Bloodthirsty Liberal

Do you want to be the mommy or the daddy? I got dibs on playing the fraudulent borrower:

Due to a loophole and some odd reporting criteria, children as young as 4 received the first-time homebuyer credit that Congress passed last year, according to PoliticsDaily.com. The credit is worth $8,000 and was created to encourage first-time buyers to purchase a home.

More than 500 people have used their children to sign up, with one parent using a 4-year-old to get the credit, the site reported.

These types of claims are among the myriad cases of fraud that have cost the government nearly half a billion dollars, federal investigators told Congress.

Fraudulent claims include people who received the credit but have not purchased homes, who already owned homes, or who were in the country illegally. More worrying, numerous IRS employees have applied for the credit who should not have.

I would highlight the key parts, but what isn’t key?

This is just the first trickle of the torrent of waste, fraud, and abuse that we’ll come to know about (or never will, if the supine media don’t do their jobs).

But the joke’s on us: they want to do all this and more:

This week Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) began a push to expand the credit to all homebuyers and extend the deadline, now set for Nov. 30th, to July 2010.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), chairman of the subcommittee, said that 1.4 million families have claimed nearly $10 billion in credits, but that the speed of implementing the program meant policing fraud was at first unacceptably poor. “We want to and we need to stop this fraud and abuse,” he said.

Because no one knows a good housing deal like Chris “Countrywide” Dodd.

Didn’t President Obama say he was going to pay for all his health care proposals by cutting the waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare? Why does anybody even listen to him?

It’s hard to decide which shady deal by Christopher Dodd is the shadiest. Maybe we need a poll.

Is it his cosiness with Countrywide?

His wife’s curious presence on several health care company boards when related business is before the Senate?

Or that quaint burgeoning scandale which of course must come to be known as Cottage-gate:

A new appraisal more than doubles the value of U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd’s Irish cottage, a vacation home that is the subject of an ethics complaint by a conservative group that questions if it was really a gift.
The property is valued at 470,000 euros, or about $660,000, on a financial disclosure report provided to The Associated Press on Friday by Dodd’s office. The previous year’s report valued the seaside home, located in County Galway, at between $100,001 and $250,000.

…

Judicial Watch’s complaint alleges that Senator Dodd appeared at a hearing on behalf of Edward Downe, Jr. in 1993 to help Downe obtain a reduced sentence for violations involving tax and securities laws. In 2001, Dodd ultimately helped Downe secure a full presidential pardon for his crimes on President Clinton’s last day in office bypassing the normal pardon vetting process. In 2002, Dodd allegedly received a significantly reduced, below-market sales price, for a two-thirds interest in a property located in County Galway, Ireland, from Downe’s associate, William Kessinger.

…

“This seems a straight-up quid pro quo. Dodd helped his apparently crooked friend and seems to have received a cut-rate real estate deal on a property in Ireland in exchange. Moreover, it appears Dodd attempted to cover up the gift by failing to disclose it on his financial disclosure forms. To put it mildly, this type of behavior clearly does not reflect well on the United States Senate. We hope the Senate Ethics Committee does a thorough and speedy investigation. Federal prosecutors also need to take a look at this, as knowingly filing false financial forms is a crime,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

In 2008, Senator Dodd came under fire for receiving preferential loan terms from Countrywide Financial as a member of the company’s “VIP Program.”

The day may come when such buffoons and shysters as Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are reduced to some sort of camp vaudeville act, wearing heels and feather boas, and slapping each other with stockings filled with custard. Not that we’re far from that now.

Bringing “affordable housing” to those who need it most:

A new report showcases the lengths executives at Countrywide Financial went to in order to provide below-market mortgage rates to well-connected Washington insiders.

Countrywide’s CEO Angelo Mozilo granted sweetheart mortgages to a number of influential lawmakers including Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Democratic Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota. E-mails obtained by government investigators show Countrywide employees often discussed the political influence wielded by “Friends of Angelo” as grounds for granting the discounts.

