Friday, May 27, 2011

I Have Some Questions **UPDATED**

On Thursday, Obama signed - via computer - an extension for the Patriot Act, after it was passed by the House and Senate. This allows it to be in effect until June 1, 2015.

You remember the Patriot Act - it is the one many of us were furious about when the Bush Administration came up with it. It is the one that permits warrant-less wiretapping on US citizens. The very one Obama, as Candidate Obama, took time out from pandering to the masses to vote to extend the last time, though Senators Clinton and McCain were opposed to it.

And you may recall, Obama's minions were adamantly opposed to the Patriot Act. Adamantly opposed. When he pulled that stunt, going to vote for it, their eyes glossed over, their ears closed, and their brains shut down so they wouldn't go into apoplexy. My younger brother, a stalwart Obamabot, said it was "disappointing" that Obama voted for it. "Disappointing." Right.

So, what is it now that President Obama has signed an extension, huh? Where is MoveOn.org NOW? Where is Code Pink? Where is DailyKos? I'm just wondering.

Another question I have is, why does Barney Frank not think it is a conflict of interest for him to push his then-lover to work for Fannie Mae? He doesn't think there are any "ethical" problems with it at all:
[snip] “If it is (a conflict of interest), then much of Washington is involved (in conflicts),” Frank told the Herald last night. “It is a common thing in Washington for members of Congress to have spouses work for the federal government. There is no rule against it at all.”

Frank said he helped his former longtime companion, Herb Moses, land a job at Fannie Mae in 1991 after Moses graduated with a master’s degree in business administration from Dartmouth College. Frank said he was approached by a Fannie Mae executive and vouched for Moses, who formerly worked as an economist in the Department of Agriculture. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Uh huh. Yeah, this is just how Washington does it, so what's the big deal? Well, this is:
[snip] OK. But Barney’s problem with this latest “bias and vitriol” is that it doesn’t come from the Herald. It comes from a New York Times [NYT] reporter, Gretchen Morgenson — a Pulitzer Prize winner — in a new book, “Reckless Endangerment.”

Morgenson accused Barney of getting a job for his boyfriend on a show a couple of days ago on, of all places, National Public Radio.

[snip]

Can anyone dispute that the New York Times/Boston Globe protects and venerates Barney Frank? And yet here is what the Times’ Pulitzer Prize winner says:

“Frank actually called up the company (Fannie Mae) and asked them to hire his companion, who had just gotten an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business (at Dartmouth). . . . Of course the company was happy to provide a job for his companion and rolled out the red carpet in a series of interviews with a variety of executives, and it ultimately did hire the man.”

Another nationwide search!

“And he stayed there for, I believe, seven years.”

[...]

The Pulitzer Prize winner from the Times interviewed Barney about his Significant Other, and Mr. Hot Bottom assured her he never, ever went to bat for his boyfriend’s employer at congressional hearings. Not true, says the NYT reporter.

“The record shows that he was very aggressive and really tough on those who were testifying in Congress about reining in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

True love is what it was. Later on, Barney had an epiphany about Fannie Mae’s corruption. But as Morgenson puts it, “He had been a vocal supporter for so long that it was sort of an odd turnabout.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

I'll say it was. And if you recall, Fannie and Freddie have had wide ranging, far reaching, effects on our economy. So, thanks a lot for that, Barney. And of course, you did NOTHING wrong. Ahahahahahaha. Right.

Update below, and it is a doozy about Fannie and Freddie.

And then there is this final, sillier, question: why would the new DNC Chair, Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, feel compelled to attack Republicans for not supporting throwing money at GM and Chrysler, thus not supporting American cars, when she drives an Infiniti? I'm just asking, since she said this:
[snip] "If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars; they would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes," she said at a breakfast for reporters organized by The Christian Science Monitor. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

I'd also like to know why Obama is wanting to shell out billions of OUR taxpaying dollars to go to Egypt and other so-called "Arab Spring" countries? I understand he wants to send money there for job creation? What about job creation in his OWN country??

