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POPSFarmers Arrested Planting Hemp on DEA Headquarters Lawn Hemp is not a drug and has no capacity to get someone stoned. Currently eight states -- Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia -- allow industrial hemp production or research, but federal law, which requires nearly-impossible-to-obtain-permits to grow hemp, trumps those state laws. A bill introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) would allow states to craft their own policies. Some facts from North American Industrial Hemp Council: Hemp has been grown for at least the last 12,000 years for fiber (textiles and paper) and food. Hemp oil once greased machines. Most paints, resins, shellacs, and varnishes used to be made out of linseed (from flax) and hemp oils. Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on hemp oil The products that can be made from hemp number over 25,000.
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POPSBarney Frank Wants Cabinet Post Frank talks about how he struggled as a gay man growing up in blue-collar Bayonne, N.J. He dated women throughout high school and college, but knew he was gay at 13. Still, he delayed revealing his sexuality until he had established a foothold in the House. In the 501-page tome " to be released later this month " Frank is described by people who know him well as a masterful legislator, an impatient boss, and “socially handicapped.” One of the most riveting parts of the book is Frank’s recollection of his ethics scandal, when he paid a male prostitute for sex. Various media outlets called for Frank to resign, but he persevered by admitting his mistakes and asking the ethics committee to investigate him in 1989. Many Republicans, including then-Rep. Larry Craig (Idaho), called for serious sanctions against Frank, who was ultimately reprimanded by the House, 408-18. (California Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman both voted against the measure.)
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POPS'Public Servant' My Butt So instead of calming people and listening to what they were saying, Frank decides to insult and argue with them. Has anyone noticed yet that the posters that are professionally produced belong to supporters, while the hand made signs belong to the 'mob'? Instead of ignoring, inflamming, and antagonizing the constituents that they are supposed to represent - ALL OF THEM - people like Frank should shut up and listen.
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POPSObama: Said He Wanted to Eliminate Private Health Insurance Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) July 27, 2009: I think that if we get a good public option, it could lead to single payer, and that's the best way to reach single payer. Yet, the way media are reporting this issue, those who want to stay with private insurance -- which is the vast majority of Americans -- will be able to do so. Will these new revelations about what Obama really wants make it to a news outlet near you? Stay tuned. For more videos like this, please visit Naked Emperor News. "Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.
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POPSBarney Frank: Let’s Spend TARP Profits Before Taxpayers Can Get Them
the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act” and apply it to a trust fund that Frank has long wanted to create for low-income rental housing. (The measure, unfunded, was part of last year’s bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) Next, Frank would take $1.5 billion from TARP dividends for a so-called “neighborhood stabilization” fund. Republican critics have charged that both measures might allow federal dollars to be distributed to activist groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch recently complained that TARP funds are “now being used as a go-to solution to address all of our nation’s economic ills.” Hatch and Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln recently introduced a bill that would require that TARP money goes back to the Treasury for debt reduction. Spending the dividend payments now, as Frank proposes, would reduce the chance that TARP might ever be a break-even deal for the taxpayers.
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POPSFeds give ACORN more money despite indictments
Under the guise of due process concerns, congressional Democrats have opened the way for organizations with criminal histories to gain greater access to taxpayer funds. Exhibit A here is the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, now under investigation in at least 14 states for voter registration fraud. Earlier this month, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., sponsored an amendment to the $140 million Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. The Frank measure allowed organizations being investigated by state or federal authorities on corruption charges to receive federal funds as long as they avoid conviction. Frank argued that his amendment, which was approved by the House, protected the presumption of innocence in federal spending. But federal ethics rules have long stipulated that either an actual or apparent conflict of interest can put a government employee at risk of prosecution for ethics violations.
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POPSTop Senate Democrat: "Bankers Own Congress" Goldman Sachs in particular, with which there is a revolving door between itself and the Treasury. Yet, as Greenwald points out, the MSM is absolutely silent about this obvious but unreported story, and this is why: One might think it would be a big news story for the second most-powerful member of the U.S. Senate to baldly state that the Congress is "owned" by the bankers who spawned the financial crisis and continue to dictate the government's actions. But it won't be. The leading members of the media work for the very corporations that benefit most from this process.
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POPS'Outrage': Kicking open DC's closet door It was closeted gay political figures who were usually the last ones to join the fight against AIDS or lend support to any gay anti-discrimination efforts. When the closet door is securely shut, it's awfully dark inside.
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POPSComrade Obama Clinton administration when it imposed affirmative action standards on lending practices. For this, we have to thank Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, and the woebegone Harry Reid. These are the ones Obama can thank for his inheritance. Frankly, they should all be in jail. Using Bush as a scapegoat is getting boring particularly when federal revenues actually reached all-time highs during his tenure. Anyone for tax cuts?! Anyone? Anyone at all? Clearly Obama is making a bad situation much worse. The Dow is more concerned with what lies in the future under Comrade Obama than with what happened under President Bush. It understands when a politician is far more interested in the redistribution of wealth than in the creation of it. Worse still, he uses beguiling rhetoric to dupe his audience and to camouflage the enormous disparity between what he says and the aspirations ostensibly entertained.
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POPSBarney Frank: Cancel Fannie, Freddie Retention Bonuses House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said Friday that retention bonuses at government-owned mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be canceled because the payments would reward employees for poor performance
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POPSWheels Coming Off $900 Billion Behemoth Bill? What Senate leaders cannot predict is which provisions will stay in and which will fall out. It also remains unclear whether Democrats are willing to tamper with measures that are considered high priorities for Obama, but that tackle longer-term challenges such as health-care reform and alternative energy development, rather than providing the quick jolt of expanded unemployment and food-stamp benefits and individual tax relief. The most ambitious effort to cut the bill is being led by Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), moderates in their parties who share a dislike of the current version. Collins is scheduled to visit Obama at the White House this afternoon. "I'm going to go to him with a list" of suggested deletions, she said.
