Sam Harris on Sarah Palin

[_dartagnan]

1999 NY Times Article Revealed True Cause of Current Fannie Mae Crises

September 25, 2008 - 16:25 ET

This is probably an article that the New York Times wishes it didn't have in its archives because it reveals the true culprits behind the current Fannie Mae meltdown. You will find "uncomfortable" truths in this September 30, 1999 article by Steven A. Holmes starting with the title, "Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending," that you won't find in current editions of the New York Times (emphasis mine):

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 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 extend 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.

Get that? Pressure by the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans by lowering its credit requirements.

"Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

That would be the same Franklin Raines whom the Washington Post identified as a mortgage and housing adviser for the Obama campaign until that newspaper told us not to rely on its own reporting. We return you now to the article that the New York Times wishes didn't exist:

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

Oops! And that is exactly what has happened nine years later. And who were the "killjoys" at the time warning against Fannie Mae easing the credit requirements? That answer is also provided in the NY Times article:

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Yup. The conservative American Enterprise Institute was accurately warning about this impending financial disaster back in 1999. If you don't believe me, then check out the New York Times archive.

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Going very much against the media meme that the current financial crisis is all George W. Bush and the Republicans' fault, Bill Clinton on Thursday told ABC's Chris Cuomo that Democrats for years have been "resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac"

Whether he knew it or not, Clinton was going against virtually all press outlets that have been pointing fingers at Republicans since this crisis began, and likely much to the dismay of such folk actually agreed with a Fox News segment aired on Tuesday's "Special Report."

BRIT HUME, HOST: In the recent spate of government bailouts, buyouts and rescues, the federal takeovers of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are arguably the biggest of them all. And those two firms are also arguably the biggest reason for the credit crisis in the first place. So the question arises -- how did this come to be? Chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ANGLE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is one nagging question behind all the debate over how to get out of this mess.

CHRIS DODD (D-CT), SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE CHMN: American taxpayers are angry and they demand to know how we arrived at this moment.

ELIZABETH DOLE (R), NORTH CAROLINA SENATOR: My constituents, and indeed taxpayers across the nation are asking how we arrived at this crisis. It is infuriating.

ANGLE: But Senator Dole and others think they know the answer, and it's something the Senate tried to fix three years ago but was thwarted.

DOLE: To the mismanagement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which was made possible by weak oversight and little accountability.

MEL MARTINEZ (R), FLORIDA SENATOR: A lot of what we're dealing with today has its origins in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

ANGLE: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, backed by the federal government, buy mortgage loans from the lenders who make them. But four years ago, both were in trouble over shoddy accounting. Fannie Mae Chief Franklin Raines, President Clinton's former budget director, was fired. To placate those in Congress who watched over them, Fannie and Freddie promised to do more to help poor people get mortgages. That led them to buy riskier and riskier home loans from private lenders creating incentives for everyone to make shakier loans.

PETER WALLISON, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: The problem is that they encouraged very bad mortgages to be made by banks and other institutions, because Fannie and Freddie would buy them.

ANGLE: Eventually, they bought trillions of dollars worth of mortgages, a substantial portion of them based on poor credit, then resold many of them to financial institutions who thought they were safe because the federal government was behind them.

WALLISON: As a result of this appearance that they were backed by the government, people never paid very much attention to the assets they were acquiring or the risks they were taking.

ANGLE: And so shaky mortgages spread throughout the system. But in 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then chaired by Republican Richard Shelby, tried to rein in the two organizations bypassing some strong new regulations.

WALLISON: Which would have prevented Fannie and Freddie from acquiring this bad -- these bad mortgages. It actually gave a new regulator for Fannie and Freddie the kinds of powers that a bank regulator had.

