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.

According to the NY Daily News: “A ‘Millionaires March’ will visit the homes – or, more realistically, the gleaming marble lobbies – of five of the city’s wealthiest residents, including News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and conservative billionaire David Koch.”

Some millionaires and billionaires and their homes get protected, of course. Billionaire NYC Mayor Bloomberg, who refuses to crack down on protesters who have no permit to conduct the march, has a pass. Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman’s compound is off-limits. So is NY-based billionaire hedge fund mogul, Obama donor, and Dodd-Frank waiver beneficiary George Soros.

Photo credit: Business Insider

Scandal-plagued LightSquared billionaire investor and Obama donor Philip Falcone owns a $49 million Upper East Side palace that won’t be on the protest route.

GE billionaire fat cat Jeffrey Immelt won’t be targeted, either.

Outside NYC, Billionaire Obama donor and Solyndra peddler George Kaiser isn’t even on their radar.

Also on the immunity list: Al Gore’s multiple mansions, including his $9 million Montecito oceanfront villa:

Oh, and you won’t see any Occupy Wall Street zombies banging their bongo drums in front of the sweetheart homes of privileged Democrats who’ve cashed in on cozy Wall Street/BigGov-BigBiz deals like the ones below.

Remember?

Flashback September 2010…

How privileged Democrats pay for their houses
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

…Former senior senator from Delaware and current Vice President Joe Biden has a custom-built house in Delaware’s ritziest Chateau Country neighborhood. It is now worth at least $2.5 million and is the Bidens’ most valuable asset. Biden tapped campaign funds to pay for his compound’s lawn needs. He secured the new estate with the help of a corporate executive who worked for Biden’s top campaign donor, credit card giant MBNA.

In 1996, Biden sold his previous mansion to MBNA Vice Chairman John Cochran. The asking price was $1.2 million. Cochran forked over the full sum. Biden then paid $350,000 in cash to real estate developer Keith Stoltz for a 4.2-acre lakefront lot. Stoltz had paid that same amount five years earlier for the undeveloped property.

Stoltz told the Wilmington News Journal that “the residential real estate market was soft” at the time he sold the land to Biden. But “soft” for whom? Stoltz was a well-off businessman who didn’t appear to be in such dire financial straits that he needed to unload the property quickly in a weak market.

Reporter Byron York looked at comparable properties in Biden’s neighborhood and found three cases where homes in the area went “for a good deal less than their appraised value. In comparison, it appears Cochran simply paid Biden’s full asking price.”

Biden’s office denied any sweetheart deals took place, but York noted that it appeared MBNA indirectly helped Cochran buy the Biden house through six-figure executive compensation funds listed as moving expenses and losses suffered on the sale of his previous home.

To be clear, no laws were broken. These arrangements were simply a continuation of Biden’s decades-long, Beltway business-as-usual relationships with a deep-pocketed corporate benefactor — which, by the way, later hired his son. Nice nepotism, if you can get it.

North Dakota Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad and Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd made cozy arrangements with subprime sleaze lender Countrywide. Portfolio.com reported that Conrad “borrowed $1.07 million in 2004 to refinance his vacation home with a balcony and wraparound porch in Bethany Beach, Del., a block from the ocean.”

Senate Banking Chair Dodd received two discounted loans in 2003 through Countrywide’s VIP program. He borrowed $506,000 to refinance his elite townhouse in Washington, D.C., and $275,042 to refinance a home in East Haddam, Conn. Countrywide helpfully waived fractions of points on the loans. The lower interest rates could have saved Dodd a combined $75,000 during the life of the 30-year loans.

Dodd had known about the preferential treatment on his loans since 2003, yet continued to deny that he was treated like a VIP, refused to acknowledge wrongdoing and encouraged government-sponsored mortgage enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to invest in Countrywide’s risky loans.

Not content with two shady home deals, Dodd got in on a real estate scheme for an Irish cottage and nearly 10 acres of land with William Kessinger, a businessman tied to his close friend, insider trader Edward R. Downe Jr.

Downe had pleaded guilty to tax and securities law violations and was banned for life from the business. In 2001, Dodd helped Downe obtain one of the treasured presidential pardons on Bill Clinton’s last day in office. A year after that, as Irish real estate prices went through the roof, Dodd purchased Kessinger’s share of the estate at a discount. He failed to include the obvious quid-pro-quo gift on Senate disclosure forms: Help a crooked friend, reap a cut-rate real estate deal.

Prominent members of Team Obama benefited from similar special home deals. Politico.com noted that the Clintons secured a $1.35 million loan from Democrat pal and fundraiser Terry McAuliffe for their New York estate; Obama special envoy Richard Holbrooke snagged a sweetheart loan to refinance his Telluride, Colo., ski vacation home from the Countrywide VIP program; and Obama’s close confidante and erstwhile vice presidential search committee panelist Jim Johnson accepted more than $7 million in below-market-rate loans from Countrywide.

