Nice being with such intelligent and well-informed people. Good reading—often hysterically funny, and great links. I haven’t felt this good about our prospects as a people for years.

McPalin losing will be so sweet. This isn’t just a dream is it? It sure feels real. A huge national shift away from belligerence and fear-mongering.

Sigh.

Can’t wait til Bush and the rest of the henchmen are gone. What a burden they have been on the world. The last eight years have been soooooooooo long and arduous for the spirit. May this dark age be passing. SMIB.

Read it and weep you ignorat brainwashed cretin

http://mediamatters.org/items/200810100022?f=h_latest

In 2005, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to replace the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) as overseer of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill.

In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency “general supervisory and regulatory authority over” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and directing it to reform the companies’ business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. Among other things, Frank’s legislation, titled the “Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007,” directed the FHFA director to “ensure” that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “operate[] in a safe and sound manner, including maintenance of adequate capital and internal controls” and to establish standards for “management of credit and counterparty risk” and “management of market risk.” The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were “similar” to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30.

On September 30, 1991, Frank voted for a bill to create a new regulatory agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie that would have “[r]equire[d] the [agency’s] Director to establish by regulation a risk-based capital test for the enterprises,” “[r]equire[d] the Director to establish risk-based capital levels for each enterprise according to statutory guidelines,” “[e]stablishe[d] minimum capital levels, critical capital levels, and enforcement levels,” and “[s]et[] forth mandatory supervisory actions for the enterprises at various capital levels, including mandatory conservatorship.”

In October 1992, Frank voted for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, creating OFHEO, which was tasked with “ensur[ing] that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the enterprises) and their affiliates are adequately capitalized and operating safely.” As with the bill Frank voted for in September 1991, the new law gave OFHEO authority to set, monitor, and enforce risk-based capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie.

You are a moron it was DEFINITLY deregulation and ending Glass Steagal that caused this crisis. Your brainwashed idiocy notwithstanding. You better stop guzzling the koolaid moron, its not good for braincells and you lose one more of those you are a talking monkey. Thanks for the re-run of the Rush ‘the Oxymoron” Limborg show

The truth is McCain tried in 2005 but Nobama and the rest of the Dimwitocrats killed “The Housing Enterprise Regulatory Act.”
_____________

This statement is simply idiotic and dishonest. We went thru all of this the other night, dumb-dumb.

The bill you’re referring to, the ‘Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005′ was sponsored by Chuck Hagel, and only co-sponsored by McPain.

It also died in the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. the GOOP had an 11-9 majority in the committee at the time. If the GOOP so had chosen, there was no way the Dems could have stopped this bill from getting out of committee and going to the Senate for a vote.

Sheesh… there are things called ‘facts’. You might want to familiarize yourself w/ the concept.

Nobama – Bad for the economy, Bad for America!

Stop being an idiot. your stupidass prez signed off on it, if what you say is true.
Sen. Obama isn’t heartless like your maverick.

Obama-Biden in 08 and 2012 !

http://blogoffanddie.wordpress.com

the Democratic Party is a lot like a box of chocolates; you’re never sure where the nuts are – whereas the Republican Party is a lot like a chocolate fudge sundae, they tend to put the biggest nuts on top.

At another point, McCain declared, “If you want a fight, we will fight. But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments.” Supporters booed then also. “I don’t mean that has to reduce your ferocity,” McCain responded. “I just mean to say you have to be respectful.”

“I don’t mean that has to reduce your ferocity”? What the heck did he mean by that?

I guess we can’t blame them for being dispirited about the Worst Ticket Ever but, one would think the one’s left are the real bilge-dwellers. And so we have seen.

Here’s the deal stupid troll. The collapse of the worlds economy is the result of decades of financial rape. While there is plenty of blame to go around, and many of the guilty are long since dead, there are two salient political realities one must consider.

1. The Republicans have controlled the White House for 20 of the last 28 years.
2. They controlled one or both legislative branches during 22 of those same 28 years.

