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News footage of a town hall meeting in Dartmouth, MA, during which House Rep. Barney Frank meets with constituents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8

This is precisely how I like my politicians, direct and plain-spoken; and this is precisely how politicians should respond to idiot protesters like this. Shame them and shut them up.

The ignorant should always be removed from public discourse. I'll respect your right to say what you want to say if you respect your responsibility to not say something ignorant or hateful in public. This is pretty much my only argument against "free speech" - because no one in our lifetime has earned it it is not respected and gets abused as a privilege. No one has the "right" to free speech, it was a right earned in blood over many generations of humanity.

/rant on; sardonic humor set to "On"

Nice to see how well some people take advantage of it...seriously, anyone comparing Obama to Hitler should just be sterilized right now. I don't know whether their stupidity is nature or nuture, i.e. genetic inheritance from parents or passed on through the ignorance they sopped up from their parents and never learned to question, but in either case they need to be prevented from passing it on to another generation of human beings...

/rant off

Of course I don't actually think anyone should be sterilized, lest anyone think they're being clever in pointing out "Hey, you just said people shouldn't say ignorant things in public and you just did!" That's not clever, I'm clearly being facetious; yet it does get frustrating when you see stupidity like that woman's being displayed out in the open with no shame.

It's like I always say - it takes intelligence to recognize intelligence, and therefore intelligence to recognize stupidity. That woman in the clip has absolutely no conception as to just how offensive it is to compare President Obama to the perpetrator of the Holocaust. No conception whatsoever.

I can't even write that off as ignorance. How can someone NOT know what Hitler and the Nazis did? Wouldn't that, therefore, make this abject stupidity?? As in, she's so stupid that she doesn't even realize when she's saying something colossally stupid?

Barney Frank? The same Barney Frank partially responsible for the Freddie Mack & Fanny May break down?

That Barney Frank?


GG

generalgrog wrote:Barney Frank? The same Barney Frank partially responsible for the Freddie Mack & Fanny May break down?

That Barney Frank?


GG

Yea that Barney frank. The same one who recently sent letters to lenders to try to get them to loosen up their standards for condo loans.

Guy is a waste of skin.

Links, evidence, argument rather than just spouting off an unsubstantiated charge. Assume everyone here knows nothing of what you're talking about and then make your case. I don't know that Barney Frank is responsible enough for that "breakdown" such that it should color my thinking about him one way or the other. I don't know what restrictions of action based on prior legislation or the letter of the law that Barney Frank or anyone else had placed upon them when they made any decisions or cast any votes that may or may not have led to any sort of "breakdown."

Same thing with the condo loans. Links to the letters, please, followed by context. Why did he write them, was it part of a larger campaign and if so what was that campaign about, what was it seeking to address. Facts, please? Otherwise it's just rhetoric - especially if you're a confirmed conservative Republican who is obviously automatically set to dislike someone like Barney Frank and whose disapproval, therefore, is always highly suspect in terms of its legitimacy and value as a rational observation.

If he's done things that are "wrong" from any perspective, you should be able to make your case without reverting to partisan nonsense. Truly wrong is truly wrong, no matter what.

If you want to speak to the OP about how ignorant people at these town hall meetings ought to be treated, which would be the next overall point past directly commenting on how Barney Frank treated this idiot woman comparing health care expansion to gassing Jews and burning them in ovens, then do so - but otherwise you just come off as sounding like someone who is anti-Barney Frank and will throw whatever gak against the wall he can that he thinks will stick the fastest.

If you don't know about that, you're willfully ignorant and we can't help you, much less change your mind.

Frazzled wrote:If you don't know about that, you're willfully ignorant and we can't help you, much less change your mind.

Or I just have less time on my hands than you do, or I'm generally less interested in the subject...in either case you were just asked for information and you have two choices: provide it and see whether you can "help me," or else take the easy way out like you just did in which case you just further expose yourself as being mindlessly partisan which, hopefully, in the eyes of rational, intelligent readers should markedly devalue your political opinions here.

It's one thing to attempt to make a case, not be understood, and THEN throw one's hands in the air...it's another to not even try and immediately assume an attitude of smug superiority.

The former speaks to the patience of the speaker...the latter speaks to the inability of the speaker to make their case.

The only respect I have for Barney Frank is for publicly admitted he's gay instead of being caught in an airport bathroom offering BJs.

