The plot thickens

When one asks who has benefited from the current Wall Street/sub-prime mortgage crisis, the media would have you believe that it was the Republicans or the Wall street investors or the banks who made out like bandits. But as the investigations continue by those in the new media, we are finding out that the Democrats and their leftist friends were the primary beneficiaries of this mess. further the Democrats stand to profit at the polls by fanning the flames and frustrating any serious efforts to address the long term solutions required to stabilize the situation.

Today's latest story tells us about Herb Sandler and his wife Marion,who were recently parodied on NBC's Saturday Night Live as the greedy folks who made billions (almost 25 billion dollars to be sure) on the sub-prime situation. They are also major benefactors to left wing organizations like the ACLU and ACORN according to the New York Times. To quote the Times:

Steiger also knew them as “civic-minded people who were kind of partial to lefty or progressive causes.” Since the late 1980s, the Sandlers used their wealth to finance a variety of nonprofit organizations, including Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union and Acorn, the grass-roots organizers. They helped found the Center for Responsible Lending, where they are among the largest benefactors. They are also among the very few philanthropists in the country who finance basic scientific research, at the University of California at San Francisco. And they have set up nonprofits to conduct research into parasitic diseases and asthma. In 2003, they started the Center for American Progress, which is intended to be a liberal counterweight to the heavyweight policy centers of the right, like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. So far, the Sandlers have given around $20 million to the center.

All this they have done relatively quietly. Though hardly without ego, the Sandlers nonetheless shun the kind of publicity that accrues to such better-known philanthropists as George Soros and Bill Gates; indeed, the Center for American Progress is sometimes labeled a Soros-financed operation, even though the liberal financier has very little to do with it. And for years, the Sandlers did their philanthropy more or less out of their back pocket, since they were still running Golden West.

So lets see who else has benefited from these poor business practices that have plunged the U.S. and the world into an economic storm.

Franklin Raines

He made millions while running Fannie Mae. Now he advises Barack Obama. But when was the last time anyone talked about the lawsuit where he agreed to return 24.7 million dollars to settle a lawsuit against him for fraud.

Jamie Gorelick

Former Clinton attorney who also went to work with Raines in the lucrative mortgage securities industry making millions while watching the crisis develop.

Jim Johnson

Another adviser to Obama, Johnson served as CEO to Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998, making almost $2 million in improper bonuses in 1998, creating sweetheart deals for himself and friends and later resigning abruptly from the Obama campaign when all of this information became public.

Then there are the politicians whose hands are dirty.

Chris Dodd

Barney Frank

Chuck Schumer

All of whom were defending the corruption and the insane practices of Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac for the last six years. Google any of them and find a boatload of information on their crooked dealings.

Jeff Jacoby points out that Frank has no intention of being honest about his role in creating the problem.

Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.

Now that the bubble has burst and the "systemic risk" is apparent to all, Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess." Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private lenders have plenty to answer for, but it was Washington and the political class that derailed this train. If Frank is looking for a culprit to blame, he can find one suspect in the nearest mirror.

While there are some who are now investigating this scandal and reminding the American people that those who were in charge of this mess are advising Obama, the mainstream press for the most part continues to give Obama as pass. Of course given that most of the mainstream press is in open support for Obama, their actions are not surprising.

So it is up to you and me to spread the word on the truth.

Who pocketed the money? Who got the sweetheart deals?

Barack Obama and his friends.