A joint protest between local members of MoveOn.org and the activist group Awake Tampa is scheduled to take place in front of the Obama for America offices in Ybor City Thursday afternoon. The activists are calling for the ouster of the acting director of the FHA (Federal Housing Finance Agency), Ed DeMarco, for refusing to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to engage in principal reductions on their loans.
DeMarco is a George W. Bush appointee, which might make it a little easier for the left-leaning groups to hold a protest against Obama, who was strongly supported by MoveOn in 2008.
Some liberal members of Congress, such as Massachusetts' Barney Frank, have also called for DeMarco to be jettisoned. Frank has said that DeMarco has been too rigid in refusing to help on foreclosures, saying he's been acting "as if he was head of two private companies called Fannie and Freddie and not taking into account the impact this has on the economy, and I think he should be more cooperative with efforts to reduce foreclosures.”
This article appears in Mar 15-21, 2012.