Creep Alert: Barney Frank's Partner Jim Ready

After a debate last week between Barney Frank and challenger Sean Bielat, Frank's partner Jim Ready approached Bielat and started firing off  rapid-fire pictures with a flash in his face like some kind of nutcase

When Bielat asked what he was doing, Ready said "You better get used to it dude.  It's a free country isn't it?"

What kind of thuggery is this?

I haven't really followed Frank's personal life and didn't know anything about Ready, but you would expect a partner of a long-time US Representative to be dignified and professional.  

While looking for the video stream of the incident, I found more information about Frank's strange bedfellow at New York Magazine.

First, James Ready nearly got his boyfriend, Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, in deep doo-doo when he got arrested for growing and possessing marijuana — while Frank was in the house with him. Then, he mouthed off to a couple of (semi-drunk) ladies on a plane, causing a fight after he called another passenger "Santa Claus." And now he's staging bizarre performance art. In the video below, you'll see him as he looms in on Frank's Republican election opponent Sean Bielat after a debate at the WGBH studios in Boston. He snaps pictures of the bemused candidate, telling him to "get used to it, dude." Bielat eventually realizes the humor of the situation, asking, "Are you really standing here and heckling me? Is that really what you’re doing?" Ready, on the other hand, did not seem to find anything funny.

When you're watching the video, be sure to take note of the rapid-fire use of the flash of this peculiar little potheaded:

Ready did not return calls seeking comment. Gural said Ready, who is not paid by the campaign for his photos, will continue to hit the stump with Frank and may be at other events with Bielat. 
.

Another example of political thuggery is Steve Driehaus' absurd persecution of Marjorie Dannenfelser. 

.... throwing Catholicism itself under the bus in the name of defendingCatholicism.

The George Soros-backed fake Catholic group Catholics United [CU] has, for weeks, been engaged in a $500,000 misinformation campaign to persuade Catholics to vote for Driehaus and other Democrats who are ostensibly pro-life but voted for ObamaCare. CU, and various candidates they are struggling to defend, would like voters to believe that they are more “Catholic” on this issue than their own Catholic bishops who say that the new law includes taxpayer-funded abortion. Apparently, their half million dollars alone is not enough as Driehaus engages in what Dannenfelser calls “an act of desperation and fear” to “use a criminal statute to silence his critics.” Catholics who actually profess and practice their own religion point out the irony that Driehaus himself shared Dannenfelser’s position prior to March 19

 Deal Hudson's Why it's absurd to deny Obama's Healthcare bill contains abortion gets the factual information about the abortion funding in Obamacare on record.  

Again. 

I used to at least have some measure of respect for Democratic party.  The bitterness and thuggery have left a bad taste in my mouth.  I think it's left a bad taste in lot of people's mouths.

Must watch video Maxine Waters

Maxine Waters: "We do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and particularly Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Frank Raines

Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae Executives who have played big on Wall Street being forwarded throughout the internet.

Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, " Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that "mistakes were made" and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years." Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.

Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ . The Government noted, "The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner." These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.

Tim Howard - Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, "Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,"

On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.

Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!

Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.

Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor

TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama

JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee

Karl Rove on the No Vote

94 Democrats voted no.


With all the people who owe their job for Nancy Pelosi, many of them voted against her after her moronic leadership today?

Twelve out of thirty-six on Barney Frank's own committee?

Barney Frank, Freddie, Fannie and the Bailout

Today's Boston Herald had a synopsis of Fannie, Freddie and the crisis of bullying banks to give bad debt here.

As Winston Churchill might have put it, never before has one man done so much that was so wrong, or shafted so many on behalf of so few.

Lenders asked themselves, why should I care how shaky these borrowers are or risky the loans if a government-backed body is going to buy them up anyway?

The loans were made, the housing market bubbled, contributions from F&F flowed to Democrats like Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, and everyone was happy. Until they weren’t.

Without Freddie and Fannie’s reckless expansion, the housing bubble doesn’t happen. Without the implied promise behind F&F’s money, investment banks don’t dive into the derivatives market.

Instead, we did it Barney’s way.

Not only has Frank spent his career stopping any real reform of Fannie and Freddie, he repeatedly insisted they weren’t backed by the taxpayers. “There is no federal liability whatsoever,” Frank said in 2000.

But two weeks ago, we had to bail them out with $200 billion in our tax dollars.

Alan Greenspan, John McCain and others warned that F&F were taking on too much risk, but Frank dismissed these “overblown” fears as ideological attacks against his favorite cash cow. Even after Franklin Raines and Joe Johnson were caught red-handed mismanaging these institutions, Frank still insisted “we are not facing any kind of crisis.”...

Mr. Frank was publicly arguing for an increase in the size of their combined $1.4 trillion portfolios right up to the day they were bailed out. Even now . . . he opposes Treasury’s planned reduction in the size of the portfolios starting in 2010.”

Our markets have collapsed, we’re paying through the nose, and Barney Frank is still fighting to keep Fannie and Freddie on the dole.

Why? Because in his mind, the point of Fannie/Freddie is taxpayer-subsidized housing for low-income borrowers - no matter how bad their credit or how high the cost.

“Otherwise,” he asks, “why should they exist?”

And what about us, the responsible borrowers and hard-working taxpayers stuck with the trillion-dollar tab? In Barney’s world, that’s the only reason we exist. He spends. We pay.

This truly is Barney Frank’s bailout.