loans that ordinarily wouldn’t have been made based on such time-honored notions as putting money down, having sufficient income, and maintaining a payment record indicating creditworthiness.

With all the old rules out the window, Fannie and Freddie gobbled up the market. Using extraordinary leverage, they eventually controlled 90% of the secondary market mortgages. Their total portfolio of loans topped $5.4 trillion — half of all U.S. mortgage lending. They borrowed $1.5 trillion from U.S. capital markets with — wink, wink — an “implicit” government guarantee of the debts.

This created the problem we are having today.

As we noted a week ago, subprime lending surged from around $35 billion in 1994 to nearly $1 trillion last year — for total growth of 2,757% as of last year.

No real market grows that fast for that long without being fixed.

And that’s just what Fannie and Freddie were — fixed. They became a government-run, privately owned home finance monopoly.

Fannie and Freddie became huge contributors to Congress, spending millions to influence votes. As we’ve noted here before, the bulk of the money went to Democrats.

Dollars To Dems

Meanwhile, Fannie and Freddie also became a kind of jobs program for out-of-work Democrats.

Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson, the CEOs under whom the worst excesses took place in the late 1990s to mid-2000s, were both high-placed Democratic operatives and advisers to presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Clinton administration official Jamie Gorelick also got taken care of by the Fannie-Freddie circle. So did top Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel, among others.

On the surface, this sounds innocent. Someone has to head the highly political Fannie and Freddie, right?

But this is why crony capitalism is so dangerous. Those in power at Fannie and Freddie, as the sirens began to wail about some of their more egregious practices, began to bully those who opposed them.

That included journalists, like the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot, and GOP congressmen, like Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, whom Fannie and Freddie actively lobbied against in his own district. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who tried to hold hearings on Fannie’s and Freddie’s questionable accounting practices in 2004, found himself stripped of responsibility for their oversight by House Speaker Dennis Hastert — a Republican.

Where, you ask, were the regulators?

Congress created a weak regulator to oversee Freddie and Fannie — the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight — which had to go hat in hand each year to Capitol Hill for its budget, unlike other major regulators.

With lax oversight, Fannie and Freddie had a green light to expand their operations at breakneck speed.

Fannie and Freddie had a reliable coterie of supporters in the Senate, especially among Democrats.

“We now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years,” wrote economist Kevin Hassett on Bloomberg.com this week.

Buying Friends In High Places

Over the span of his career, Obama ranks No. 2 in campaign donations from Fannie and Freddie, taking over $125,000. Dodd, head of the Senate Banking panel, is tops at $165,000. Clinton, ranked 12th, has collected $75,000.

Meanwhile, Freddie and Fannie opened what were euphemistically called “Partnership Offices” in the districts of key members of Congress to channel millions of dollars in funding and patronage to their supporters.

In the space of a little more than a decade, Fannie and Freddie spent close to $150 million on lobbying efforts. So pervasive were their efforts, they seemed unassailable, even during a Republican administration.

Yet, by 2004, the crony capitalism had gone too far. Even OFHEO issued a report essentially criticizing Fannie and Freddie for Enron-style accounting that let them boost profits in order to pay their politically well-connected executives hefty bonuses.

It emerged that Clinton aide Raines, who took Fannie Mae’s helm as CEO in 1999, took in nearly $100 million by the time he left in 2005. Others, including former Clinton Justice Department official Gorelick, took $75 million from the Fannie-Freddie piggy bank.

Even so, Fannie and Freddie were forced to restate their earnings by some $3.5 billion, due to the accounting shenanigans.

As we noted, those who tried to halt this frenzy of activity found themselves hit by a political buzz saw.

President Bush, reviled and criticized by Democrats, tried no fewer than 17 times, by White House count, to raise the issue of Fannie-Freddie reform. A bill cleared the Senate Banking panel in 2005, but stalled due to implacable opposition from Democrats and a critical core of GOP abettors. Rep. Barney Frank, who now runs the powerful House Financial Services Committee, helped spearhead that fight.

Now, with the taxpayer tab approaching $1 trillion or more, we’re learning the costs of crony capitalism.

In the coming days, an IBD series will look into this phenomenon in greater detail — how we got here, who’s responsible, and why nothing was done.

