Free Frank Warner

Mark Sanford is insane

I'm no doctor, but this man has no grounding in reality. Gov. Mark Sanford can publicly call one woman his soul mate and still say he'll repair things with his wife? When you're caught in the middle like this, you don't blather about it to The Associated Press. You pull yourself together, man.

Who exactly thought he was presidential material?

Frank Warner

Al Franken is senator

I have the feeling that Al Franken is going to be more effective at criticizing the Democratic majority than the Republican minority has been. He has a way of zapping the establishment with few words. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi beware.

Frank Warner

Why is it Bernie Madoff gets 150 years in jail, but Barney Frank goes free?

Bernie Madoff did with $171 billion essentially the same thing Barney Frank did with $1 trillion.

Both turned huge assets into a Ponzi scheme in which the innocent increasingly were required, without their consent, to back investments so risky or unreal they were worthless.

In Madoff’s case, the victims are his clients. In Frank’s case, the victims are all of us. The ruin is here for all to see, and Frank walks free.

Frank Warner

Because it’s fair, we can live with the Ricci v. DeStefano decision

The Supreme Court really had no choice but to rule in favor of the non-black firefighters whose New Haven, Conn., promotion test results were thrown out when black firefighters scored poorly.

Equal protection, for which affirmation action is a helpful tool, does not mandate hiring quotas by color. In employment, it simply means reaching out to people of all colors to make sure everyone has an equal chance to get a job.

In New Haven in 2003, every firefighter got that equal shot until the tests were tossed. Then Frank Ricci and others who scored well were denied arbitrarily their right to recognition of their experience and what they’d learned from studying.

‘Equal opportunity.’ Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court’s majority, said:

“[O]nce [a] process has been established and employers have made clear their selection criteria, they may not then invalidate the test results, thus upsetting an employee’s legitimate expectation not to be judged on the basis of race. Doing so, absent a strong basis in evidence of an impermissible disparate impact, amounts to the sort of racial preference that Congress has disclaimed …, and is antithetical to the notion of a workplace where individuals are guaranteed equal opportunity regardless of race.”

New Haven said it dumped the tests, and hoped to prepare a new set of tests, because the city was afraid the black applicants would sue. The Supreme Court said the city’s misplaced fear did not justify discrimination against those who scored well.

“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,” Kennedy wrote.

Principles weighed. This is the law, and it happens to be good law. There are many things to weigh in each civil rights case, and the Supreme Court called this one right.

Frank Warner

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Afterthought: I must point out that, while I agree with the Ricci decision, I am never comfortable with phrases like “on the basis of race” and “regardless of race.” To me, these phrases imply there is more than one race. You get my point, I’m sure. They could use words like “color” or “ethnicity” instead. Now, in the justices’ defense, I’ll say their comments must be referring to sections of the Civil Rights Act, which assumes several races.

Supreme Court on Ricci: Sotomayor was wrong

No justice found merit with how District Judge Sonia Sotomayor dismissed the case of the non-black New Haven firefighters in favor of the City of New Haven.

But today's decision was 5-4. When Sotomayor is added to the Supreme Court, I wonder what the vote will be on a similar case.

Frank Warner

More evidence Bill Ayers helped write Barack Obama’s ‘Dreams of My Father’

This is an interesting mystery story. Either these two men have read the same books, had the same friends, done the same things and now think exactly alike, or Bill Ayers wrote large segments of President Obama’s memoir “Dreams of My Father.”

Check out what Jack Cashill and his anonymous adviser “Mr. West” have found.

Rather astonishingly, as Mr. West points out, at least six of the characters in Dreams have the same names as characters in Ayers’ books: Malik, Freddy, Tim, Coretta, Marcus, and “the old man.” Many of the stories involving these characters in Dreams seem as contrived as their names.

Read the whole thing.

The similarities in sections of Ayers’ books “A Kind and Just Parent” and “Fugitive Days” to Obama’s “Dreams” are just too striking to be coincidences.