And not for nothing, but this money will be going to groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, the "rebels" in Libya, who are not all freedom loving would be Democrats. Not at all, since some of them have ties to Al-Qaeda. And we are going to help fund them WHY, exactly?

See, I have questions, though the above are just the beginning. Anyone have some answers?

UPDATE: I just saw what the Obama Administration has paid the six top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the past two years - $34.4 MILLION. Yes, you read that right. Read more here:
[snip] Over the last two years, the Obama administration has approved a whopping $34.4 million in compensation to the top six executives of the financially troubled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage giants, and lacks the necessary protections to ensure such compensation is even warranted.
The largesse flowed to the six executives even though the two companies they run struggle to staunch billions of dollars in losses, remain in government conservatorship, and must compensate taxpayers for assuming the companies’ liabilities during the mortgage crisis. To compensate taxpayers, Fannie and Freddie are tapping Treasury Department funds to pay required 10 percent dividends each quarter to the U.S. government.[snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

These two mortgage behemoths have helped to throw this country into an economic tailspin, and are still bleeding money. And WE are paying them that kind of money?? This is insane. It is absolutely insane. Wow...

4 comments:

Stray Yellar Dawg? said...

Effective silencing of the American Left. That is what Obama does best. Because they truly believe, in their heart of hearts, that to question him is "racism."

I shake my head at what I see. Then I go home and weep. Silently.

Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy said...

Well said, SYD.

There was an editorial in my local paper today abt the whole racism thing. The paper was taking Rep. Clyburn to task for saying it is racism that is still Obama's problem. The editors said, no, any president who had done what Obama has would be criticized, that it has nothing to do with his skin color.

Clyburn is just warming up for the 2012 election, though, no doubt. I am sure that race card will be tossed out there with reckless abandon...

Mary Ellen said...

Well, I did the dirty work. I was curious when I read the part you wrote about "where's DK's, and moveon.org, and code pink"...

Daily Kos: Not one story about the Patriot Act. Nada. Zip

Moveon.org: Zilch, not one single line about the Patriot Act. What Patriot Act??? Hugh???

Code Pink: Big fat zero. No news about the Patriot Act but a LOT of Jew bashing. LOTS! And not to mention...going onto their website with all that bright putrid pink splashed all over it. Enough to make your stomach turn. Ugh.

I guess they figure if they don't talk about it, it didn't really happen.

But I even went further on my quest to find out what the progressives think of their messiah signing the extension on the Patriot Act.

Think Progress: I guess they're just not thinkin' today, at least they're not thinking about the Patriot Act. Just complaining about Paul Ryan.

AmericaBlog: Well, I almost missed the post about the Patriot Act, what do you know, it was there! However, I got stalled on their views that Ed Schultz is a classy guy because after he called Laura Ingram a slut, he did apologize. How classy is that??? What a guy!

Oh...and in AmericaBlog's usual twisted thinking, it's not Obama's fault he's signing the Patriot Act bill, it's Congress' fault. They made him want to do it, I guess.

Oh..and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and her car just had me rolling! Did you hear about the way she behaved in the meeting with Netanyahu? What an embarrassment to our country she and the Obama gang are. I think I read it over at Gateway Pundit.

Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy said...

Mary Ellen, you are a SAINT! I appreciate you wading in and doing the dirty work. Heck - you cold have Mike Rowe's job! ;-)

And of course, almost all of them said NOTHING. If they do, it is exactly as you said, they absolve Obama of any and all blame - "it's not his fault, he's just the president, what could he possibly do?!?"

Pathetic. Truly pathetic.

And Ed Scultz - I love how people think that since he is giving up a week without pay, things are fine. This is just continued misogyny at MSNBC (btw, The New Agenda has a petition, in conjunction with Change.org, to MSNBC to get that bozo fired).

I love how the Courage Campaign is targeting Fox News for being "homophobic," wanting advertisers to pull out, and hitting at Orbitz because they won't, yet WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY with MSNBC? I have not noticed that Fox is particularly homophobic, but i sure have noticed that MSNBC is misogynistic and sexist.

Oh, but its only women, so...

Thank you, ME - you are a saint!