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POPSBankrolling Charitable Gifts In the last six months of 2008, as a financial crisis enveloped the country and lawmakers voted on a $700 billion financial rescue package, eight companies that would benefit from that package spent roughly $366,000 on events and charities connected to members of Congress, according to a review of congressional lobbying records. At one event in December, several of the biggest financial firms in the country sponsored a reception on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and dinner at the NYSE Club where Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was the keynote speaker. Public Citizen’s Craig Holman said money for meeting and honorary expenses is “clearly an extension of lobbying activity” and allows companies to “hobnob and rub shoulders” with lawmakers. “They get their name prominently displayed so the official knows who is footing the bill for this event,” he said. “They don’t chip in for free.”
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POPS The Ballooning Federal Reserve Furthermore, the logical conclusion of this legislation is that it would circumvent the concept that Congress should oversee monitoring agencies. Critics of the proposal argue that with regulatory power, the Fed would work more in favor of large financial companies because they pose as more of a danger to the financial system if they fail. But Frank himself has been a sharp critic of the Fed, once threatening to remove its consumer protection powers. Just leave it to our forgetful elected officials to stamp the Fed with the now infamous too big to fail label. Frank’s proposal, however, has yet to be penned, and he is also considering giving the power to a new and separate agency — a much more feasible concept. In an era of big bailouts of big banks, concentrated size and power should be counter-intuitive.
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POPSFrank Foresees Sweeping Regulatory Overhaul "I think we can make the argument, as the New Deal did, that in fact we are being very pro-market." He said that securitization -- used to repackage mortgage loans and sell them to investors as bonds -- has "good aspects" when done right but can also lead to abuses. Mr. Frank predicted that legislation to tighten consumer protections in the credit card market and to crack down on mortgage lending abuses would become law. He also said bank regulators would adopt a code to prevent unfair and deceptive practices.
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POPS Obama And Frank: A Farwell To Arms Caucus for Priorities is a campaign of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Its mission is to “change U.S. budget priorities to reflect a national commitment to education, healthcare, energy independence, job training and deficit reduction — at no additional taxpayer expense — by eliminating funding for unneeded Cold War-era weapons systems.” That will certainly deter a rearming and expansionist Russia, an ambitious China and a dangerous Iran. If Obama wins, the “obsolete Cold War weapons” to be done away with, to Russian and Chinese glee, include the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the F/A-22 Raptor to replace our aging F-15s, the wings of which are literally falling off. The Raptor can fly to and from Iranian nuclear facilities undetected should the need arise, as it very well may at some point.
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POPSB. Frank says Dems will cut defense, raise taxes & spend... I truly do not believe Americans realize what they are going to get along with Obama. The Dems, with their President, will truly undermine our national security and put us all on government welfare...taking our $$$ and the doling it out back to us as they see fit. :~(
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POPS95 democrats voted against the bill Yet all we here is how it is the republican's fault. How the minority party in the house is responsible for the failure of a bill pushed by the majority even though quite a few of the minority voted for the bill. Pelosi couldn't (or more likely, wouldn't) reign in her own troops in support of the bill, so how is it the republicans are to blame?
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POPSThe Socialist Project "Representative Mel Watt (D., N.C.) added, “I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing.”
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POPSMedia's Mum On Fannie Mae's "Love Connection" “Herb Moses, who helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs, has left the mortgage industry,”Darryl Hicks wrote for NMN. “Mr. Moses - whose last day was Feb. 13 - spent the past seven years at Fannie Mae, most recently as director of housing initiatives. Over the course of time, he played an instrumental role in developing the company’s Title One and 203(k) home improvement lending programs.” While Moses served at Fannie Mae and was Frank’s partner, Frank was actively working to support GSEs, according to several news outlets. In 1991, Frank and former Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., lobbied for Fannie to soften rules on multi-family home mortgages although those dwellings showed a default rate twice that of single-family homes, according to the Nov. 22, 1991, Boston Globe.
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POPSObama rejects McCain's "Hail Mary" debate delay Meanwhile, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., meanwhile, said McCain’s and Obama’s presence during congressional negotiations over a rescue package would “not be helpful at this time,” saying they would be a distraction. If there were ever a time for both candidates to hold a debate before the American people about this serious challenge, it is now,” Reid said.
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POPSAngelo Mozilo's Bedfellows For the sake of its shareholders and the taxpayers who are ultimately on the hook, Fannie should immediately launch an internal investigation into the terms offered to Countrywide, and exactly what role Messrs. Johnson and Raines played in the negotiation of these terms. Did these men exert any pressure on Fannie employees to do business with Countrywide? Congress also needs a full accounting of the contacts between Countrywide and the politicians receiving favors from the lender. Did Countrywide ask for and receive assistance from the Friends of Angelo? Meanwhile, until it is clear how much Countrywide will benefit from Senator Dodd's proposed $300 billion mortgage rescue – and exactly how Mr. Dodd came to do business with Countrywide – Congress should call a halt to legislating bailouts. Taxpayers deserve no less. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121357125417575867.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
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POPSHouse Resolution Vote Ramadan Yea, Christmas Nay Another nine Democrats chose to vote "present." They are: Rep. John Conyers (Mich.), Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), Rep. Rush Holt (N.J.), Rep. Donald Payne (N.J.), Rep. Allyson Schwartz (Pa.), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), Rep. Peter Welch (Vt.) and Rep. John Yarmuth (Ky.). Each of them supported the Ramadan resolution except for Rep. Lee, who did not vote.
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