Posted on 07/24/2010 9:24:25 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
I listened to every word of President Obama’s statement on signing the financial institutions’ “reform” law, Wednesday morning. That was a filthy job, but somebody had to do it. The longest applause during the entire charade was when Obama thanked Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Christopher Dodd for their “tireless work” in getting this bill passed.
Now, class, let’s conduct a brief review. First, not every Act that contains the word “reform” actually reforms or improves anything. As your grandma used to say, “Just because the cat has kittens in the oven, doesn’t make them biscuits.”
Second, this “reform” law doesn’t lay a finger on the two federal lending corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were at the heart of the phony financial instruments which nearly crippled the national economy. Why would they, of all institutions, be left out?
Back up a bit. Senator Dodd, both then and now, is Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee that handles finance legislation. As such, he helped write and pass the original laws which required lending institutions to make increasing numbers of bad loans to increasingly dubious homeowners, in the interests of “fairness.”
But Senator Dodd was in bed with the very interests who sought to profit from these unworthy transactions. In fact, one of the major private malefactors in the collapse was Countrywide Mortgages.
They had a separate department to make special, low interest loans to “friends of the CEO.” Dodd was one of those friends. He never released documents on his sweetheart loans. But the stench form his office that he’d been bought and paid for, was too high. Sen. Dodd has declined to run again for the office he has owned for decades, Senator from Connecticut.
It turns out that Dodd was far from alone in being bought off with loans. Here is the key paragraph from the article this week in Human Events: “New documents released by [Congressman] Issa show 173 sweetheart deal loans from Countrywide Financial Corporation were given to 42 Fannie and Freddie employees as the company was negotiating exclusive agreement to sell Fannie Mae billions of dollars in questionable, sub-prime mortgages at a discounted rate.”
What about Rep. Barney Frank, the other half of the corrupt duo which received the standing ovation Wednesday morning? He was then on and is now Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee that deals with finance bills. He was literally in bed with the people at Fannie Mae. Herbert Moses, who was in charge of new products at Fannie Mae including the toxic derivatives, was at one time a sex partner of Rep. Frank. According to Frank, they “remain friends.”
Perhaps that was why Frank repeatedly assured the American people that “there are no problems at Fannie Mae,” just before Fannie Mae collapsed like a house of cards in a hurricane. Rep. Frank’s position in Congress is, unfortunately, safe for as long as he draws breath, regardless of how dishonest those breaths may be.
The process was a triangle trade. Countrywide, which collapsed and stuck the taxpayers with hundreds of million dollars in losses, paid bribes to federal officials in the form of cheap mortgages. The officials in turn paid bribes to Dodd and Frank in the form of “contributions.” The payoff is that the “financial reform” Act keeps its hands off Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And the President and his party thank Dodd and Frank for their “fine work in passing this reform.” Is anyone surprised?
The main lesson that all of this teaches to any rational American should be this: The Obama Administration has no opposition whatsoever to corruption in public office. In fact, it endorses and applauds such corruption, when it favors preferred interest groups. (All this is without mentioning Rep. Charlie Rangel, who should already be in the Big House for tax evasion, rather than the House fighting mere ethics charges….)
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About the Author: John Armor practiced before the Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya,yale.edu His latest book, to appear in September, is on Thomas Paine. www.TheseAreTheTimes.us
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Cordially,
John / Billybob
What do you want me to say? Laws mean NOTHING if they’re not going to be enforced. Our government is left to police itself and where is that getting us in 2010?
Dodd is leaving office - he’ll take his fat pension and go, smiling all the way to the bank.
Barney Frank will coast to an easy re-election. His opponent won’t even come close to beating him.
If I could lie, cheat, steal and get away with it, I probably would too. Or better yet lie, cheat and steal and still be praised as a hero.
There is a reason that they’re smiling and applauding each other - because like dogs licking their b@ll$, they can.
Well said, John.
"He who fears corruption fears life."
-- Saul Alinsky
What Utter Maroons.
When the Rats are swept from power again, we’ll see what reform is. The audience is too afraid to laugh now at these vicious clowns. Rats will become scorn, ridicule, a byword, and more.
Oh! Never mind.
Billybob, is the comma in your email an inadvertent error, or is it a defense against automated spam?
Why yes, they are.
John / Billybob
“If I could lie, cheat, steal and get away with it, I probably would too.”
Seriously? Or are you being sarcastic?
I am making up a new acronym for all those happily-named bureaucracies and laws and bills;
WINO -— wonderful in name only.
Next: The Department of Milk And Cookies For Poor Children.
I don’t know how this bill is going to affect me. I just hope it means I am never again going to get over $500 in bounced check charges because I was never told that my Debit Card was overdrawing. Fortunately, the bank canceled all but one charge.
“Corruption” is “good”? And said ‘good corruption’ is excusable when in the “right hands”?!
I need to go back to bed because I think I got up in an alternate reality..........=.=
Thanks for that informative post BillyBob.
I’m looking forward to several things happening if we can retake the Congressional leadership this Nov.
Number one on my list is a return to having ultimate respect for the rule of law.
I’m damn sick and tired of the criminals now in charge.
Some subtle level of irony seems to be implied. It sure don’t work as a straight statement. Unless the corruption is good in Rat hands because it will blow up there.
I think we always have had respect for the rule of law as a concept. November will, hope and pray to God, actually begin welcoming that rule back to America. We complained about too many laws under George W. Bush, then we discovered under Obama that there’s an even worse thing — governance by seat of pants. I’d be tickled to go back to “too many laws” (although with the hope and intention of seeing that list shrunk in due time).
Well said. Part of my point was the nobama regime has no respect for the rule of law. Black Panthers case, etc.
If I was in Nancy Pelosi’s position?
Yeah. I would.
If I was one of the most corrupt politicians in Washington and everyone was singing my praises? Heck yeah.
I think stupid people - be they appointed politicians or idiot voters get what they deserve.
But I’m a conservative. I’m held to a different standard. If I was caught doing ANYTHING wrong I’d be harshly punished. Conservatives are held to a higher standard.
And I’d NEVER get Pelosi’s seat.
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