This should help you

Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
Fannie Mae's Patron Saint

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122091796187012529.html

http://caveviews.blogs.com/cave_news/2008/12/barney-frank-main-architect-of-subprime-mortgage-fiasco.html


Fannie, Freddie asked to relax condo loan rules: report

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Housing/idUSTRE55L39120090622

On the basis of the video can we make this man president of the world?

Cairnius wrote:
If you want to speak to the OP about how ignorant people at these town hall meetings ought to be treated, which would be the next overall point past directly commenting on how Barney Frank treated this idiot woman comparing health care expansion to gassing Jews and burning them in ovens, then do so - but otherwise you just come off as sounding like someone who is anti-Barney Frank and will throw whatever gak against the wall he can that he thinks will stick the fastest.

The problem cairnius is that the title says "This is why Barney Frank rules".

Frazz and I are simply pointing out why he doesn't "rule", and many of us think he should be run out of office.

As to the lady and the gas chamber comment, we all know that there is a lot of misinformation about the healthcare proposal, and we have discussed it in other threads. I didn't feel the need to rehash it.

GG

George Spiggott wrote:On the basis of the video can we make this man president of the world?

Read up on Barney Frank, then see how quickly you retract your statement. This is the same guy that had a boy toy staying at his pad running an escort service.




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generalgrog wrote:

Cairnius wrote:
If you want to speak to the OP about how ignorant people at these town hall meetings ought to be treated, which would be the next overall point past directly commenting on how Barney Frank treated this idiot woman comparing health care expansion to gassing Jews and burning them in ovens, then do so - but otherwise you just come off as sounding like someone who is anti-Barney Frank and will throw whatever gak against the wall he can that he thinks will stick the fastest.

The problem cairnius is that the title says "This is why Barney Frank rules".

Frazz and I are simply pointing out why he doesn't "rule", and many of us think he should be run out of office.

As to the lady and the gas chamber comment, we all know that there is a lot of misinformation about the healthcare proposal, and we have discussed it in other threads. I didn't feel the need to rehash it.

GG

Yea shouting at a protester is meaningless to me, especially a hothouse nut protester. Your average stand up comic is excellent at that.

@ Frazzled: I read, that's why I want the guy from the video not the guy from the links.

That was better. Thank you; but permit me to respond to some of this (as I happen to have some time on my hands right now) and perhaps that can help you provide me with anything else that might be useful.



The Boston Globe article...I get that the writer of the op-ed is contrasting Frank's statements as to the financial health of Freddie and Fannie with the reality that was shown five years later, and that sounds legit, but when the author says "Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train," that's indicting the entirety of the Federal government, not just Barney Frank...in fact, if the Community Reinvestment Act was revised in May of 1995 and most recently amended in August of 2005, which Party was running the Congress at those points? Democrats or Republicans? And wouldn't the answer to that question be extremely relevant if one wants to try and make Barney Frank a prime suspect in this case?

I also have to say that the author said two things which made the whole article highly suspect...I mean, yes it's an op-ed piece which means it isn't journalism and so adherence to facts isn't really at the top of the author's list of priorities, but when I read:

"Frank said; the country is in dire straits today "thanks to a conservative philosophy that says the market knows best." And that philosophy goes "back to Ronald Reagan, when at his inauguration he said, 'Government is not the answer to our problems; government is the problem.' "

In fact, that isn't what Reagan said. His actual words were: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Were he president today, he would be saying much the same thing."

...which is petty and nit-picking in the extreme, Frank had the quote right for all intents and purposes, he got one word wrong which was still a synonym for the word in the proper quote, and when I read this:

"The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless."

...it sounds more like the author of this op-ed piece has issues with trying to help minorities out than he has any problems with Barney Frank. I question the author's motives, and therefore the veracity of his argument.



I'd prefer to read not op-eds, as *I* can write those myself but wouldn't call them authoritative pieces, but this is what you gave me...so onto the WSJ op-ed, article #2.

The author began to get me when he said that Frank was in charge of the House Financial Services Committee by early 2007. This is the kind of thing I want to see before someone lays any even moderate degree of blame for anything that Fannie and Freddie did. I want to see direct causality. Show me the legislation he championed, show me what he did beyond words and speeches that actually had empirically-measurable effects on these companies, i.e. he wrote X bill which lowered Y criteria for mortgage lending which led to Z capital deficits in the companies which then led to their requiring a bail-out.