Then there’s President Barack Obama’s own $1.7 million Chicago manse — which was financed with a discounted mortgage from Northern Trust and infamously included a shady land swap with convicted felon donor/developer Tony Rezko. A report released by the Federal Election Commission in February 2009 underscored that the Obamas received reduced loan rates (saving $300 a month, or $108,000 over the life of a 30-year loan) because of their high-profile positions.

Northern Trust offered the super jumbo loan to the Obamas in anticipation of entering “long-term financial relationships” with the successful couple. The FEC refused to call the Obamas’ mortgage deal an illegal corporate contribution, but it was an obvious act of favor-trading. Northern Trust employees had contributed $71,000 to Obama since 1990…Perhaps fat-cat Democrats in crony-funded houses should put down their stones.

***

It’s getting ugly out there. Won’t be long ’til the agitators are back to breaking into private homes like their ACORN predecessors in 2009. Everything old is new again.

Related: Matthew Vadum reports at BG…Operation #OccupyWallStreeters–SEIU’s Stephen Lerner Leaks Plan to Terrorize Corporate Executives

***

Update: 2:05pm Eastern…Live video of the march here.

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.

Blink and you probably missed it. In yet another classic Friday news dump, Countrywide junk mortgage mogul and Democrat crony Angelo Mozilo copped a $67.5 million plea to avert a high-stakes public trial in the heat of the midterm election season. He and his henchmen admitted no wrongdoing:

Just days before the start of his sensational trial, junk mortgage king Angelo Mozilo agreed to pay $67.5 million to settle fraud charges and avoid any public humiliation in court.

Mozilo, the former CEO of Countrywide Financial, was the highest-ranking executive prosecuted following the financial collapse in 2008 due to toxic mortgage paper. Countrywide was one of the nation’s largest originators of subprime loans.

Mozilo and two of his former executives agreed yesterday in federal court to pay millions in fines and give back some of their ill-gotten gains to settle a suit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Under the settlement, none of them admitted guilt.

Their trial on charges of fraud and insider trading was set to open next week. Mozilo, who wasn’t in the courtroom yesterday, agreed to give up $45 million in ill-gotten profits from illegal trades in Countrywide stock ahead of its collapse, and pay a record $22.5 million civil penalty.His ex-CFO at the firm, Eric P. Sieracki, got off with only a civil penalty of $130,000.

Former President David Sambol will give back $5 million in ill-gotten trading profits and pay a $520,000 civil penalty to settle his charges.

Guess who’s pitching in a nice chuck of the settlement?

You.

Thanks to bailed out Bank of America, taxpayers are on the hook for $50 million: “Both of the restitution payments — $45 million from Mozilo and $5 million from Sambol — will be paid on their behalf by Bank of America, which bought Countrywide after its 2008 collapse over junk assets.”

Connecticut GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon, citing a Nation investigative report on the smelly deal, is zeroing in on Democrat CT Attorney General Dick Blumenthal’s role in abetting the Democrat culture of corruption:

The McMahon campaign is slamming Blumenthal not only for helping put together a settlement that Bank of America has been able to evade in spirit, if not as a matter of law, but also because he continued to defend the settlement as the best recourse for homeowners, even after complaints emerged and other attorneys general had stopped boasting about the deal.

Dan Collins points out that the fine is chump change in comparison to Mozilo’s estimated $600 million net worth.

While Obama travels the country tarring the GOP as the party of the rich, he’s had precious little to say about fat cat Mozilo’s slap on the wrist and the Democrat beneficiaries of Mozilo’s largesse — from Dodd and Conrad to Jim Johnson and scores of Fannie Mae employees.

The GOP must continue to hammer the Countrywide/Fannie Mae scandal…before the Democrats succeed in manufacturing another subprime crisis and massive taxpayer bailout again.

Like I say: It’s all about the boodle.

***

Flashback: Obama and Dodd – Corrupt birds of a feather

***

Related:

The Republican party will launch aggressive inquiries into alleged abuse of mortgages for low-income buyers if it takes control of the House of Representatives next month.

Darrell Issa, who would head the lower chamber’s main investigative committee, told the Financial Times in an interview: “We should look at financial entities and either reform them or kill them.”

The conservative Republican from California, who would become chairman of the powerful House oversight and government reform committee, said hearings would focus on whether the federal government should be involved at all in sponsoring home loans for the poor.

The investigations would centre on the roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nationalised government-sponsored lending institutions, which Republicans say contributed strongly to the 2008 meltdown by promoting subprime lending.

Mr Issa said the role of Countrywide, the bankrupt subprime lender, would also be investigated. He did not spell out whether he would investigate alleged connections between subprime lenders and Democratic politicians.

Like millions of Americans, Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell has had trouble covering her mortgage and other bills over the years. Her opponents consider this a scandal of disqualifying proportions. But there’s a bigger disgrace: It’s all the sanctimonious Democrats who have exploited their entrenched political incumbency to pay for multiple manses and vacation homes — while posing as vox populi.

