Mutual Admiration: Fannie, Freddie, Obama, ACORN, and NACA

Oh, they were tight, indeed.

A review of Federal Election Commission records back to 1989 reveals Obama in his three complete years in the Senate is the second largest recipient of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae campaign contributions...[receiving] $126,349 in such contributions since being elected to the Senate in 2004

In just three years! My, my. How could that be?

Easy. Friends in high places, who were stealing money left and right.

In the aftermath of the U.S. government takeover, attention has focused on three Democrats with close ties to Obama who served as Fannie Mae executives: Franklin Raines, former Clinton administration budget director; James Johnson, former aide to Democratic Vice President Walter Mondale; and Jamie Gorelick, former Clinton administration deputy attorney general.

Johnson earned $21 million in just his last year serving as Fannie Mae CEO from 1991 to 1998; Raines earned $90 million in his five years as Fannie Mae CEO, from 1999 to 2004; and Gorelick earned an estimated $26 million serving as vice chair of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2003

"Earned" the money? Not necessarily:

Raines and several other Fannie Mae top executives were ordered in a civil lawsuit to pay nearly $31.4 million for manipulating Fannie Mae earnings over a period of six years to trigger their massive bonuses.

Raines was also forced in the settlement to give up Fannie Mae stock options valued at $15.6 million.

Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Freddie Mac had engaged in accounting fraud from 2000 to 2002, imposing a $50 million fine on the company and on four executives fines for amounts ranging from $65,000 to $250,000

Well. Obama goes to the Senate and picks up more dollars/year from Fannie and Freddie than any other Senator in history.

Think about that. He hardly knew which way to the men's room in the Senate, and he's clocking about $1,000/day, every day of the year, in "donations" from these folks.

You're waiting for the other ACORN to drop, right? Intuitively smart you are!!

In an article focusing on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and how the Clintonoids had pumped up the volume of lending, we find this:

...bank deregulation had set off a wave of mega-mergers, including the acquisition of the Bank of America by NationsBank, BankBoston by Fleet Financial, and Bankers Trust by Deutsche Bank. Regulatory approval of such mergers depended, in part, on positive CRA ratings. "To avoid the possibility of a denied or delayed application," advises the NCRC in its deadpan tone, "lending institutions have an incentive to make formal agreements with community organizations." By intervening—even just threatening to intervene—in the CRA review process, left-wing nonprofit groups have been able to gain control over eye-popping pools of bank capital, which they in turn parcel out to individual low-income mortgage seekers. A radical group called ACORN Housing has a $760 million commitment from the Bank of New York

These "community organizations" play hardball.

Take Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America (NACA), for example.

[The President of NACA]...is unhesitatingly candid about his intent to use NACA to promote an activist, left-wing political agenda. NACA loan applicants must attend a workshop that celebrates—to the accompaniment of gospel music—the protests that have helped the group win its bank lending agreements...

...The home mortgage business is his tool for political organizing: the Homebuyer's Workbook contains a voter registration application and states that "NACA's mission of neighborhood stabilization is based on participation in the political process. To participate you must register to vote." [He] plans to install a high-capacity phone system that can forward hundreds of calls to congressional offices—"or Phil Gramm's house"—to buttress NACA campaigns. The combination of an army of "volunteers" and a voter registration drive portends (though there is no evidence of this so far) that someday CRA-related funds and Marks's troop of CRA borrowers might end up fueling a host of Democratic candidacies

Even though the money lent by NACA (and ACORN) came from Banks, the mortgages were bundled and sold to (ta-da!) Fannie and Freddie, just like a lot of others.

Gee.

"Voter Registration." "Activism." "Income derived from mortgage-brokering activity". "ACORN." "Fraud." "Manipulation." "Unjust Enrichment."

Would it surprise you to learn that NACA has offices in Chicago?

How about Milwaukee?

Yes, indeedy....both places.

You can connect the dots any way you like, and there are lots of interesting little dots to connect, eh?

The big picture: Obama and the GSE's recognized that they were symbiotic. They needed each other as they washed money around in circles:

1) Congressional Democrats force banks to cough up money for "CRA" purposes.

2) The Banks 'lend' the money through extremely politicized LeftyWonzo organizations like NACA and ACORN, who get fee-income which finances "voter registration"--and they know where the voters live, as well as where they USED to live, eh? (Wink-wink...) Those "voters" happen to vote Democrat!

3) Ship the loans, bundled neatly, back to Fannie/Freddie, so that Raines, Johnson, and Gorelick can show what they've done about lending to the disadvantaged, thereby inflating their salaries, bonuses, and stock-option rights.

4) Fannie/Freddie employees then make significant donations to Favored Congressmen--like the O-and-Savior, for example--to make sure that they get re-elected.

5) If Fannie/Freddie go banko, no big deal.

Taxpayers are around to pick up the difference.

HT: RS McCain