Pretty much what this op-ed boils down to is that Barney Frank may have been protecting Freddie and Fannie because he had political influence, or thought he had political influence, over them...to which honestly I have to shrug. All politicians protect the crap they think serves them. I can't even register this as a "crime" for a Federal politician. What matters to me isn't what Frank says - anyone who puts stock in the words coming out of a politician's mouth was either born yesterday or is high - it's his actions that matter.

This is what I would like to see more evidence of:

He encouraged the companies to guarantee more "affordable" mortgages, thus abetting their disastrous plunge into subprime and Alt-A loans. He also pushed for, and got, an increase in the conforming-loan limits to allow Fan and Fred to securitize and guarantee larger mortgages. And he pressured regulators to ease up on their capital requirements -- which now means taxpayers will have to make up that capital shortfall.

If he was a prime or sole enactor of these sorts of things then these sound like legitimate charges to me on the surface, though I would then ask if Barney is responsible for how the companies decided where the limits of "subprime" was...I think there's a point to be made about setting policy goals in Washington and then whether or not companies took advantage of loosened restrictions to try and make profits off them. I don't honestly know - but I don't believe that Washington ever did things like set company policy or set their rates. Politicians are generally careful not to get too specific like that for obvious reasons (i.e. avoiding blame later).



Your third article, the blog...not to sound difficult for the sake of being difficult because I am not trying to be, but the value I personally assign to blogs is pretty close to nil. The author of the blog also self-identifies as a conservative, and the first thing they teach you as a history major is how to identify and read for bias, and Frank being such a known liberal in Washington makes me automatically suspicious of this blog, but I did read it...

This blog calling Barney Frank the "main architect" of the fiasco sounds really ridiculous. The prior two articles you gave were pretty much lambasting his cheerleading of the companies, but they weren't laying the blame primarily on him like this blog does. That makes the whole entry, again, very suspect.

There are more references to Frank's statements in 2003 that Freddie and Fannie were "financially sound," do you have any information as to the financials of these two companies in 2003? I would like to see context. I would like to see how much money they had wrapped up in MBS.

See, that's the thing - it was the commodification of mortgages which was the problem in the first place as I understand it, not the sub-prime mortgages themselves. If the MBS's had never come into existence, which I don't think they could have if things like the Glass-Steagall Act had never been dismantled, then wouldn't we NOT have had the massive crisis we did? Individual companies may have come down, but it was the packaging and trading of all these bad mortgages that got everyone's hands into the pot simultaneously and which thus threatened the entire global financial network when their true lack of value was finally elucidated.

If the mortgages were just that, mortgages, and never treated as securities, wouldn't that have prevented the crisis from ever taking place? Again, Glass-Steagall comes to mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act



On the last article...any information on whether or not tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums really could have threatened the viability of developments and could slow down the housing market recovery? That would seem to be important to establish, if possible, before lambasting Barney Frank and Anthony Weiner for asking Fannie and Freddie to make adjustments to the sales threshold.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

generalgrog wrote:The problem cairnius is that the title says "This is why Barney Frank rules".

Frazz and I are simply pointing out why he doesn't "rule", and many of us think he should be run out of office.

Dude, I'm being very specific in my context here - he "rules" because he actually told that woman, to her face, that she was a nut-job.

She IS a nut-job - and not many politicians would have the balls to say that to her.

I do not believe that everyone's opinion is to be respected. I believe that opinions which have some facts to back them up, which aren't entirely about bias or "What I believe," THOSE are to be respected.

I don't give a gak what anyone "believes." Belief is logically unconnected to the truth. If someone believes that the sky is green and tries to make the argument to me I'm going to answer in much the same way that Barney answered about not wanting to argue with a dining room table, and he's right.

See, this is what I think liberals don't do that they need to do, loudly and publicly: tell people when they're entirely full of gak. People who talk about "death panels" should be mocked harshly, loudly, and repeatedly until they are getting laughed out loud at by crowds of people, and we put this on television, and the idiots then get embarrassed and shut the feth up and go away.

If someone has a legitimate problem with something they should be able to make a legitimate argument to express that problem. If you are worried about the ramifications of a public health care option, go find a Western industrialized nation with a history of private health insurance plans which then instituted a public option which bankrupted the country, or which led to massive tax increases across the board, etc. Make the empirical case that it has been tried before and failed. Show causality, if you can. Give evidence.

