Democrat Housing Efforts Fail, Minorities Hardest Hit

Back in 2008, writing on a different blog, I chronicled the push by Democrats going back to 2001 to push a quota of minority owned homes and now they are once again reaping what they sowed.

Prince George’s County, Md., has gained prominence in recent years as the most affluent county in America with a majority African-American population. Average income in the county is almost double the national average for black families, according to the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey.

But the county, adjacent to the District of Columbia, has been laid low by the recession and the mortgage meltdown and now holds a more dubious distinction: a rising foreclosure rate that ranks as the worst in Maryland.

More than half of all housing sales in the county so far this year have been properties in foreclosure, a rate that dwarfs other counties in the state, according to MRIS, which provides listing services for real estate agents. This has caused a domino effect of social, economic and financial problems to ripple throughout Prince George’s communities.

Liberals immediately want to point the finger at sub prime mortgage lenders that were handing out these loans for creating this problem while trying to ignore that they not only set the conditions for these sub prime mortgages, they encouraged them and with a push from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac backed these mortgages.

Their misguided desire to set an affirmative action quota system in home ownership led to this. Granted my earlier writings on this is very dry but I hope you take a few minutes to at least browse the series to get a sense of how pervasive the attitude of putting minorities into homes at any cost was and how staunchly it was defended and promoted by Democrat lawmakers and their lackeys at Freddie and Fannie were.

She paid $230,000 for a tiny, 664-square-foot home that she said is “more like a small cottage.” The previous owners had paid $60,000.

Really?

Stunner: Fannie Mae Exec Who Hired Barney Frank's Boyfriend Used to Work for Frank

Nothing improper here, folks. Just move along. You're a homophobe if you think there was anything unseemly going on.

The Fannie Mae executive who hired U.S. Rep. Barney Frank’s former lover was a campaign donor and once worked for the congressman — but denies the Newton Democrat’s recommendation played a role in the controversial 1991 hiring.

Gerald McMurray, a retired Fannie Mae senior vice president, told the Herald yesterday that Frank “didn’t have any influence” in the hiring of the congressman’s former companion, Herb Moses, to a position with the mortgage giant.

“I put out a notice that I needed a person with a rural economic development background and I got a number of resumes. Herb’s resume came in and . . . he came in for an interview,” said McMurray, who now lives in Vermont. “I didn’t know there was any relationship between he and Barney until (Moses) told me.”

Uh, when did he tell you that? When you two were doing the horizontal mambo?

In a front-page story in yesterday’s Herald, Frank admitted he helped Moses land the plum post but called questions about a potential conflict “nonsense.”

At the time of the meeting, Frank was a junior member of the Financial Services Committee, which regulates Fannie Mae and other lending institutions.

“It’s a common thing in Washington for members of Congress to have spouses work for the federal government,” Frank said.

Um, not to quibble, but Moses wasn't Frank's spouse. Just saying.

Great News: Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac Fiasco Costing Us Trillions

Oddly enough those paragons of fiscal austerity in the Democratic Party don't seem to care and are happy to have you on the hook for trillions more. It's almost as if they have something to hide.

In 2008, during the height of the financial crisis, the government took ownership of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, injecting cash to keep them afloat. Since the federal government now owns, manages and supplies the capital for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded last year that their cost to the American people should be accounted for in the federal budget. Unfortunately, President Obama's Office of Management and Budget ruled differently, preferring not to account for the risk these entities pose.

Yet that risk is huge. The federal government's explicit commitment to Fannie and Freddie now surpasses $2 trillion. On top of that are $8.1 trillion in Fannie and Freddie securities now outstanding -- obligations that both Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have stated their unwavering commitment to meeting, should Fannie and Freddie need assistance.

Foreign banks and governments hold some $1.3 trillion of those securities, so US taxpayers are on the hook for bailing out foreign governments should Fannie and Freddie default. We may end up sending China alone a check for $454 billion.

With the taxpayers as the $10 trillion backstop for these government-controlled misfits, there should be a significant drive in Congress to reform them and reduce the risk to the public. Yet the Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate have blocked every such effort -- even the most basic attempts at reform, such as legislation I offered to provide for an accurate accounting of Fannie and Freddie.

