Obama Urges Senate Democrats To Punch Back Harder

Barack Obama faces stiff opposition to his signature legislation on Health Care Reform (really government take over). Members of Congress are on their month long August vacation and they are hearing quite a bit from angry voters who are not happy with the health care plan. While the people are angry the only violence I am aware of occurred when union thugs forced participants out of a meeting because they dared to disagree.

Obama gave Senate Democrats a pep talk and told them to punch back harder:

“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” Messina said, according to an official who attended the meeting.

The hourlong session was the last opportunity for Democratic leaders and the White House to prepare senators for what will be a crucial month in shaping public opinion on health care. With no final legislation to promote, senators have expressed concern about dealing with questions and criticisms about the almost $1 trillion overhaul. The spate of confrontational town hall meetings have raised the stakes. Politico

This is how the Chicago street thug is doing business. More than half of people polled do not want this health care boondoggle but he and Congress know more about this than we do. They are going to keep ramming this until it gets passed no matter what people want.

Hold their feet to the fire. Let them know that you will not vote for them if they vote for this terrible plan. Hold them accountable for their actions and make sure they lose their jobs if they vote for this mess.

It is time to take the country back and if the reactions of people at the meetings are any kind of clue, people are mad as hell and they are not going to take it any more.

In a different story, Obama continues to blame Republicans for the economy:

“I expect to be held responsible,” Obama said. “But I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.”

Obama accused his GOP critics of having “selective memory” about the economy and said, “When I walked in we had a $1.3 trillion deficit. That was gift-wrapped and waiting for me when I walked into the Oval Office.” Roanoke.com

Obama continues to blame Republicans when Democrats were in control of Congress the last two years of the Bush administration. That is when everything started going to hell in a hand basket. Democrats, led by Barney Frank, were responsible for the housing mess which started the downward spiral.

It is funny that Obama complains he was left a deficit but continues to spend and add to it. He and Joe Biden think the only way to make money when you are bankrupt is to spend more money. If you did that at home (and many of you did which added the the economic problems) how well would it work?

Big Dog

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52 Responses to “Obama Urges Senate Democrats To Punch Back Harder”

  1. Adam says:

    I haven’t been around here much lately so maybe you can fill me in on what I missed. How exactly did the actions of Frank and the Democrats in the 2 years before Bush left cause the crisis? Somehow the responsibility seems to be getting more and more focused down to a specific set of people in a small chunk of time…

    • Big Dog says:

      Never said Frank et al did it in 2 years. From Carter to Bush the pushed CRA and Frank ignored all the warnings about Fannie and Freddie.

      Maxine Waters said it was fine. They failed to heed warnings from Bush and McCain.

      Democrats had Congress for the last 2 years, the economy went south then. If Obama is going to blame the economy, which was robust (though involved reckless actions on the part of all) then it is fair to assign part of that blame to the Democrats who controlled.

      Everyone shares in the blame but since Obama cannot make that distinction it is fair to call him out on the inaccuracies.

    • Blake says:

      1997- Blarney Frank is a member of the House Banking committee, and under his watch, the Democrats begin to loosen the regs of the FMs
      2001, June- President Bush calls for tighter regs on the FMs, citing a “potential problem” in the making.
      Sept. 11, 2001 happens, and Bush’s attention has to prioritize on terrorism
      2004- Bush and McCain both call on the banking committee to install a watchdog commission- it is voted down by Frank and his colleagues, along with one Republican joining them- that is all he needs.
      2006- the Dems win a majority in Congress, meaning Frank is now the chairman of the Committee- the economy at this point is still okay, although beginning to tilt.
      2008- everything goes south, because of these loosened regs.
      You can feel free to view any one of ten or so clips on youtube about Frank and his own words regarding the regs of the FMs, and then there is no doubt, except with mouthbreathing libtards who refuse to see the truth.

