Some Frank Talk About the Need for Obama to Step Up

Franks should just shut up.
Obama is not President yet.
Why not ask George Bush to do his damn job for God’s sake.
Bush is president till Jan. 20th, 2009.
Damn it…

Sometimes Barney Frank says some smart things, but most of the time that’s not the case.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt had very much the same problem – but also recognized the pitfalls. The outgoing President Herbert Hoover tried repeatedly to get FDR to join him in joint action or in joint statements – even as bank after bank closed its doors. Roosevelt, however, correctly saw that these efforts were all aimed at connecting him with the failures of the Hoover administration which had brought on the Great Depression in the first place.
This fact became startlingly clear when – just before the inauguration (in March, back then) – Hoover telegraphed Roosevelt, imploring him “in the name of confidence” not to alter any of Hoover’s own fiscal policies. When Roosevelt failed to respond, Hoover publicly labeled him a “madman”, and snubbed him during a proforma reception at the White House.
Had Roosevelt allowed himself to be entrapped by Hoover’s overtures, it is very doubtful that he could ever have brought the fresh ideas of the New Deal to any kind of fruition at all: he likely would have been another one-term president like his predecessor, forever tarred with the same brush of political cronyism and failure.
Barack Obama is showing both courage and wisdom in refusing to take any hand in the mechanizations of this failed Bush presidency. I hope he shows continued wisdom by standing his ground and forcing George Bush and the Republicans to accept responsibility for their own errors and the fruits of their avarice.

If Obama believes this then he should shut up and stay out of the limelight. Everyday we hear he’s doing this, doing that, speaking on what should be done in Pakistan, etc. SHUT UP OBAMA – YOU ARE NOT PRESIDENT YET.

Barney Frank is being a jerk .It’s a shame that Bush and his people have screwed up the economy so bad that the next president will have no honeymoon period as afforded most other new presidents.Obama may have to go to work even before gets into office !!!Hold on people!! It’s going to be a bumpy ride!!!

One of my two big problems with Obama was the fact that his resume reveals that never stepped up to the plate in the workplace. A lecturer, not a professor, at the University of Chicago, who apparently spent much of his time writing two books about himself. A civil rights lawyer who took the lead on no case of note. A state legislator who’s main accomplishment was a record of “not present” votes.
That being said, I’ve been impressed so far with the job he is doing as President Elect. His appointments have been most reassuring. The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution provides when a newly elected President is to be inaugurated. If Barney Frank doesn’t like it, he can sponsor an amendment.

No. One president at a time.
But, maybe they could move up the inauguration date again by 10 days or so. That would still let everyone dry out from any New Year’s partying.

Barney Frank will never admit his incompetence in this fiasco. Hes a big blow hard who needs to be put out to pasture. Bush does need to do more. I like Obamas cabinet so far. Never thought I would say that. We dont need anymore failure…

Tomorrow Friday Dec 5, 2008 the Supreme Court will look at the issue of if Obama is qualified to be President. Since he is not a Natural Born Citizen Obama is NOT eligible to be President and therefore Obama should step down and admit that he is not eligible to be President and allow this country to decide on a legitimate President for the next 4 years. I believe that should be Hillary since she would have been elected if Obama had not tried to run an ilegitimate campaigne.
He is not president elect until Congress certifies the decision of the Electoral College on about January 6 although some say Dec 15.
SCOTUS will declare Obama not eligible and he will not get any votes from the Electoral College.
Watch the Supreme Court tomorrow Friday.

I learned a new word today from Dodd: effectuate. I guess it really is a word.

Actually Butch, after eight years of Bush’s signing statements, Obama ought to set the Executive Branch straight by abiding by all the rules and Constitutional limitations set forth by the framers.

Hey folks its not about barney franks… IT IS BUSH that isn’t doing his job.
If President Gore had been in office for the last 8 years we wouldn’t be in this shape.
When President Obama takes office things will slowly start improving.

Barney Frank – shut up!!! NObama is NOT the President yet and won’t be until the inauguration in January. In the meantime, the DAMORATS should step up and help clean up the mess that THEY created. What a bunch of crap.

Other than some last minute cash giveaways, Bush has already pretty much abdicated and Let’s face it. As far as “the people” are concerned he was never really there from the beginning. I would refer you to Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, the Depression that we are currently sliding into, two wars, and the great gasoline disaster.

“The Secretary of the Treasury is in China right now. It’s time to come home. We’ve got a serious problem on our hands.”
Dodd should be a little smarter and think of the serious problem if China doesn’t lend us the money that Congress has already promised.