The 63-page report, titled “Countrywide’s Systematic and Successful Effort to Buy Influence and Block Reform” was released by Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Government and Oversight Committee. Some of the e-mails reprinted in the report were released to the committee by former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, who is among those who have recieved preferential treatment from Countrywide. Robert Feinberg, a former Countrywide employee who assisted in processing “Friends of Angelo” loans, also provided e-mails to the committee.

Mr. Mozilo unsuccessfully attempted to give former North Carolina Democratic Sen. John Edwards a special deal on his mortgage when he was seeking financing for a $3.8 million home in Washington D.C.’s stylish Georgetown. The CEO instructed his loan processors to help Edwards because “Edwards will probably be either the vice president or presidential candidate for the Democrats in 2004. Do whatever it takes to get it closed by the 23rd and call me for the pricing.”

…

Countrywide also gave discounts to congressional staffers who served influential members. E-mails about a mortgage for Joyce Brayboy, chief of staff for Rep. Melvin Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, noted “[Brayboy] reports directly to Congressman Mel Watt who introduced predatory lending legislation to address unscrupulous lending practices, and they do view Countrywide as a trusted advisor.”

…

“This investigation finds that Countrywide embarked in a determined and calculated effort to buy influence – employees openly weighed the political influence of targeted officials when deciding what perks to offer,” said Issa in a statement. “Countrywide VIPs in positions of key responsibility didn’t innocently stumble into loans with reduced rates and waived fees – they were recruited into the program personally by high-ranking company officials including former CEO Angelo Mozilo.”

House Republicans would like to use subpoena power to obtain more records relating to the former mortgage provider’s dealings with lawmakers and politicos.

Run a Google news check on AIG and Countrywide. AIG has 168,884 links—36 times more than Countrywide’s 4,668.

Yet which scandal was more responsible for the mess we’re now in, and which was more corrosive to democracy?

We’ve already heard from conservatives who voted for Obama, and regretted it. Including Christopher Buckley.

Look who’s shocked, shocked to learn that he voted for a Democrat and instead got a socialist [link fixed]:

It seems as good a time as any to ask: Ought a sitting president be cozying up to late-night comedy show hosts?

I know, I know—I feel like a fusty old crank merely posing the question. (Maybe it’s this darned flu.) But it’s hardly as though the president of the United States lacks for venues, and such appearances have a way of trivializing any issue.

…

Yes, it’s appalling that “retention payments” (why we can’t call things what they are?) should have been paid out. But it is also appalling that the US Congress, in a fine foam of pique, should attempt to solve the problem by passing, willy-nilly, a confiscatory tax bill that aims to reduce such payments to a net of 10 percent. I am no homme sérieux when it comes to financial policy, but I know the maxim that “bad cases make bad law.”

One of the backers of this idiotic measure is the distinguished senator from Connecticut, Christopher Dodd, who inconveniently has received $300,000 in campaign pelf from…AIG. Congressional reasoning at times resembles a Mobius strip of hypocrisy. Meanwhile, give that man the Captain Renault “I’m shocked, shocked!” award.

You know, it’s even worse than that, Chris:

But it turns out that Senator Dodd’s wife has also benefited from past connections to AIG as well.

From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an “outside” director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG.

…

Clegg was compensated for her duties to the company, which was managed by a subsidiary of AIG. In 2003, according to a proxy statement, Clegg received $12,000 per year and an additional $1,000 for each Directors’ and committee meeting she attended. Clegg served on the Audit and Investment committees during her final year on the board.

IPC paid millions each year to other AIG-related companies for administrative and other services. Clegg was a diligent director. In 2003, the proxy statement report, she attended more than 75% of board and committee meetings.

…

Dodd is likely more familiar with the complicated workings of AIG than he was letting on last week. This week may provide him with another opportunity to refresh his recollections.

How can liberals be corrupt? It’s contradictory to their core beliefs of liberty and justice for all. They can be stupid, they can be misguided—but venal? I can’t believe it.

I have the answer, if you’ll follow my irrefutable logic: Liberals can never be corrupt; Chirs Dodd is corrupt to the bone; ergo Chris Dodd is a Republican.

It’s the only answer.

I’m beginning to think that any further comment on the bogus AIG story—bogus because everybody claiming to be outraged by the 0.097% bonuses already knew about them, or ought to have—even my contrary comments, is just playing into President Obama’s cunning plan to manufacture controversy where there is none.

