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| Topic: Judicial Watch: Congress Ignored Corruption at Fannie Mae | |
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Edited by
Atlantis75
on
Sun 04/12/09 06:42 PM
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This is a good website to see some documents, investigations and news about corruption in Washington:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/ Here is the latest: New Documents Uncovered by Judicial Watch Show Congress Ignored Corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for Years Congress Warned on Fannie and Freddie Misdeeds, yet Liberals in Congress Blocked Attempts to Rein in the Government Sponsored Enterprises Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that as part of its ongoing investigation of the government's role in the financial crisis it has uncovered new documents. The documents show that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even while liberals in Congress continued to block attempts to regulate the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). Judicial Watch obtained the documents from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated December 4, 2008. Judicial Watch requested records related to members of Congress activity regarding the policy of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase lending to individuals with poor credit risk, as well as correspondence and records about contacts between FHFA and Fannie and Freddie. Among the important documents: * FHFA letter, dated March 26, 2007, from the director of the Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight (OHFEO), James B. Lockhart, to U.S. Senators Elizabeth Dole, Chuck Hagel, Mel Martinez and John Sununu: "This is a very serious issue. Freddie Mac's inadequate systems and controls make it a significant supervisory concern. Furthermore, its lack of timely public disclosures deny market participants the essential financial information made available by all other publicly traded companies so that investors may make informed judgments." The letter also mentions, "...Fannie Mae still has not filed financial statements for 2005 and 2006 and thus, they are not timely filers either." * FHFA letter, dated December 3, 2004, to Congressman Barney Frank: "On November 15, 2004 Fannie Mae filed a Form 12b-25 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Fannie Mae indicated that its external auditors could not complete their reviews of its financial statements and noted the possibility of up to a $9 billion loss dating back to 2001. As a result, OHFEO has determined it will not provide a monthly capital classification at this time." * Letter dated June 16, 2006, from OHFEO Director Lockhart to Senator Chuck Hagel: "...In January 1999, Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines approved a recommendation made by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) (Tom Howard) and the Controller (Leanne Spencer) to defer recognition of $200 million in amortization expense. This deferral, along with other accounting decisions made at that time relating to provisions for loan losses and the recognition of low-income housing tax credits, allowed management to meet the EPS threshold for maximum bonuses." Overall, these documents show that Congress was made aware of the massive problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the last six years. Yet liberals, led by Congressman Barney Frank, repeatedly blocked attempts to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: "I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury." "These new documents show that liberals in Congress were reckless when it came to the massive taxpayer liabilities related to Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Government officials at FHFA repeatedly sounded the alarm regarding fraud, abuse and corruption at these two GSEs while liberals in Congress, led by Barney Frank, blocked attempts to address the situation in a meaningful way." http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2009/apr/new-documents-uncovered-judicial-watch-show-congress-ignored-corruption-fannie-mae-and |
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hhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm
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And yet Barney Frank will not be ivenstigated. Wha a crock
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 why would one be and not the other?
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And yet Barney Frank will not be ivenstigated. Wha a crock Such is the way of our political system. |
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Have you seen how defensive he gets when confronted about it?
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Republican blog,,,,,,,,,
I am an independent so I like to hear from and about all sides of the political spectrum. My questions to Judicial Watch: Why does your site always focus on Democrats? Are you saying that Democrats are the only ones causing problems? I am so tired of the many information sources that lean so far to the right/left. After today, I believe it is time to stop reading Judicial Watch's findings. Why? Because I can't trust a source that leans so far to one side. Me Toooooo,,,,,, 
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If you are not part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem. Redirect the public attention away from the underlying root.
No one is being held accountable on either side, because both sides are up to their eyes in politio-economic corruption. The political talk show faces on the television, regardless of the psuedo-loyalties, could give a **** less about anything other than their own ratings... their own monetary value... Remember the famous words of president Bush immediately following 9/11? Go out and buy... Our government - and the market which serves as it's I.V. - requires the people to continually spend money. Remember - while you, the taxpayer, struggle to make ends meet and wonder about the health of you and yours... Mr. Government has used your hard earned money and bought itself and it's family the best medical treatment available(for the remainder of their life) and get to spend months in a vacation home on an island somewhere... at no cost to him... For doing what??? And now... very few average people in this country have anything left to spend... I sure hope China starts buying American products...or Japan...or Taiwan...or Egypt...or India... Whooodathunkit? Oh wait! There are no more American products being made, because we are a consumer-based society hell bent on individuality. Idiots. |
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If you are not part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem. Redirect the public attention away from the underlying root. No one is being held accountable on either side, because both sides are up to their eyes in politio-economic corruption. The political talk show faces on the television, regardless of the psuedo-loyalties, could give a **** less about anything other than their own ratings... their own monetary value... Remember the famous words of president Bush immediately following 9/11? Go out and buy... Our government - and the market which serves as it's I.V. - requires the people to continually spend money. Remember - while you, the taxpayer, struggle to make ends meet and wonder about the health of you and yours... Mr. Government has used your hard earned money and bought itself and it's family the best medical treatment available(for the remainder of their life) and get to spend months in a vacation home on an island somewhere... at no cost to him... For doing what??? And now... very few average people in this country have anything left to spend... I sure hope China starts buying American products...or Japan...or Taiwan...or Egypt...or India... Whooodathunkit? Oh wait! There are no more American products being made, because we are a consumer-based society hell bent on individuality. Idiots. The only thing we have to sell to those guys are Politicians. Far as Fannie and Freddie, anyone who commits to donating Millions of Dollars to La Raza needs investigating. |
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Edited by
Fanta46
on
Sun 04/12/09 09:05 PM
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This is really old news told with a conservatively biased flair.
