Photoshop credit: VVM Obama’s Super-Czar Is on the Loose by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2012 Here is the operating motto of the Obama White House: “So let it be written, so let it be done!” Like Yul Brynner’s Pharaoh Ramses character in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments,” the demander in chief stands with arms akimbo issuing daily edicts to his constitution-subverting minions with an imperious wave of his hand. His entourage of insatiable usurpers never rests. Can’t delude legislators into adopting a $1.5 billion Kabuki summer-jobs makework boondoggle? Create an unfunded program through executive fiat. Can’t muster up a filibuster-proof majority for radical nominees? Czar-ify ‘em. Can’t get Congress to approve vast wild lands designations? Grab them under cover of a holiday lame-duck session. Can’t get the illegal alien bailout DREAM Act passed on Capitol Hill? Executive-order it. “So let it be written, so let it be done!” In keeping with the dark and defiant habits of this administration, the new head of the half-billion-dollar Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was sworn in behind closed doors on Wednesday night. The nomination of former Democratic Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to serve as Dodd-Frank regulatory enforcer had been soundly defeated in the Senate before Christmas. But as I reported last month, progressive zealots funded by billionaire George Soros goaded Obama to ignore the Senate’s constitutionally grounded advice and consent role. At his left flank’s urging, Obama vowed to follow in President Theodore Roosevelt’s footsteps (TR recess-appointed 160 officials during a recess of less than one day) and install Cordray even though the Senate technically remained in pro forma session. Fresh from his Hawaii vacation, Obama returned to Washington and for once delivered on a promise. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Thursday that the administration expects no retaliation for the end-run around the deliberative process. Playing the pharaoh’s helper, Carney airily dismissed widespread bipartisan questions about the legality of the power grab as “esoteric discussion.” The GOP knew the installation of Obama’s latest super-czar was coming a month ago, but is now scrambling to respond. Republicans will get clobbered with the class warfare card again unless they forcefully counter the Democrats’ narrative of the president’s “bold” actions for “middle-class Americans.” Obama’s liberal media supporters have rationalized the tyrannical maneuver as a response to GOP “ nullification .” But it’s those who oppose common-sense reforms of the gravely flawed Dodd-Frank law — a 2,600-page monstrosity that no lawmaker read before passing it — who are obstructing good government. As Senate Republicans have been pointing out for months, Dodd-Frank threw out judicial review, removed CFPB from the congressional appropriations process, provided five-year tenure protection for the director and transferred the agency from the Treasury Department to the opaque and unaccountable Federal Reserve. Obama and Democratic leaders themselves recognize the recklessness of vesting so much unfettered power in a single individual. In 2009, Obama floated a bipartisan board to oversee enforcement. Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island all co-sponsored legislation backing a commission. Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank was also an original sponsor of a bill creating the very kind of five-member panel Republicans have proposed. The House passed these and other structural reforms last year, but the Senate has failed to act, and the White House insists on demagoguing reformers. Moreover, taxpayers remain in the dark about how and how much the CFPB is spending, because Dodd-Frank allows the agency to draw funds from the Federal Reserve’s operating expenses. Out of sight, out of mind. This is not “bold.” It’s jackboot. It won’t benefit “middle-class Americans.” It’ll line lobbyist pockets, soak taxpayer dollars and fuel a Beltway rule-making bonanza. It’s not about reining in Wall Street abuses. It’s about consolidating bureaucratic authority and granting unprecedented immunity to a single super-cop from congressional and public oversight. Where, ahem, are those Occupiers when you need them? *** Related – John Yoo on Cordray and the use and abuse of executive power.
Read the original:
Obama’s super-czar is on the loose
This is from Corruptocrat Sen. Chris Dodd’s official Twitter feed. Leave your best guess about who the message was meant for and what “sh*t” his office is talking about…Angelo Mozilo and one last sweetheart deal? Harry Reid and shamnesty? A K Street lobbyist dangling an enticing, post-retirement job prospect? An update from Dodd’s staff, who hastily deleted the above Tweet: Heh. Brittany Cohan isn’t buying the staff alibi, noting that the original tweet was sent via text, while the retraction was tweeted via the web: “[M]ethinks that people need to not assume we are all twitter novices before they go around telling stories.” Update : Dodd’s office just sent the following: Statement from Dodd Staff: “Due to a technical mistake, a message was inadvertently sent from Senator Dodd’s twitter account. Senator Dodd did not send the message. We have corrected the situation and apologize to his followers for the mistake and inappropriate language used in the message.” *** Hard to parody the self-parodying, but someone on Twitter is already capitalizing on the Dodd botch. Heh .