Why, for the love of God, aren’t the facts getting out there? In a week when we are on the verge of a total financial collapse; in an election cycle where we are dangerously close to electing a rank amatuer as President; in an era when genuine, principled leadership is needed above all else, why is it that misconceptions, inaccuracies, and outright lies are allowed to flourish? The White House should be screaming at the top of it’s collective lungs; the McCain team should be pounding the point nonstop; and conservatives nationwide should be challeging the media about the current financial crisis.

A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp Poll found that Americans blame the current financial crisis on the GOP. This serves as evidence that the PR arm of the Obama campaign (otherwise known as the national mainstream media) has been effective in painting the “blame-it-on-Replublicans” picture. Nevermind that the Democrats run BOTH houses of Congress. Nevermind that the White House, Alan Greenspan, and even John McCain warned of problems and tried to avert the crisis. No, what is important here is that Obama be elected and the facts be damned!

Well, I for one am tired of it. Here are just a few of the facts:

Perhaps most significantly was the attempt is 2003 by the Bush administration to create a new agency to regulate Fannie and Freddie. The proposal was shot down by Democrats.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Frank has been critical of the bailout package and quick to blame the administration for the crisis. It should be noted by every journalist covering the story that he (and his Democratic collegues), NOT the White House, is to blame for the current crisis. Why were the Democrats so reluctant to reform Freddie and Fannie you might ask? Perhaps we should ask Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Christopher Dodd, who collectively received almost $400,000 from the mortgage lenders. Most people would perceive that as buying protection. Most people would see that as prime 20/20 or 60 Minutes stories, but not when it might step on the Choosen One’s toes.

While Obama was clearly in the tank for Fannie and Freddie and, as such, complicit in the current dire state of our nation’s economy, John McCain actually was one of three cosponsors of S.190, A bill to address the regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises. This bill would have averted the current crisis. Where is the reporting on this! Where are the everpresent Fact Checkers on this one? The networks seem to have them all occupied in Alaska running down rediculous stories about just when and why a clearly abusive State Trooper was fired when they should be looking at the where our two PRESIDENTIAL nominees stood on the issue of the mortgage crisis which currently threatens to bring down our entire economy.

For the Love of God and Country - spread the word. STOP the lies. Tell anyone you can, write letters to the editor, respond to online articles, fight the prevailing fiction. Below are some additional sources:

How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis: Kevin Hassett

Commentary by Kevin Hassett

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story.

Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex.

But really, it isn’t. Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.

Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street’s efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves.

In the times that Fannie and Freddie couldn’t make the market, they became the market. Over the years, it added up to an enormous obligation. As of last June, Fannie alone owned or guaranteed more than $388 billion in high-risk mortgage investments. Their large presence created an environment within which even mortgage-backed securities assembled by others could find a ready home.

The problem was that the trillions of dollars in play were only low-risk investments if real estate prices continued to rise. Once they began to fall, the entire house of cards came down with them.

Turning Point

Take away Fannie and Freddie, or regulate them more wisely, and it’s hard to imagine how these highly liquid markets would ever have emerged. This whole mess would never have happened.

It is easy to identify the historical turning point that marked the beginning of the end.

Back in 2005, Fannie and Freddie were, after years of dominating Washington, on the ropes. They were enmeshed in accounting scandals that led to turnover at the top. At one telling moment in late 2004, captured in an article by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison, the Securities and Exchange Comiission’s chief accountant told disgraced Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines that Fannie’s position on the relevant accounting issue was not even “on the page” of allowable interpretations.

Then legislative momentum emerged for an attempt to create a “world-class regulator” that would oversee the pair more like banks, imposing strict requirements on their ability to take excessive risks. Politicians who previously had associated themselves proudly with the two accounting miscreants were less eager to be associated with them. The time was ripe.

Greenspan’s Warning

The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn’t be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

Different World

If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: “It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.”

Mounds of Materials

Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.

Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.

There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that’s worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He is an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Kevin Hassett at khassett@aei.org

Last Updated: September 22, 2008 00:04 EDT

 

 

Friday, September 19, 2008
Obama’s Love Affair with Fannie Mae
by George Dienhart

Oh, that wacky Obama. The mainstream media keeps propagating the story that he is the candidate that can best handle the economy. As it turns out, Obama is plugged directly into the Freddie Mac/ Fannie Mae fiasco. He had to be- the 2 organizations made him a top target for political donations. All week analysts have been pointing fingers at who is to blame for the current economic situation. I would like to raise a different question in this article. At what cost?