Why have my Democratic colleagues squelched even the most common-sense attempts at transparency? I can only conclude that they feel that they have something to hide -- that they fear that the American people, on discovering the true cost of Fannie and Freddie, will be alarmed; that, when the public sees the risks these entities pose, it will demand reform. And, perhaps, that when the taxpayers discover the Democrats' repeated attempts to stymie reform, they will be furious.

Problem is the public is largely ignorant of the incestuous relationship between Democrats and these outfits, due mostly to reportorial malfeasance by the media. You know if the GOP was bedded down with them it would be hung around their necks like a millstone.

Perhaps the GOP Congress next year can start investigating this mess and hold hearings so the public can realize they've been had. But don't hold your breath on the news leaking out.

Great News: Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac Bailout Could Reach $1 Trillion

This Democrat boondoggle is too big to fail or something. And we're on the hook for it.

The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.

Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.

“It is the mother of all bailouts,” said Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, who is now a consultant to the mortgage-finance industry.

Fannie, based in Washington, and Freddie in McLean, Virginia, own or guarantee 53 percent of the nation’s $10.7 trillion in residential mortgages, according to a June 10 Federal Reserve report. Millions of bad loans issued during the housing bubble remain on their books, and delinquencies continue to rise. How deep in the hole Fannie and Freddie go depends on unemployment, interest rates and other drivers of home prices, according to the companies and economists who study them.

The Congressional Budget Office calculated in August 2009 that the companies would need $389 billion in federal subsidies through 2019, based on assumptions about delinquency rates of loans in their securities pools. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget estimated in February that aid could total as little as $160 billion if the economy strengthens.

If housing prices drop further, the companies may need more. Barclays Capital Inc. analysts put the price tag as high as $500 billion in a December report on mortgage-backed securities, assuming home prices decline another 20 percent and default rates triple.

Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones Ratings Co. in Haverford, Pennsylvania, said that a 20 percent loss on the companies’ loans and guarantees, along the lines of other large market players such as Countrywide Financial Corp., now owned by Bank of America Corp., could cause even more damage.

“One trillion dollars is a reasonable worst-case scenario for the companies,” said Egan, whose firm warned customers away from municipal bond insurers in 2002 and downgraded Enron Corp. a month before its 2001 collapse.

Over a 20-year period ending in 2008 Democrats were the top recipients of donations from these corrupt organizations, led by Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now we're left bailing them out.

Bawney Fwank Leading by Example

Well, what do you know, one of the men with a huge role in ushering in the housing collapse wants even harsher restrictions in income for Wall Street.

A senior House Democrat wants to toughen President Barack Obama's new restrictions on Wall Street pay by banning salaries and bonuses that encourage what the government considers "inappropriate risk."

The proposal by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., which will be considered Tuesday by the House Financial Services Committee, would give the government unprecedented power in how financial executives are rewarded.

Obama has shied away from such direct intervention, even as administration officials argued that excessive compensation in the private sector contributed to the financial crisis.

"If the risk pays off, you make money," Frank said at a National Press Club luncheon Monday. "And if the risk doesn't, you suffer no penalties. Heads you win, tails you break even. It's like selling lottery tickets that only cost you money if they pay off."

You know, I find it interesting that this idea is coming from the guy who was the ringleader in bringing down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and nothing happened to him. You suffered no apparent penalty, did you, Frank?

Here's an idea for Frank. No matter how bad the economy gets, no matter how huge the deficit gets, that Congress gets paid and rather well, too. Plus, they get a lot of speaking fees at dinners and such and the golf outings with lobbyists and such. I suggest that Frank live by his own rules. Until Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pay back every dime to the taxpayer they were given to bail them out, you get paid zero. I'll go you one step farther: if the deficit goes up, Congress gets zero pay. No outside income either. And your "significant others" and boyfriends can't be making it hand over fist as lobbyists or consultants, either.

Lead by example, Frank.

What Time Are the Bus Tours Past Their Houses?

