WBSM Race bait amid financial scandal

"High cost to racial hyping" says WBSM host

The Lie:

1. WBSM have been peddling a youtube video that allegedly shows black Dems in 2004 preventing reform of of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
2. WBSM have claimed that "social engineering" and affirmative action have helped fuel the mortgage crisis.
3. WBSM have claimed that McCain and the GOP stepped up to save the financial system from Fan and Fred.

The Truth:

1. The 2004 video has no relation to sub prime market failure. It shows a committee hearing with Housing regulators critiquing accounting systems at Fan and Fred. Sub prime mortgages are not at issue in the '04 hearing, not a big part of Fannie and Freddie in 2004, and not even mentioned in the whole 7 hours of hearings.
2. Directing loans to minorities and the CRA has no relation to crisis.
3. Fan and Fred are a small or secondary domino of the crisis. Dems were at the forefront of reform, being the only ones to successfully pass reform acts.


The Details:
1420 White Male Angst Radio has been spending numerous hours slamming Bill Clinton's actions on Redlining and the Carter era Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) as "Social engineering" i.e. affirmative action. They forget that redlining was a real issue with real prosecutions and evidence of bias. A bigger gaffe is the assault on the Community Reinvestment Act as a sort of "social engineering" to direct loans to African Americans.

On the CRA

Truth is, the CRA doesn't even apply to the loans made and bought by the main firms in trouble on Wall St. It applies mainly to depository institutions, and is working just fine. Despite the local GOP defending the poor folks on Wall St from minorities, there is no evidence that those investing in, selling, and repacking sub prime loans were motivated in any way by fear of redlining or the non applicable CRA. There's about as much evidence for that as the Michelle Malkin race bait that illegal alien mortgages are behind the crisis ( also pushed out on WMAR).

Black, like Obama


The hosts have repeatedly played a snappily edited youtube video , which shows various African American democrats grilling investigators, as proof of Democrats blocking reform of Fannie and Freddie and hence failing to avert the current crisis. This emulates the racism of the McCain campaign ads (where Franklin Raines and Kwame KIlpatrick are linked to Obama by virtue of the fact that they are African American).


Trouble is, the House hearing being played in the clip has nothing to do with subprime mortgages. And sub prime mortgages are the root cause of the current bust. In the video an Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight report is discussed, a report that had NOTHING TO DO with sub prome mortgages. In fact
an old SEC report filing by Fannie says of the 2004/2005 period:

We did not participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages in 2004 and 2005.

The video is full of other falsehoods, claiming Fan and Fred themselves made mortgages ( to minorities of course), that Franklin Raines was criminally implicated ( that's a new one). Once again, committee members are talking about an entirely different matter - accounting reform at Fan and Fred. Accordingly:

Although under Raines, Fannie Mae invested in some securities backed by subprime loans, it didn't start buying subprime and Alt-A loans directly (and bundling them into securities) until late 2004 AFTER the accounting scandal.

Misreading the calendar
If you understand the legislative process you would get this focus on accounting.In fact, the first clue comes shortly into the video when Chris Shays mentions that Fan Mae, Fred Mac were not subject to the accounting reform Sarbanes-Oxley act.

If you understood Wall St, you would get that Fan and Fred assumed, but did not originate, bad mortgages.

If you understood the common Gregorian calendar you would understand that 2004 is not 2005, is not 2008. Mortgage reliability was violated elsewhere and later on, and is not relevant to the video.

And yet, a quote or two from Barney Frank in '03 is supposed to seal the sub prime indictment on the Democratss? When one actually looks at the Democrat approach to reform and regulation of Fan and Fred, what do we see?

On Democrats




We see that Democrats, including those featured in the video, were strongly pro reform and eventually succeeded despite GOP opposition. That's quite a contrast to the WMAR 1420 youtube fairy tale.

Of the African Americans attacked in the youtube clip:

Arthur Davis actually voted for a successful house bill (HR 1461) to improve regulation of Fannie and Freddie in 2005.

Gregory Meeks ( also set up in the video) praised the same 2005 bill (HR 1461) as "true bipartisanship" and, like Barney Frank, regretted that the "excellent bill" had been sunk by a GOP amendment that prohibited many non profits from participation.

Maxine Waters ( selectively edited in the video) praised, in 2005, the "bipartisan support for this legislation" and was explicit in claiming that HR 1461 "was a good bill...because..it was going to bring about reform of the GSEs."