Former senior senator from Delaware and current Vice President Joe Biden has a custom-built house in Delaware’s ritziest Chateau Country neighborhood. It is now worth at least $2.5 million and is the Bidens’ most valuable asset. Biden tapped campaign funds to pay for his compound’s lawn needs. He secured the new estate with the help of a corporate executive who worked for Biden’s top campaign donor, credit card giant MBNA.

In 1996, Biden sold his previous mansion to MBNA Vice Chairman John Cochran. The asking price was $1.2 million. Cochran forked over the full sum. Biden then paid $350,000 in cash to real estate developer Keith Stoltz for a 4.2-acre lakefront lot. Stoltz had paid that same amount five years earlier for the undeveloped property.

Stoltz told the Wilmington News Journal that “the residential real estate market was soft” at the time he sold the land to Biden. But “soft” for whom? Stoltz was a well-off businessman who didn’t appear to be in such dire financial straits that he needed to unload the property quickly in a weak market.

Reporter Byron York looked at comparable properties in Biden’s neighborhood and found three cases where homes in the area went “for a good deal less than their appraised value. In comparison, it appears Cochran simply paid Biden’s full asking price.”

Biden’s office denied any sweetheart deals took place, but York noted that it appeared MBNA indirectly helped Cochran buy the Biden house through six-figure executive compensation funds listed as moving expenses and losses suffered on the sale of his previous home.

To be clear, no laws were broken. These arrangements were simply a continuation of Biden’s decades-long, Beltway business-as-usual relationships with a deep-pocketed corporate benefactor — which, by the way, later hired his son. Nice nepotism, if you can get it.

North Dakota Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad and Connecticut Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd made cozy arrangements with subprime sleaze lender Countrywide. Portfolio.com reported that Conrad “borrowed $1.07 million in 2004 to refinance his vacation home with a balcony and wraparound porch in Bethany Beach, Del., a block from the ocean.”

Senate Banking Chair Dodd received two discounted loans in 2003 through Countrywide’s VIP program. He borrowed $506,000 to refinance his elite townhouse in Washington, D.C., and $275,042 to refinance a home in East Haddam, Conn. Countrywide helpfully waived fractions of points on the loans. The lower interest rates could have saved Dodd a combined $75,000 during the life of the 30-year loans.

Dodd had known about the preferential treatment on his loans since 2003, yet continued to deny that he was treated like a VIP, refused to acknowledge wrongdoing and encouraged government-sponsored mortgage enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to invest in Countrywide’s risky loans.

Not content with two shady home deals, Dodd got in on a real estate scheme for an Irish cottage and nearly 10 acres of land with William Kessinger, a businessman tied to his close friend, insider trader Edward R. Downe Jr.

Downe had pleaded guilty to tax and securities law violations and was banned for life from the business. In 2001, Dodd helped Downe obtain one of the treasured presidential pardons on Bill Clinton’s last day in office. A year after that, as Irish real estate prices went through the roof, Dodd purchased Kessinger’s share of the estate at a discount. He failed to include the obvious quid-pro-quo gift on Senate disclosure forms: Help a crooked friend, reap a cut-rate real estate deal.

Prominent members of Team Obama benefited from similar special home deals. Politico.com noted that the Clintons secured a $1.35 million loan from Democrat pal and fundraiser Terry McAuliffe for their New York estate; Obama special envoy Richard Holbrooke snagged a sweetheart loan to refinance his Telluride, Colo., ski vacation home from the Countrywide VIP program; and Obama’s close confidante and erstwhile vice presidential search committee panelist Jim Johnson accepted more than $7 million in below-market-rate loans from Countrywide.

Then there’s President Barack Obama’s own $1.7 million Chicago manse — which was financed with a discounted mortgage from Northern Trust and infamously included a shady land swap with convicted felon donor/developer Tony Rezko. A report released by the Federal Election Commission in February 2009 underscored that the Obamas received reduced loan rates (saving $300 a month, or $108,000 over the life of a 30-year loan) because of their high-profile positions.

Northern Trust offered the super jumbo loan to the Obamas in anticipation of entering “long-term financial relationships” with the successful couple. The FEC refused to call the Obamas’ mortgage deal an illegal corporate contribution, but it was an obvious act of favor-trading. Northern Trust employees had contributed $71,000 to Obama since 1990.

GOP candidates like Christine O’Donnell, who have weathered personal financial troubles, have a lot more in common with the 14 million Americans underwater on their mortgages than these privileged Beltway boys. Perhaps fat-cat Democrats in crony-funded houses should put down their stones.

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

As you all know, the Senate passed the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” sham last week (see my post on the GOP-enabled vote here). Today, President Obama will sign the 2,319-page monstrosity into law.

The Associated Press calls it “sweeping.”

My adjectives are different.

Try “galling:”

In choosing to ignore the actual causes of the financial crisis — loose monetary policy, Fannie/Freddie, and never-ending efforts to expand homeownership — and instead further expanding government guarantees behind financial risk-taking, Congress is eliminating whatever market discipline might have been left in the banking industry. But we shouldn’t be surprised, since this administration and Congress have consistently chosen to ignore the real problems facing our country — unemployment, perverse government incentives for risk-taking, massive fiscal imbalances — and instead pursued an agenda of rewarding special interests and expanding government.

