Congressman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) is not running again, maybe, in part, because of redistricting. Mr. Frank has been a frequent guest on our show and a YouTube star. From a compilation of his responses to outraged Tea Party citizens:
"On what planet do you spend most of your time? ... Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table."
Also:
"Who do you think paid for the war? Santa Claus?"
Also also:
"Sir, it's been 21 years since I had a secret."
And so on, and so on. Barney Frank has been one of a kind.
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the good side (america) is losing a great one!
sorry to see you go. but grateful for your service!
Correct. America is losing a "great one," one who more than most others was responsible for a great mess. He refused to see that putting people into homes they could not afford was a bad thing. Here's the tough interviewer Larry King with Rep. Franks.
youtube.com/watch?v=2UZ9l_AxKjA&feature=related
If people had to make a down payment, they would not be so quickly upside down in a home. If people had been in a house they could afford or renting, there would have been no housing bubble or collapse. Mr. Franks contributed greatly to this and then tried to deny he did, IMHO.
http://news.investors.com/Article/593006/201111281824/liberal-frank-leaves-legacy-of-financial-failure.htm
Maddow for Congress
Just one problem with the idea: Rachel would have to give up her show, lest she have to have her prospective opponent(s) for half of the show each night. (Equal time and all, you know...)
Yay. Ditto. Yes.
Rachel would make a great senator or representative!!!
Give up the show ... yes.
Contributor on MSNBC after being elected ... priceless.
She and all her lies and biases would fit right in.
LOL
i see you are having the same self esteem problems as most of the repeat offenders.
SSDN
Much as I love and admire Rachel, I have to ask if there's a skill set match. She's awesome where she is; in Congress? Dunno.
contessa61
I suppose lies are those nasty little things you find in research studies done by by university professors?
Not.
Just like East Anglia professors?
I see you've been drinking that rethuglicanland joy juice again contessa, whatever your posts about lies, universities and East Anglia have to do with Barney Frank retiring is beyond me, but then the logic you radicals have developed is beyond my comprehension also, but then again I'm the product of an American university.
paplanner.
If you looked to see what post I was responding to,then you would know where East Anglia came from.
why do all college educated liberals have to brag about their education. It must be some sort of inferiority complex from sitting on their duff getting paid a nice salary and a pension for teaching things like women's study or anthropology.
I just don't think I will be able to stand politics without his sense of humor to take the edge off. But, there's always Rachel! Love her sense of humor, too. She is way too important in getting the real story out. We need her right where she is.
Mr. Frank's retirement is a great loss for America. He certainly was one of a kind, and one of the last of old guard members of Congress who understood how to do a deal in order to get something done.
We'll miss you, Barney, as will the entire country.
Yes, indeed. Representative Frank has certainly earned his retirement, though. I hope he writes a humdinger of a Washington tell-all book!
I am not sure about the tell-all book. Getting kind of weary of them to tell the truth since most say the same thing and it is all past tense and past tense isn't as fun as knowing about sex and scandal and shady deals going on right now...
However, if for nothing else good -- and there will be other good things -- Mr. Frank of Massachusetts will be remembered for being one of the leaders, if not the actual leader, of the successful drive to make it permissable on the Floor of the House to utter the word "Senate" when referring to that body.
I am not kidding. It was a fine moment for freedom, comprehensibility and accuracy of speech.
Good Riddance! Barney has as big a hand in the mess that we are in as Wall Street, Fannie Mae and Chris Dodd. As a firm believer in a 2 term limit for congressmen, he has way overstayed his welcome and effectiveness. Here's hoping that Harry Reid, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, and Charlie Rangel follow suit with their own self imposed term limits.
Wow! Say it ain't so Barney! He's one of the few members of Congress that actually realize that his "oath of office" meant something, and he worked for the American people! And I've loved that he doesn't hold his tongue or suffer fools lightly!!
No, he definitely did NOT suffer fools gladly!
The Republicans remind me of some farm swine slopping at the pigs trough all trying to get their share and wreaking of stench that they have to bath at least twice a day.