So when the Dems are actually on record discussing the actual issue, they are fully backing reform!!

On HR 1461
And guess what? HR 1461 passed the House without much trouble. The only trouble was GOP attempts to keep non profits from potential applicants for competitive housing grants ( causing Meeks, Frank and Waters to vote no).

So with praise and/or support of Democrats the bill went to the Senate , where, WBSM tells us it died in a Senate committee because of Dems. This is another lie, unfortunately. Although WBSM did merely borrow this lie from Amanda Carpenter of the Boston Herald.

On McCain
On his web blog, Ken Pittman lies by saying that McCain "introduced The Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005." Trouble is S190 ( Senate version of HR 1461) was not introduced by McCain at all -although he did sign on as a co sponsor. Senators co sponsor hundreds of bills annually.

So what did happened to CHUCK HAGEL'S bill? Well, contrary to Pittman's tale, it actually did make it out of the senate committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs -but too late for congressional action in the GOP's 109th Congress.


On GOP culpability
So why the urge to blame Dems for the "death" of this reform?

Two other developments add to the mystery:

* Ohio Republican Rep. Michael Oxley says that White House ideology scuppered the bi-partisan bill because Bush wanted to kill off Fan and Fred completely.
* Also, we have a Colorado Republican Wayne Allard writing a letter to Senate Majority leader Bill Frist in May 2006 urging that the bill be brought to the Senate floor for a vote. No response came.


Conclusion - Shelby or Frist held up the bill for the White House???

Either way, James B. Lockhart of the FHE Oversight was dismayed that the GOP senate killed the bill and appealed that it be revisited in the next Congress. And so it was, Barney Frank passed it next time round as HR 1427, co sponsored by those very Dems attacked in the video - Clay, Meeks, and Waters!!!!!!!!! ( strangely, McCain the regulator didn't sponsor this Senate version).

So why the coverup?

Why the exclusive focus on Barney Frank and Fan and Fred, when the 800 Billion bailout is actually going to Wall St players?

Why do Amanda Carpenter of the Herald and her loyal readers in the southcoast GOP claim that John Kerry, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton were against the Hatch reform bill when it never reached the Senate in 2005/2006?

Newest WBSM lie about Iraq

The Lie
You may have noticed the recent movement of hundreds of tons of Yellowcake from Iraq to a Canadian disposal outlet. Or you may not have, as, according to 1420 WMAR hosts the liberal media have been covering up the newest and best rationale for the invasion and perpetual occupation of Iraq.

Phil Paleologos maintains that this material is the WMD that Bush went to war to secure and the commander in chief has "been vindicated."

Ken Pittman has investigated. He goes one better and says that Bush could've slammed his critics and "vindicated" himself but chose to keep the transport under wraps and "secret" in case Al Queda's super force swooped on the material.

There you have it. According to WMAR, everything your liberal media has been telling you about the war is false.
Heck, even the excuses Pittman and co have made ( Osama had an Iraq operation pre war) are false.
The real reason has surfaced at last, and we need not feel guilt over the death of troops, Iraqis, or the US economy as a result of Bush's three trillion dollar war of choice.

The Truth
Of course, over in the real world, it is reported that these materials were those documented and sealed by the UN weapons inspectors and dates back to before the first Gulf war in 1991. And the movement of the yellow cake was as much a commercial transaction as a national security measure:

".... U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said."

Further proof that the invasion was the fraud Jeff Beatty says it was. And another reason to dismiss the White Male Angst Radio apologist machine at 1420.

The proof for the invasion that Bush relied on was concocted, exaggerated, and cherry picked. Thats why it is important for our local outrage radio to deny even their own former "proofs" and focus on this obsolete pre-Gulf I yellowcake.

Hilariously, this is the same 500 plus tons of yellowcake that Hannity and GOP Rep Hoekstra pointed to two years ago as "vindication" of Bush corp. I can recall a certain radio host touting the same information back then. As the laughs got louder and the months went by, he instead pointed to some op eds as "proof" of Osama-Saddam links. Thats right, because some editorialist (Rich Hood who went on to work for Ashcroft) said it was true, it was proven. That's some quality investigation and a good reason to kill off 4000 troops.

Now, he alone has found vindication for Bush and knows that Bush kept his own vindication super secret to save us all from the Al Queda yellow cake fairy.

