Free Republic

While discussing the contentious confirmation hearings for defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, things got a bit heated on Sunday's "Meet The Press" when Sen. John McCain referred to the lack of information from the White House surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi as a "massive cover-up." "There are so many answers we don't know," McCain told host David Gregory. "We've had two movies about getting bin Laden and we don't even know who the people were who were evacuated from the consulate the day after the [Benghazi] attack. So there are many, many questions. So we've had a...

A new book offers an instructive lesson on the unhappy surprises caused by the government’s attempts to manipulate the housing market. James R. Hagerty’s new book, The Fateful History of Fannie Mae: New Deal Birth to Mortgage Crisis Fall, shows how hard it is for administrations throughout history to know what they are really doing in their political attempts to manipulate the housing market.As Hagerty explains, the Eisenhower administration, working through the Housing Act of 1954, tried to wean Fannie off the government’s credit and make it operate with private capital. It succeeded instead in creating the essence of the...

Do you think trying to balance the federal budget is incendiary? NBC's David Gregory apparently does, for on Sunday's Meet the Press, he asked Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) "whether a guy like Paul Ryan is a little too incendiary" to be vice president (video follows with transcript and commentary): David Gregory: Is Paul Ryan 'A Little Too Incendiary' To Be Vice President DAVID GREGORY, HOST: So I have a question about Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan's chairman of budget committee. You know, I mean like Marco Rubio, guys are the same age, 41 years old, and a big future ahead of...

I am making public the letter that I wrote to Senator Grassley (Feb. 23, 2011) regarding circumstances that led to my firing after 2.5 months by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), particularly my writing about mortgage fraud and its roots in mortgage securitization that CBO sought to deny was a problem. I was repeatedly pressured by the CBO Assistant Director, Deborah Lucas… to not write nor discuss issues in the banking sector and mortgage markets that might suggest weakness in these sectors and their consequences on the economy and households... …Issues at the heart of the foreclosure problems pertain to...

Chelsea Clinton is close to signing another deal with NBC, despite criticism of her reporting. Clinton is nearing the end of a 90-day contract as an NBC News special correspondent, where she contributes to the “Making a Difference” segments that air during “Rock Center With Brian Williams.” While her reports have been tepidly received by critics, sparking strong rumors and reports she would not sign again, sources tell us NBC plans to keep her involved with the network.

There’s been no shortage of establishment-minded Republicans and members of Congress to have served in the 1990s that have come out and endorsed Mitt Romney for president, or raised concerns about Newt Gingrich’s candidacy. But perhaps more unexpected has been the emergence of outside-the-Beltway conservatives to bolster Romney’s candidacy in the few weeks before primary voting begins Jan. 3 in Iowa. A surprising group of conservatives have lined up for Mitt Romney – or, at least, against Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who’s zoomed to frontrunner status on the strength of his support from anti-establishment Republicans.

Embattled government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were under fire again Thursday as the House Committee on Financial Services grilled leaders on "lavish" spending and executive pay. This after the government mortgage giants both posted huge losses last quarter and have appealed to the Treasury Department for more funds—almost $14 billion between them—to shore up their shaky balance sheets. With a hefty dose of indignation, Texas Republican Rep. Randy Neugebauer railed on Fannie Mae chief Michael Williams about more than $5 million budgeted for "meals and social activities" for employees—wondering why a taxpayer-funded organization in major financial trouble...

Top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Wednesday defended their companies' pay practices which have drawn opposition after it was disclosed the government-controlled firms were paying out nearly $13 million in executive bonuses. Michael Williams, chief executive of Fannie Mae, and Charles Haldeman, Freddie Mac's chief executive, both argued the compensation structures at the mortgage finance firms were warranted to retain and attract qualified staff. A bill to block the pay packages was approved by the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday in a 52-4 vote. The full House must still vote on the measure. A similar bill...