I think Obama has to show care not to offend the Bush administration by overstepping. The Bush administration has already driven this nation into the ground. Obama should tread carefully as to not give them cause to blow up and extinguish whatever is left before he takes office.

Well how about that, the neo cons don’t like Barney Frank. What a surprise. They don’t like anyone who has a brain. That’s why they like Bush, he’s clueless.

Senator Obama does not have the legal authority to make decisions as a president until January 20! This is premature criticism. We have a current President, his name is George Bush (he has been an absentee leader for 7 years, live with it) We must suffer 1.5 more months of what the Republicans and Fox News forced us into …. a totally incompetent president named George Bush. Stop trying to blame the incoming president, before he starts the job.

Last I checked, George Bush was still President, and Congress needs to demanding that HE, and Paulson, and Bernanke, DO SOMETHING. Of course this cannot wait until Jan 20, and while I’m sure Obama would like to do more (and believe me, I wish he could) unless Bush is willing to legally step aside, he has to wait. The focus needs to be on Bush. He needs to stop being the lame duck he is and ACT. Three pressers on the economy by Obama the same week Bush could only find time to pardon a turkey tells you how out of whack this is. Make that ineffectual loser DO HIS JOB, for pity’s sake! SPEAK UP VOTERS!

Barney Frank, the same guy who said there is no problem for the last 3 years, who oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who completely does not understand the problem, wants everyone to throw money on the problem. Which has got to tell you its the WRONG SOLUTION. This guy doesn’t have the first clue as to what to do, and wants heads to roll. Its My Way Or The Highway… sounds vaguely familiar approach to Iraq…
Brilliant!

Bush is way to busy changing laws so the coal companies can trash the environment more efficiently.
He has no time for US.

bush is a bad luck president who cheated his way in the white house and i bet my donkey is more smarter

kennedy cameroon
plse give time to president-elect

To Frank and the People at Fox & Freinds, Hannity, Gibson, Rush, etc.
Obama is President-Elect. He does not yet have the powers of the President and will not until 1/20/2009. It shows your stupidity when you hold him responsible for not taking action before then.

janine – Obama would NOT be President if President Bush stepped aside. D. Cheney would be President. That is the way it works. Obama isn’t even legally President-elect. He won’t be until December 15th when the Electoral College “meets”.

Ennar: “I agree Barney Frank should demand President Bush to do his job.”….The President IS doing his job. Frank wants the bailout to go through because union jobs are in the mix but he also know the American people (70%) are fed up with the bailouts and don’t want more. If Bush goes along with it Frank gets all his union guys happy and the American people unhappy but blaming Bush. Bush is right….the Big 3 need to go into bankruptcy and restructure and renegotiate some of these outlandish union contracts that place a heavy bruden on manufacturing. It doesn’t make them competitive like Toyota and Honda.

You voters in Massachusetts need to seriously consider the viability of this guy Frank next time around. He seems like he doesn’t know the basics.

If Barney Franks did not have the corrupt liberal media backing he would have been exposed a long time ago as one of the MAIN CHARACTERS THAT BROUGHT US INTO THIS MESS. The fact that one has to look up on the internet to hear barney say again and again……..”Fannie and Freddie are fine, any pressure on these institutions will only limit affordable housing” is shameful.
The media refused and still refuses to do their job.
Did anyone hear Barney say the other day on larry king that we need to have “income equality”.
Liberals are socialists and they have brought this country to its knees and they media have painted them as saviors of all man-kind.

YOU GOING ON ABOUT THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE REALLY NEED TO GET A LIFE!!! Don’t you think that if there was even a HINT of untawdry evidence that the RNC would not have found it AND used it? Are you saying that you no longer trust Rove, Gingrich, Palin and all the top RNC to do their job in getting the republicans elected? I would think so since you continue with this mess and your “leaders” have let it go!!!!!
Now, the issue at hand. Frank should be chastised for dis-respecting the office of the Presidency. Mr. Obama & Congress should speak out against his statements and re-teach him the lessons of the constitution and the office of the Presidency!
What is FINALLY a relief, (in reading these comments), that there is an overwhelming concensus (amongst the right and the left)regarding his issue. We all feel that Barney Frank is wrong; Mr. Bush is still OUR President; and Mr. Obama will have to wait until January 20th!
Unity is happening folks! We are coming together and agreeing upon “something”!!! The best of America is yet to come!
Let’s mentally hold hands and sing Kum-by-yah!!!!!!