Barney Frank has the best command of knowledge of any person I've ever seen in action.
Frank is right on so many levels. These people are fact-proof.
Iraq and Afghanistan contributed to about one third of US national debt. The War on Drugs contributed to about about one quarter of our national debt.
The GOP is responsible for at least half the US national debt.
And ... the GOP is blaming schools, medicare, social security and health care for the problem.
These wars (drugs and the middle east) happened because of stupidity.
Bush #1 failed to realize that muslims would think the first gulf war to be a "Holy Crusade" like those in the middle ages because text books used in US schools are garbage, so evangelical christian prayer meetings in the White House by Bush #2 contributed to September 11, 2001 because of ignorance of foreign culture.
Pres. Obama is aware of the problem, so he has not even gone to church since the election.
Laura Bush looked like she was going to pi$$ herself the last time she was in public, so I imagine that this topic was eventually covered in a "presidential briefing".
Reagan declared a "war on drugs" and "get tough on crime" campaigns that were payed for by cutting education. Prison statistics indicates education reduces crime, and a college education reduces incarceration by 95%, so these policies actually created the problems that they were supposed to improve.
These problems happened mostly because the media often lacks people with the education needed to educate voters about the whole action-reaction thing so that people know more about how the future is going to change when they cast their vote.
I am so grateful that Dr. Rachel has the kind of background that helps to make this better.
So a President shouldn't go to church for fear of angering Muslims?
Thanks for pointing out my favorite statistics! Its a whole lot cheaper to educate a child than it is to incarcerate an adult. We are ass-backwards and making it worse daily!
Education is the one place cuts should NEVER be made. We can't do enough to educate our population. Education is the only thing that will save us from ourselves, and republicans are doing their level best to see to it we remain an ignorant, unemployable population.
No, a president shouldn't go to church because we don't need magical thinking clouding decision making in the white house!
Also, it implies endorsement of a specific cult.
Bush and his advisors grossly underestimated what would happen with the war in Iraq. He thought it would over in a short time and the people would welcome us as heroes. Then he compounded it with appointing Bremer who botched the post war efforts by excluding the military and nominal Baathist supporters. Bush also failed to commit enough troops to the war and that continued for most of the 10 years we were in Iraq. Finally, he destabilized the only counterweight to Iran which now has become the major ME power besides Israel and Egypt. We lost 10 years of efforts we could have dedicated to Afghanistan. Every error compounded all the others. And now we have Republicans who want to return to these policies.
Also ... thank you Laura. Looking forward to seeing this on the show.
I think you may be in error about President Obama never attending church; seems as though he has on at least ceremonial occasions. (Personally, I don't care, so not investing time in running it down... ;D). But your point, in general, is well taken; all the over the top fundamentalism of the prior administration may have played well with the Tea Party set, but it undoubtedly cost the U.S. dearly in both blood and treasure. The sword of radical religious fundamentalism cuts both ways; but those so afflicted either are too self-absorbed and/or foolish to see it, or simply don't care what the brutal cost is to others.
Some of the most dangersous muslim countries have evaporated.
The most dangerous muslim terrorists spontaneously combust from time to time.
Pres. Obama does not fear muslims.
Not going to church has nothing to do with fear.
It is about starting a conversation.
The Bushes are afraid to be in public, but the Obamas have no such problem.
September 11, 2001 happened because of hatred.
There are more muslims than any other group in the world. There are more of them than there are of us, and that tends to cause wars to fail. The US looses every time the other side has a larger population, and we just spent about $4 trillion because of a president that wasn't smart enough to know that.
War makes people hate you more, and that gets worse when you loose.
We need middle-eastern governments on our side, and that requires communication.
That is why Hillary Clinton and Ms. Weiner are essential to our country.
I did not say Pres. Obama never attends church.
There are no prayer meetings in the White House.
The thing is that you don't see "church" and "president" it in the news simultaneously.