Considering the AIG executives were subject to harassment by the goons from the Working Families Party, I'm wondering when they'll be paying visits to the homes of executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

In a compensation program that has drawn angry protests from politicians, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expect to pay about $210 million in retention bonuses to 7,600 employees over 18 months, according to a letter from the mortgage companies' regulator to Sen. Charles Grassley.

The maximum retention bonus for any individual executive under the plan will total $1.5 million during the 18 months ending in early 2010, according to the letter, which provides previously undisclosed details about the bonuses.

Will Obama adviser Franklin Raines be paid a visit?

I wonder, does Barney Frank's boyfriend get one of these bonuses?

Instapundit link. Thanks!

Bawney Fwank Goes After Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Bonuses

I wonder whether this means his boyfriend owes some money?

Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, called on the regulator to "rescind the retention bonus programs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

In a letter to James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Frank said the public "rightfully insists that large bonuses such as these awarded by institutions receiving public funds at a time of a serious economic downturn cannot continue."

Does anyone in the media dare ask how much his boyfriend made?

Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

Great News: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Looking For Another $50 Billion in Bailout Bucks

Two of the government-run operations that greased the skids for our economic woes (hello, Barney Frank!) are looking to dip into your pockets for at least another $50 billion.

We are so screwed.

Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae said Monday that it likely needs up to $16 billion from the government as conditions in the U.S. housing market continue to deteriorate.

Fannie Mae's disclosure that it expects an injection of $11 billion to $16 billion in taxpayer aid comes after sibling company Freddie Mac disclosed last week that it's likely to require as much as $35 billion in federal support on top of the $13.8 billion it received last year.

Fannie, which has yet to receive any government aid, said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the actual amount needed "may differ materially from this estimate" because its fourth-quarter financial statements are still being prepared.

In other words, expect the tab to at least double.

Washington-based Fannie and McLean, Va.-based Freddie were seized by federal regulators last fall after facing mounting losses on loans they backed during the housing boom. An agreement with the Treasury Department allows the government to invest up to $100 billion in each company, though some analysts have speculated that the companies may need more than that.

And after that $100 billion gets blown, they'll be back for another couple hundred billion.

Great.

Hot Air links. Thanks!

Clinton Gets Blame for Mortgage Meltdown

Let's see how much attention this gets in the United States.

Very little, I suspect.

We are now sitting in the wreckage of the biggest lending bust the world has ever seen.

And there's some merit in trying to pinpoint where it all began.

And among the prime suspects is former president Bill Clinton's decision in 1999 to put pressure on lenders to widen the pool of home borrowers in the US.

An article in The New York Times on September 30, 1999, laid it all out in what now looks like crystal detail.

"In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders," the article, by Steven Holmes, began.

"The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets, including the New York metropolitan region, will encourage those banks to exchange home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

"Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits."

It's like listening to a cockpit voice recorder extracted from the tail of some aircraft wreck.

The next paragraph notes that banks and mortgage companies had been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called sub-prime borrowers.

Why?

Because such people "can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates".

Don't they say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions? That story, whose first three paragraphs were reproduced verbatim, was all about the US government trying to help. On top of that, the banks and mortgage companies thought they were doing the borrowers a favour because otherwise they would have been hit with higher rates.

What has happened now, with a million empty houses in the US and no sign of prices bottoming out, is the logical consequence of ill-considered positive discrimination on one side of the ledger.

Latinos and African Americans are the biggest minorities who were talked about in the article, as it later made clear, and as we know they now make up a disproportionate number of mortgage defaulters in the US housing market. There have been instances of people who don't like minorities saying "I told you so" about what's happened, but there's a very strong argument that it would have happened to any supposed beneficiary of rule bending.

If the lenders had focused on helping Southern good ol' boys, by some quirk, we'd probably be looking at an army of confused and unhappy Southern ex-home owners having to park their rocking chairs on other people's verandas. The iron rule of commerce that was ignored was that money should always be lent to people who are going to be able to pay it back, regardless of any other consideration.

Of course many in the blogosphere noted this a month ago and it hasn't made a dent.

Who Caused the Fannie-Freddie Meltdown? Why, the Democrats, Of Course

The biggest financial collapse in American history, orchestrated and engineered by the Democrats. And they're about to be rewarded with super-majorities. Why John McCain continues to ignore mentioning this is a mystery.