  2. Blake says:

    Wow- to think that you could have missed Frank’s loosening of the regs of Fannie Mae and reddie Mac, so people who could not afford homes still qualified for them, and then the FMs guaranteed these sub- prime loans, just so Barney boy could say he got poor people a home, aided by ACORN and the other libbies, is a stretch even for you. It was Frank, first as the “ranking” member of the House Banking committee, then the Chairman of said committee, and Chris Dodd, his counterpart in the Denste, that actually thwarted President Bush’s push for more Regulation of the Mortgage industry.
    Those are the FACTS,even though you libbies will not acknowledge these facts.

    • Blake says:

      As far as the time frame, this began in 1997, under Bill Clinton although you can trace the Genesis back to the socialist Carter, and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.
      If you truly do your research you cannot deny these facts. If you can, you are delusional.

  3. Adam says:

    I’m just still not seeing this blame Frank stuff first of all. I’m seeing a lot of repeating of right wing talking points against Frank but I’m not seeing a lot of hard evidence.

    Frank loosened the regs now? Really? Which ones?

    How exactly did Frank, or Democrats for that matter, thwart Bush’s push for more regulation? You say Frank voted down the oversight of Fannie? How?

    In 2005 for instance HR 1461 passed through the House and beyond Frank’s control but was stalled in the Senate, classic do nothing 109th congress style.

    We’re talking about a time when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress so I’m looking for some piece of evidence to suggest Frank or other Democrats actually did something specific to stall reform. It’s clear Bush and some Republicans talked about reform but that’s not good enough. Where is the evidence that they actually tried and Democrats blocked them?

    To see you both still repeating the lie that the CRA had a major role in the crisis doesn’t help your credibility.

    • Blake says:

      Have you even gone to youtube and looked up Barney Frank and Fannie Mae? You will have plenty of clips to choose from- If you refuse to see it you are stupid, and that is as complimentary as I can be here.

      • Adam says:

        Your own video debunks what you are saying about Frank. Notice at the very end it says the bill made it out of the banking committee and through the House, yet stalled in the Senate. Frank has no control over the Senate. So remind me again how this is Frank’s or even the Democrats’ fault? The Republicans controlled the Senate yet took no action on the bill…because they feared they didn’t have the votes? Right. The do-nothing 109th at it’s best…what a joke.

        • Blake says:

          It is called the threat of a filibuster- you are technically correct that Reps “controlled the Senate, but it was by one tie- breaker vote- Cheney’s, or had you forgotten?
          I do not nor have I ever condoned some of the votes Reps had, indeed I have blasted them also, something YOU won’t do on your side- but I digress- we were talking Frank and his culpability- he has a bunch of that, even if you are not man enough to admit that.

        • Adam says:

          I’m still waiting on some piece of evidence that proves his culpability aside from his often played speech saying there was no crisis. I’d love to know how that speech translates into action to block anything.

          Republicans may have been more willing than Frank to admit there was a crisis coming but they did not act on that in the end. The only action Republicans actually ever took on preventing a mess made it through the committee Frank sat on, through the House where Frank had a vote, and into the Senate where Republicans took no action.

          Yet, I’m not man enough to say it’s still magically Frank’s fault? Right.

          All you have is your talking points and when I ask you for evidence to substantiate such talking points you roll out personal attacks. Good work.

  4. Adam says:

    Maybe specifically go into this claim:

    “2004- Bush and McCain both call on the banking committee to install a watchdog commission- it is voted down by Frank and his colleagues, along with one Republican joining them- that is all he needs.”

    You talk about truly doing research but it’s funny, when I search on these topics all I find is a lot of right wingers repeating the same ideas but without any evidence backing it up. What exactly did get voted down by Frank in 2004? Can you point me to some specific records?

    • Blake says:

      okay, try this video, where the dems are trying to beat back the formation of a commission to regulate the FMs:

      • Adam says:

        So Democrats vocally opposed these changes in hearings and in media events. But what were the ramifications of statements by the Democrats in that video? Explain to me how their opinions from the hearing translated to blocking Republicans. There has to be a record of Democrats actually preventing legislation from coming out of a committee, right?