The US looses wars when the congress is in charge. Viet Nam, Korea. Declare war, turn it over to the military and let them do what they're trained to do.
There is No such thing as a "humane" war. Fight to win, not make $$$ and "points.
Do you have any links to back that up?
The following references are good.
No where in your links could I find that the Iraq and Afganistan wars made up one third our PRESENT Debt. One third of our national debt was just added in the last three years under Obama. It took Bush 8 years to add 5 trillion to our national debt and it took Obama only 3 years.
contessa61
I'm not sure why you are having so much difficulty finding credible information to support your contributions.
Total DoD spending is about $700 billion/year.
About 30% of that goes directly to Iraq/Afghanistan in open spending (published).
That totals $2 trillion in direct spending just for ground troops.
DoD overhead is about 30% so the indirect spending total is about $0.6 trillion.
Costs for things like aircraft carriers, flight services, destroyers, cruisers, and related support is about $0.3 trillion in operating costs and $0.5 trillion in amortized cost. These assets must be deployed in the eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf theaters for the duration of the conflict, but these assets are not ground troops.
Costs for things like spy satellite services are not published but it would be reasonable to estimate $0.5 trillion (NSA/CIA). This is reasonable considering terrorists hostile to the US spontaneously explode from time to time for no apparent reason.
US national debt is about $13 billion. This spending is about one third of that total.
US national debt is now 15 trillion.
One of Barney best quotes:
Frank pushed for Fannie and Freddie to make even greater numbers of those loans. "I believe that we, as the Federal Government," the congressman said, "have probably done too little rather than too much to push [Fannie and Freddie] to meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable goals." "I would like to get Fannie and Freddie more deeply into low-income housing and possibly moving into something that is more explicitly a subsidy," said Frank. "... I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing."
gee
just where and when did he make theses quotes?
Ditto.
Please cite a reputable news source (washington post, ...).
Frank wanted to encourage the production of rental housing for lower-income people, making it easier for developers to finance these projects. The Bush administration decided that there should be an "ownership society", leading to the push to expand the eligibility of citizens to obtain mortgages, when they never before would have qualified.
bellemorte
That sounds more like the kind of compromise typical with lawmakers.
Everything would have been fine if Bush #2 had realized the impact of several $billion$ of Chinese investments in Mexican factories that caused Latin countries to stop buying US at the same time 3 million immigrants left the country and collapsed the housing market.
Bush #2 isn't famous for having deep thoughts about foreign policy and finance.
UNBELEIVABLE. Liberals never heard of google? Go to goole.com and type in Barney Frank roll the dice. Then you can read as many sources as your heart desires.
ahahahaha Please site a reputable news source.... ONLY A LIBERAL ONE.
You guys are too funny.
Bush is certainly at fault as is Clinton, the rating agencies, the banks, the fed, and the list goes on. But Frank stood staunchly by Fannie and Freddie calling for more subsidized housing and repeatedly stating the financial soundness of these GSE's. After the housing bubble he tries to distance himself from his statements. He is a fool, a liar and thank god he's leaving. Perhaps he can go back to running a male prostitution business from his basement.
And don't forget that back in the early 90's he got his ex-lover a pretty good job at Fannie Mae, but of course that's all on the up and up....at least here.
Contessa it's part of regular argument and debate. Do not make a claim unless you can substantiate the claim w/ facts. If you do not want people to think you're a liar then do not get mad when they ask you to prove yourself. Stating "use Google" either implicates that you are a. too lazy to provide reasonable information or b. are lying.
FTR Bellemorte is the only person who addressed this issue. Barney Frank did not support the idea of giving loans to low-income persons so that they could purchase their own homes. That process was part of "compassionate conservatism" which has existed here and there throughout our history (another such example of compassionate conservative legislation would be Don't Ask, Don't Tell, just as an FYI). Frank has maintained that he disagreed w/ this push and this is part of why he has lobbied on behalf of tougher financial regulations since the late 90's.