If you can't do any of that THEN YOU HAVE NO ARGUMENT, AND SHUT THE feth UP.

Which is pretty much what Barney Frank told that woman, and THAT is why he "rules," because he is perfectly willing to call a fool a fool to their faces and just doesn't give a gak. I'd rather see all politicians act this way and potentially lose their seats, but be honest, real people during their time in government service, than be ass-kissing, hand-holding, obsequious and detestable people who say what people want to hear in public but who don't vote that way in private.

At least Barney Frank is consistent...


In terms of running him out of office...you could always move to his voting district and cast votes against him, if you like. Otherwise, if that's who the people want, that's who the people get. *shrug* I'd love to run Boehner out of office but that's not my decision to make, so I don't even bother thinking about it. Not worth stressing over. I may as well get personally upset with each and every person who votes for him.

Frazzled wrote:

generalgrog wrote:Barney Frank? The same Barney Frank partially responsible for the Freddie Mack & Fanny May break down?

That Barney Frank?


GG

Yea that Barney frank. The same one who recently sent letters to lenders to try to get them to loosen up their standards for condo loans.

Guy is a waste of skin.

This may all be true, but what he said to that woman was still hilarious, and pretty close to an appropriate response IMO.

I dont care if Barney Frank is a good guy or not: his answer (in the video) was awesome.

This guy was a jackass to people I hate; he must be a great guy all around!

I have been very happy with Mr. Frank and he is exactly that Frank. I can agree on his openly admitting his sexuality, but the difference between a scandal exposing a gay senator and onpen admission is the difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats get exposed having affairs and screwing over-priced hookers. Republicans get exposed having sex with children and hijinks in airline terminal bathrooms. I would say Senator Frank is the Democratic equivalent to former senator Alan Simpson from Wyoming.

As far as the accusation of having Frank held responsible for global economic collapse is a bit shortsighted. just becasue someone sits on a committe that is supposed to oversee segments of an industry doesn't automatically mean they are the responsible party. Rhetoric is what it is and nothing more. If I wanted to here that I could listen to Faux news.

That video was some proper ownage by Mr. Frank although admittedly I don't know who the feth he was prior to this.

Dealing with idiotic mobs must be a royal pain in the ass. Godspeed admins and politicians. godspeed.

Cairnius wrote:
I can't even write that off as ignorance. How can someone NOT know what Hitler and the Nazis did? Wouldn't that, therefore, make this abject stupidity?? As in, she's so stupid that she doesn't even realize when she's saying something colossally stupid?

Actually, for her to even make the comparison she would HAVE to know what Hitler and the Nazis did. Ignorance isn't a valid defense at all. Unless she would also accept a comparison to Gandhi, then its just random name dropping.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:This should help you

Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
Fannie Mae's Patron Saint

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122091796187012529.html

http://caveviews.blogs.com/cave_news/2008/12/barney-frank-main-architect-of-subprime-mortgage-fiasco.html


Fannie, Freddie asked to relax condo loan rules: report

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Housing/idUSTRE55L39120090622

Those were all decisions based on his opinion Fraz. You know the right to free speech in the public forum? Just part of the war, right?

This is a bad thread and you should all feel bad.

generalgrog wrote:The problem cairnius is that the title says "This is why Barney Frank rules".

Frank is an entertaining chap with a great turn of phrase. The thread title is right, because the video posted is exactly why Frank rules.

But there are also reasons why Frank sucks. While his part in the administration of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae has been strongly overstated by the right wing, he did play a part*, and he did misread the financial markets. He should have recognised his part, but as a politician he hasn't owned up. Funnily enough, the place that best showed his role was the Daily Show, where Stewart directly challenged him with some of his own quotes, and Frank talked his way around them. The Daily Show did it best because it didn't ignore his role, but it didn't overstate it to silly proportions like you see on FOX and among other right wing sources like those posted by Fraz.




*Frank did encourage putting people in housing when people should have been able to assess the market was at the peak of the bubble. But blaming the collapse on . Further, Frank's position was to remove lending restrictions to allow lending to low income families... blaming government intervention for the crisis and referencing the removal of government controls as an example is very stupid.