President Bush, his Securities and Exchange Commission appointees, other free-enterprise dogmatists who have stood in the way of regulating risky and opaque financial manipulations, and greedy Wall Streeters deserve the blame heaped on them for the financial meltdown that has so severely shaken America.

But the pretense of many Democrats that this crisis is altogether a Republican creation is simplistic and dangerous.

It is simplistic because Democrats have been a big part of the problem, in part by supporting governmental distortions of the marketplace through mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose reckless lending practices necessitated a $200 billion government rescue last month. It is dangerous because misdiagnosing the causes of the crisis could lead both to regulatory overkill and to more reckless risk taking by Fannie, Freddie, or newly created government-sponsored enterprises.

Fannie and Freddie aside, it's worth pointing out that many, if not most, of those greedy Wall Street barons are Democrats. And that the securities and investment industry has given more money to Democrats than to Republicans in this election cycle. And that opposing regulation of risky new financial practices by private investment banks and others has been a bipartisan enterprise, engaged in by the Clinton and Bush administrations alike.

But the roles of Fannie and Freddie are my focus here. Powerful Democratic (and some Republican) advocates of affordable housing, including Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.; Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., have been the GSEs' most potent and ardent champions in recent years. Meanwhile, the agencies and their employees have orchestrated a gigantic lobbying effort (costing more than $174 million between 1998 and 2008). They have also made campaign contributions of more than $14.6 million between the 2000 and 2008 election cycles, with some of the largest going to Dodd and Barack Obama.

A leading illustration of this Democrat-GSE symbiosis came in summer 2005. The Senate Banking Committee adopted a bill to impose tighter regulation on Fannie and Freddie, with all Republicans voting for it. But the Democrats voted against it in committee and killed it on the floor.

Read the rest.

Dodd, of course, is neck deep in shady deals, but refuses to disclose his records. Most of the media ignores this fact. Why?

Mr. Taylor should watch out, though. The famously tolerant left will be going through his bank records, high school transcripts and publishing his address online by noon today.

Good News: Chuckie Schumer Wants to Expand Government Loans

You'd think this guy would lay low for awhile considering he and his pals Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters et al. are primarily responsible for the mess we're in.

But no, enough government intervention is never enough for Chuckie Schumer. God help us.

Sen. Charles Schumer is calling on the federal government to protect college students and their families from the credit crunch by expanding the economic bailout to include student loans.

"We have to build a wall around the student loan market to protect our kids from the credit crisis," Schumer said at a news conference yesterday in Massapequa outside Plainedge High School, where students from a senior government class peppered him with questions about college costs and loan availability.

"My parents tell me I have to be realistic about where I want to go, and money is nearly as important as how good my grades are," said Marianne Kennedy, 17, of Seaford, who is applying to both public and private schools. "They don't want me having huge debt when I graduate."

Maybe it would be better if a qualified money manager went to speak to these little urchins rather than a profligate spender with zero accountability.

The Wall Street bailout legislation passed by Congress last week gives the federal government authority to buy up bad student loan debt as well as bad mortgage debt.

In a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday, Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked that they "pay special attention to the student loan market" as they carry out the bailout plan. He also wrote to every college and university in New York State, asking those that do not participate in the federal Department of Education Direct Loan student aid program to reconsider. Nationwide, 1,369 of more than 4,000 colleges and universities participate, according to a Schumer spokesman.

Schumer also is proposing that a commission be established to determine whether the federal loan program has enough resources if private loan programs dry up.

Great, another commission, likely to be stacked with a bunch of big-government leftists like ... Charles Schumer.

Wonderful.

This is what's know as chutzpah, boys and girls.

Well, no one ever accused Sen. Chuck Schumer of letting any sense of shame hold him back.

Ditto for irony.

Still, it was a bit surreal to see Schumer - one of the prime apologists for the faulty federally backed mortgages now dealing body-blows to the US financial system -laying the groundwork yesterday for yet more government meddling in the loan business.

"We need to build an impermeable wall around the student-loan market to protect our kids from this financial crisis," he said at Stuyvesant HS in Manhattan.