At least we’ll know what to call the next crisis: the Dodd-Frank Crash.

Try “discriminatory:”

Buried deep in the bowels of the massive financial-regulation bill the Senate passed Thursday are massive race- and gender-employment provisions that will cost countless millions to enforce and appear to duplicate other civil-rights initiatives already in place.

…Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who served as chief of staff for former President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, tells Newsmax that the rules represent a “dramatic change in employment legislation.”

Four members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recently penned a letter to Vice President Joe Biden, Majority Leader Harry Reid, and several other leading senators, objecting to the new fair-employment regime in the Dodd-Frank legislation now headed to the president’s desk.

“The likelihood that it will in fact promote discrimination is overwhelming,” the letter states.

Try “blind” to the long history of government regulatory failures:

Those who argue that more regulation and punishment are needed now have been appeased. But does regulation work? Let’s remember that:

• The SEC was specifically created in 1933 to uncover frauds such as the one Madoff perpetrated — but that it failed woefully to do its job.

• The Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC and other bank regulators, both federal and state, were supposed to regularly investigate and uncover activities such as the banks’ off-balance trading funds, which provided the funding that did much to encourage the speculative mortgage frenzy.

• The Federal Trade Commission had jurisdiction over consumer loans, including the home-equity loans and zero-down-payment mortgage loans that entrapped consumers.

• The Federal Reserve was supposed to preserve a sound currency, even as chairman Alan Greenspan was publicly encouraging people to take out adjustable-rate mortgages.

Try “radical,” “expansive,” “power-mad,” and “dangerous:”

Fully 80% of those surveyed by Bloomberg say they have little or no confidence the bill will prevent or even soften a future financial crisis. Nor will the bill be a big win for the economy. If anything, it will hinder the recovery and weaken the financial system.

Indeed, despite all the hype from the president and his minions…most knowledgeable observers agree that the new law will not prevent another financial crisis. No reasonable person should expect that it should. By its very nature, the financial system relies on leverage and investor confidence. As the experience of 2008 shows, that can be an unpredictable and volatile mix. So no matter how many times President Obama says otherwise, the new law won’t ban financial doomsdays. As his own FDIC chairman, Sheila Bair, says, “No set of laws, no matter how enlightening, can forestall the emergence of a new financial crisis down the road.”

Sheila needs to have a chat with the president. He seems to be one of the only ones who’s under the illusion that the bill is some sort of cure-all. “Because of this bill,” he intoned just last week, “the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes.”

Actually, that’s already wrong. Taxpayers are still on the hook for the bad mortgages guaranteed and owned by the two entities (and key causes of the crisis) the new law studiously ignores: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their ultimate losses figure to be much, much higher than any bailouts provided to date.

Farcical. Reckless. Cosmetic. Costly.

I better stop now before the adjectives turn into profanities. The idea of Barney Corrupt & Chris Countrywide Corrupter beaming on stage with the Chicago thug-in-chief as they all at themselves on the back for squandering our money and increasing their power is too much to bear this early in the morning.

With GOP assistance on its drafting and three reported Republican votes all but guaranteeing its final passage in the Senate (Snowe, Collins, and Scott Brown), the Dodd-Frank monstrosity masquerading as “financial reform” is on its way.

Read and weep:

A sweeping overhaul of the nation’s financial regulations stands on the verge of reaching President Barack Obama’s desk after a year of partisan struggles and delicate cross-party courtships that promised more and delivered less. Only three Senate Republicans say they will vote for the bill during a key vote Thursday that will set the stage for final passage. But the bill bears the fingerprints of many others in the GOP.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., negotiated several provisions with key committee Republicans such as Richard Shelby and Bob Corker. Neither, though, intends to vote for the bill.

…Several 60-vote cliffhangers later, the bill is now two roll calls away from heading for Obama’s signature and becoming law. For a president hungry for good news, passage Thursday would be a welcome achievement.

“Achievement?”

How about a different a-word? I like “assault.” That’s how Heritage describes the legislative behemoth: “The Dodd-Frank Assault on Economic Recovery.”

Following the release of the 2,000-page Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill last Friday, fixed-income portfolio manager Christine McConnell told Businessweek: “Clarity is good. [Once financial institutions] understand the rules of the road they’ll be able to accommodate their business models.” There is only one problem: passage of the Dodd-Frank bill doesn’t provide any clarity. In fact, it does the exact opposite. The New York Times explains: “The bill, completed early Friday and expected to come up for a final vote this week, is basically a 2,000-page missive to federal agencies, instructing regulators to address subjects ranging from derivatives trading to document retention. But it is notably short on specifics, giving regulators significant power to determine its impact.”

In other words, this law is going to be continually rewritten by federal bureaucrats for years to come…

This much is clear: The law enshrines permanent bailouts, saves Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s hides forever, and would impose at least $20 billion in new tax hikes over the next decade.