Half a million views on YouTube... people ARE tired of this nonsense. We need more democrats that will just tell the other side how it is, I am tired over debate about whether Glenn Beck can even be taken seriously.

sebster wrote:

generalgrog wrote:The problem cairnius is that the title says "This is why Barney Frank rules".

Frank is an entertaining chap with a great turn of phrase. The thread title is right, because the video posted is exactly why Frank rules.

But there are also reasons why Frank sucks. While his part in the administration of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae has been strongly overstated by the right wing, he did play a part*, and he did misread the financial markets. He should have recognised his part, but as a politician he hasn't owned up. Funnily enough, the place that best showed his role was the Daily Show, where Stewart directly challenged him with some of his own quotes, and Frank talked his way around them. The Daily Show did it best because it didn't ignore his role, but it didn't overstate it to silly proportions like you see on FOX and among other right wing sources like those posted by Fraz.




*Frank did encourage putting people in housing when people should have been able to assess the market was at the peak of the bubble. But blaming the collapse on . Further, Frank's position was to remove lending restrictions to allow lending to low income families... blaming government intervention for the crisis and referencing the removal of government controls as an example is very stupid.

i have always found it funny that the daily show is generally more honest then fox, cnn, msnbc. the last true reporter died with walter cronkite

youbedead wrote:i have always found it funny that the daily show is generally more honest then fox, cnn, msnbc. the last true reporter died with walter cronkite

Yeah, but I don't think it's because Stewart is inherently more honest than the rest. He's just got the luxury that his show is a comedy first and foremost, and gets ratings based on how funny he is. On the other hand the rest get ratings based on how exciting a piece of news is, and so the truth suffers over the need to have an exciting story.

@Sebster:
I saw that interview between Frank and Stewart and I found it to be very gratifying. Stewart stuck it too him, but Frank-being a wily old politician-finagled his way out of it. That being said, I find Barney Frank to be a complete idiot who is just slippery enough to wriggle free of any problems. The man had a much bigger role in the Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac meltdown than I think many of you are willing to admit, but I will concede that he was/is not completely responsible for the mess as many right-wingers claim.

Oh, and my personal feelings on Barney Frank aside, I found this video to be very entertaining. Mr. Frank's responses are just classic!

Disregarding the grammatical errors in my earlier post, I must make a correction and refer to Mr. Frank as a representative rather than a senator.

Wrexasaur wrote:Half a million views on YouTube... people ARE tired of this nonsense. We need more democrats that will just tell the other side how it is, I am tired over debate about whether Glenn Beck can even be taken seriously.

The woman in this video is a radical democrat, not a republican. A Lyndon democrat, they are called. She is angry because she feels that ANY private health insurance is bad, mkay, and definitely not a republican or a conservative by any definition.

Also- the ONLY people who have been seen outside town halls with Nazi symbology have been Lyndon or other variants of fringe democrats. The only evidence of violence was when a liberal woman slapped a conservative who wasn't even talking to her, and when a mob of black dudes beat the crap out of another black dude for being a republican.

And that guy with the AR-15 that CNN keeps running as evidence of white supremacists trying to intimidate the president? You'll notice how carefully shot the video is when you see a wide angle shot: It is a black business man.

So, actually looks like you just need to tell your own party how it is. And maybe rely on media outside of MSNBC, CNN, and FOX

Could someone please explain what the link between the Nazi's and this healthcare reform is because it isn't clear to the uninitiated.

My party? The one with the beer?

I am not a democrat, I clearly meant elected Democrats to the U.S. government. So far that has been the clearest response to such ludicrous claims.

Totally ridiculous accusation, and the funniest part is that I the part that these wing-nuts were referring to as a "Death Panel" was taken out of the bill... one of the most harmless and every day pieces of the bill, and the anti-health care movement (rep, or dem, it really matters not, these are just people disrupting town hall meetings in order to slow the process, regardless of their intent to do so or not) has not said a thing about that.

Obama is still somehow like Hitler to these cats, regardless of the fact that no one wants to hear that nonsense when such a serious issue is being debated.

George Spiggott wrote:Could someone please explain what the link between the Nazi's and this healthcare reform is because it isn't clear to the uninitiated.

There isn't one... it is simple political misinformation.

We're talking about the Barney Frank who had a gay prostitution ring being run out of his offices here, among other gems.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/who_is_barney_frank.html