The Corrupt Barney Frank

Here we are, less than three days into the Reign of Obama, and, as expected, we already find corruption.

Barney Frank, the misguided and ignorant Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts (no surprise there!) has been doing a little Chris Dodding with Boston's OneUnited Bank. OneUnited Bank has been under attack from its regulators for making less than safe loans as well as giving outrageous bonuses to its executives. (Again, nothing new here.) It also ... get this ... had a bank Porsche for its executive's personal use for pleasure.

Then in November, UnitedOne received $12 million from the TARP bailout money. Now we find out that Barney Frank had purposely written into the TARP bill this money for this bank. This bank was not even qualified to receive a single penny of taxpayer money, but when a Democrat decides to spend your money, it almost gets done without notice. Not this time.

Do not forget that Barney Frank is the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee, and was directly involved with collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which was the major cause of the financial collapse we are in.

UnitedOne Bank was not allocated for any bailout. However, Barney Frank has tried to justify this infusion of taxpayer money into UnitedOne solely because it is the one financial institution in Massachusetts that is owned by African Americans. This is a clear case of racism, of wasteful social welfare based on skin color.

In Frank's words, "We did say, yes, I thought it would have been a social tragedy if the one minority bank in Massachusetts that has been working so hard and had been overextended into housing was to be wiped out by a federal action, the Fannie-Freddie preferred [shares] thing, and that's why I think it was important to try and help them out."

It's hard to justify this idiot's logic. Here, we have a bank that was following the liberal idea of downgrading applicants for home loans they should never had been allowed to received. These loans were then picked up by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, of which Frank was a major player. All of this relates back to Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which led to he Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government sponsored enterprises that purchase and securitize mortgages, to devote a percentage of their lending to support affordable housing. That led to The Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, which repealed restrictions on interstate banking, listed the CRA ratings received by the out-of-state bank as a consideration when determining whether to allow interstate branches.

Then In July 1993, President Clinton asked regulators to reform the CRA in order to make examinations more consistent, clarify performance standards, and reduce cost and compliance burden.

As we can see, there has been a pattern of Democratic weakening of the rules for banks to lend money, and a purposeful buying of these subprime loans by federal controlled agencies of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, with Barney Frank at the helm.

But back to UnitedOne. Why did Barney Frank write in an infusion into a bank that was making and selling bad loans, giving its managers big raises, keeping a Porsche for the big shots’ use, and all the while falling farther and farther into financial trouble?

There are only a few answers, but I think it will eventually pan out that Frank was buying loyalty of the black vote in Massachusetts, which is silly since the entire state is in the pocket of the left, and seems to be in financial disarray itself.

Not bad for the first week of the O-Team.