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Oh, that lovable rascal, Barney Frank! He may have been opinionated (and boy did he let you know what he felt!) but he was always looking for a way to solve problems. We need more people like him in Washington.That's the official liberal mainstream media line on the retiring congressman from Massachusetts, and it tells us more about the media than about Barney Frank. The encomia to the man pour forth from admiring reporters from the New York Times to the Washington Post to Slate. They almost all ignore entirely Frank's role in subsidizing the housing bubble, his coziness with...

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was never known for holding his fire, and in a press conference announcing his retirement the liberal lawmaker saved some of his most memorable barbs for former House speaker and now presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. “I did not think I lived a good enough life to see Newt Gingrich as the Republican nominee,” the 30-year House veteran said. “He would be the best thing to happen to Democrats since Barry Goldwater ... It’s still unlikely, but I have hopes.” The pair have been snapping at each other since the 1980s, when Gingrich was rising to power...

The Tennessee Tea Party is speaking out about Representative Frank tonight and their view is sparking some controversy. After hearing he's retiring, the Tennessee Tea Party tweeted "Good riddance, you perverted sodomite POS!!!" "I am appalled," says the Tea Party Nation's Judson Phillips. "This statement does nothing to advance the goals of the Tea Party movement and goes a long way towards offending people we need to be involved. Barney Frank is the worst congressman in the last century, but dumb comments like that tweet do not help our cause." A spokesperson with the Tennessee Tea Party told FOX17 NEWS...

A somewhat bitter U.S. Rep. Barney Frank said today he will not seek re-election in 2012 in a move he said was triggered by redistricting that left him with too many new constituents to serve as a “lame-duck” legislator. “There are too many constraints,” Frank said about his life as a politician and the energy it would take to meet new voters so late in his tenure. “People are skeptical about incumbents,” he added. “There was also this — I don’t like raising money.”

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

To celebrate the decision by this disgusting human being the not run again, let's celebrate in song. He and Maxine and others in the Black Caucus are the ones responsible for the collapse. Thanks, Bill Clinton, for your plan to make sure those who should be renters would get into homes with little or no down, no qualifying, no documentation. SING-ALONG = DANCE OF THE SUGAR PLUM FAERIE

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So Barney Frank is retiring from Congress. He's not going to seek reelection. He's gonna announce it in less than an hour -- well, he's announced it. He's gonna tell us why in less than an hour. I've been looking into this, and the basic reason, well, it's partly to spend more time with the family. (laughing) What family? I don't know, folks. Figure it out. It's a redistricting thing. His district has been rewritten in such a way that he probably could not win it is what really has gone down there and that's pretty much...

In January of 2010, then-Senators Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) and Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) announced they would not be seeking re-election that year. The New York Times reported on the sudden retirements saying they "signaled that President Obama is facing a perilous political environment that could hold major implications for this year's midterm elections and his own agenda." We now refer to those major implications as what Mr. Obama himself called the "shellacking" of his party in those elections. Does today's announcement that 16-term Congressman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) will not seek re-election send a similar signal about 2012?

Rep. Barney Frank announced Monday that he will not seek election to a 17th term. While the seat will definitely lean toward the Democrats, the election to replace Frank will likely be somewhat competitive. Massachusetts lost a seat in the 2010 decennial redistricting. In addition to eliminating that seat, state Democrats wanted to shore up the party’s performance in the former 10th district, in southeastern Massachusetts. As such, Frank's district was changed fairly dramatically, and about half of it would have been new territory for him. In particular, the district lost some white working-class towns in the southern portion of...

The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007, the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress. The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995. For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this: January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress: The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77 The...

Wall Street executives already are bracing for the possibility that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) will take over as the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee from Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). Waters is in line for Frank’s spot and could become chairwoman of the panel if Democrats retake the House. Frank will announce Monday that he will not seek another term in the House. The California liberal is seen as to the left of Frank, the architect of 2010’s Wall Street reform bill, on financial issues. While banks and other financial institutions often battled Frank, he was seen as...

Conventional wisdom in D.C. has it that House minority leader and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have a hard time staying in the leadership if Democrats do not retake the House next year. Veteran lawmaker Barney Frank’s retirement does not bode well for that prospect.

We Could Use A Lot More Barney Franks In Today’s Dysfunctional Congress By Jonathan Bernstein The great Barney Frank is announcing today that he’ll retire at the end of this Congress. He’ll turn 72 in March and he’s entitled to a retirement, but he’ll be missed. His career is a reminder that even in a very partisan era, individual Members of Congress really can make a tremendous difference as legislators, and can even show that Congress — whose popularity is at record lows — can rise up to the Framers’ highest ideals in creating it. Barney Frank is funny —...

<p>Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts has said he will not seek re-election for 2012.</p> <p>Frank chaired the House Financial Services Committee for four years, culminating in his sponsored the financial regulation overhaul known as “Dodd-Frank.”</p>

Rep. Barney Frank won't seek re-election Posted by CNN Wire Staff (CNN) - Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, a 16-term Democrat, will announce Monday he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012........

On Friday night’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO, Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, who is perhaps one of the most liberal members of the House of Representatives,” offered his suggestions on who the Republicans should nominate to face President Barack Obama in the 2012 election. His first choice probably wasn’t a surprise, being he is arguably the least conservative in the field – former U.S. ambassador to China and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. “If I had to pick somebody to occupy the White House, it would be Jon Huntsman,” Frank said. “But I can — easily say...

If there is a single face of the financial crisis, it is probably Barney Frank, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac’s chief Congressional patron, who shouted down all warnings and resisted all efforts to bring those agencies under control. It is probably too much to hope that Frank will be evicted from Congress any time soon

Government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac has requested $6 billion in additional aid after posting a wider loss in the third quarter. Freddie Mac said Thursday that it lost $4.4 billion, or $1.86 per share, in the July-September quarter. That compares with a loss of $4.1 billion, or $1.25 a share, in the same quarter of 2010. This quarter's $6 billion request from taxpayers is the largest since April 2010.

By this time, everyone should be aware of the federal policies that precipitated the housing bubble and its collapse — the push by Congress and two administrations to push higher-risk lending in order to expand home ownership, as well as the effort by Congress to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to spread that risk through mortgage-backed securities.  While Wall Street made the situation worse by developing risky derivatives on those securities and failed to recognize the risk inherent in the securities themselves, the collapse wouldn’t have occurred at all had the federal government not intervened to distort lending for...

There is currently $600 trillion in derivative positions on a global economy of $60 trillion. Not a problem eh? The “cause” is the BANKS lootin and pillaging.­They deliberate­ly helped Greece hide its debt. The “problem ” was the US allowed the banks to defraud the western world. Finance Superstars Talk About the Massive Fraud in Our Economic System Nobel Prize-winn­ing economist Joe Stiglitz stated how reducing transparen­cy and hiding informatio­n was an essential element to the crisis. Stiglitz concluded, “Innovatio­n was regulator and tax arbitrage Wall Street and the banks deliberate­ly added opacity and complexity to confuse clients and consumers....