Want an ugly look at how this bill was “legislated?” Via Brian Faughnan:

Early on Friday morning, a House-Senate conference committee finished work on a consensus version of HR 4173, the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill. The conference committee worked for 20 hours to draft this new bill, and completed the work shortly after 5:00AM.

When Congress meets in the dead of night to decide critical issues, it prompts serious questions about the quality of their work. Were important issues debated thoroughly? Were all Representatives and Senators part of the debate? Did all of them consider their votes carefully?

Not surprisingly, the answer is ‘no.’ On Thursday night, the conference committee debated the ‘Volcker Rule,’ restricting the power of banks to engage in trading. Some feel the rule is necessary, others feel it will kill jobs, and give foreign financial institutions an advantage over American banks. Not only was the debate on the Volcker Rule limited, but an amendment dealing with it was defeated on a vote of 6-10 – with Chairman Barney Frank casting 6 of the ‘no’ votes himself.

Make sure to click the link for video.

This is corruptocrat Sen. from Countrywide Chris Dodd’s swan song. Remember how he summed up this bill himself:

“No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.”

The bureaucrats and lobbyists are raising a grateful farewell toast to him for sure.

***

Speaking of Countrywide, from the WSJ today: “Senate VIP Loans Mount.”

U.S. senators or Senate employees received 30 loans—far more than had previously been known—under a controversial lending program at Countrywide Financial Corp. that provided cut-rate terms to favored borrowers.

The information is contained in a letter sent to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics by Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), who has been spearheading the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s investigation into Countrywide’s so-called VIP mortgage program.

No specific loan recipients were named in the letter. But Mr. Issa’s letter said borrowers on a dozen loans listed their place of employment as the office of “Senator Robert Bennett.” Available public records don’t indicate that Sen. Bennett, a Utah Republican and member of the Senate Banking Committee, received a Countrywide home loan.

Sens. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), have previously been identified among the high-profile individuals who received such loans. Both senators have denied wrongdoing. Until the Issa letter, no other senators or their staff members had been linked to the VIP loan program.

Good riddance, Sen. Bennett.

Voting out the corruptocrats: The best, most effective “financial reform” there is.

***

Contact info for the Senate Republicans indicating they’ll vote for Dodd-Frank…

Scott Brown (R-MA)
http://scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactme
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-4543, (F) (202) 228-2646
Boston: (T) (617) 565-3170, (F) (617) 723-7325

Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email

Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-5344, Toll free (800) 432-1599, (F) (202) 224-1946
Auburn: (T) (207) 786-2451, (F) (207) 782-1438
Augusta: (T) (207) 622-8292, (F) (207) 622-7295
Bangor: (T) (207) 945-0432, (F) (207) 941-9525
Biddeford: (T) (207) 282-4144, (F) (207) 284-2358
Portland: (T) (207) 874-0883, (F) (207) 874-7631
Presque Isle: (T) (207) 764-5124, (F) (207) 764-6420
Toll free in Maine: (800) 432-1599

Susan Collins (R-ME)
http://collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorCollins.EmailIssue&CFID=42880122&CFTOKEN=39747274
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-2523, (F) (202) 224-2693
Augusta: (T) (207) 622-8414, (F) (207) 622-5884
Bangor: (T) (207) 945-0417, (F) (207) 990-4604
Biddeford: (T) (207) 283-1101, (F) (207) 283-4054
Caribou: (T) (207) 493-7873, (F) (207) 493-7810
Lewiston: (T) (207) 784-6969, (F) (207) 782-6475
Portland: (T) (207) 780-3575, (F) (207) 828-0380

***

Update 11:38am Eastern Cloture vote passes 60-38, with Snowe, Collins & Brown voting with Dems. Final vote scheduled this afternoon — between 2-230pm Eastern.

Sen. Judd Gregg raises point of order, objecting that Dodd-Frank violates budget act.

2:50pm EasternThe deed is done. Final passage vote – 60-39.

When announcing the passage of the Dodd/Frank “financial reform” bill — a fix authored by the same people who helped get the financial system majorly FUBAR in the first place — President Obama really eased my fears when he said this:

We’ll put in place the toughest consumer financial protections in our history, while creating an independent agency to enforce them. Through this agency, we’ll combine under one roof the consumer protection functions that currently are divided among half a dozen different agencies. Now there will be one agency whose sole job will be to look out for you.

Oh good! This president’s generosity knows no bounds. Finally, my very own government agency to look out for me!

Obama’s timing is impeccable. Just this morning I was saying to my wife, “You know honey, I just don’t feel like the IRS, EPA, DMV, DOT, HUD, DOE, FBI, CIA, HHS, DHS, SSA, ATF, DOL, DOJ, DOS, DOI, FTC, FDA, EEOC, NSA, TSA and OSHA are keeping nearly as close an eye on us as they should. If only there were an attentive government agency to watch over and protect us.”