ANGLE: All the Republicans voted for it. All the Democrats, including the current chairman, Senator Chris Dodd, voted against it, and that was after Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan had issued a stark warning to senators that Fannie and Freddie were playing with fire. Greenspan said without stronger regulations, "We increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis. Without restrictions on the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANGLE: Which turned out to be exactly right, but because Democrats blocked it, those new regulations never got consideration by the full Senate and died. So that's how we got into this mess, and how we missed a chance to avoid it. Getting out of it now, of course, will be a lot more difficult -- Brit.

HUME: Oh, boy. Thanks, Jim.

Two days later, former President Clinton agreed:

CHRIS CUOMO, ABC NEWS: A little surprising for you to hear the Democrats saying, "This came out of nowhere, this is all about the Republicans. We had nothing to do with this." Nancy Pelosi saying it. She signed the '99 Gramm Bill. She knew what was going on with the SEC. They're all sophisticated people. Is that playing politics in this situation?

BILL CLINTON: Well, maybe everybody does that a little bit. I think the responsibility the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Imagine that!

Kudos to Cuomo for asking the question, and kudos to Clinton for being so honest, especially in an election year.

The only question remains whether other news outlets will follow suit and begin telling the American people just how many proposals Republicans have made in the past decade to impose tighter regulations and oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and how such efforts were routinely thwarted by Democrats.- http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-shepp ... ton-agrees

[_EAllusion]

I'm just going to refer everyone to Ace of Spade's observation on the witchcraft prayer thing.

The problem with the line of reasoning you quoted is that Palin is an expressed fan of Muthee. This is a person known for conducting witchhunts - the literal kind - before and after the event in question. Palin may have been uncomfortable getting magical protection from witches, though there's no evidence of this, but she certainly wasn't uncomfortable with the witchhunter as a matter of principle. So to reduce it into a random blessing she was blindsided by does miss the bigger picture. Before this video was dug up, it already was out there as one of the oddball things about her religious history. There was this quote where she seems to do the evangelical routine of vaguely crediting prayer for a welcomed event, in this case her winning the governorship:

“We forgot to talk about Pastor Muthee. As I was mayor, and Pastor Muthee was here, and he was praying over me, you know he speaks, and he’s so bold. He’s praying, ‘Lord, make a way. Lord, make a way.’

I’m thinking this guy is really bold. He doesn’t know what I’m going to do. He doesn’t know what my plans are, and he’s praying not, ‘Oh Lord, if it be your will, may she become Governor.’ No. He just prayed for it. ‘Lord, make a way and let her do this next step,’ and that’s exactly what happened. So, again very, very powerful coming from this church, so that was awesome about Pastor Muthee.”

[_dartagnan]

EA just proved once again that Sarah Palin isn't the quintessential narrow-minded Evangelical Christian. Instead ,she seems to be more multiculturally inclined and accepting.

Good job EA! You leave little room for atheists to claim any sense of "fear" from her so-called "radical" Christian views. So far we've shown, contrary to various hysterical atheist claims:

1. She never suggested book burning.
2. She never said creationism should be in school curriculum.
3. She respects science and evolution.
4. She doesn't believe dinosaurs are 4,000 years old.
5. She never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president.
6. And finally, she isn't the divisive "Bible only" Christian that so many initially suggested.

[_EAllusion]

At least they present someone from each party to debate an issue. Over at the other networks, you get three or four democrat "strategists" along with the liberal host, going off on these long rants laughing amongst themselves and patting each other on the backs while bashing Palin for stupid things that have already been shown not to be true.

That's so utterly false, I can only wonder where you got the impression. On CNN, the standard style is to have a host who is usually a bit dim, invite on a couple of guests, pose them a question and then sit back and let the two or more partisans from each side spew inane, misleading talking points at each other with little to no investigative follow-up or confrontation until the next question is ready. Alternatively, they bring those same people on in sequence rather than have them talk at each other. They end up being mediums for competing press releases and that's it. It's their false version of "balance." As a consequence, their bias is more towards shallow stupidity than anything, and those that are favored are those who best exploit it. On Fox, they're engaged in Republican propaganda primarily in the form of tabloid infotainment, plain and simple. The documentation of this is so extensive and so obvious that the prospect of someone disputing it suggests they're too far gone by that fact alone. They role similar to how Juliann moderated the FAIR board. ON MSNBC, their primetime lineup is a range liberal partisan shows, especially since they got Maddow. Outside of that, their style is similar to that of CNN, with a somewhat higher quality of talking heads.

On the major networks' shows, there is a tendency to invite a rightwing partisans with specific PR motives and have them countered by independent media types who likely have a personal liberal slant but not an out and out PR agenda or use the competing pundit model of the 24 hour news networks. It depends on the show. This creates bias problems that drive the leftists nuts, but for our purposes I'll just point out three or four Democratic strategists with a liberal host to describe this situation ranges from spectacularly ignorant to dishonest. What are you watching?

Have you ever read leftist complains about the mainstream media Kevin? They usually call it the "corporate media" cause corporations are the enemy and all. It might be instructive to at least read the opposite side. I recommend someone like Glenn Greenwald for starters. There also are liberal sites like mediamatters that do a nice, if totally partisan, job of pointing out rigthwing biases that crop up in the media that might be worth reading just to see it. You seem locked in a perspective that I find hard to believe you've fallen into. Something's got to knock you out of it.

[Guest]

EA just proved once again that Sarah Palin isn't the quintessential narrow-minded Evangelical Christian. Instead ,she seems to be more multiculturally inclined and accepting.
Good job EA! You leave little room for atheists to claim any sense of "fear" from her so-called "radical" Christian views.

Huh? 'Cause she's cool with witch hunters from Africa? Fear of witchcraft, heck fear of fictional witchcraft in the form of Harry Potter, is a notable trait of the more fundamentalist wing of the fundamentalist evangelicals. Read a Chick Tract. Fighting against witches in our midst seem less odd to them than, say, an Episcopalian. Muthee is in that intersection between widespread fears of witches on the African continent and Evangelical fears of demons and witches. Check out this trailer from an Evangelical doc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBvxWl7j ... re=related

I think you are operating on some strawman version of what you think I (or social liberals as a bloc) think, but I can assure you it isn't tolerance, respect, or acceptance of any view someone from a different country or culture has. Pastor Muthee should be condemned, not celebrated.

So far we've shown, contrary to various hysterical atheist claims:

How are these atheist claims? Better still, how is claiming these are atheist claims not bigoted?

1. She never suggested book burning.

She inquired about whether a librarian would respond to a hypothetical request of hers to ban books and then attempted to fire the librarian after she said she would oppose it. Your mileage may vary on whether you think that constitutes suggesting book burning.

2. She never said creationism should be in school curriculum.

She intially favored the "two models" approach to teaching creationism and later backed down to saying students should be allowed to bring it up.

3. She respects science and evolution.

Creationists say they respect science. That's why they go through great pains to look scientific by doing things like calling themselves "Scientific creationists" or switching up the label to "Intelligent Design Theorists" when the former label becomes legally hazardous. If you have some quotes on evolution, that would be awesome, because I haven't seen 'em yet.

4. She doesn't believe dinosaurs are 4,000 years old.

Again, a quotation would be nice, but my prior sense is that this is more likely true than not. I'd peg her for an old earth day-age creationist if I was laying down money.

5. She never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president.

That's true. She was a Forbes girl, I understand.

6. And finally, she isn't the divisive "Bible only" Christian that so many initially suggested.

Uh, what?

[_EAllusion]

Hey Kevin. I think you should start your thread on why McCain pwned Obama in the debate in Off Topic right now. You can fill in the details later as newsmax provides 'em for you.

[_dartagnan]

That's so utterly false, I can only wonder where you got the impression.

From watching CNN and MSNBC.

On CNN, the standard style is to have a host who is usually a bit dim, invite on a couple of guests, pose them a question and then sit back and let the two or more partisans from each side spew inane, misleading talking points at each other with little to no investigative follow-up or confrontation until the next question is ready.

