Free Republic

(Reuters) - U.S. Democratic Representative Barney Frank wed his longtime partner, James Ready, on Saturday, becoming the first sitting congressman to enter into a same-sex marriage. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick officiated the ceremony and added some levity by saying Frank, 72, and Ready, 42, had vowed to love each other through Democratic and Republican administrations alike, and even through appearances on Fox News, according to Al Green, a Democratic congressman from Texas. "Barney was beaming," said Green, who attended the ceremony. He added that Frank, a champion of gay rights and the sweeping reform of Wall Street, shed a tear...

A Texas community bank and two advocacy groups are filing suit in U.S. District Court to challenge the constitutionality of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. In particular, the suit will contend that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created by the law, lacks sufficient checks and balances and, in the words of the CEO of State National Bank, is "simply unconstitutional." “No other federal agency or commission operates in such a way that one person can essentially determine who gets a home loan, who can get a credit card and who can get a loan for college,” said bank head...

Emigrant Bank was recently identified to receive a waiver that would allow the bank to opt out of rigorous Dodd-Frank requirements. These of course are the same new rules and regulations that Barack deems essential to the nation. Yet when the bank’s owner, Howard Milstein, who is a close friend and was a bundler for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, protested that the new rules would seriously crimp operations of his bank, the Obama Administration worked with members of congress to grant him a waiver from the new rules. Other financial institutions and banks have consistently and vehemently argued that...

Obama not invited when Rep. Frank marries longtime partnerBy Alicia M. Cohn - 05/18/12 05:04 PM ET Although Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) earlier this month said he is “pleased” with President Obama’s decision to publicly support same-sex marriage, in a new interview the congressman revealed the president will not be on the guest list when Frank marries his longtime partner this summer. “If he and Michelle wanted to come, I would be delighted and honored to have him, but he will bring the Secret Service,” Frank said in an interview that will air Sunday as part of C-SPAN’s “Newsmaker” series....

Frank gives Obama high marks on gay issues, rips marriage stanceBy Mike Lillis - 04/27/12 05:50 PM ET Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) this week gave President Obama high marks on gay issues, but said it's "a problem" that the administration has declined to endorse gay marriage. Obama this week stirred criticism from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community when, during a trip to North Carolina, he declined to weigh in on a pending state bill banning civil unions and domestic partnerships. Frank, the first openly gay member of Congress, said Obama's silence was expected but disappointing. "It's not...

An increasing number of Democrats are taking potshots at President Obama’s healthcare law ahead of a Supreme Court decision that could overturn it. The public grievances have come from centrists and liberals and reflect rising anxiety ahead of November’s elections. “I think we would all have been better off — President Obama politically, Democrats in Congress politically, and the nation would have been better off — if we had dealt first with the financial system and the other related economic issues and then come back to healthcare,” said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), who is retiring at the end of this...

OVERNIGHT HEALTH: More retiring Dems pile on Obama for healthcare focusBy Sam Baker and Julian Pecquet - 04/19/12 06:57 PM ET Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) isn’t the only retiring House Democrat who thinks the White House made a big mistake by pursuing healthcare reform. In interviews with The Hill on Thursday, several more Democrats piled on, saying Obama hurt Democrats’ electoral chances. “I think we would all have been better off — President Obama politically, Democrats in Congress politically, and the nation would have been better off — if we had dealt first with the financial system and the other...

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) thought President Obama was making a "mistake" in pressing for healthcare reform in 2010 and urged the White House to back off after Democrats lost their 60-seat majority in the Senate, the congressman tells New York magazine. "I think we paid a terrible price for healthcare," Frank told the magazine in a lengthy interview as he prepares to retire at the end of his 16th term. "I would not have pushed it as hard. As a matter of fact, after [Sen.] Scott Brown [R-Mass.] won [in January 2010], I suggested going back. I would have started...

Barney Frank's words struck from recordBy Pete Kasperowicz - 03/07/12 03:50 PM ET House debate on a capital formation bill on Wednesday quickly turned into a heated political fight between Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and House Republican Conference Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), prompting Hensarling to ask — successfully — that Frank's words be stricken from the record. The two members fought over a bill from Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), H.R. 4088, which was introduced recently and was inserted into the larger capital formation bill now being debated, H.R. 3606. Quayle's language would increase the number of shareholders that can invest...

Geithner: Dodd-Frank critics are toying with another financial meltdownBy Peter Schroeder - 02/02/12 04:55 PM ET Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner swung back at critics of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law Thursday, arguing that those detractors are pushing for a repeat of the financial crisis. Both in Congress and on the campaign trail, the Obama administration's reforms have come under fire. Lawmakers are pushing several bills that would repeal portions of the law, and every major Republican candidate has vowed to kill it as one of their first acts in office. But Geithner said such a rollback would merely make the...