Jack Spillane so wrong on Iraq

Dear Jack,

Just a few thoughts on your outrageous Iraq claims. Bizzarely, one cant get a comment posted on your "local" blog if it dares critique:


You said that most Americans are more concerned with "the way the war has been fought" rather than standing in opposition to the war per se. One wonders where you got this from, given that you said it a day or two before the longshoremen shut down the Pacific coastline in opposition to the war. Of course, this event was strangely underreported by your owner NewsCorp as opposed to 24 -7 coverage of Rev. Wright and Obama's real estate**. Are you saying that Americans are unconcerned with the costs in blood, treasure, and US legitimacy that Bush's unnecessary war has prompted? Are Americans willing to forget the blatant pre-war deception* ( of course your slogan is that Bush didn't lie ...and they died) , the shifting rationales, the perpetual recourse to "six more months", the backing of various ethnic factions in Iraq, the ongoing sabre rattling and threatmaking, the debilitating health of the military?

I guess not. I guess it's just a minor strategic quandary that Americans find themselves in. If only we had won, caught all the bad guys and created Utopia then it would have been the right decision. After all, millions of pre-war protesters, a majority of elected democrats, US Mayors and former National Security officials, 2006 voters, Nobel prize winners and soldiers who have been steadfastly against invading and occupying Iraq in polls, press and protest are easily ignored when you stress over those Iraqis "waiting us out."

And as for polls, who cares if, in 2006, Zogby found that 90%, almost all, US troops thought the war was retaliation for the Iraqi role in 9-11. Where did they get that from? Any ideas who spent millions in a slick propaganda campaign ( your owner News Corp didn't really cover the Pentagon Pundits scandal) to spread these lies? Where would Harry Truman have the buck stop for these lies? Let's find out with some Cartesian logic:

They died, were dismembered or had brain trauma by the thousands. 90% died believing a lie. So, quod erat demonstrandum, Bush fed them that lie.

The best thing you can do is disregard and devalue troops, Arab lives or the health of the US and just claim that "Iraq was probably a good number 2 in the War on Terrra" ( WMAR 1420 Host).



__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

* Despite your favorite WaPo columnist finding "substantiations" for some Bush WMD claims, the Downing Street, Aznar and Sands memos all show that Bush was building a case for war versus responding to a discovered threat. As the recent ( and long delayed) Senate report showed and substantiated, countervailing evidence was buried and ignored. That's deception, lying. When its costs the skin, limbs, brains, lives of 19 year olds it's a crime. Get it?

** You have, apparently, solved the Obama real estate riddle and we will not require a $70 million Whitewater type investigation. Despite Obama buying a million dollar plus house after he secured a million dollar book deal, you claim there was likely "a loan" from some Countrywide folks in the mix. In a 'case closed' style, you also claim, falsely, that Obama purchased the place at 30% below the ask. In fact, a closer look would reveal that , in submitting the highest bid, Obama came in at 15% under the ask. I'm sure your clarifications will come with your searing and comparable analysis of McCain.

Jeff Beatty says Iraq war was a fraud.

While the national media tries to make a new story from Scott McClellan's non-revelations, Newbedford360.com has video of Jeff Beatty ("a man Tom Clancy would have eventually created ") telling of how, in the weeks before the war , he was invited to the the Pentagon for a briefing. The vid shows him saying:

" I went to Rumsfeld's conference room......met the Secretary..nice coffee, good china."

Jeff describes how an under-secretary showed them a mobile weapons lab slide show. So after all the formalities and patriotic hooplah, Jeff decides to ask a question.

"excuse me sir, great briefing, loving drawings [but] ..when i was in Delta force as operations officer under Ronald Reagan, we used to have a rule that no US troops would be committed to battle without US eyes on the target"

Beatty then asked whether a Delta force member had "crawled across the desert floor", or had collected a scoop of testable soil for evidence, or had a sample mobile weapons lab been airlifted out as evidence?

"or are we basing this on the reporting of some foreign agent who the more fantastic a tale he tells us, the better we compensate him?"

Beatty says the Pentagon gave an unconvincing answer about a "virtual certainty."

The proof presented for war was BS, says Beatty."Virtual certainty" was a lie. I knew "right then and there we didnt have it", he says.

It's shame that he waited almost as long as Scott McClellan and the US Senate to produce this knowledge to an audience.

See more at approx 6.30 minutes: