Reactions to story from The New York Times

• 

  Time for more coffee

  http://sideshow.me.uk/smay08.htm
  203 days ago in The Sideshow · Authority: 308

  I read stuff like this and I really want to tell people to stop congratulating themselves on how educated they are. People who are more educated are a bit more likely to be socially liberal on certain "culture" issues, but a candidate who
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  Barney Frank: An Example for Obama?

  http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/05/13/...
  203 days ago in THE NEW REPUBLIC | Blogs · Authority: 100

  The New York Times takes a look today at the surprising record of success Barney Frank has amassed in working with the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress. The piece is full of typical Barneyisms ("[Frank] said that asking the White
• 

  Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one?

  http://nitpicker.blogspot.com/2008/05/who-are-ad-wizards-who...
  203 days ago in Nitpicker · Authority: 57

  First there was the prison-stripe-wearing, wide-stanced, year-humping elephant logo for the Republican convention. Now the Republicans have rolled out a new slogan that's sure to convince the country get onboard the Republilove train. But there's a wee
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  Anecdotes and one-liners

  http://www.danielharper.org/blog/?p=1355
  178 days ago in Yet Another Unitarian Universalist · Authority: 27

  The Coalition Against Poverty and the Coalition for Social Justice held their annual awards dinner tonight. I was asked to do the invocation, and I stayed to see the awards, and to hear the keynote speaker, Rep. Barney Frank. Frank was introduced by a singer-sognwriter named Bill Harley, who committed the usual sin of playing and singing way too loudly, but who did the unusual and (mercifully) only played three songs. In introducing Frank, Harley told a story about going to perform somewhere in Alabama. There he wound up talking to someone who, upon learning Harley was from Massachusetts, started berating him for being from the state that elected Ted Kennedy as senator. “Stop it,” said Harley, “Ted Kennedy is the only senator who stands up for the poor.” Great anecdote — not sure what it had to do with Barney Frank. Barney Frank went on to give an extemporaneous talk, marked by his trademark wit and intelligence. Unfortunately, his talk didn’t really hold together, but he got off some good anecdotes and one-liners, of which I noted down three: Frank, who is gay, mentioned that he has been accused by right wingers of pushing a “radical homosexual agenda.” But, he said, his main gay rights issues are to allow GLBTQ people to “join the military, get married, and hold down a job.” That’s not a radical agenda, he said, “that’s about as bourgeois as it gets.” While saying he supported capitalism, he said that he supported capitalism with significant government regulation. He noted that poverty has increased during the Bush administration. Frank reminded us that the Republicans claimed that a “rising tide floats all boats,” i.e., that any improvement in the economy will help all persons. In reply to this he said, “Yes, a rising tide floats all boats, but some poor people don’t have boats, and they’re standing on tiptoes now, and the tide’s going to go over their heads.” In a long meandering digression, he talked about the importance of community colleges and state universities, because these institutions give wide access to higher education. This led to a comment about nursing programs in Massachusetts state colleges — although there’s a desparate need for nurses, and although there are plenty of young people who want to become nurses, there aren’t enough slots in nursing programs to meet either demand. One local nursing college, according to Frank, has only 42 slots for nursing students, but demand is three times that. If we’d fund community colleges better, said Frank, we’d have more nurses, all of whom could easily find jobs. “These are good jobs,” said Frank. “They’re not going anywhere. You can’t outsource them because somebody can’t stick a needle in your ass from Mumbai.” Not one of Franks’ better talks overall, but the witty bits were delightfully caustic. More of Frank’s wit in this New York Slime profile.
• 

  Even Members of Congress illustrate the real housing problem

  http://www.freedomtalks.org/2008/05/22/even-members-of-congr...
  194 days ago in FreedomTalks · Authority: 60

  Earlier last week Representative Barney Frank made the following statement in an interview with the New York Times, addressing the housing bailout he’s been pressing aggressively through Congress: “The notion that this bill doesn’t keep people out of foreclosure is true,” he said. “It doesn’t combat global warming. It doesn’t get troops out of Iraq. It won’t help me lose weight. There are a lot of things this bill won’t do that I very much want to do. None of them are a reason to vote against a bill that doesn’t do what it doesn’t say it’s going to do but does what it does. What it does is go to the aid of cities that have been victimized.” While his rhetoric seemed to sell many in Washington, one question that didn’t seem to come up was one that asks who exactly has been victimizing these cities, which Frank now claims are in need of desperate aid? If Barney Frank was truly looking for an answer as to what the root of the problem is, he wouldn’t have had to look far. He wouldn’t have had to commission a study or even look outside of Washington. In fact, an exemplary example of the real problem facing the housing market today is located on the same floor as Representative Frank. Only a few doors down the hall from Representative Frank’s office (2252 Rayburn), you will 2233 Rayburn, an office that currently houses an irresponsible homeowner who has contributed to the problem we’re facing today. No, it’s not some Members underpaid Legislative Aide or even a Chief of Staff. The irresponsible homeowner currently occupying 2233 Rayburn is newly elected Californian Laura Richardson. According to a California political website, Capitol Weekly, Congresswoman Richardson neglected to pay the mortgage she had taken out on a second home, while running her campaign in Long Beach: While being elevated to Congress in a 2007 special election, Richardson apparently stopped making payments on her new Sacramento home, and eventually walked away from it, leaving nearly $600,000 in unpaid loans and fees. In a response to the Capitol Weekly article, Congresswoman Richardson made the following statement: Within a 12-month period last year (2007-2008), I was a member of Long Beach City Council, the District Director for California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a member of the California State Legislature, and, now a member of Congress. While the transitioning has impacted me personally, the residential property in Sacramento California is not in foreclosure and has NOT been seized by the bank. While her accomplishments over the last twelve months are impressive, there is no indication in her statement that her defaulting on this loan was caused by financial hardship. How could she claim that? She makes $165,000 a year. The real problem isn’t that people aren’t making enough money; it’s that they’re making irresponsible decisions when it comes to their finances and handling them like adults. To some Americans, when you take out a loan, they’ll make sure it gets paid, on time, understanding the consequences. If you’re too busy (say, running for Congress?), you set up direct deposit so the payment is withdrawn automatically, knowing you’ll have enough money to cover your debt for that month in your bank account. However, there is another segment of the population, which includes people like Congresswoman Richardson, that seem to believe that loan repayments on second homes aren’t obligatory and you can just let them slide from month to month, ignoring the possible consequences. It should be no surprise that many of the people who helped create the housing problems we’re seeing today aren’t single home owners. No, many of the problem borrowers are people who own second homes and some are even real-estate investors, who buy these properties hoping to make a quick buck on the resale. Unfortunately, it seems that it’s also these people who could very well reap the benefits of this ridiculous bailout package that is funded by responsible homeowners and taxpayers like you and I. While Congresswoman Richardson wasn’t in Washington to vote on the bailout package, she was nowhere near a House floor microphone during debate sharing her story and personal ties to this very expansive blunder in Congressional politics. Bailouts aren’t going to change mentalities, as many of these borrowers already knew the risks before they found themselves in trouble. The only thing that will really fix this problem is letting the market handle the current “crisis” and let irresponsible borrowers and lenders learn a lesson, showing them what NOT to do in the future.
• 

  They Were For President Bush Before They Were Against Him

  http://blog.charitybuzz.com/charityBlog/?p=316
  197 days ago in charityBlog · Authority: 1

  I send out the columns by email to a list of people who have opted in, but this week I didn’t bother creating my own email, I just forwarded the one that John Shadegg himself prepared and sent today as a fundraising appeal.  Not what I would have done. Shadegg described himself as the “voice of reform so desperately needed in Washington, D.C.” That’s even better – and a bigger triangulation – than “The Change You Deserve,” the official House GOP slogan (if they can resolve the trademark issues with prescription antidepressant Effexor).  It’s nice of Rep. Shadegg to get my column in front of people who otherwise wouldn’t get to see it. My suggested headline was above, but the editor had a different perspective.  The newspaper version is available here.  GOP SLOGAN: I’M A REPUBLICAN, BUT NOT LIKE THOSE REPUBLICANS East Valley Tribune, May 18, 2008               I eagerly await the fall campaign, when incumbent Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., tries to portray himself as “a new kind of Republican.”  That he represents a “Third Way,” between the old, lobbyist-dominated GOP and the slightly younger, lobbyist-dominated GOP.  Too bad “incumbent Republican congressman” is a personal smear still suitable for a family newspaper.               After batting oh-fer in three special elections in GOP districts, the National Republican Congressional Committee is low on both money and ideas.  The NRCC has spent about 20 percent of its cash on hand in each election, but the Democrat won the Illinois seat held by former Speaker Dennis Hastert, then a Louisiana seat held by the GOP since the 1970’s.  Last Tuesday, the GOP lost another special election — in Mississippi, of all places.               Tuesday’s 8 point Democratic win in Mississippi’s 1st District came where President Bush won in 2004 with 62 percent.  The NRCC’s advice afterwards?  Look out for yourself, GOP incumbents, we don’t have either money or a clue.               Political handicapper Charlie Cook has a “Partisan Voting Index” that compares partisan performance (or “lean”) in congressional districts to the national presidential vote.  Mississippi’s 1st District has a PVI of +10R, meaning it votes 10 points more Republican than the country.  Shadegg’s district has a PVI of +6, and Bush got 58 percent in 2004.  So if MS-01 isn’t safely red, why wouldn’t AZ-03 also be “in play?”               Republicans complain that moderate-to-conservative Democrats campaign as moderates and conservatives, not recognizing that their “liberal, liberal, liberal” tactics are a tad tired.  But Democrats aren’t guaranteed to run against the prototypical anti-choice, anti-gay, Social-Security-privatizing, imperialistic war-loving, health insurance denying, toady-of-the-rich Republican.  After all, not every Republican candidate is Shadegg.               If Arizona starts turning against the GOP brand, we’ll just be catching up to the rest of the country.  In 2006, I visited Montgomery County, Pa., in the Philadelphia suburbs.  It’s a formerly staunchly Republican area which featured an expensive, contested congressional race between a long-time GOP incumbent and a Democratic challenger.               The yard signs caused me some cognitive dissonance, because the Democratic challenger’s used the slogan, “Democrat for Congress,” while the GOP incumbent’s read “Independent Voice for You” — the opposite of what we usually see in Arizona.  But watch that change, even here, if people see the GOP elephant and think, “George W. Bush.”               How does every single GOP candidate, led by presumptive presidential nominee John McCain, try to distance himself from Bush?  They all can’t be “a different kind of Republican,” because it’s not much of a brand if every product is unique.  And there are limits to the difference here, because every single one of these Republicans — McCain, Shadegg, Tim Bee — was really, really for Bush before they were against him.               The problem with all this GOP triangulation (McCain trying to distance himself from congressional Republicans, and both trying to distance themselves from Bush) is two-fold.  First, these guys tied themselves so tightly to Bush over the past 7 years that the cake is already baked; it’s too late to pretend you really were a maverick all along.  The other is that Bush himself pulled exactly this trick in 2000, slamming the GOP Congress and portraying himself as a different kind of Republican, a “compassionate conservative.”  It should be difficult to separate from the failed presidency by using the exact same tactics as the failed president.               But tart-tongued (and gay) Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., probably has the better explanation.  It’s not that Republicans lack the right slogans, or haven’t been insufficiently lobbyist-dominated, war-mongering, and fighting a class war on behalf of the rich.  It’s the substance.               Frank was musing to a reporter the difficulty in trying to get the Bush administration and congressional Republicans to do anything about the collapse of the real estate bubble.  The GOP has come around on bailing out banks and hedge funds, but is steadfastly refusing to do anything for actual homeowners.               It’s “like asking me to judge the Miss America contest,” said Frank.  “If your heart’s not in it, you don’t do a very good job.”
• 
  http://liberaldesert.blogspot.com/2008/05/they-were-for-pres...
  197 days ago in LiberalDesert · Authority: 13

  They Were For President Bush Before They Were Against Him I send out the columns by email to a list of people who have opted in, but this week I didn't bother creating my own email, I just forwarded the one that John Shadegg himself prepared and sent today as a fundraising appeal. Not what I would have done. Shadegg described himself as the “voice of reform so desperately needed in Washington, D.C.” That’s even better -- and a bigger triangulation -- than “The Change You Deserve,” the official House GOP slogan (if they can resolve the trademark issues with prescription antidepressant Effexor). It's nice of Rep. Shadegg to get my column in front of people who otherwise wouldn't get to see it. My suggested headline was above, but the editor had a different perspective. The newspaper version is available here. GOP SLOGAN: I’M A REPUBLICAN, BUT NOT LIKE THOSE REPUBLICANS East Valley Tribune, May 18, 2008 I eagerly await the fall campaign, when incumbent Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., tries to portray himself as “a new kind of Republican.” That he represents a “Third Way,” between the old, lobbyist-dominated GOP and the slightly younger, lobbyist-dominated GOP. Too bad “incumbent Republican congressman” is a personal smear still suitable for a family newspaper. After batting oh-fer in three special elections in GOP districts, the National Republican Congressional Committee is low on both money and ideas. The NRCC has spent about 20 percent of its cash on hand in each election, but the Democrat won the Illinois seat held by former Speaker Dennis Hastert, then a Louisiana seat held by the GOP since the 1970’s. Last Tuesday, the GOP lost another special election -- in Mississippi, of all places. Tuesday’s 8 point Democratic win in Mississippi’s 1st District came where President Bush won in 2004 with 62 percent. The NRCC’s advice afterwards? Look out for yourself, GOP incumbents, we don’t have either money or a clue. Political handicapper Charlie Cook has a “Partisan Voting Index” that compares partisan performance (or “lean”) in congressional districts to the national presidential vote. Mississippi’s 1st District has a PVI of +10R, meaning it votes 10 points more Republican than the country. Shadegg’s district has a PVI of +6, and Bush got 58 percent in 2004. So if MS-01 isn’t safely red, why wouldn’t AZ-03 also be “in play?” Republicans complain that moderate-to-conservative Democrats campaign as moderates and conservatives, not recognizing that their “liberal, liberal, liberal” tactics are a tad tired. But Democrats aren’t guaranteed to run against the prototypical anti-choice, anti-gay, Social-Security-privatizing, imperialistic war-loving, health insurance denying, toady-of-the-rich Republican. After all, not every Republican candidate is Shadegg. If Arizona starts turning against the GOP brand, we’ll just be catching up to the rest of the country. In 2006, I visited Montgomery County, Pa., in the Philadelphia suburbs. It’s a formerly staunchly Republican area which featured an expensive, contested congressional race between a long-time GOP incumbent and a Democratic challenger. The yard signs caused me some cognitive dissonance, because the Democratic challenger’s used the slogan, “Democrat for Congress,” while the GOP incumbent’s read “Independent Voice for You” -- the opposite of what we usually see in Arizona. But watch that change, even here, if people see the GOP elephant and think, “George W. Bush.” How does every single GOP candidate, led by presumptive presidential nominee John McCain, try to distance himself from Bush? They all can’t be “a different kind of Republican,” because it’s not much of a brand if every product is unique. And there are limits to the difference here, because every single one of these Republicans -- McCain, Shadegg, Tim Bee -- was really, really for Bush before they were against him. The problem with all this GOP triangulation (McCain trying to distance himself from congressional Republicans, and both trying to distance themselves from Bush) is two-fold. First, these guys tied themselves so tightly to Bush over the past 7 years that the cake is already baked; it’s too late to pretend you really were a maverick all along. The other is that Bush himself pulled exactly this trick in 2000, slamming the GOP Congress and portraying himself as a different kind of Republican, a “compassionate conservative.” It should be difficult to separate from the failed presidency by using the exact same tactics as the failed president. But tart-tongued (and gay) Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., probably has the better explanation. It’s not that Republicans lack the right slogans, or haven’t been insufficiently lobbyist-dominated, war-mongering, and fighting a class war on behalf of the rich. It’s the substance. Frank was musing to a reporter the difficulty in trying to get the Bush administration and congressional Republicans to do anything about the collapse of the real estate bubble. The GOP has come around on bailing out banks and hedge funds, but is steadfastly refusing to do anything for actual homeowners. It’s “like asking me to judge the Miss America contest,” said Frank. “If your heart’s not in it, you don’t do a very good job.”
• 

  Tomorrow: Chairman Barney Frank to Address NDN

  http://ndnblog.org/node/2300
  197 days ago in NDN Blog | NDN Blog · Authority: 1

  Tomorrow: Chairman Barney Frank to Address NDN Submitted by Maggie Barker on Mon, 05/19/2008 - 10:42am. The spotlight certainly is shining on U.S. Rep. Barney Frank these days. As Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, he is tackling the housing crisis and economic downturn with his trademark grit, smarts, and nose for compromise. This is why NDN is so pleased to partner yet again with Chairman Frank when he addresses the NDN community tomorrow on the economy.  Earlier this month, under Chairman Frank's leadership, the House passed the most comprehensive response yet to the American mortgage crisis - the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act. This legislation responds directly to the current housing crisis facing middle income Americans. For commentary on Chairman Frank's housing rescue plan, check out today's editorial in the Washington Post - Holes in the Roof. As head of the Financial Services Committee, Chairman Frank has emerged as a "key deal-maker, an unlikely bridge between his party's left-wing base and the free-market conservatives in the [Bush] administration." Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson recently commended Chairman Frank as a market-savvy pragmatist who consistently "looks for areas of agreement because he wants to get things done." NDN will host this event as part of our series of Bernard Schwartz Forums on Economic Policy. Tuesday, May 20 8 a.m. - Mr. Frank will speak promptly at 8 a.m. so please arrive 15 minutes early 2128 Rayburn House Office Building Please note: per House restrictions, no food or coffee will be served at this event or permitted in the committee room. Click here to RSVP For more information on this event, please contact Courtney Markey at cmarkey@ndn.org We look forward to seeing you tomorrow. » Maggie Barker's blog Login or register to post comments
• 

  Obama: the Heterosexual, Half-Black Barney Frank

  http://www.gwdiscourse.com/domesticintelblog/2008/5/18/obama...
  199 days ago in gwdiscourse · Authority: 1

  My Congressman, Barney Frank, is a bit of a paradox to some. He holds very liberal positions on some issues, such as same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana. But as chairman of the (very busy) House Committee on Financial Services, he gets a chance to show off his best trait, other than his sense of humor: his ability to forge compromises. Republican Dana Rohrabacher, a memeber of the panel, claimed he gets better treatment from Rep. Frank than from his own leadership! Barack Obama on the surface is a liberal, too. In fact, the National Journal rated him the most liberal senator in 2007, whatever that means. (Translating "liberalness" into numbers is an inexact science). And so the Republicans ridicule him as a liberal extremist. Yet Obama is a dealmaker, too, and for a long time I've compared him to Barney Frank in that regard. An example comes to mind: Frank's approach was to start with an idea for a bill that pleased the liberal base and liberal interest groups, such as a bill that would end job discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people (LGBT). Frank soon sensed, however, that he did not have enough votes to pass the bill with the existing language. So, he looked for changes he could make that would bring more moderate-to-conservative Democrats and a few Republicans get on board so that he could secure its passage. As a result, he decided to drop the provision that protected transgendered people and sure enough, Frank won a majority of votes and the bill was passed. (Unfortunately, it was attached to a larger bill that the president later vetoed.) Some gay and transgender rights groups were up in arms at the change, but Frank demonstrated that one can't just wish a good bill through Congress; sacrifices must be made. Obama encountered a similar ordeal when he was in the Illinois state Senate. In 2002, Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services committee. He used this perch to push forth a bill that would cover 150,000 Illinois residents with health insurance. However, this bill also took a tricky road. In order to persuade moderates to join the cause, he met with insurance lobbyists and even acceded to two requests of theirs (a move criticized by Obama's base). Yet the bill passed and became law, and today even Obama's liberal supporters admit that the concessions he granted to the lobbyists had little impact down the road. When Barack Obama talks about uniting people to achieve success, it's not just hot air; he's done it before. Even liberals like Barney Frank and Ted Kennedy earn respect from conservative colleagues by including them in the process and working for results.
• 

  Irrelevance: Dana’s Lovin’ It!

  http://orangejuiceblog.com/2008/05/irrelevance-danas-lovin-i...
  199 days ago in Orange Juice! · Authority: 59

  From Tuesday’s New York Times: “Barney has been very fair,” said Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California and one of the most conservative members of the House. “I think that I have been treated more fairly … since the Democrats have become the majority than I was treated by my own leadership.” Mr. Frank politely interjected, “I know the gentleman joins me in looking forward to continued years of such treatment.” Now, it’s nice that Dana and Barney get along, and most Americans are glad that the Republicans are in the minority in Congress. But, what’s up with the Republican leadership treating Dana so “unfairly” when they were in the majority? And how do Republicans voters feel about a Congressman who (unlike the hordes of GOPers who are retiring this year because they can’t stand being in the minority) is so content to be even less powerful than he was during the decades when he was rated the “third least effective Congressperson in California?” A knowledgeable Republican friend (who declines to be named) writes to me, “Perhaps you should be asking, how did he become such an ineffective Congressman that his own Party has shunned him over the years? … “Part of what every Congress member brings is his life experience, the sum of his jobs, his connections to the district, his professional experience. Dana was curiously bereft of stuff like that. He’d been a dope-smoking slacker and party boy, buttboy of rich “libertarian” crackpots, a stringer for City News Service, a campaign worker for Reagan’s two presidential campaigns, a third-string writer of drop-by comments in the White House… “Most Congressmen, when they’re elected, go through an intense period of training conducted by the party and the congress about how to work effectively in Congress. Rohrabacher eschewed actual work like this and instead went to play dress-up in the mountains of Afghanistan. “So with no professional experience, no work ethic, and having skipped his training, where did Rohrabacher end up? Not on any powerful or significant committees, but instead shuffled off to the subcommittees where he could do less damage.” And his two-decade tenure in Congress has shown a marked juvenile streak: Playing at rogue foreign policy with results ranging from unnoticeable (Laos, Angola) to disastrous and tragic (Afghanistan, the Mariana Islands) under the slogan “Fighting For Freedom While Having Fun!” Endless impractical outer-space projects that don’t pan out (In the mid-90’s he assembled a group of scientists and told them he wanted them to build “a death-star to stop alien invasions and missiles,” and if they couldn’t do that then “don’t waste his time.”) His periodic goofy forays into the public limelight to blame global warming on “dinosaur flatulence” and wish death and suffering on the families of torture critics. No surprise he has been shunned by fellow Republicans all these years and accomplished no major legislation. And it sort of makes sense that he feels perfectly comfortable diverting himself in the smaller playpen of minority status where his opportunities to cause harm are more limited. But voters in the 46th don’t have to settle for an overgrown little boy Congressman for another two years. First, Republicans have the opportunity to vote in the June 3 primary for Ron St. John, a serious and idealistic Republican property-rights attorney who bridles at the divisive immigrant-bashing of the Orange County GOP - Art and I will be interviewing him tomorrow for this blog. And then of course in November we can all unite and pick a fiscal conservative with a track history of working across party lines to solve real problems that affect us all, of building coalitions to protect the environment, a world-renowned expert on global warming, peak oil and energy policy, who has signed on to the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq… you know who I’m talking about, now sing along: I got a crush on Debbie Cook, you know she’ll make history. Getting Debbie into Congress is a matter of urgency. Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to have a Congressperson that represents you and me? Well! Why don’t you help us send Debbie Cook to Washington DC?

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