You want to read something really scary check out Phil Gramm. Him and his wife, (an ENRON lobbyist and executive,) wrote the legislation deregulating the home loan industry! |
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Know your sources....
Look who's funding Judicial Watch Conservative Judicial Watch has been in the news lately, but here’s the real question: Who is funding this controversial conservative organization? Who are they? Judicial Watch, established in 1994, and a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is comprised of “lawyers, investigators, and concerned citizens,” according to the organization. They bill themselves as a “watchdog” over our government. They are heavily funded by the conservative Scaife Foundation which finances conservative think tanks including Media Research Center and the Heritage Foundation. The Scaife Foundation was headed by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, a conservative who inherited his wealth from the Mellon industrial, oil, and banking fortune. He headed the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation, the Carthage Foundation and the Allegheny Foundation. All of these organizations have bankrolled conservative causes. In 2002, Judicial Watch received $1.1 million from the Carthage Foundation and $400,000 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation. In 2001, the Scaife Foundation had given $1.35 million and Carthage $500,000. Between 1997 and 2002, Judicial Watch received $7,069,500 in 19 grants, most of it from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, according to Source Watch. Now here’s the interesting part. The Scaife foundations, including those controlled by Scaife's sister, Cordelia May Scaife, provided some $1.4 million to Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) from 1986-2000. FAIR was founded by John Tanton, a Michigan activist with ties to hate groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights law firm that tracks hate groups nationwide, has listed FAIR as a hate group with ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white supremacist group, founded in 1985 by Gordon Baum, an attorney and longtime white-power activist. Judicial Watch has some explaining to do. Why are they accepting funding from foundations that bankroll hate groups? Next time you see Judicial Watch on television, remember who funds them. http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/09/19/tanton-fair-founder-racism/ |
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If you are not part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem. Redirect the public attention away from the underlying root. No one is being held accountable on either side, because both sides are up to their eyes in politio-economic corruption. The political talk show faces on the television, regardless of the psuedo-loyalties, could give a **** less about anything other than their own ratings... their own monetary value... Remember the famous words of president Bush immediately following 9/11? Go out and buy... Our government - and the market which serves as it's I.V. - requires the people to continually spend money. Remember - while you, the taxpayer, struggle to make ends meet and wonder about the health of you and yours... Mr. Government has used your hard earned money and bought itself and it's family the best medical treatment available(for the remainder of their life) and get to spend months in a vacation home on an island somewhere... at no cost to him... For doing what??? And now... very few average people in this country have anything left to spend... I sure hope China starts buying American products...or Japan...or Taiwan...or Egypt...or India... Whooodathunkit? Oh wait! There are no more American products being made, because we are a consumer-based society hell bent on individuality. Idiots.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights law firm that tracks hate groups nationwide, has listed FAIR as a hate group with ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white supremacist group, founded in 1985 by Gordon Baum, an attorney and longtime white-power activist. Judicial Watch has some explaining to do. Why are they accepting funding from foundations that bankroll hate groups? Next time you see Judicial Watch on television, remember who funds them. http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/09/19/tanton-fair-founder-racism/ The Southern Poverty Law Center ain't the best organization either: Founded in 1971 by a pair of Alabama lawyers, Morris Dees and Joe Levin, the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) quickly built a reputation as America's leading "civil rights law firm," suing Southern institutions resistant to desegregation, publicizing hate crimes, and using the media to denounce the perpetrators of those crimes. At the time of SPLC's founding, Julian Bond, who currently chairs the NAACP, was named the fledgling group's first President. During the 1970s and 1980s, SPLC courtroom challenges focused on such issues as reforming conditions in prisons and mental-health facilities. When Klansmen in Decatur, Alabama disrupted a May 26, 1979 civil rights gathering, SPLC filed its first civil suit against a major Klan organization. Within two years, the Center had launched its Klanwatch campaign (later renamed the Intelligence Project) "to monitor organized hate activity across the country." In an effort to hold white supremacist leaders accountable for their followers' actions, SPLC sued for monetary damages on behalf of victims of Klan violence, effectively bankrupting several major Klan organizations and "draw[ing] national attention to the growing threat of white supremacist activity." As part of the Intelligence Project, the