        • Adam says:

          Or maybe I just don’t know enough about how Congress works to understand because it seems to me there is a huge gap between voicing opposition to policy and taking action to block said policy changes. Fill in that gap for me.

  5. Adam says:

    Also I’d love to see some evidence as to why you blame CRA for what lead to the crisis.

    • Blake says:

      You must truly be a pitiful student of history to not know this- perhaps you were out smoking pot during that time, or your prof, did not even teach you , but let you have an easy D.
      The CRA began the push for “community organizing” and the plan to wreck the system by overloading it with people who could not possibly maintain a mortgage payment.
      These “Organizers” threw these poor people under the bus re; the mortgage mess.
      The CRA began the genesis of ACORN, and the dems, the radical marxists, began to seek to loosen the regs.
      Rules are there for a reason- to protect both the bank and the lendee.
      As we now see, these socialists did no one any favors.

      • Adam says:

        You can mock me all you want but yet you cannot prove an actual link between the CRA and the crisis.

        Consider the following excerpts about a study on the CRA:

        He went on to discuss the more recent 2008 staff analysis of the relationship of the CRA to the subprime mortgage crisis, which focused on two basic questions: What share of subprime mortgage originations were related to CRA? Have CRA-related subprime loans performed more poorly than other subprime loans?

        With regard to the first question, the staff analysis focused on lending activity during 2005 and 2006, the period that corresponded to the height of the subprime lending boom. It found that only 6 percent of all higher-priced loans to lower-income borrowers or neighborhoods were made by CRA-covered institutions or their affiliates. In contrast, 20 percent of higher-priced loans to lower-income borrowers were made by independent nonbank institutions, such as mortgage or consumer finance companies, which are not covered by the CRA . Furthermore, nearly 60 percent of higher-priced mortgage loans were unrelated to the CRA because the loans were made to middle- and upper-income borrowers.

        With regard to the second question, the study compared the performance of subprime and Alt-A mortgage delinquencies in lower-income neighborhoods to those in middle- and upper-income neighborhoods. Using data provided by First American Loan Performance, it found that delinquency rates of 90 days or more for subprime and Alt-A loans originated between January 2006 and April 2008 were high regardless of neighborhood income. That is, subprime or Alt-A loans made in lower-income neighborhoods (which would be the focus of CRA-related lending) did not perform worse than when such loans were made in higher income neighborhoods.

        So loans under CRA were not only a fraction of subprime loans, but they did not perform any differently than other loans made at the time.

        Since CRA accounted for so few of the bad loans you would have to prove that without CRA there would never have been the regulation changes that lead to the actual problems that caused the crisis. That seems a plausible theory so I’ll wait for your evidence.

        • Blake says:

          The CRA opened the door by which the sub primes were made- if you cannot see this, there is no hope for you- you will be henceforth referred to as the Whackjob from Ark.- wait- that’s Clinton’s name- we’ll just refer to you as idjit boy.

        • Blake says:

          All other loans were made from sheer greed, but that hasn’t kept Hussein from “helping” these greedheads who just bought a home to flip it and make money. RElaxed rules helped on that, as well as the AIG method of bundling securities, which the SEC should have had an eye on, but did not.
          It was greed all around, but it began with the CRA.

        • Blake says:

          BTW- it’s not mocking if it’s true.

        • Adam says:

          What doors were opened by the CRA that lead to the crisis?

        • Adam says:

          Since what you said isn’t true about me then I guess it’s just mocking.

      • Blake says:

        Its not mocking if it is the truth, and I learned about the CRA when it was happening, and I didn’t like it then either.
        It is what it is.

  6. Aresay says:

    Arnie Duncan US Secretary of Education Admits that much like the Chicago Public School system that he once headed, more then 50% of Americans sent to Re-education Camps do not graduate.

    Americans that do not graduate from Re-education camps are sent to Siberia (formerly known as Detroit)

    90% of Chicago Public School Children Believe That Military BARRACKS used in the American Re-education camps are named in honor of President Obama.