Then you must back up your claim that Frank did not support the idea of giving loans to low-income persons so that they could purchase a home.
contessa61
The Washington Post is not a liberal newspaper.
That newspaper supported both the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that is not a liberal view. The Washington Post is non-biased and they air everybody's dirty underwear in public no mater who they are.
That is what they do to everybody that does something stupid. That is why that newspaper linked burglars to Nixon, which earned them the label "liberal newspaper".
From a certain conservative viewpoint, the Washington Post would seem to have a strong liberal bias because they tend to criticize conservative policies that are idiotic.
That does not make them liberal.
Again Contessa you're using a red herring. Le sighs.
contessa61
The "roll the dice" remark occured in the House Financial Services Committee hearing, Sept. 10, 2003, and was reported in the Wall Street Journal on October 2, 2008 (click here).
The article explains Barney Frank wanted to increase government subsidized housing instead of eliminating lending regulations that caused Fanny May and Freddie Mac to bankrupt and come under government control in 2008.
So the article indicates Barney Frank opposed the problem that contributed to the collapse of the housing industry.
Is that what you meant to do?
Frank did not support the idea of giving loans out to lower income individuals so that they would purchase homes. He wanted, instead, for Fannie and Freddie to use their money to provide more affordable housing for lower income families. The speech to which Contessa is referring has been taken out of context by Contessa in order to make it seem as though Barney supported the lending practice, which he did not.
Oh and FTR the reason why I pointed out that Contessa was deflecting is precisely because I wanted Contessa to share a source that cited the Congressman in context (because the source would've gotten the quote correct). I would've preferred it if you had waited for him/her to answer Crackhead ;-), but thank you none-the-less since it needed to be said.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-13-2009/barney-frank-extended-interview-pt--2
(Part 1 Here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-13-2009/barney-frank-extended-interview-pt--1)
Crackhead,
Good link. It shows Frank was not in the least worried about Fannie and Freddie and in fact, thought they were financially sound and more loans should be made. Frank and the HUD pushed Fran and Fred to absorb more and more loans. The majority of sub-prime loans went through these GSE's. Frank will forever be tied to these two GSE's and his quotes will forever put him as the congressman that helped create the housing bubble.
Yep. After the fact, Barney (on the daily show no less) denies wanting to roll the dice. What a frikkin liar and a disgrace to his position. This country will be so much better without his bleeding heart screwing things up.
Even Saturday Night Live knew it was obvious that Frank helped create the housing bubble in their great satire.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
We are so much better off without him, he caused enough harm.
Barney Frank should change parties and run as a Republican; the weeping and gnashing of teeth would be exquisite.
He wouldn't stand a chance in a republican primary. Its time for the old man and his old ideas to retire.
I think Barney Frank made a very good case for not running again. It is not based on personal considerations (which any politician is entitled to) or defeatism. He decided that he could not simultaneously represent the people who elected him and reach out to hundreds of thousands of new and radically different constituents in his newly drawn district in an expensive, time-consuming campaign. The system has become so constrained from the inside, that I think he is right in believing he will be a better advocate from change on the outside.
Frank and Weiner gone.The republicans will be saying Hot Dog!
Yeah, he was all over Freddie's Fanny. Guess he needed to pack it in.
I rushed over to the Newton City Hall before 1 pm for Rep. Barney Frank's public announcement of his decision to retire. I did not attend to hear the reasons for his decision (responsible reasons for a 71-year-old Congressman) but to thank him for his remarkable service to the nation. There were quite a few constituents present--though we were outnumbered by the media mob--and we were sad to be losing our national Representative. I have lived in Frank's Congressional District since 1995 and am proud to have voted for him at every opportunity. Previously I lived in six other states. Barney Frank is by far the best Member of Congress to have represented me. --Still a New Deal Democrat
So the end of gerrymandering has ended Barney's career? Lets end gerrymandering everywhere!
I like Rep Frank... he's an inspiration for me in many ways-- mostly because he's so to the point, blatantly honest and is simply himself. We need more of those things in both public and private.