Read the original post:
D’oh: Sen. Dodd’s Tweet of the Day Update: Dodd’s office sends e-mail
We continue to discover how much wider and deeper the tentacles of the Countrywide Financial Corporation VIP program reached. As was widely reported last month, some 153 Fannie Mae employees reaped Countrywide VIP benefits. That’s in addition to the 30 VIP loans that went to other Senators and their employees besides corruptocrat Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd and North Dakota Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad. Gretchen Morgenson at the NYT reports on an internal document shedding more light on the intimate, favor-trading relationship between Countrywide and Fannie Mae: Outwardly, Fannie and Freddie wrapped themselves in the American flag and the dream of homeownership. But internally, they were relentless in their pursuit of profits from partners in the mortgage boom. One of their biggest and most steadfast collaborators was Countrywide, the subprime lending machine run by Angelo R. Mozilo. Countrywide was the biggest supplier of loans to Fannie during the mania; in 2004, it sold 26 percent of the loans Fannie bought. Three years later, it was selling 28 percent. What Countrywide got out of the relationship was clear — a buyer for its dubious loans. Now the taxpayer is on the hook for those losses. But what was in it for Fannie? An internal Fannie document from 2004 obtained by The New York Times sheds light on this question. A “Customer Engagement Plan” for Countrywide, it shows how assiduously Fannie pursued Mr. Mozilo and 14 of his lieutenants to make sure the company continued to shovel loans its way. Nine bullet points fall under the heading “Fannie Mae’s Top Strategic Business Objectives With Lender.” The first: “Deepen relationship at all levels throughout CHL and Fannie Mae to foster alignment and collaboration between our companies at every opportunity.” (CHL refers to Countrywide Home Loans.) No. 2: “Create barriers to exit partnership.” Next: “Disciplined Risk/Servicing Management” and “Achieve Fannie Mae Profitability Goals.” (Later in 2004, by the way, the Securities and Exchange Commission found that Fannie had used improper accounting and ordered it to restate its earnings for the previous four years. Some $6.3 billion in profit was wiped out.) The engagement plan also recommends ways that Fannie executives should mingle with Countrywide’s top management, because “fostering more direct senior level engagements with key influencers throughout their organization will be beneficial in ensuring strategic alignment and building organizational loyalty.” As I’ve noted here before and spotlighted in Culture of Corruption , it’s all about the boodle. House Oversight and Government Reform ranking member GOP Rep. Darrell Issa reacts: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: “Lost in the debate over how to best legislate the aftermath of the financial crisis has been the necessity to conduct an inward examination at the too-cozy relationship between government enterprises and private industry. The indisputable and disturbing reality is that as Fannie-Freddie executives were accepting Countrywide VIP loans, they were also developing a strategy to form a partnership with Countrywide with the goal of using that relationship to influence the mortgage industry and policymakers. For all the impact that the subprime meltdown had on laying the groundwork for a full-scale financial meltdown, the true nature of this strategic partnership should be exposed so we can measure the extent to which this too-cozy relationship had in fostering the conditions that led to the financial meltdown. We always knew that Countrywide’s VIP program was established to curry influence with policymakers, now we see that it was actually a two-way street with Fannie-Freddie trying to build favor with Countrywide – the outstanding question is who gave what to whom and why?” Indeed. The Senator from Countrywide, Chris Dodd, will leave office with barely a slap on the wrist from his colleagues — but the boot mark of disgusted taxpayers on his back side is indelible. It’s time for ballot-box accountability for the rest of the subprime slime gang. The Summer of Corruption rolls on… *** Flashback: The Fannie and Freddie debacle – An autopsy
Read the original post:
Summer of Corruption: Countrywide + Fannie Mae = Subprime slime