    Stopthepresses psychics (psycho chics) using advanced crystal ball technology predicts that very soon the used car market will be flooded with repossessed cars. Thanks to the government’s Cash for Clunks program, giving money to people that otherwise could not afford to buy a new car and keep up the car payments. Another home mortgage type fiasco brought to you by the Democratic Party.

  7. Barbara says:

    Put your glasses on Adam and you might see things better!

  8. Big Dog says:

    It is not a lie, it is the truth. As for Frank and Waters and others, one only needs watch the videos of them in committee assuring people that everything is fine and there is no need for further oversight.

    The rules and regs are squashed in committee and Frank and others assured us all was well while more money was being pumped in. Their buddies made money (Raines) in the millions before it all went belly up.

    • Adam says:

      I keep being shown hearings, not committee meetings. Show me some evidence that Republicans actually tried to pass legislation out of committee and that it was blocked by Frank or another Democrat. Blake mentioned that Frank had 1 Republican vote so that was enough to block it but he has yet to state what exactly he blocked or even when he blocked it. Come on, certainly if you think Frank blocked it you have more than simply Frank saying in a hearing that there was no need for reform.

      • Blake says:

        Hearings ARE committee meetings, dumba$$- they don’t meet like the boy scouts do- that hearing was business of the comittee, and its purpose was to deny the opposition a toehold for more regulation.
        The Dems did this more than once, and I could find you clips fo Barney saying that all was fine with the FMs in 2007- just a few months before we began to go belly up.
        Now- don’t you think that the HEAD of the Banking Committee should know more, sooner than that???!!!?

  9. Big Dog says:

    Fannie and Freddie held about 13 trillion in loans. They were bundled and sold because they were backed by the gubmint. When things started to go bad the market collpased like a house of cards because of all the toxic debt bought up by Fannie and Freddie.

    The CRA allowed this to happen. The banks were forced to provide mortgages because pf protests by race baiters and ACORN. Once they were forced banks were able to make bad lonas, ones they knew they should not make and ones that were sold to Fannie and Freddie.

    CRA has a lot to do with it. Of course it is easy to find anyone with a study one way or the other.

    • Adam says:

      It’s a complete lie to suggest CRA forced anybody to lend a certain way outside of the CRA. Almost 80% of the subprime loans came outside of CRA and you have yet to specify which part of CRA allowed bad loans to be made outside of CRA.

    • Adam says:

      Since you don’t like the study from the Philly Fed saying CRA was not the cause then go ahead and find me a study saying CRA was.

      The 80% I cited is incorrect. It is more like 50% with another 25% to 30% which were not completely under CRA though slightly. That leaves only 20% directly under CRA completely. Yet, if some part of CRA indirectly lead to more subprime lending outside the control of CRA then what was that?

      • Blake says:

        The CRA mandated that more loans be made to “disadvantaged” people- combined with ACORN and other activists who would actually invade people’s homes and committee hearings at banks in an attempt to intimidate, more bad loans began to be made. But it wasn’t until Frank and the Dems in both the House and Senate loosened the regs on the FMs that bad (sub- prime) loans really began to flow.
        Now the problem was, what can be done with these bad loans? As long as they were held by the banks- as long as the banks held the risk, they could or would only assume so much risk.
        When they found that they could legally “bundle” the securities, and sell them as a group, often to overseas buyers, they had no more risk, so they cold sell as many as they wished, as many as the Dems wanted them to.
        Unfortunately, even though they were guaranteed by the FMs, they (the FMs) no longer had the monetary reserves to actually guarantee them, thus the crisis in a nutshell.