FS – No one can request the birth certificate except for Mr. Obama. So even if the Republicans thought there was an issue, they couldn’t do anything about it.

Pat
Your “open-minded” approach to BO’s new upcoming job is touching, but in the real world facts matter. And the facts regarding the financial crisis is that it falls in the hands of the Democrats. Just because the media ignores this does not make it untrue. Jimmy carter began the community reinvestment act years ago and the socialist liberals have been gladly spreading the wealth around ever since. Who would have thought FORCING banks to make bad loans to people who could never pay them back? the democrats- it’s really that simple.
Also, BO had very close ties with a community organizer/agitator group ACORN. This group of people actually organized bank sit-ins in Chicago meant to intimidate, the harassment of CEO’s and their families, all in the name of “affordable housing”.

Dave: To some extent, you are correct, however, the republicans have been in power for 8 years. These things which are so repugnant to them now have been going on for several years. Why didn’t the R. party do something about it? Look at this last year….what did Bush do to address the problems which are now rising to greet a new president, whomever he may be. You would think he would want to leave the presidencey with at least one major accomplishment. The democrats have only been strong for the last two years and anything they tried to do were blocked by you know who. However, they do need to share some of the blame. I’m ready for a fresh start with an intelligent person be he white, black or green. Let’s stop blaming each other and get behind our president and see what he does.

“…just think what the the left wing media and socialist dems have said if Bush said that Fannie and Freddie are giving out risky loans…”you just hate poor people!!!”
Why is there this need to assign blame for past actions and discuss hypotheticals? KNOCK! KNOCK! HELLO! WE are in it!!! Any discussions of past actions and things which have never even occured solves nothing! I know! Here is something novel: Democrats (as of this moment) this mess is all the Republicans fault! Republicans (as of this moment) this mess is all the Democrats fault. Now that we have properly settled that everyone (even you) holds some responsibility–let’s move on.
NOW! Should the automobile sector be bailed out? I personally am against it. I still dont think the industry “gets” it and, although it will be painful, let the free-market take over.

dave Sorry but Republicans have controlled Congress for 14 of the past 20 years. You may recall that the Republican congress devoted 2 years to impeaching President Clinton over a BJ. The other years of the Republican Congress were devoted to undoing any regulation of banks and businesses so they could rape the environment and consumers and steal enough money to create the current recession. Oh the Republicans did work on pushing creationism and torture in their spare time.

pieceof It was called Perjury! Look it up!

FS
How can we possibly expect to solve the problem if we aren’t willing to look for what caused it?

The new tourist building in DC was supposed to cost 71 million but it ended up costing like 650 million. Does anybody see why government is this problem not the solution?

Barney Franks is an embarassment to his committee and his party. I applaud the transition team so far and President-Elect Obama. The patience Obama is showing right now is phenomenal. He is the type that wants to jump in and roll up his sleeves. I am sure this is maddening not to be able to do anything but look in and stay informed. Someone in the Democratic party should throttle then muzzle Franks before he shames himself further.

David, you are raising a good point but most of the commentary posted here (and in the past) has little, if none to do with objectively looking at the past. In doing that, you will find that this problem hails all the way back to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp’s housing initiatives. Bottom line. Its all about de-regulation. Clearly, (to some extent), regulation is something that is needed.
You, in particular cite ACORN. I on the other hand will say that more than ACORN had a hand in approving bad loans; placing people in homes that they could not afford etc. Make no mistake either, that it is only the less fortunate who caused and are caught up in this miasma. I know quite a few very well-to-do (supposedly), intelligent (supposedly), individuals who “on paper” were worth quite a staggering amount but in actuality were leveraged SO much that (in one case)the family barely could pay for the funeral.
Look at some of the foreclosures in Greenwich CT and some very up-scale communities in Florida & California–these are not ACORN folk! Trust me on that one! Look at the derivitives, on top of the derivitives, on top of derivitives created by Wall Street “professionals.” The primary reason these firms are failing and that no one is buying them, is because you can’t evaluate the true intrinsic value of these companies! These investment vehicles were not created by ACORN folk, traded by them, nor capitalized by them. Talk to a small-cap CEO about the deregulation of short-selling, message boards, and how their companies were literally destroyed. NOPE! Not ACORN people! Once again, maybe complete deregulation is not the best way to go!
So, since de-regulation seems to be the problem (measures passed by both Democrats & Republicans) maybe we need to concentrate more upon “what” needs enhanced regulation (as Democrats & Republicans) and try to possibly design some type of market for a these distressed assets in order to stabilize the economy. What I found absolutely hysterical (in a macabre way)the FEDS had to prove to AIG why they were nearly insolvent when they took them over. Let’s not even talk about Lehman Brothers.
So, it was A LOT of people of all colors/incomes/party affiliations and sex, that capitalized upon a lax system and VOILA! Here we are…
Why point a finger? Let’s all work together and fix it (if it can be.) The country feels that Mr. Obama can do the job. …especially after having Sarah Palin thrown in our faces (sorry! I have to do my little dig–but I DO love her!!! she entertains me so!!!!)
Why not rally behind our new President and support him? It will only be to the benefit of us all.