Ask and ye shall receive:

(h/t Townhall)

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

During the Christmas break, corruptocrat Sen. Chris Dodd held a press conference hailing the Senate government health care takeover bill. But he couldn’t distract from the stink of his ethics scandals and his mounting unpopularity at home.

A prescient constituent heckled him during the press conference:

“You’re not gonna get re-elected,” the man said.

Today, Dodd will preempt the voters by removing himself from the running. He’s ending his re-election bid. I’d say good riddance, but Dodd will most likely move on to a lucrative lobbying career a la Beltway toe fungus Tom Daschle or perhaps into a position with the administration of Hope and Change.

Corruptocrats never fade away. They just switch seats on the business-as-usual bus.

***

Connecticut’s Democrat AG Richard Blumenthal will announce today that he’s running for Dodd’s seat:

Connecticut’s popular Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said on Wednesday that he intends to run for Christopher Dodd’s seat in the U.S. Senate, boosting the chances of Democrats retaining the seat in November. Blumenthal, 63, told financial news channel CNBC that he will officially announce later on Wednesday his pursuit of fellow Democrat Dodd’s seat. A press conference is slated for 2:30 p.m. EST at state Democratic party headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut. Blumenthal has been Connecticut’s top law enforcement official since 1990, serving five terms in that office, and previously served in the state’s legislature.

You may remember Blumenthal’s special appearance on the Glenn Beck show back in March, where he proffered his legal opinion on why he was taking action against AIG’s executive compensation packages. I blogged it at the time:

Under what law are you going after the AIG bonuses?

Blumenthal hemmed and hawed for a painful six minutes before coming up with this:

“Because they are undeserving of it.”

Remember those six chilling words:

“Because they are undeserving of it.”

After blubbering that the law doesn’t require that AIG pay the bonuses, Blumenthal then sputtered that it was bad public policy.

Blumenthal also explained that while he didn’t have the authority to go after corruptocrat Sen. Chris Dodd because he was a federal official, he did feel it right, just, and necessary as state AG to do something more about federal tax money spent on AIG.

Finally, he muttered something about the State Wage Act, tucked his tail between his legs, and slunk off the set — no doubt to go wield his legal powers against other targets (Congress exempted!) that he has deemed “undeserving” of their pay.

Blumenthal gives new meaning to AIG:

Asshats In Government.

We’ve got enough of those in the Senate already, don’t we?

***

Flashback…

Dodd and Obama: Corrupt birds of a feather
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

Everything you need to know about false Hope and Change can be found in one picture: The image of President Obama embracing embattled Sen. Chris Dodd.

The embattled Democrat is in deep doo-doo over his Countrywide sweetheart home loan deals, corporate bailout cash, and crony associations. New revelations by Countrywide whistle-blower Robert Feinberg confirm what more and more of Sen. Dodd’s constituents in Connecticut are coming to realize: He’s a lying crapweasel. Dodd denied knowledge of the special treatment the sub-prime mortgage company had given him and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad on home loans. (Dodd’s were worth more than $800,000). Feinberg flatly contradicted him in secret testimony on the Hill this week.

Connecticut voters are not smiling about Dodd’s hypocritical bashing of lobbyists on the airwaves while he parties with them behind closed doors. And as they scrimp through the recession, they haven’t forgotten about Dodd’s dozy Irish cottage deal with convicted insider trader Edward Downe, Jr. (who received a Clinton pardon with Dodd’s generous help). Sandra Harris, an unaffiliated voter from West Hartford, told the Hartford Courant: “I’ve lost respect for him…It’s time for a change.” A Quinnipiac poll now shows that 60 percent of key independent voters disapprove of Dodd.

But Dodd’s cratering numbers and mounting ethics scandal aren’t just about Dodd. Damaged birds of a feather flock together. Even before these latest disclosures, Dodd’s approval ratings had dropped to their lowest levels ever. Yet, President Obama – agent of the “new politics,” erstwhile Breath of Fresh Air, guarantor of all that is good and clean in Washington — declared his support for Dodd’s 2010 re-election campaign bid.

“I can’t say it any clearer: I will be helping Chris Dodd because he deserves the help,” President Obama announced in April. “He just has an extraordinary record of accomplishment, and I think the people of Connecticut will come to recognize that.”

Obama progressives should cringe at their president’s bear hug of one of the most ethically-compromised politicians on Capitol Hill. The Beltway swamp is teeming with Democratic corruption scandals (Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha’s earmark factory and tax-subsidized airports and radars to nowhere; New York representative Charlie Rangel’s rent-controlled apartment scams and tax scandals; California representative Maxine Waters’s business ties to a minority-owned bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances, for starters). But Dodd’s career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington’s culture of corruption. It’s a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back-scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors, and entrenched incumbency.

When he launched his presidential bid in February 2007, Barack Obama inspired millions and rallied the world with his pledge to “build a more hopeful America.” He told a cheering crowd in Springfield, Illinois, land of Lincoln, that he recognized “that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I have not spent a long time learning the ways of Washington, but I have been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington have to change.”