Despite all their incessant whining, they are the ones who have shaped, and “enforced”, the policies which allowed the catastrophe to happen and they will own it as surely as their forebears carry the blame for the Great Depression. And if you try to lay all the blame on Freddy/Fannie you are being hopelessly simple.

First of all, the collapse started YEARS before the foreclosures started.

Second, Freddy/Franny were already bailed out so that other banks weren’t hurt when they couldn’t make their payments. All the losses since then have been in other areas.

Third, most of the “bad loans” are not delinquent. Most are all paid up but held by banks that have tanked and/or were assigned an unrealistic value.

No. You just can’t get away with blaming the worldwide economic catastrophe on people who are a few grand behind on their payments. The problem is that the world’s economy is based on volatile commodities and all the bubbles are bursting at the same time.

If you want to assign an unreasonable amount of blame to one cause, one could make the strongest argument for the drop in worldwide oil demand and price since July. All the “geniuses” were operating under the belief that supply and price would keep going up so they kept pumping their money into futures.

So? Now we have investment banks which have not only been buying credit (One of the stupidest scams known to man) but they are on the hook for oil futures that were locked in at $140.00 a barrel.

Heck! When one looks at the trends for the entire Bushco reign one will see the the overall economic numbers were “pushed” by oil and property values. If one adds oil and housing to the “core inflation” indicators? Inflation was running around 12% the first four years and it’s around 16% up until the last few months.

So, there it is. A worldwide collapse in a nutshell. And it’s not the sole fault of people who are a few months behind on their mortgage. It’s the fault of those who trade billions a day assigning artificial value to volatile commodities. They were bad parasites and killed the host.

I’m hoping this is about McCain realizing that if he keeps up this divisive strategy, no matter who wins, the new President will be spending more time rebuilding bridges then doing that a President MUST be doing in the current crisis climate.

Please, let this be the last glimmers of the man who I once respected (but wouldn’t have voted for anyway) finally actually putting his country first.

John McCain has to know this. Sarah Palin is not smart enough to know this. Sarah Palin thinks that adoration from the republican crowds validates her incendiary speeches. Like Nixon, she uses coded phrases to appeal to the cloistered republican faithful. Unlike Nixon, she doesn’t know she’s using coded language. She’s a pawn–a willing idiot paraded around the country for the drooling redneck base who hopes to catch an upskirt glimpse of the former Miss Alaska runner-up.

McCain knows from experience that this is how people get presidents and presidential candidates assassinated. His comments in Minnesota are nothing more than CYA so that, if an attempt is made on Obama’s life, McCain can say, “Oh, I’m not responsible–I said he was a decent family man.”

Republicans benefited from the assassination of JFK and RFK. They assassinated the character of Bill Clinton. No matter what McCain says now, he set this hatred in motion. If anything happens, the blood stays on his hands. As Americans we should be very, very pissed.

May God help us all if this idiot McBush actually wins next month. I am moving to Brazil if he does. Get out while the getting is good!

Better check that Chimpy hasn’t bought land there, because I heard he’s buying land in Paraguay or something like that. Looks like the rats are deserting the ship so don’t get bitten.

Senator Obama should be booed, it was not deregulation that caused the economic morass we are in, it was ferocious and persistent implementation and protection of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by you and Representatives Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Lacy Clay and Senators Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schummer and Chuck Hagel that enabled Acorn and others like them to give billions in “affordable” mortgages under the Community Reinvestment Act to people who could not afford them. Clearly your policies are not good for America. Everyone needs to view this video on Burning Down the House.

Polly want a cracker?

Wah, the republicans have been in total control of the presidency and both houses of congress, not to mention the supreme court for 6 years and somehow, some way, the democrats screwed this up in the last 18 months without a veto proof majority…..makes sense if you’re a cornered rat.

Thanks to Phil Gramm, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, these Swaps are:

Unregulated , Highly Leveraged, and they can be sold to customers that don’t even own the Mortgage Backed Securities.

It is Insurance with No insurance regulation, and no Assets to back them up.

Blaming the Victims of Predatory Lenders for the meltdown is like blaming the Racehorse ,because someone lost lots of money gambling on a horse race.