For $105,849.00 the Freddie/Fannie combo bought themselves a United States Senator. His Name was Barrack Obama. Sure, he had friends that were also involved. They had names like Clinton, Dodd, Kanjorski and Kerry. These five Democrats took in over a half million dollars, but what was the real cost? So far, we are at about 500 billion dollars:

The Stimulus Package: $150 Billion
Bear Stearns:  29 Billion
Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac:  $200 Billion
Miscellaneous Banks: 20 Billion
AIG: $85 Billion
The old adage is a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon we are talking about real money. 500 billion dollars is real money. Conventional wisdom says it’s everyone’s fault. Is it? The Dem’s say this is what happens when evil Republicans deregulate everything. The same evil Republicans ignored the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until they became catastrophic. This statement is plain wrong- it is a deliberate lie meant to prop up their sagging presidential candidate. Way back in 2003 the New York Times reported that the Bush administration proposed a new federal agency to oversee both companies. The piece, by Frank Luntz, stated, “The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business.” Did you catch that? The responsibility for setting the capital reserve requirements belonged to Congress. The Republicans foresaw this mess 5 years ago and tried to take action to correct the problems.

The next question would be “What happened?” The short answer is Obama, Clinton, Dodd, Kanjorski and Kerry. These powerful Washington insiders acted to protect their own interests- and the interests of a major campaign contributor. The Bush plan never came to be. There was no reform. How does this tie in  with Sen. Obama? Michael van der Galien in the Netherlands broke the story. From the PoliGazette: “For days now Barack Obama told voters he was the one who predicted the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and who was working in the Senate to try to get lawmakers to agree to a plan that would let the federal government regulate the activities of both investment giants. Obama, the narrative sold by the Obama campaign goes, stood at the forefront; he was one of the leaders, on bills that would force the companies and others like it to behave responsible. There is just one problem with Obama’s story; it’s fiction. Never did the Democratic nominee lead on this issue, or something related to it. Never did he attempt to hold these companies responsible and to regulate them. For days now Barack Obama told voters he was the one who predicted the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and who was working in the Senate to try to get lawmakers to agree to a plan that would let the federal government regulate the activities of both investment giants. Obama, the narrative sold by the Obama campaign goes, stood at the forefront, he was one of the leaders, on bills that would force the companies and others like it to behave responsible. There’s just one problem with Obama’s story; it’s fiction. Never did the Democratic nominee lead on this issue, or something related to it. Never did he attempt to hold these companies responsible and to regulate them.”

Obama is trying to jump out in front of this issue, utilizing lies about his past. Instead of letting the press obsess over Gov. Palin’s innocuous emails- lets get the story of Sen. Obama’s affair with Fannie Mae out front and center. Call local radio and newspapers today. Demand to learn the truth.try to get lawmakers to agree to a plan that would let the federal government regulate the activities of both investment giants. Obama, the narrative sold by the Obama campaign goes, stood at the forefront, he was one of the leaders, on bills that would force the companies and others like it to behave responsible. There’s just one problem with Obama’s story; it’s fiction. Never did the Democratic nominee lead on this issue, or something related to it. Never did he attempt to hold these companies responsible and to regulate them.”

Obama is trying to jump out in front of this issue, utilizing lies about his past. Instead of letting the press obsess over Gov. Palin’s innocuous emails- lets get the story of Sen. Obama’s affair with Fannie Mae out front and center. Call local radio and newspapers today. Demand to learn the truth.

Posted by George Dienhart | Permalink

 

 

September 11, 2003
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

”There is a general recognition that the supervisory system for housing-related government-sponsored enterprises neither has the tools, nor the stature, to deal effectively with the current size, complexity and importance of these enterprises,” Treasury Secretary John W. Snow told the House Financial Services Committee in an appearance with Housing Secretary Mel Martinez, who also backed the plan.

Mr. Snow said that Congress should eliminate the power of the president to appoint directors to the companies, a sign that the administration is less concerned about the perks of patronage than it is about the potential political problems associated with any new difficulties arising at the companies.