It's unclear exactly what such an "impermeable wall" might look like, though Schumer said he had asked Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to pay "special attention" to student loans - which, like most other credit, have dried up recently - as he executes the $700 billion federal rescue.

Schumer also called for a commission to figure out how the federal government can expand its loan program.

But one thing's for sure: This kind of talk should make taxpayers exceedingly nervous.

Schumer, after all, was a chief cheerleader for the feds' last major attempt to protect a sector of the economy from the rigors of the market.

That, of course, was the housing market - inflated to unsustainable heights, largely by the irresponsible mortgages given implicit government backing through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

And that recklessness was given what amounted to a congressional stamp of approval by legislators smitten with the idea of increasing poor and minority home ownership.

Or as Schumer himself put it back in 2003: "My worry is that we're using the recent safety and soundness concerns . . . as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie's mission." Oops.

For a guy who would hold a press conference to announce a can opening, it's amazing he never seems to realize his statements are actually preserved for posterity. But when most of the media overlooks such a history, it's not hard to see how he thinks he can get away with this nonsense.

'But Everybody Wants to Avoid It Because He’s Gay...'

Well, there's no longer any avoiding it. It's demonstrably clear Barney Frank's fingerprints are all over the financial mess, yet the media takes every measure to avoid reality.

Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

"It’s absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what’s not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard."

A top GOP House aide agreed.

"C’mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank’s political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley’s wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain’s wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation’s housing and banking laws."

Frank’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.

"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. Herb Moses

And everyone in the media except Bill Sammon ignores the elephant in the room.

Because he's gay?

What the fuck is going on here? I don't give a shit if he fornicates with purple chickens. We need some accountability. This brazen bastard is out there on television today whooping it up because we, the taxpayers, just bailed his ass out?

If the GOP doesn't get out there now and hammer this one home every fucking second of the rest of this election cycle, they'll never see another goddamn nickel from me.

This shit just cannot stand any longer.

Previously on Frank.

H/T Ace.

Update: Ah, well what do you know, they're on the ball.



Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

Update: It's nice to see some in the gay community demanding Frank's resignation.

Thus, Frank should have stepped down from the Banking Committee in the 1990s. Not only would he have demonstrated integrity as a legislator, but he would also have shown his commitment to treating gay relationships the same as traditional marriage.

Instead, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. And he still refuses to take any responsibility for the current crisis. And yet another reason why he should resign his position as Chairman of the House Financial Services.

Now, if the rest of the media would demand the same. I won't hold my breath.

Update: More on the media's obfuscation from Gay Patriot.

More Conflicts of Interest at NBC

As anyone with a pulse knows, NBC News has tilted so far to the left this election season they've done everything but dress up their on-air news "talent" in cheerleader outfits with an Obama logo on them.

Now comes word that with the current economic crisis, a couple more glaring conflicts are causing concern.

NBC is under fire for having correspondent Andrea Mitchell cover the economic crisis because she's married to former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan - but some people are also wondering about David Gregory, who has a show, "Race for the White House" on MSNBC. Gregory is married to Beth Wilkinson - who until a month ago was general counsel, executive vice president and corporate secretary for mortgage giant Fannie Mae, which is now being investigated by the FBI.

Everyone knows Mitchell is married to Greenspan, but he's no longer Fed chair and you can probably cut her some slack. But as for Gregory, his obvious conflict of interest should preclude him from reporting on any matters related to Fannie Mae. When the time comes, as it should, that former Fannie Mae officials are indicted or brought forth to testify before Congress, will NBC even mention Wilkinson is married to one of their star reporters?

More questions here.

By the way, when it comes to being in the tank, how on earth did someone who's clearly rooting for Obama wind up moderating a debate?

Could you envision a John McCain supporter with a book due to be published on Inauguration Day being allowed to moderate a debate?

Of course not. No shock she also used to be employed by ... NBC.

Instapundit links. Thanks!

The Mistress of Disaster

What's even more frightening about Jamie Gorelick is the fact Barack Obama would likely install her in another high-ranking posiiton of power.

How many disasters can one person prevail over and still maintain credibility?