Dave,
Bush could have been impeached for a wide variety of crimes he committed while in office, just a few for you to mull over:
1) Violation of treaties he was constitutionally obligated to uphold.
2) Authorizing the use of torture by his administration.
3) Ordering leaks of classified information for political purposes.
4) Authorizing electronic spying on US Citizens at home and abroad.
5) Criminal Negligence in the effort to bring to justice, Osama Bin Laden.
6) Overseeing the greatest looting of a countries’ coffers by private industry seen in any country in the history of humanity.
One big difference between everyone who “thought” Sadaam had WMD, and the Bush administration?
Only the Bushies were willing to wage an optional war over questionable intelligence. NO other responsible leader in the world thought the intelligence on Iraqi WMD was justification for going to war. Sanctions? Yes. Inspections, yes. War? No.
Which leads to the greatest crime committed by a presidential administration in recent history, the death of thousands of our soldiers over either a mistake, or incompetence of leadership. Your choice.

There is no end to the ignorance by some people. The Republicans gained control of the House in 1994 and did not lose it until 2006. Where the heck have some of you been over the years? Mars, Saturn, or Jupiter? GET OVER YOURSELVES!!! Barack Obama WON the election…. PERIOD! I’m sure those of you who are still ticked aren’t going to support him no matter what happens!!! Stop blaming him for everything that has gone wrong in Washington for the past 8 years. The man hasn’t even been sworn in yet so he can’t “step up.” HE DOESN’T HAVE ANY POWER TO ENFORCE ANYTHING YET!!!

Don’t blame the economy on Bush – like he said to Charlie Gibson – “it was happening before I entered in president and during I entered in president” – what a defense!

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) is now in trouble with the House ethics committee for a variety of ethics violations. He has alot to say about how our tax money is spent. But he’ll probably skate. Isn’t it great!

howwouldiknow – if President Bush stepped down now, then VP Cheney would become President, NOT Obama. I can’t believe how many people do not understand this fact. And what really scares me is that some of these people voted!!

ellsbells930 – Technically Obama is the President-Elect as defined by the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

MikeMo1947 – it allows them to use the terms, but he still isn’t LEGALLY President-elect until the 2nd Monday after the 1st Tues. in Dec. The Act uses the term “apparent”.

It amazes me that people are anxious for the government to get more involved in “handling” the economic crisis when they are responsible for it in the first place. The economic trouble we have today is directly related to the Community Reinvestment Act, which came into existence in 1977. This legislation has, over time, morphed into a vehicle for direct interference by congress in the dealings of our banking industry. Congress (mainly Democrats but also some Republicans) has applied pressure to the banking industry to accept home mortgage loans that they would not otherwise take on based on the risk of default. This means of extortion by congress was pursued to force banks to give money to low income and minority home owners who simply could not afford the loans if any unforeseen financial hardship hit them (IE: higher gas prices). Congress further compounded the problem by pushing for the formation of derivatives (under Clinton administration) based on these bad mortgages. This was done to mask the extreme risk found in this strategy, thus making the eventual failure much worse. The economic collapse we have seen has been brought about by an estimated failure rate in the mortgage market of six percent. This is shocking. What if the failure rate goes to 20 percent or 30 percent? The people who were the biggest proponents of this scam such as Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and yes – Barack Obama, are now asking us to let them “fix” the mess they created. I for one am not impressed and certainly not hopeful that this group can fix anything and fully expect them to make the situation much worse. If we want to improve our economy and return sanity to the laws that govern our nation we should send congress and the new administration on vacation. Hopefully they will go somewhere where they cannot do any more “fixing”.

He is not president yet! I guess people will just have to wait until he is. It is admirable that he is getting his team in place but that does not mean he makes decisions now.

This country is headed for a depression under an Obama administration. The man is a fake. Where is the “Change you can believe in” that he promised.
Meanwhile, I would like to express my appreciation to President Bush for keeping this country safe and free from attacks for more than seven and a half years. Great Job, Mr President Bush.