        • Randy says:

          I know I am going to regret rejoining this conversation, but I feel compelled. There is no nutshell in which the mortgage crisis fits. It’s way too complicated for that. The CRA didn’t mandate banks to give loans, only offered incentives for them to do so. One of the main culprits was the Gramm, Leach, Bliley Act, or the Financial Services Modernization Act. Sub-prime lending wasn’t even a problem until this legislation was signed into law. That’s when banks were falling all over each other to give anyone and everyone a loan, without having to consider the risk. They did it aggressively and were more than happy to do so. Why? Because the Financial Services Modernization Act erased the line between individual banking and investment banking, a line clearly drawn by the Glass Steagall Act. It wasn’t the only culprit though. This created an invisible buffer (at least to non-insiders) which allowed for banks to give out risky loans, repackage them as securities behind close doors, misrepresent them to rating agencies to that would slap a AAA rating on them, and then sell them to investors or other banks as solid securities investments. They were never secure though, they were backed by risky home loans. Banks were aggressively marketing these loans, far from being forced, because they knew they could unload them quickly and easily on Wall Street and make them some other entities problem.

        • Blake says:

          Yes Randy- when the banks knew there was no risk to them, they ran up the bad loans because it kept undesirables like ACORN out of their offices and off of their lawns. If it had been me, I’d have shot them if they trespassed, but then I live where I can legally do that, and I digress- The CRA opened the door for all of this to begin- yes it is complex, but the CRA WAS the Genesis.

        • Randy says:

          They gave out those loans to make money, not to appease any community group. If ACORN didn’t exist, they would have given out those loans anyway, because they were profitable. Lenders even went as far as to falsify applications so that people who didn’t qualify for loans would get loans, people they solicited to give loans. There wasn’t ANY CRA benefit to doing that. They simply did it to make another loan that could be repackaged and sold. There are some very real and complex reasons that this mortgage crisis came to be. Blaming the CRA for to score political points doesn’t do anything to help solve the problem.

        • Blake says:

          No Randy- that’s wrong- there were rules that limited risk for BOTH sides of an agreement, but ACORN marching into your boardroom UNINVITED, or protesting on your lawn will cause some things to be changed. As soon as the banks had a way out of the risk, yes, they wenyt with the looser rules- it got those POSes off of their backs,
          The money they made was paltry, as they no longer held the mortgages themselves., so all they got was the little off of the top before they passed the bundled securities on. They were content with that, whereas, in the past, the bank would have kept possession of the mortgage, now it was toxic, and they knew it, so they let it go when it would, in the past, have kept generating interest for them.
          And as we all know, banks LIVE for interest, but they like to minimize risk.
          And I don’;t blame the CRA for everything, although it was a bad bill from the start.
          I DO however, maintain that it was the Genesis for all that followed.
          That is the truth, whether you believe it or not.

  10. Big Dog says:

    Adam, I believe McCain introduced some legislation or did something but it was basically ignored. Look at who has gotten rich off Fannie and Freddie, all Democrats who use to work under Clinton.

    I know you want to blame Republicans (and there was blame to go around) but The Dems were the big players in this. Now they are rewriting history.

    • Adam says:

      I don’t want to blame Republicans so much as I want to see why you keep repeating baseless smears that it was Frank and Democrats that caused the crisis. You say there was plenty of blame to go around but yet you keep stating without much more than hearings statements (no committee records, no votes, no filibusters, no nothing) that the Democrats caused all of this.

      McCain’s S 190 for instance indeed never made it out of committee. With the Republicans having a 2 person majority in the committee I’d love to know more info on what happened in there. This is one of those cases where Dodd is blamed more than Frank.

      • Blake says:

        That was the Senate side of the equation, but Blarney Frank and the others like Maxine Waters ( who had an undue conflict of interest in that her husband had shares in banks), also did all they could to derail the increase in Regs that Bush and others had called for.
        Don’t you think that in 2007, Frank’s assertion that the FMs were “fundamentally sound” was beyond STUPID, given that he was on the committee that oversaw these entities?

  11. Big Dog says:

    I think (but am not sure) if there is not one vote from a member of the opposing party it cannot make it out of committee. Now that might only be for certain types of votes, not sure.

    Dodd was opposed to much of the overhaul because he was getting favorable loans and other perks.

    When members of Congress are in meeting saying that all is well then businesses and people invest more and are not necessarily cautious. If one of them had said that there was a potential for a catastrophe the brakes would have been put on.