The administration’s proposal, which was endorsed in large part today by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would not repeal the significant government subsidies granted to the two companies. And it does not alter the implicit guarantee that Washington will bail the companies out if they run into financial difficulty; that perception enables them to issue debt at significantly lower rates than their competitors. Nor would it remove the companies’ exemptions from taxes and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws.

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session.

After the hearing, Representative Michael G. Oxley, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced their intention to draft legislation based on the administration’s proposal. Industry executives said Congress could complete action on legislation before leaving for recess in the fall.

”The current regulator does not have the tools, or the mandate, to adequately regulate these enterprises,” Mr. Oxley said at the hearing. ”We have seen in recent months that mismanagement and questionable accounting practices went largely unnoticed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,” the independent agency that now regulates the companies.

”These irregularities, which have been going on for several years, should have been detected earlier by the regulator,” he added.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was created by Congress in 1992 after the bailout of the savings and loan industry and concerns about regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy mortgages from lenders and repackage them as securities or hold them in their own portfolios.

At the time, the companies and their allies beat back efforts for tougher oversight by the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Reserve. Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. This year, however, the chances of passing legislation to tighten the oversight are better than in the past.

Reflecting the changing political climate, both Fannie Mae and its leading rivals applauded the administration’s package. The support from Fannie Mae came after a round of discussions between it and the administration and assurances from the Treasury that it would not seek to change the company’s mission.

After those assurances, Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s chief executive, endorsed the shift of regulatory oversight to the Treasury Department, as well as other elements of the plan.

”We welcome the administration’s approach outlined today,” Mr. Raines said. The company opposes some smaller elements of the package, like one that eliminates the authority of the president to appoint 5 of the company’s 18 board members.

Company executives said that the company preferred having the president select some directors. The company is also likely to lobby against the efforts that give regulators too much authority to approve its products.

Freddie Mac, whose accounting is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a United States attorney in Virginia, issued a statement calling the administration plan a ”responsible proposal.”

The stocks of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae fell while the prices of their bonds generally rose. Shares of Freddie Mac fell $2.04, or 3.7 percent, to $53.40, while Fannie Mae was down $1.62, or 2.4 percent, to $66.74. The price of a Fannie Mae bond due in March 2013 rose to 97.337 from 96.525.Its yield fell to 4.726 percent from 4.835 percent on Tuesday.

Fannie Mae, which was previously known as the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, which was the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, have been criticized by rivals for exerting too much influence over their regulators.

”The regulator has not only been outmanned, it has been outlobbied,” said Representative Richard H. Baker, the Louisiana Republican who has proposed legislation similar to the administration proposal and who leads a subcommittee that oversees the companies. ”Being underfunded does not explain how a glowing report of Freddie’s operations was released only hours before the managerial upheaval that followed. This is not world-class regulatory work.”

Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

 

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We can’t get too caught in in polls, but it is interesting to see the gap between Barack Obama and John McCain closing so quickly. Prior to the Democratic National Convention, Obama held roughly a 4 point advantage over McCain. A double-digit post-convention bounce was expected for Obama, but that never materialized. A small bounce was had - putting Obama up by just over 6 points (according to major poll averages put together by RealClearPolitics.com) at the start of the Republican National Convention.

The gap has now (as of this writing) closed to 2.6 points. The Palin nomination, followed by her superlative performance at the RNC and John McCain’s fiery acceptance speech, have contributed to the McCain move. Current polling reflects only some of this, however, as much of the data was collected prior to Palin’s speech. The next few days should reveal whether McCain is benefiting from his own post-convention bounce.

While McCain’s courageous VP choice, followed by Palin’s and McCain’s respective performances have certainly garnered support for the GOP team, it seems as though the Obama camp is crashing as well. The media, who have been indistinguishable from the Obama campaign staff, have fallen on Palin like rabid dogs. The sleaze, brutality, pettiness, outright bias, and sexism have created a backlash against the media - and by extension against Obama.

Obama’s feeble attempts to defend his record as a “community organizer” have simply validated the criticism of it. It was Obama himself who trotted out his glorious role as a community organizer in attempts to claim executive experience. Now that this coming back to bite him, his offended rebuttals come across as whiney and small. Similarly, the media’s all-out smear campaign of Sarah Palin has left team Obama looking like the spoiled elitist. The American people recognize that Obama has not undergone anywhere near this level of scrutiny and Americans tend to like fair play. While Obama has floated along in the collective adoration of the New York and Washington media, it appeared that there would be nary a hurdle on his way to the White House. Now that the media has so viciously gone after Palin, voters are beginning to see that the fix is in. It remains to be seen if the McCain-Palin team can continue to sustain the barrage, but if they can, the backlash against the media (Obama) will likely help them in November.