You're probably referring to a specific program on the show. I don't watch it enough to know what these shows are called, but I can only speak from experience as I occasionally peruse them. Begala is the number one dorko of the lot. Just to give you an example, when Sarah Palin said she saw the SNL skit ridiculing her, she said she thought it was "hilarious." There were no less than four people on that show accusing her of lying. The host was on the far left and said something to the effect that, "Plain said she saw it, but didn't hear what was being said, I don't know if I buy that... what do you think?" As she turned to one of three pundits to her left the first one said:

Pundit #1 "Of course she heard it. What is she thinking by insulting all of our intelligences by saying she saw it but didn't hear it?"

Pundit #2: "I concur, I think she is trying to play us for fools. I mean who watches something without listening to it?"

Pundit #3: "I still don't think she knows what the Bush doctrine is, but I agree. It makes no sense to say she saw but didn't hear. What is she thinking?"

Now that was a few days ago while flipping through the news. These are not exact quotations but from memory. But I know one of them started off her rant with "I still don't think she knows the Bush Doctrine." There were four people bashing Palin and not nary a one was giving her the benefit of the doubt. Fair and balanced? At least I see O'Reilly defending Obama and Hillary when critics bash them. You can see him do it almost every night.

On Fox, they're engaged in Republican propaganda primarily in the form of tabloid infotainment, plain and simple.

Even if remotely true, is this your way of excusing the numerous liberal media outlets that outnumber them? FOX is the only news outlet that can be called conservative, and it is far more balanced than anything to ever show up on the rest.

Just look at the so-called "scandals" that the liberal news outlets focus upon. None of them have anything to do with Obama/Biden and most of them against Palin are of their own creation. WHere is FOX news responsible for inventing scandals against Obama? Surely you can name some, so let's hear them.

The liberal media. They go out of their way to ignore facts. In fact, newsbusters.org proved that on at least two occassions, Keith Olbermann on MSNBC relied on an obscure leftist website to feed two of his stories. You call that responsible journalism?
Just look at the way Gibson interviews Obama with softball questions, never questioning his experience or integrity. And with Palin, they go out of their way to use every trick in the book, even unconventional camera work to make Palin look like a tiny inferior crushed by a towering Gibson who had this constant condescending smirk branded on his face. Now compare this to O'Reilley's interview of Obama, or of Clinton. You'd expect the same treatment if Fox were merely interested in balancing the media bias, but you see none of this. Compares apples and apples.
Again none of you have dealt with the fact that Hillary said Fox has been more fair than the rest. How is this possible if what you say is true?

On the major networks' shows, there is a tendency to invite a rightwing partisans with specific PR motives and have them countered by independent media types who likely have a personal liberal slant but not an out and out PR agenda or use the competing pundit model of the 24 hour news networks. It depends on the show

Yes, and they are extremely "selective" in who they invite too.

You really haven't noticed this? Some of the "republican strategists" I see on CNN I have never heard of, and they make Alan Colmes look like a pit bull in glasses. A conservative spokesperson worth his salt would have pointed out the fact that Obama didn't understand the Bush doctrine as the liberal media has narrowly defined it. But when that issue was brought up and the democrats were pounding Palin on the topic, the "counter" to them was a republican who just kinda shrugged his shoulders and pretty much said, "Oh give her a break." I just laughed and thought, yeah, this is a serious debate based on the facts!

Their selection of weak republican pundits and the cut-throat democrat pundits, is by design. Begala has shown up on FOX, but I never see anyone like, oh, say, Newt Gingrich or Dick Morris on CNN as a counterpoint to a liberal rant. They are not interested in a real debate, they are only interested in molding an outcome to their liking by pretending to have hosted a real debate. By selectively choosing who is involved, they can better guarantee such an outcome. Why do you think so many politicians and political hacks refuse to show up on FOX? Because they know they lose their advantage.

