Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), who is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Monday in Boston that Republican criticism over the Community Reinvestment Act, as a major factor in the financial crisis was racist and directed toward minority home borrowers.
Racist, says Barney Frank.
Well, lets look at Barney's role in all this.
Frank, in his position on the Finacial Services Committee, has exerted pressure on banks and lending institutions to increase lending to minority borrowers in lower-income neighborhoods. He has used the threat of investigating them for discrimination if they failed to comply. Thus, in the wake of this financial mess-largely caused by this practice of lending money to borrowers to buy homes they could not afford, pushed by Congress, Frank defends the practice by claiming racism to those Republicans who dare to criticize him and the practice.
How about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? We have already seen how Barack Obama has received money from those entities over the years. Let's look at Barney.
In 2003, Frank and other Democrats in Congress strongly defended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from attempts by the Bush Administration and Republicans to increase oversight over Fannie and Freddie due to concerns that they were engaged in reckless practices. As late as July 14, 2008, Frank was saying that Fannie and Freddie were fundamentally sound-a sound bite that Bill O'Reilly confronted him with on The O'Reilly Factor-leading to a shouting match.
The Center for Responsive Politics reports that in the past decade, Frank has received about $42,000 in contributions from Fannie and Freddie.
Now it is revealed that Frank was involved in a 10-year-relationship with a top Fannie Mae executive named Herb Moses. (They were lovers.) The relationship lasted from the late 1980s into the late 1990s. At the time, Frank was sitting on the Banking Committee. Moses was heavily involved in the mortgage lending activity, while Frank was sitting on the committee that oversaw Fannie Mae. (Moses worked at Fannie Mae 1991-1998).
Conflict of interest? What do you think?
By the way, how much of this have you read in the mainstream media, you know, newspapers, major networks? You figure this would be all over the news, right?
This, by the way, is the same guy, who in 1990 had to be reprimanded by the House because his then-boyfriend was using their Washington apartment as a brothel while Barney was up on the hill making a mess of things (different boyfriend).
This, by the way, is the same jerk who recently said that the issue of Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy is a legitimate campaign issue.
When is Barney Frank going to held accountable for his part in this mess? If you said never, you are probably correct. It is outrageous, but unfortunately, the Barney Franks of the world always seem to get away with it.
I don't know much about all of this, but I do know one thing: the Democrats have only controlled Congress for less than 2 years, meaning that Frank has only been the chair of the FSC for 2 years. Before that, the Republicans controlled it for 12 years. This financial crisis has been in the making for a while, not just in the past two years. There's blame enough to go around, but there's no need to constantly repeat Republican talking points about whose fault they think it is.
ReplyDeleteCorrect, but what I am responding to is the charge of the Dems that this is all due to Bush's tax breaks for the rich and failure of Bush to regulate Wall Street.
ReplyDeleteAll sides are guilty, but this guy Frank is a prime architect of the disaster-as I so eloquently pointed out.