 
See latest Polling Data at RealClearPolitics

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“I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.”

- Oprah Winfrey

Drudge reports that Oprah refuses to have Sarah Palin on her show. Oprah claims no such decision has been made, but staffers tell the Drudge Report that Palin is unwelcome because of Winfrey’s support of Barack Obama. Obama launched his bid for the presidency on the talk queen’s show.

There is no surprise that Oprah doesn’t want to give any air time to the GOP, but there is a good deal of hypocrisy in the decision. Winfrey claims that she doesn’t want her show to be a platform for any candidate, but not only has she had Sen. Obama on the show, but has openly supported him on and off the air.

Governor Palin would likely be a huge hit and a great fit for the show, which caters to women. It remains to be seen if Palin’s tremendous popularity elicits a new response from the show.

For now, Oprah will just hope everyone believes that launching Obama’s campaign and then suggesting that she will be glad to have Palin on “after the campaign” is fair play. For the rest of us - just another proof of the left-wing media bias.

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"And I accept the privilege of serving with a man who has come through much harder missions ... and met far graver challenges ... and knows how tough fights are won - the next president of the United States, John S. McCain." "Our nominee for president is a true profile in courage, and people like that are hard to come by. He's a man who wore the uniform of this country for 22 years, and refused to break faith with those troops in Iraq who have now brought victory within sight. And as the mother of one of those troops, that is exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief. I'm just one of many moms who'll say an extra prayer each night for our sons and daughters going into harm's way."

"To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House."

"And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening. We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco."

"But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people."

"Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems - as if we all didn't know that already. But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all."

"I've noticed a pattern with our opponent. Maybe you have, too. We've all heard his dramatic speeches before devoted followers. And there is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate. This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign."

"In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change."

"My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of "personal discovery." This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn't just need an organizer."

"There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you ... in places where winning means survival and defeat means death ... and that man is John McCain."

You should be ashamed Joe [Klein]. The coverage by you and your comrades isn’t sexist!? Please. How many male candidates have their paternal loyalty and priorities questioned when they run for high office? Anyone .. I’m sorry, I can’t hear past the sound of the crickets. No male candidate is EVER condemned as a poor parent because they choose to serve in public office. Even Joe Biden, who faced the most tragic loss of family early in his life and career, choose to continue public life – being sworn into office by his remaining son’s bedside in fact. We can look at that and rightly see a dedicated father AND public servant, but with Palin we have been subjected to outright commentary (by supposed journalists) suggesting that she is a neglectful parent. It is sleazy, wrong, and embarrassing. Honest investigations into her public policies, voting record, and experience are valid. Has she ever changed positions on an issue? Of course, but so have Obama, McCain, and Biden – all documented for our review. Is her experience level a fair topic? Absolutely, but as Obama made perfectly clear himself, his own executive experience is limited to running his presidential campaign. Palin didn’t just walk in off the ice rink. She is a sitting Governor – and she attained that office by taking on a corrupt infrastructure in her own party. No easy task. Personal family issues? You bet. The media seems aghast that her daughter became pregnant out of wedlock. I wasn’t aware that the New York / Washington press corps was so family value oriented. Obama himself is the product of an unplanned pregnancy. What’s the problem here? Other than the obvious double standard. Get a grip Joe. The left simply hates the possibility that the first woman on the Executive team just might be a Republican. Cover the story, but cover it fairly and leave your sexism at home!


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"We need a president who doesn't think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade."

"The respect he [McCain] is given around the world is not because of a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to American critics abroad, but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship."

"They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they're just going to tax "businesses"! So unless you buy something from a "business", like groceries or clothes or gasoline ... or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small "business", don't worry ... it's not going to affect you."

"To deal with these challenges the Democrats present a history making nominee for president. History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for President."

"Sen. Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who can do great things for our country in the years ahead. But eloquence is no substitute for a record - not in these tough times."

-OBAMA: Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.