SPLC website currently features a map of "Active U.S. Hate Groups." Deeming racism the the nearly exclusive province of the "radical right," Intelligence Project reports mostly ignore groups on the left. And although SPLC denounces extremist religious organizations like the Jewish Defense League and Westboro Baptist Church, no mention is made of any extremist Muslim groups. (In 2007, SPLC identified 888 separate "active hate groups" in the United States.) In a 2003 article titled "Into the Mainstream," featured in SPLC's quarterly magazine Intelligence Report, author Chip Berlet asserted that "right-wing foundations and think tanks support efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable." According to SPLC, white bigotry aimed at racial and ethnic minorities has not diminished at all in recent decades. The Center states, for instance, "Like most of the southeastern U.S., Georgia has seen an explosion in Hispanic immigration in recent years. … As hate groups exploit the racial tension stemming from the area's growth, locals have launched violent attacks against immigrant workers." In May 2006, SPLC characterized the critics of pro-open borders rallies (held in several U.S. cities) as "anti-immigration extremists." In 1991 SPLC established a "Teaching Tolerance" educational program "to help K-12 teachers foster respect and understanding in the classroom." One recent Teaching Tolerance campaign urged students to oppose the use of Native American mascots among sports teams by taking up a letter-writing campaign to owners and players of professional squads, high-school and middle-school principals, school board members, university trustees, university coaches, and the editor of a local newspaper. Highlights of such campaigns are featured in SPLC's biannual in-house publication, Teaching Tolerance magazine, which has a circulation of 600,000 educators in more than 70 countries. Noting that nearly 90 percent of K-12 teachers in the United States are white, while 36 percent of pupils "are students of color," one recent article cited this fact as evidence of "a legacy of racial domination and injustice" in the teacher-hiring process. A corollary to the Teaching Tolerance initiative is another SPLC website, Tolerance.org. Created in 2001, this site "offers a wide variety of resources to support anti-bias activism." In 1992, SPLC asserted that some 346 white-supremacist organizations were operating in the United States. Even leftist journalist Alexander Cockburn accused SPLC's Morris Dees of raising funds by "frightening elderly liberals that the heirs of Adolf Hitler are about to march down Main Street." Ethical questions about SPLC's tactics were also raised by Harper's Magazine, which took issue with the organization's wont for suing groups for the crimes commited by its indvidual members, "a practice that, however seemingly justified, should give civil libertarians pause." In 1996, USA Today called SPLC, with its $68 million in assets, "the nation's richest civil rights organization." By the end of fiscal year 2003, SPLC's endowment totaled $120.6 million. Morris Dees raised eyebrows in the 1990s when he told an interviewer, "I learned everything I know about hustling from the Baptist Church. Spending Sundays on those hard benches listening to the preacher pitch salvation -- why, it was like getting a Ph.D. in selling." In 1995, Alabama's Montgomery Advertiser published a series of investigative reports that raised serious questions about SPLC's finances. In one instance mentioned by the paper, SPLC won a celebrated $7 million settlement after suing a Ku Klux Klan organization in Alabama. The Klan was without assets and the SPLC client received very little from the suit. By contrast, SPLC directors -- having garnered $9 million in donations in a two-year fundraising campaign for the trial -- afforded themselves salaries of $350,000 for the trial's duration. A 1998 survey conducted by the nonpartisan publication National Journal showed that Morris Dees earned tens of thousands of dollars more each year than the officers of 78 other selected advocacy groups, including the heads of such prominent organizations as the ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Children's Defense Fund. After SPLC took in more than $44 million in revenues in 1999, The Nation magazine lambasted the Center for spending nearly $6 million on fundraising activities but only $2.4 million on litigation. http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6989 |
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Republican blog,,,,,,,,, I am an independent so I like to hear from and about all sides of the political spectrum. My questions to Judicial Watch: Why does your site always focus on Democrats? Are you saying that Democrats are the only ones causing problems? I am so tired of the many information sources that lean so far to the right/left. After today, I believe it is time to stop reading Judicial Watch's findings. Why? Because I can't trust a source that leans so far to one side. Me Toooooo,,,,,, It doesn't only focus on "democrats". Read articles from there first than complain example: Judicial Watch Calls on FEC to Investigate McCain Presidential Fundraising Luncheon Held in London http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2008/apr/judicial-watch-calls-fec-investigate-mccain-presidential-fundraising-luncheon-held-lon As far as I know McCain is not a democrat. Ethics Complaints and Investigations – Richard N. Perle http://www.judicialwatch.org/perlecomplaint.shtml Neither Richard Perle. Ethics Complaints and Investigations – Senators Edward Kennedy and Richard Durbin http://www.judicialwatch.org/durbkencomplaint.shtml neither Richard Durbin. |
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