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received the biggest federal bailout of the financial crisis. And nearly $100 million of those tax dollars went to lucrative pay packages for top executives, filings show. The top five executives at Fannie Mae received $33.3 million in 2009 and 2010, while the top five at Freddie Mac received $28.1 million. And each company has set pay targets of as much as $17 million for its top managers for 2011. That's a total of $95.4 million, which will essentially be coming from taxpayers, who have been keeping the mortgage finance giants alive...

Fannie Mae taps $7.8 billion from Treasury, loss widens Photo 6:42pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fannie Mae, the biggest source of money for U.S. home loans, on Tuesday said it needed a further $7.8 billion in federal aid to stay afloat as a shaky housing market widened its third-quarter loss to $5.1 billion. Fannie Mae also attributed the deeper cash drain to losses on derivatives that are used to hedge the firm's exposure to swings in interest rates and expenses related to home loans made prior to the 2008 financial collapse. In the year-earlier quarter it had a loss of...

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.

The Obama administration’s efforts to fix the housing crisis may have fallen well short of helping millions of distressed mortgage holders, but they have led to seven-figure paydays for some top executives at troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator for Fannie and Freddie, approved $12.79 million in bonus pay after 10 executives from the two government-sponsored corporations last year met modest performance targets tied to modifying mortgages in jeopardy of foreclosure. The executives got the bonuses about two years after the federally backed mortgage giants received nearly $170 billion in...

Charles E. "Ed" Haldeman, Jr., has announced his plans to step down as chief executive officer of mortgage giant Freddie Mac sometime in the next year. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates Freddie and its counterpart Fannie Mae, announced Wednesday that Haldeman is looking to leave the government-sponsored enterprise some time next year.

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....

Talking to "Meet the Press" moderator David Gregory on Sunday's NBC Today, co-host Jenna Wolfe asked about President Obama's proposed "Buffet Rule," designed to increases taxes on the rich, which she assumed "will sit well with the American people overall." David Gregory agreed but lamented: "...the President's got to think about what he can do to actually get some agreement with Republicans. And I don't see this getting anywhere." Gregory complained: "If Democrats are supposed to cut entitlements, aren't Republicans going to have to give at all on the idea of tax increases?... But we saw in the debt fight...

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is wondering why Fannie Mae agreed to buy 400,000 mortgages from Bank of America and whether its purchase of the risky assets constitutes a "backdoor bailout" of the bank. Issa sent a letter Thursday to Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) that regulates Fannie, asking for a justification of the deal, especially in light of the bank's recently announced spate of layoffs. "The transaction appears to have shifted a significant amount of risk from BofA's portfolio to Fannie.

Brian Williams must crave attention. In the latest Republican debate, instead of moderating, he personally debated all the participants. The actual discussion between candidates was more civil and constructive than the endless string of gotcha speeches foisted as questions on the panel by NBC's Williams and his Politico sidekick, John Harris. Question after question was an attempt to put each GOP candidate on the defensive. More accusation and White House talking points passed from the lips of Williams and Harris than legitimate questions looking to determine the ideas of the candidates and how they differed. As a result the debate...

Employees of media giant Comcast have contributed more money to President Obama’s reelection bid than employees from any other organization, according to a new analysis of Federal Election Commission data by the Center for Responsive Politics. Comcast employees contributed nearly $80,000 directly to Obama for America and roughly $200,000 to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint account benefitting both the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee, through the first half of 2011 records show. Comcast, the nation’s largest video and internet services provider, is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns broadcast networks NBC and Telemundo among other assets. President...

<p>What is $150 billion really worth? It’s enough to buy each and every NFL franchise about five times. Or it could pay the median household income more than 3 million times over in the United States. It could even pay for 500 days of the war in Afghanistan at $300 million a day.</p>

As efforts to avoid an unprecedented U.S. default entered crunch time Friday, President Obama faced growing tensions with senior congressional Democrats, who are angry at White House concessions to Republicans and at being left out of the talks. With the clock ticking toward an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, Obama and the senior Republican in Congress, House Speaker John Boehner, worked toward a plan that could include up to $3 trillion in spending cuts but might leave tax reform for later, congressional aides said. Friday is essentially the start of crunch time. The White House initially...