Two years later, Barack Obama declared his support for an entrenched U.S. Senator drowning in the decrepit old politics of pay-for-play.

Two years later, at an “historic and “unprecedented” record pace, Barack Obama presided over a heap of botched nominations, crony appointments, lobbyist paybacks, union and left-wing activist payoffs, and abandoned promises to make government more transparent and accountable to ordinary Americans.

“Washington is broken,” Obama lamented on the campaign trail. Yet, under President Obama, the business of Washington is booming. The collapse of the Era of HopeNChangeyness demonstrates the first and last law of political physics: As government grows, corruption flows. Massive new federal spending plus tens of thousands of pages of new regulations plus unprecedented new powers over taxpayers and the economy ensure limitless new opportunities for sleaze, favor-trading, deal-cutting, and influence-peddling.

The president’s dwindling blind faithful may still cling to the belief that he can work miracles. But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it.

Michelle Malkin is author of the just-released Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (Regnery).

Corruptocrat Chris Dodd secured a Hospital Helper in the Demcare bill, has happily exploited the swine flu to expand the role of government, and made sanctimonious noises about banking regulatory reform to cover his own lying, sordid record as the Senator from Countrywide, but the voters in his state aren’t fooled.

His poll numbers continue to crater — and over the holiday weekend, Dodd was greeted as only a corruptocrat should be greeted after helping shepherd the Cash for Cloture health care takeovers through the Senate, via WTNH:

Sen. Chris Dodd (D) returned home to Connecticut this afternoon following a historic vote this morning in the Senate that will reform health care.

Dodd is facing a tough re-election bid and at least one man at Bradley International Airport let him know just how tough it will be.

“You’re not gonna get re-elected,” the man said.

“Nice. Merry Christmas,” Dodd responded.

New Year’s wish: As Dodd goes in 2010, so goes the Democrat grip on Washington…

***

Flashback:

Dodd and Obama: Corrupt birds of a feather
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
July 31, 2009

Everything you need to know about false Hope and Change can be found in one picture: The image of President Obama embracing embattled Sen. Chris Dodd.

The embattled Democrat is in deep doo-doo over his Countrywide sweetheart home loan deals, corporate bailout cash, and crony associations. New revelations by Countrywide whistle-blower Robert Feinberg confirm what more and more of Sen. Dodd’s constituents in Connecticut are coming to realize: He’s a lying crapweasel. Dodd denied knowledge of the special treatment the sub-prime mortgage company had given him and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad on home loans. (Dodd’s were worth more than $800,000). Feinberg flatly contradicted him in secret testimony on the Hill this week.

Connecticut voters are not smiling about Dodd’s hypocritical bashing of lobbyists on the airwaves while he parties with them behind closed doors. And as they scrimp through the recession, they haven’t forgotten about Dodd’s dozy Irish cottage deal with convicted insider trader Edward Downe, Jr. (who received a Clinton pardon with Dodd’s generous help). Sandra Harris, an unaffiliated voter from West Hartford, told the Hartford Courant: “I’ve lost respect for him…It’s time for a change.” A Quinnipiac poll now shows that 60 percent of key independent voters disapprove of Dodd.

But Dodd’s cratering numbers and mounting ethics scandal aren’t just about Dodd. Damaged birds of a feather flock together. Even before these latest disclosures, Dodd’s approval ratings had dropped to their lowest levels ever. Yet, President Obama – agent of the “new politics,” erstwhile Breath of Fresh Air, guarantor of all that is good and clean in Washington — declared his support for Dodd’s 2010 re-election campaign bid.

“I can’t say it any clearer: I will be helping Chris Dodd because he deserves the help,” President Obama announced in April. “He just has an extraordinary record of accomplishment, and I think the people of Connecticut will come to recognize that.”

Obama progressives should cringe at their president’s bear hug of one of the most ethically-compromised politicians on Capitol Hill. The Beltway swamp is teeming with Democratic corruption scandals (Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha’s earmark factory and tax-subsidized airports and radars to nowhere; New York representative Charlie Rangel’s rent-controlled apartment scams and tax scandals; California representative Maxine Waters’s business ties to a minority-owned bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances, for starters). But Dodd’s career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington’s culture of corruption. It’s a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back-scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors, and entrenched incumbency.

When he launched his presidential bid in February 2007, Barack Obama inspired millions and rallied the world with his pledge to “build a more hopeful America.” He told a cheering crowd in Springfield, Illinois, land of Lincoln, that he recognized “that there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement. I know that I have not spent a long time learning the ways of Washington, but I have been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington have to change.”

Two years later, Barack Obama declared his support for an entrenched U.S. Senator drowning in the decrepit old politics of pay-for-play.

Two years later, at an “historic and “unprecedented” record pace, Barack Obama presided over a heap of botched nominations, crony appointments, lobbyist paybacks, union and left-wing activist payoffs, and abandoned promises to make government more transparent and accountable to ordinary Americans.