WASHINGTON — Retiring Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, a gay pioneer in Congress, plans to marry his longtime partner Jim Ready of Maine. A spokesman for Frank confirmed Thursday that the congressman's wedding will be in Massachusetts, but said no date had been set. The Democrat announced last fall that he was retiring at the end of his 16th term.

Former Fannie Mae executive Ed Pinto, who worked at the mortgage giant before it began buying up risky mortgages, has also described Fannie Mae’s key role in buying up and promoting risky sub-prime mortgages, which Fannie Mae did on a large scale, despite having a capital cushion that was tiny compared to private banks, resulting in its later insolvency and massive taxpayer bailout. A recent book about the causes of the crisis by New York Times business reporter Gretchen Morgenson and financial analyst Josh Rosner, “Reckless Endangerment,” chronicles how “it was Fannie Mae and the government housing policies it supported,...

It was recently observed that Ron Paul was to the left of Obama on national security and the best evidence for that statement can be found when one year ago Ron Paul joined forces with Barney Frank​ on a proposal to gut national defense via a panel of experts, quite a few of whom were tied to George Soros​. In July 2010, Barney Frank and Ron Paul co-authored a Huffington Post article rolling out their Sustainable Defense Task Force. The Task Force “consisting of experts on military expenditures that span the ideological spectrum” would recommend a trillion dollars in defense...

Years after the banking system nearly collapsed from reckless mortgage lending, federal prosecutors have stayed on the sidelines, even as judges point out apparent wrongdoing. The federal government has pursued few criminal cases against major lenders or senior executives for the meltdown. Finding hard evidence is difficult, the Justice Department said. The government hasn't prosecuted dubious foreclosure practices deployed since 2007 by big banks and other mortgage-servicing companies. Meanwhile, foreclosure-related case files in just one New York federal bankruptcy court hold at least 12 promissory notes bearing evidence of recently forged signatures and illegal alterations, according to a judge's rulings....

California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris is suing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to force the mortgage giants to answer questions about their role in California's housing meltdown. In two suits filed Tuesday in San Francisco County Superior Court, Harris seeks to compel the companies to respond to subpoenas from her office that have been ignored so far. Harris is seeking information about the practices by Fannie and Freddie in California as part of her ongoing investigation into the mortgage industry. The suits ask a judge to order the two companies to answer a set of 51 questions served in...

Rep. Barney Frank is predicting that President Obama would easily win a general election against Newt Gingrich, but stopped short of guaranteeing that Obama would eclipse his 2008 victory. The retiring Massachusetts Democrat recently said that a Gingrich nomination “would be the best thing to happen to the Democrats since Barry Goldwater.” Asked for a prediction on electoral votes, Frank this week told The Hill, “The thing is [Gingrich] could carry most of the South.” He said Obama's count would be “in the 300s” against the Georgia Republican. To win the White House, 270 electoral votes are needed. Obama won...

Ganziano, a 55-year-old mother of five children, encouraged her fourth child, Daniel, 18, to set up a savings account at a nearby TCF Bank "out of convenience" due to its location. Ganziano and her son discovered that the bank offered little convenience due to the growing number of bank fees, as first reported by the Chicago Tribune. After he put money into the savings accont from his job, Daniel Ganziano's balance eventually fell to $4.85 and with such a small amount, he ignored it. However, TCF sent him a letter on Oct. 12 informing him that it had charged him...

"Barney Frank: I've destroyed the economy, my work here is done." — Washington Times headline, Nov. 29 It was quite a confluence of news last week when in the span of hours came Rep. Frank's retirement announcement, a report on declining housing prices and home-ownership rates, and a poll belaboring the obvious about Americans' fears about the housing and stock markets. With his fellow Democrat, former Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Rep. Frank, D-Mass., shoulders much of the blame for today's economic catastrophe and the fiscal crises plaguing governments at all levels. They spent years pushing policies that ultimately required...

Gingrich on Inauguration Day: Repeal Obamacare, Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-FrankBy Mallie Jane Kim December 7, 2011 If former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is elected president, he has a busy first day planned. At his speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition's 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates Forum this afternoon, Gingrich urged attendees to help vote a large Republican majority into the House and Senate in 2012 so Congress could immediately pass repeals of the Affordable Care Act and the financial regulations Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. They should do so early in January, "before I am sworn in," he said. "Bring it out during the inaugural...

Newt Gingrich made headlines in October because he suggested that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd should go to jail for authoring the so-called Dodd-Frank banking reforms. Taken together the “landmark” reforms look a lot like an Obama speech: very wordy, very partisan, but full of inaction, cross-purposes and the typical liberal confusion about economics, society and man. The legislation crafted by Dodd and Frank has reformed none of the systemic failures in our banking system, but it sure has made it harder for banks to loan money, or for you and me to buy a house. Much of the failure...