So I’d like to move on and examine the real scandals behind the trillions of spending Obama has so recklessly launched.

But I can’t, not yet:

After a day in which Democrats scapegoated Edward Liddy for paying AIG bonuses in which he had no hand in creating, Chris Dodd finally reversed his earlier denials and admitted that he inserted language into Porkulus that allowed the payouts. Dodd told CNN that the devil Tim Geithner made him do it.

…

BARRETT: And so … you’re saying you had nothing to do with that change?

DODD: Absolutely not.

BARRETT: And there was nothing you were doing that was aimed at protecting AIG…

DODD: No. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Absolutely.

“No. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Absolutely.” Got that? Nine unequivocal words.

BLITZER: All right. That was what you said yesterday, Senator. So go ahead and explain a little bit more precisely what changed from yesterday to today.

DODD: Well, going back and reviewing, obviously, and looking at it. But the point I want to make to you, Wolf, is, again…

Twenty-two words of equivocation before he can even bring himself to lie.

Update II: Give CNN credit. They’re calling him a liar, too.

Yesterday, I praised AIG’s Edward Liddy (my second-favorite Liddy) solely for being opposed by Code Pink and Representative Pink—er, Frank. (Sorry, but reader Barb has me, er, back.) For anyone unconvinced by that argument, I’m doubling down: I’ll see your $1.65 million, and raise you two senators, Dodd and Schumer.

Too rich for your blood? You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.

You think you’re outraged?

Ha! You’re just ruffled, miffed, perturbed compared to my outrage. What I got—now, that’s outrage!

Okay. We get it. Every politician in Washington wants to show They Care by bashing AIG. Which almost all of them agreed to bail out. Repeatedly. But never mind all that.

This, however, is just too much:

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley suggested on Monday that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

…

“I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed. … But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.

Bob Owens points out that Sen. Grassley took $26,250 from AIG in 2007-2008 alone. Is he ready to take a deep bow, too?

As long as we’ve got the courtroom booked, may I suggest a few other defendants for these show trials? Geithner, Paulson, Bernanke? Any and all members of Congress or either Administration who felt there was no time to waste, and that we should spend first and ask questions later?

I’ve already observed that the outrageous money in question is an outrageous 0.097% of the overall bailout of AIG. If we expend all our outrage now, will there be any outrage left for our children when they grow up and see the outrageous debt their guileless, gullible parents left them?

UPDATE
D’oh! How could I have forgotten?

Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group bonus recipients so the government could recoup the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.

While the Senate constructed the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd unexpectedly added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009,” which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax. The amendment is in the final version and is law.

Also, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org.

My friends, no one loves this country more than your humble correspondent. But it’s time you cut New England loose and went on without us. Dodd, Kennedys, Kerry, Frank, Sanders, Leahy, Snowe, Collins—they’ll just slow you down. Maybe a house divided cannot stand—but a house with these lardasses weighing you down will collapse.

This is a little scary:

The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits up to $250,000, tried for years to get congressional authority to collect the premiums in case of a looming crisis. But Congress believed that the fund was so well-capitalized - and that bank failures were so infrequent - that there was no need to collect the premiums for a decade, according to banking officials and analysts.

Now with 25 banks having failed last year, 17 so far this year, and many more expected in the coming months, the FDIC has proposed large new premiums for banks at the very time when many can least afford to pay. The agency collected $3 billion in the fees last year and has proposed collecting up to $27 billion this year, prompting an outcry from some banks that say it will force them to raise consumer fees and curtail lending.

To possibly reduce the fee increase, the FDIC has asked Congress for the temporary authority to borrow as much as $500 billion from the US Treasury - up from the current $30 billion limit - in case the number of bank failures increases even more dramatically. If Congress approves the measure, to borrow more than $100 billion, the FDIC would still need permission from the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and the White House.

…

[I]f the FDIC suddenly had to take over a giant bank such as Citigroup or Bank of America, the fund would be drained “in a flash,” said Cornelius Hurley, director of the Boston University law school’s Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law.

We elect these bozos precisely to take care of this nonsense, not to cause it.