Frank Warner

How come cancer research goes no where?

American cancer research, which has cost more than $105 billion since 1971, is organized in such a way that only incremental progress is likely, according to The New York Times.

That’s what we’ve seen for 40 years, no big cures, but tiny steps or small improvements to old procedures.

One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing cancer....

The [National Cancer] institute’s reviewers choose such projects because, with too little money to finance most proposals, they are timid about taking chances on ones that might not succeed. The problem … is that projects that could make a major difference in cancer prevention and treatment are all too often crowded out because they are too uncertain. In fact, it has become lore among cancer researchers that some game-changing discoveries involved projects deemed too unlikely to succeed and were therefore denied federal grants, forcing researchers to struggle mightily to continue.

Need for incentives. Cancer research has been disappointing. What worries people like me, who want to live to 300 years old, is that if we switch to national health care, the research will disappear totally, and there will no incentive to pursue it outside government and universities.

Still, national health care may be necessary, at least for a while. But if it happens, the system should build in major incentives for innovation and cures -- cancer being the top target.

Frank Warner

Bill O’Reilly again fails to fault Barney Frank for destroying the economy

I finally saw the transcript of what Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly asked Barney Frank about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last week. Essentially, he let “Meltdown Barney” off the hook.

Frank claimed, contrary to reality, it was the Bush administration, and not Frank himself, that was pushing Fannie and Freddie to make the $1 trillion in high-risk loans that drove the economy into this deep recession.

From the June 24 interview:

O’Reilly: You’ve gone almost full cycle here. The last time we were yelling at each other was about your oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And we disagreed in a very loud-volume discussion that everybody in the world saw. Now you’re back saying that the banks should loosen up the condominium loans. And again, some people are saying, The Wall Street Journal today, hey, he’s doing the same thing, Congressman Frank is social engineering with the banking system just what he did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And you say?

Frank: Well, they’re completely wrong. In the first place, I was a strong opponent of the Bush administration’s effort to send loans to people who couldn’t afford it.

I wanted to build rental housing for people, which is not the case where the mortgages went bad. I have a consistent record in opposing the Bush administration’s pushing, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, into low-interest mortgages that I thought were a mistake.

With the condominiums, we’re not talking about subprime or poor people. We do have this problem in cities with vacant properties causing serious problems for the cities. What I want is to say this, here’s the rule. They have a rule that they will not finance a condominium unless 70 percent of the units of the building are already sold. I’m not talking at all about whether or not that borrower can pay for it. They should not allow any borrower who can’t pay for it to do it. But I think they’ve got a vicious cycle. If you won’t fund anybody until it’s 70 percent, it will never be 70 percent. And you have a serious problem throughout cities of vacant property.

O’Reilly: As long as you’re not going to go into the social engineering realm --

Frank: I was opposed to the subprime mortgages.

O’Reilly: Well, some people say that’s not true.

Frank: Bill, that's not rational. That's not a way to hold a conversation.

O’Reilly: Look, is The Wall Street Journal not rational?

Frank: I’ll show you the record.

O’Reilly: Are they not rational, The Wall Street Journal?

Frank: No, on this issue --

O’Reilly: Are they not rational?

Frank: -- no. In fact, not on this issue. In 2007, when I first became chairman and filed a bill and got it through the House to restrict subprime lending The Wall Street Journal editorials attacked me for restricting loans to people who should get them. They have been totally wrong and were, until very recently, pushing more of these loans and criticizing us for trying to restrain them. I don't think that's rational.

O’Reilly: We gave you your say tonight. You happy?

Frank: With what?

O’Reilly: With everything, with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Frank: No, I’m never happy with everything, Bill. I'm not happy with everything.

O’Reilly: All right. You’re welcome back any time.

Frank escapes. I’ll bet Barney Frank was ecstatic with that interview. He got away with everything.

