=-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw...eature=related --=

Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam

=-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs --=

You would be hard pressed to find a politician who is less frank than
Congressman Barney Frank.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/i...asp?indid=2384
http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/Barney_Frank

Even in an occupation where truth and candor are often lacking,
Congressman Frank is in a class by himself when it comes to rewriting
history in creative ways. Moreover, he has a lot of history to rewrite
in his re-election campaign this year.

No one contributed more to the policies behind the housing boom and
bust, which led to the economic disaster we are now in, than
Congressman Barney Frank.

His powerful position on the House of Representatives' Committee on
Financial Services gave him leverage to force through legislation and
policies which pressured banks and other lenders to grant mortgage
loans to people who would not qualify under the standards which had
long prevailed, and had long made mortgage loans among the safest
investments around.

All this was done in the name of promoting more home-ownership among
people who had neither the income nor the credit history that would
meet traditional mortgage lending standards.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_...on_dollar.html

To those who warned of the risks in the new policies,

=-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM --=

Congressman Frank replied in 2003 that critics "exaggerate a threat of
safety" and "conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to
the Treasury, which I do not see." Far from being reluctant to promote
risky practices, Barney Frank said, "I want to roll the dice a little
bit more in this situation."

With the federal regulators leaning on banks to make more loans to
people who did not meet traditional qualifications -- the "underserved
population" in political Newspeak -- and quotas being given to Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more of these riskier mortgages from the
original lenders, critics pointed out the dangers in these pressures
to meet arbitrary home ownership goals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM&NR=1
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=184743
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/f...asp?fndid=5197
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/f...asp?fndid=5196

But Barney Frank counter-attacked against these critics.

In 2004 he said: "I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have
probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the
goals of affordable housing." He went further: "I would like to get
Fannie and Freddie more deeply into helping low-income housing."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were crucial to these schemes to force
lenders to lend to those whom politicians wanted them to lend to,
rather than to those who were most likely to pay them back. So it is
no surprise that Barney Frank was very protective towards these two
government-sponsored enterprises that were buying up mortgages that
banks were willing to make under political pressure, but were often
unwilling to keep.

The risks which banks were passing on to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
were ultimately risks to the taxpayers. Although there was no formal
guarantee to these enterprises, everybody knew that the federal
government would always bail them out, if necessary, to keep them from
failing. Everybody except Barney Frank.

"There is no guarantee," according Congressman Frank in 2003, "there
is no explicit guarantee, there is no implicit guarantee, there is no
wink-and-nod guarantee." Barney Frank is a master of rhetoric, who
does not let the facts cramp his style.

Fast forward now to 2008, after the risky mortgages had led to huge
numbers of defaults, dragging down Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the
financial markets in general -- and with them the whole economy.

Barney Frank was all over the media, pointing the finger of blame at
everybody else. When financial analyst Maria Bartiromo asked
Congressman Frank who was responsible for the financial crisis, he
said, "right-wing Republicans." It so happens that conservatives were
the loudest critics who had warned for years against the policies that
Barney Frank pushed, but why let facts get in the way?

Ms. Bartiromo did not just accept whatever Barney Frank said. She
said: "With all due respect, congressman, I saw videotapes of you
saying in the past: 'Oh, let's open up the lending. The housing market
is fine.'" His reply? "No, you didn't see any such tapes."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27324124/CNBC...G_ BELL_TODAY

"I did. I saw them on TV," she said. But Barney Frank did not budge.
He understood that a good offense is the best defense. He also
understands that rewriting history this election year is his best bet
for keeping his long political career alive.

Among long-time politicians who are being seriously challenged for the
first time this election year, Congressman Barney Frank of
Massachusetts best epitomizes the cynical ruthlessness which hides
behind their lofty rhetoric.

Having been a key figure in promoting the risky mortgage lending
practices imposed by the federal government on lenders, and on Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac to buy these risky mortgages from the lenders,
Barney Frank blamed the resulting collapse of financial markets and
the economy on everybody except Barney Frank.

In February 2009, as chairman of the House Financial Services
Committee, Congressman Frank summoned the heads of some of the biggest
banks in the country before his committee. In the words of the Los
Angeles Times, these bankers "endured hours of hectoring" by
"indignant lawmakers" on that committee.

These bankers were in no position to talk back to members of this
committee, much less point out how committee members -- including
Chairman Barney Frank -- had themselves promoted laws and policies
responsible for the current economic disaster.

This is a committee with the power to promote legislation detrimental
to this heavily regulated industry. That in turn gives the committee
the power to force others to sit there and take it, when they are
demonized on nationwide TV.

Congressman Barney Frank has never hesitated to use his power
ruthlessly. On one occasion, he threatened bankers with summoning them
before his committee and forcing them to reveal their home addresses
-- which would of course put their spouses and children at the mercy
of any kooks that might come along.

Meanwhile, Congressman Frank could piously invoke "social justice" in
defense of similarly ruthless community activist groups like ACORN
[ http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/g...asp?grpid=6968 ] or
National People's Action, which had in fact besieged the homes not
only of bankers but also of public officials who dared to oppose their
agendas. In Barney Frank's words, these groups were simply people who
"cared about equity" and who were just "trying very hard to preserve
some equity and some social justice."

But the harassment and shakedown activities of such groups were
perhaps best captured by the words of a leader of one of these groups,
who addressed her followers by saying: "We want it. They've got it.
Let's go get it."

These were not just idle words. The dirty little secret that few in
the media seem to want to discuss is that community activists,
including Jesse Jackson, have over the years extracted literally
billions of dollars from financial institutions, as the price of peace
and of not challenging these institutions in hearings before federal
regulators, as these groups are empowered to do under the Community
Reinvestment Act.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_...on_dollar.html
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/v...ory.asp?id=809

Much of this money has been extracted in the form of risky mortgage
loans of the sort that have been at the center of the housing boom and
bust, and its repercussions in financial markets and in the economy as
a whole.

Among others who have been at the heart of the risky lending behind
the financial meltdown are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whom
Congressman Barney Frank has also championed and protected. When
federal regulators uncovered irregularities in Fannie Mae's
accounting, and in 2004 issued what Barron's magazine called "a
blistering 211-page report," Barney Frank lashed out -- not at Fannie
Mae, but at the regulators who uncovered Fannie Mae's misdeeds. He
said "a leadership change" in the regulatory agency was "overdue."

Politicians who say we need more regulation almost never mean
regulation in the sense of impartially enforcing explicit rules, such
as the accounting rules that Fannie Mae was violating to cover up its
own risks. They mean regulation with arbitrary powers, such as those
under the Community Reinvestment Act, which enable regulators to carry
out the agendas that politicians give them.

When Congressman Jim Leach tried to get stronger regulation of Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac back in 1992, and when President George W. Bush
did so in 2004, Barney Frank opposed them.

=-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM --=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw...eature=related

A reining in of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be a reining in of
Barney Frank's power. But he can't stop the voters from reining in his
power, unless he can once more get by this election year with pious
rhetoric to conceal his cynical actions

http://www.tsowell.com
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/...ing_crash.html