Have you ever read leftist complains about the mainstream media Kevin? They usually call it the "corporate media" cause corporations are the enemy and all. It might be instructive to at least read the opposite side.

I have. I know Murdoch is supposed to be the Republican charlatan behind FOX and its conservative bias, but then there is George Soros and Ted Turner on the left. So what? The difference is FOX's theme is "fair and balanced" so it has more invested in this mission. The rest wear their bias on their sleeves.

I recommend someone like Glenn Greenwald for starters.

Well, I read the first paragraph and began shaking my head. Is this guy serious when he says, "nothing changes the behavior of our media corporations more easily than vocal demands and complaints from the Right, which petrify media executives and cause them to snap into line"?

LOL! Well, it showed up on the internet so I guess its true?

Yea, the liberal media is sooooo scared of teh right. That must explain why it walks on egg shells and never tries to invoke their wrath. His source? The NYT, which is by far the most liberal source on the planet. The reason Olbermann and Matthews were dropped was due to their ratings dropping. The people "protest" by not watching their shows. The liberal "corporations" are just as interested in making money as any conservative corporation. It was a business decision, which had nothing to do with the "Right" intimidating them.

Incidentally, an editor for the NYT even admitted its liberal bias several years ago on FOX, to which the rest of the world responded, "duh." This is the same newspaper that will put on its front page, some minor violence in some corner of Iraq, and then on page 27, note that one of its locals just received the medal of honor. The media is used by the left in the exact same manner as it has traditionally been used in totalitarian forms of government.

There also are liberal sites like mediamatters that do a nice, if totally partisan, job of pointing out rigthwing biases that crop up in the media that might be worth reading just to see it.

I don't doubt that there are some republican biases. My point is that they are not even close to being the extent in quality or quantity, as what exists on the left. Not even close. When you compare apples and apples, this becomes a profound certainty (i.e. Interviews with the same people on two different networks)

[_dartagnan]

Hey Kevin. I think you should start your thread on why McCain pwned Obama in the debate in Off Topic right now. You can fill in the details later as newsmax provides 'em for you.

McCain suspended his campaign at the behest of some in Congress who pleaded with him to attend, and also because he feels it is a crisis that deserves his attention. He is still a Senator isn't he? That is his job, after all. The debate could have been postponed without a big deal made of it, but Obama camp is sad because it is stuck in a corner.

If Obama goes to congress too, then he will look like the guy following McCain's lead. They can't afford that image, so he has to spin it. SO the democrats either make McCain look like a chicken who is looking for excuses because he isn't prepared, or they will try to downplay the significance of their presence during the debate in congress.

And my views are not "dictated" to me. I deduce a conclusion based on facts and I consider the biases of an source. If you can prove I'm wrong on any claim, then do it. I have used these "newsbuster" type websites to disprove numerous claims presented by the liberals on this forum. How many of my claims have been disproved using the liberal outlets?

[_Analytics]

1999 NY Times Article Revealed True Cause of Current Fannie Mae Crises

September 25, 2008 - 16:25 ET

This is probably an article that the New York Times wishes it didn't have in its archives because it reveals the true culprits behind the current Fannie Mae meltdown....

Just out of curiosity, do you think the current Fannie Mae meltdown is related to the meltdown of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, WaMu, etc?

I can’t tell if what you are interested in is the actual financial crisis, or just the Fannie Mae piece of it. In other words, are you interested in understanding why the entire financial system fell apart, or are you just interested in finding a way to blame the democrats for the failure of Federal National Mortgage Association?

[_The Dude]

I know Murdoch is supposed to be the Republican charlatan behind FOX and its conservative bias, but then there is George Soros and Ted Turner on the left. So what? The difference is FOX's theme is "fair and balanced" so it has more invested in this mission. The rest wear their bias on their sleeves.

The rest wear their bias on their sleeves. The difference is FOX's theme is "fair and balance" so it has more invested in the credulity (or sense of humor) of it's viewers.