By the time Frank proposed any action to regulate Fannie and Freddie, in 2007, the bad loans already were made, the damage was done. I doubt he can cite any time between 1990 and 2005 when he made a public statement opposing the high-risk loans at Fannie and Freddie. Too bad O’Reilly didn’t ask him about that.

Last time, on Oct. 2, O’Reilly wasted an interview opportunity to ask Frank about urging to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make risky loans in the 1990s, and to ask about Frank’s opposition in 2003 to the Bush administration’s attempt to rein in Fannie and Freddie’s reckless lending practices.

O’Reilly muffed it again. Does O’Reilly do any research for that show? Why does he keep letting Frank escape unexposed for the catastrophe he caused? Does he expect PBS, CNN and MSNBC to do that story?

Frank Warner

Men and women: Did the ‘free love’ movement kill love?

Women will never have equality in the workplace and public life until the average father spends about as much time as the average mother raising his children.

And since about 1960, as women have entered gainful employment in record percentages, men have spent less and less of their time raising those kids.

For men, it’s freedom without the responsibilities of being free. For children, it means harsher childhoods. And when they grow up, it may be something much darker.

Are we not human? Consider what David Warren says in The Ottawa Citizen:

Contemporary feminism did not prevail on such argumentative points as Betty Friedan included in her psychotic ravings. The movement had practical sponsors, who, for the most part, weren’t female. They were men who wanted “free love” (read: copulation); who embraced contraception because it would free male pleasures from male responsibilities, and turn women very much into “objects” of their desire. That is how men conceded the high feminist ground.

Tyranny -- dehumanization -- advanced, because men failed to be men, women failed to be women, and both sexes pretended to become “persons” on an analogy more animal than divine. And today, nothing in our country is quite as it appears.

There’s nothing wrong with feminism. Women and men deserve equal rights and recognition of their full humanity. But are we pursuing policies that truly treat the two sexes as equal, even reasonably equal? And are we embracing our human nature honestly?

Earth stood still. At the time of the American Revolution, it was the primary responsibility of the father in the household to raise his children. All the way through the 1950s, the assumption was “Father Knows Best.” Of course, that rule was paternalism in the extreme.

But look where we are. Not only have large numbers of fathers abandoned their parental duties, the assumption today seems to be that men generally should be kept away from children. If a man even offers a child a ride home in his car, the gesture often is viewed as an obvious sexual advance.

The other day, a friend told me he’d just shown his grown son -- about 22 years old, I guess -- the 1951 version of “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” His son was shocked that Patricia Neal, the mother in the film, allowed “Carpenter,” a total stranger and a man to boot, to take her little boy Bobby on a daytime walk through Washington, D.C. This is where we've come. And unfortunately, we can thank Michael Jackson for helping us get here.

Walled out men. There’s less emphasis on bringing men into children’s lives, and more emphasis on walling men out. The prevailing attitude only makes it tougher to insist that fathers match mothers’ time with their children.

What does this say about the future of love, families or sexual equality? Is it impossible to be human anymore?

Frank Warner

‘Meltdown Barney’ Frank wants to loosen rules on condo loans

As they’re saying, “Barney’s back.”

“Meltdown Barney” Frank, who pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make $1 trillion in bad home loans that sabotaged the economy, is planning more sabotage.

Now the congressman wants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Congress-entangled institutions that sloppily back half the nation’s home loans, to make high-risk loans for condominiums. (And this, just after he pressured accountants to loosen the “mark-to-market” regulation on measuring corporate assets.)

Repeat offender. Sure Frank has lots of friends at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sure they give him and his House Financial Services Committee colleagues lots of "donations." Sure, it momentarily feels good to give needy people home loans they can’t pay back. But cut it the hell out.

If you want people who can’t afford homes to have them, come up with a sensible way to raise real money and give it to them. Otherwise, Barney Frank, don’t add to the depression you caused.

Frank Warner

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See also: Darrel Issa reports how political abuse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused financial meltdown.