    Look at how there was a run on a certain bank when Schumer said it was on the verge of failure.

    The false presentation by these people misled financial institutions and people that all was well.

  12. Big Dog says:

    Adam,
    Here is what OpEDNews has on it:

    There was one section of the bill which almost saw its demise. That was section Vi the Community Reinvestment Act Provisions. This section required increased bank examinations to verify the quotas of high risk loans were being met by those participating in the de-regulation activities. The smaller financial intuitions were targeted with higher examinations to verify they did not rise to the next dollar level plateau without maintaining the proper quota for high risk loans.

    The quota of high risk loans required by the CRA is what fueled the sub-prime lending market. All types of incentives were used to get the market rolling so quotas could be met. Eventually as prospectus buyers started to evaporate, other incentives were needed to bring in more higher risk buyers. The process continued with ridiculous practices like interest only mortgages, adjustable rate mortgages, balloon mortgages, non income qualifying mortgages (or liar mortgages), and just about any other non qualifying activity that can be considered. The though was that this would generate a market where the house price would increase dramatically over a few months and the home owner could refinance the mortgage with a better credit history, at lower interest, using the equity built up over the past few months.

    Business Insider has an interesting item as well.

    • Adam says:

      Big Dog:

      So it’s the Philly Fed’s study of the CRA versus your Op-ed piece? Why am I not convinced?

      I can neither confirm no deny what you’re saying about committee votes. I wish I could find out more.

      Blake:

      No, Blake, just because committees hold hearings does not mean that hearings are where committees vote on what will pass through the committee. Don’t call me a dumbass at the same time you show ignorance of their process. That just makes you look stupid. You have only the talking points blaming Frank and Dodd yet no solid evidence to back up what they did to block it. Oh, they said it didn’t need changes? If they said it then that’s all they needed to do to derail it, right? It wasn’t a failure of Republican leadership, no, it was just that Democrats said it didn’t need to be changed and therefor Republicans couldn’t do anything from then on, it’s not like they were the majority or anything.

      • Blake says:

        You speak of ignorance of the process, yet you stay dumb asdirt when presented with the facts. It’s really no use to talk to you- you turn away from the evidence no matter what I try to show you.
        It’s true- you can lead a donkey to water, but you can’t make it drink.
        In your case, I can’t make you think. You obviously have hero- worship issues with Barney.

        • Blake says:

          Here- read your hero’s own words, in 2003, well before the crisis spilled into what it is now. If he hadn’t been so brain- dead then, perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are now.
          http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23617.html

        • Blake says:

          Also read this, although it isn’t Hufo, or Kos, it is in english, so you should have little problem:
          http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122091796187012529.html

        • Adam says:

          Yes, Frank spoke against changes in hearings in 2003. So to you that translates into Frank blocking changes? How do you draw that conclusion since you have no record of what the committee did with the information it gained from the hearing. Tell me how Frank’s opinion in the committee hearing means he blocked changes. You have to explain this to me because I’m not getting it.

        • Adam says:

          It’s really kind of bringing me down that a subject as interesting as this can be warped by your inability to separate facts from your own assumptions. You’ve jumped a gap here between what Frank said in hearings and what Frank did with his committee power and your failure to acknowledge that just further destroys your credibility.

        • Blake says:

          I hear Frank’s voice opposing changes, and I can infer from that that he blocked any change- it’s not a great leap in the logical thought process- try it sometime- it may break something free in your brain, and improve your logic center.

        • Adam says:

          Well, I guess that’s all that needs to be said then: you don’t have evidence, just your inference. Good.

        • Blake says:

          Adam, at least I can make a logical leap with the knowledge that is presented to me- I am not like you who needs to be led by the nose, or you will get lost.
          Grow a pair and think like an adult here. If you need to be presented with everything, you will continue to live in your parent’s basement.

      • Big Dog says:

        Well Adam, we can always find items that are of differing views. There was enough blame to go around (like Katrina) and the blame was on both sides. The CRA was the weakest link in the process and the way things were managed caused problems.