Exactly which bozos are we talking about?

Last week, FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair wrote to Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, that her agency could need more money because the existing fund “provides a thin margin of error” given the government’s responsibility “to cover unforeseen losses.” The March 5 letter, provided to the Globe, said the additional borrowing authority is necessary to “leave no doubt” that the FDIC can “fulfill the government’s commitment to protect insured depositors against loss.”

To be fair, Dodd has been chairman only since 2007, and the previous chairmen over the time in question are a mix of Republicans and Democrats:

Alfonse D’Amato (R-New York) 1995-1999
Phil Gramm (R-Texas) 1999-2001
Paul Sarbanes (D-Maryland) 2001
Phil Gramm (R-Texas) 2001
Paul Sarbanes (D-Maryland) 2001-2003
Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) 2003-2007
Christopher J. Dodd (D-Connecticut) 2007-

That’s the Senate. What about the House? You get one guess:

House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank agreed that officials believed at the time that the good times would last and that bank failures would not be a problem.

“We had this period where we had no failures,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in an interview yesterday. “The banks were saying, ‘Don’t charge us anything.’ “

So Barney Frank cowers before bank presidents? As the post below notes, that’s not the Barney Frank I know.

But the Barney Frank who screws up and trashes everything he comes into contact with? That very much is the Barney Frank I know.

Guys, maybe I get alarmist sometimes, but I wonder how long before we become the Argentina of the North?

I think you should be afraid.

PS: This story was written for the Boston Glob, which yesterday I gleefully hoped to be shuttered. I stand somewhat chastened.

Or how Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd got a great deal!

Only one Senator has taken more money from Freddie and Fannie than Barack Obama: Chris Dodd.

Former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld was under oath Monday when he was grilled on Capitol Hill about his role in the current financial meltdown. But if Members really want to understand the credit mania, they should also call Chris Dodd.

The Connecticut Senator has been out front denouncing the “companies that form the foundation of our financial markets,” for “their insatiable appetite for risk.” He has also decried “reckless, careless and sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage lending industry” and he has proclaimed that “American taxpayers deserve to know how we arrived at this moment.” To that end, we propose he take the stand — under oath.

Former Countrywide Financial loan officer Robert Feinberg says Mr. Dodd knowingly saved thousands of dollars on his refinancing of two properties in 2003 as part of a special program the California mortgage company had for the influential. He also says he has internal company documents that prove Mr. Dodd knew he was getting preferential treatment as a friend of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide’s then-CEO.

That a “Friends of Angelo” program existed is not in dispute. It was crucial to the boom that Countrywide enjoyed before its fortunes turned. While most of the company was aggressively lending to risky borrowers and off-loading those mortgages in bulk to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Mr. Feinberg’s department was charged with making sure those who could influence Fannie and Freddie’s appetite for risk were sufficiently buttered up. As a Banking Committee bigshot, Mr. Dodd was perfectly placed to be buttered.

In response to the charge that he knew he was getting favors, Mr. Dodd at first issued a strong denial: “This suggestion is outrageous and contrary to my entire career in public service. When my wife and I refinanced our loans in 2003, we did not seek or expect any favorable treatment. Just like millions of other Americans, we shopped around and received competitive rates.” Less than a week later he acknowledged he was part of Countrywide’s VIP program but claimed he thought it was “more of a courtesy.”

Mr. Feinberg, who oversaw “Friends of Angelo” from 2000 to 2004, begs to differ. He told us that as the loan officer in charge he was supposed to make sure that the “VIP” clients knew at every step of the process that they were getting a special deal because they were “Friends of Angelo.”

“People are referred into that department as ‘very important people.’ You’re told that your loan is priced from Angelo. As the ‘Friends of Angelo department,’ [the department] has to give them a sense of importance and explain the reduction of fees and the rate as a result of being a ‘Friend of Angelo,’” he says. According to a report by Dan Golden in Condé Nast Portfolio in August, other VIPs included Senator Kent Conrad. Mr. Golden reported that “Countrywide also offered special discounts to congressional staffers involved in housing issues.”

But somehow this is George Bush’s fault, right?

- Aggie