“Washington is broken,” Obama lamented on the campaign trail. Yet, under President Obama, the business of Washington is booming. The collapse of the Era of HopeNChangeyness demonstrates the first and last law of political physics: As government grows, corruption flows. Massive new federal spending plus tens of thousands of pages of new regulations plus unprecedented new powers over taxpayers and the economy ensure limitless new opportunities for sleaze, favor-trading, deal-cutting, and influence-peddling.

The president’s dwindling blind faithful may still cling to the belief that he can work miracles. But no one, not even Barack Obama, can drain a swamp by flooding it.

Related reading:

Criminal-probe time – NYPost
Dodd’s Danger – Kevin Rennie

I noted Barney Frank’s cave-in to CBC demands for a $6 billion payoff on the House Dems’ financial industry power grab yesterday.

Well, the “reform” package passed this afternoon 223-202 with all Republicans and 27 Democrats voting no.

The roll call vote is here.

Democrat Rep. Barney Frank’s counterpart in the Senate, corruptocrat Sen. Chris Dodd, is shepherding a parallel version of the banking “reform” package on the other side of the Hill:

In the Senate, Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd last month released a draft that departed from Obama’s proposal. His plan called for a single bank regulator, stripping the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. of bank oversight powers and eliminating the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Republicans rejected the plan as making permanent taxpayer- funded bailouts and objected to Dodd’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

In response, Dodd asked lawmakers to form four groups with two lawmakers from each party to devise a compromise measure. Senators are negotiating provisions of the legislation, including executive pay, derivatives, corporate governance, systemic risk and resolution authority. No bill has yet been introduced.

He’s pulling out the stops in Washington with a swine flu power grab and a “financial reform” bill to distract from his ethics quagmire, but corruptocrat Sen. Chris Dodd isn’t fooling home state voters.

Continuing his year-long slide in the polls, the latest numbers show Dodd falling further (h/t DrewM at Ace of Spades HQ):

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd’s backers say they’re skeptical of new Quinnipiac (KWIN’-uh-pee-ack) Poll results showing his approval rating has declined again.

A Connecticut Democratic Party spokeswoman says they have “a hard time believing Chris Dodd has done anything but strengthen his political position.” She says they’re not taking the poll very seriously.

The poll, released Thursday, says 54 percent of voters disapprove of Dodd’s performance. That’s up from 49 percent in September.

It also says former Republican Congressman Rob Simmons and former ambassador Tom Foley would beat Dodd if head-to-head matchups were held right now.

They’re not taking the poll very seriously?

Hubris be Dodd’s name. And it will be the Obama-endorsed Senator from Countrywide’s downfall.

Birds of a feather…

The Democrats never miss a Rahm-esque opportunity to exploit a crisis. Corruptocrat Sen. Chris Dodd is using the swine flu to expand the feds’ role in dictating employee health benefits. Enough to make you truly sick to your stomach (via LAT, h/t reader Steve G.):

Against the backdrop of the H1N1 flu pandemic, congressional Democrats are pushing for emergency sick-leave legislation and using the crisis to garner support for a wider-ranging bill — both of which, they say, would help prevent a more rapid spread of the virus by mandating that employers provide workers with paid time off.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairing a health subcommittee hearing Tuesday, said that requiring businesses with 15 or more employees to offer seven paid days off a year would end a dangerous choice “between staying healthy and making ends meet.”

But some conservatives argue that Democrats are using a public health crisis as momentum for faulty legislation that would harm businesses by inviting abuse by workers.

“It’s pretty obvious that they’re trying to use the swine flu as a PR boost for something they wanted to do anyway and that was not moving forward because of its already existing flaws,” said James Sherk, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

In addition to championing the Healthy Families Act, which had been pushed unsuccessfully in Congress, Dodd announced that he soon would introduce emergency sick-leave legislation focused more specifically on the H1N1 outbreak. A similar bill was put forward last week in the House by Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez).

Dodd’s legislation would provide up to seven paid sick days for workers who contract H1N1 flu.

There currently is no requirement for businesses of any size to provide paid sick leave. The Healthy Families Act would create a broad definition of sick leave and force businesses to pay for an hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked.

Big Government is the disease.

Booting corruptocrat Chris Dodd out of office in 2010 is Connecticut’s cure.

Birds of a feather…cover each others’ posteriors:

The Senate Ethics Committee on Friday dismissed complaints against Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Kent Conrad (N.D.) over their participation in Countrywide Financial Corp.’s VIP lending program.

But the panel cautioned the senators that they should have “exercised more vigilance” in their dealings with the mortgage giant to avoid an appearance of preferential treatment.

Dodd is holding a 2 p.m. news conference to discuss the dismissal of the complaint against him.

Via Marketwatch:

“While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid the appearance that you were receiving preferential treatment based on your status as a senator,” the report said.

You can find the dismissal letters signed by the Senate Ethics Committee here.

Last week: Dodd and Obama: Corrupt birds of a feather; Update: Resisting subpoena; Dodd has prostate cancer