The Obama administration’s decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years stirred controversy over the holiday.
The Treasury announced Thursday it was removing the caps that limited the amount of available capital to the companies to $200 billion each.
Unlimited access to bailout funds through 2012 was “necessary for preserving the continued strength and stability of the mortgage market,” the Treasury said. Fannie and Freddie purchase or guarantee most U.S. home mortgages and have run up huge losses stemming from the worst wave of defaults since the 1930s.
“The timing of this executive order giving Fannie and Freddie a blank check is no coincidence,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee. He said the Christmas Eve announcement was designed “to prevent the general public from taking note.”
“It will be a circus,” said Ron Bass, of Linden, as he rolled up a drenched American flag.
“They are not citizens of our country. They are enemy combatants that should be brought back to Guantanamo for a military tribunal and executed quickly,” said Bass, founder of the anti-illegal immigrant group United Patriots of America.
The noontime rally was organized by the 9/11 Never Forget Coalition, a network of 9/ll survivors, victim’s family groups, first responders and conservative Tea Party members.
Actor Brian Dennehy took to the stage to read a letter from the parents of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who also allegedly claimed responsibility in Pearl’s execution, is expected to stand trial in New York with four other Guantanamo detainees.
“Terror is a crime against society and should not be tried in the same court as crimes against individuals,” Dennehy read aloud from the letter, as his image was projected on a jumbo screen.
Protestors brandished signs with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s image transposed against Obama election posters with the slogan “Nope.”
Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try five 9/11 plotters by a civilian court in New York rather than a military tribunal at Gitmo is already paying dividends — for the terrorists.
The five terror suspects want to use their “not guilty” pleas as a chance to voice their hate-filled beliefs and grievances against the West. In short, we’re giving them a prime-time soapbox in the most important city on Earth from which to spout their hate and recruit new adherents to their murderous cause.
The recent expose of the e-mails from the scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia, revealing the nefarious nature of their global warming crusade, does far more than damage the credibility of global warming activists. It damages the foundation of one of the last bastions of truth.
Science above all is about the search for truth, for fact, for data that either support or undermine a theory. When a group hijacks the scientific process for political and/or financial gain, not only does the science (and truth) suffer, but all of mankind suffers insofar as we lose faith in the supposed unbiased endeavors of those seeking answers to important questions. Scientists become the very politicians that so many people so vehemently distrust.
Over the years, science and the rigors of scientific inquiry have been held up as shining examples of the pursuit of truth unsullied by the vagaries of political discourse or influence. People learned to trust scientists for this very reason. What was deemed to be supported by science was held aloft as truth — after all, the science “proved” it!
However, once the scientists are revealed to be nothing more than the “wizards” behind the curtain, mere charlatans passing off parlor tricks as “science,” the veil of impartiality is torn asunder, along with the trust that we had learned to place in them.
