Day: October 12, 2010

The Existential Nature of Foreclosure Fraud

It is a legal impossibility for someone without a mortgage to be foreclosed upon. It is a legal impossibility for the wrong house to be foreclosed upon, It is a legal impossibility for the wrong bank to sue for foreclosure.

And yet, all of those things have occurred. The only way these errors could have occurred is if several people involved in the process committed criminal fraud. This is not a case of “Well, something slipped through the cracks.” In order for the process to fail, many people along the chain must commit fraud.

That it is being done for expediency and to save a few dollars on the process is why the full criminal prosecution must occur.

Excellent rundown on the current meltdown in foreclosures. That these excesses (and the ones that preceded them) should be prosecuted is obvious. That they won’t be is both obvious and the reason our Republic is crumbling by the day. The oligarchs and their political cronies have established themselves as above the law. Until that system utterly collapses or a political will to clean it up arises, nothing will change.

And, psst: Democrats. You’re looking for a unifying and message that gets people to the polls in big numbers? You could do a lot worse than this one. Of course, delivering it means you actually have to, you know, back it up with some legislative action. So I guess that’s out. Back to the witchcraft angle.

The Existential Nature of Foreclosure Fraud

Rove has spent his professional life engaged in political sleaze, so he’s accused Obama of adding “arsenic to the nation’s political well.” Rove ran a White House that embraced a “permanent campaign,” so he’s accused the Obama team of embracing a “permanent campaign.” Rove embraced the politics of fear, so he’s accused Obama of embracing the politics of fear. Rove relied on “pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted ” political events, so he’s accused Obama of relying on “pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted” political events. Rove looked at every policy issue “from a political perspective,” so he’s accused Obama of looking at every policy issue “from a political perspective.” Rove snubbed news outlets that he considered partisan, so he’s accused Obama of snubbing snubbed news outlets that he considered partisan. Rove had a habit of burying bad news by releasing it late on Friday afternoons, so he’s accused Obama of burying bad news by releasing it late on Friday afternoons. Rove questioned the motives of those with whom he disagreed, so he’s accused Obama of questioning the motives of those with whom he disagrees.

Steve Benen opines the being that is Karl Rove.
And it’s all true, but I’d say it’s also sadly beside the point. The real take-home on Rove isn’t so much that he’s a hypocrite or the political equivalent of sleaze incarnate, it’s that his shtick is treated so uncritically by the mainstream media. Yes, when you hear (and see) him “turned to” as some kind of a disinterested outsider (his chyron blurb usually says “Political Analyst”) on the subject of massive, anonymous campaign financing and how that’s affecting races across the country, and then have those ever-uncritical outlets then fail to mention that Rove, himself, is responsible for one of the largest and most powerful of these organizations, said organization dwarfing the contributions of the very US Chamber that he’s being asked about, well, that is journalistic malpractice. And it’s unsurprisingly coming from one of the “liberal” outlets.
And but so: The goal of Democratic messaging should be that there is no outlet Rove can be on, no microphone he can even approach, no studio he can inhabit without being regaled, and I mean regaled with questions he doesn’t want to answer or even have asked of him in public. That he can, does, and is a paid employee of the #1 cable news outlet shows you just how far The Democrat has to go in terms of messaging before any progress can even begin to be planned, much less realized.
And this is why they fail.

Elon Musk: Bond Supervillain?

This article is worth a read on the basis of these two sentences alone:

“Elon has huge steel balls,” his ex-wife notes on her blog. “He truly does.”

-and-

His other main business, a rocket company called SpaceX, aimed to replace the space shuttle and eventually take people to Mars.

Apparently the section detailing his underground base of operations with sliding, stainless steel doors and a monorail was edited out. Likewise any information about his taste in jumpsuits. I’m guessing red with little lightning bolt logos.

(via http://givemesomethingtoread.com/)

Elon Musk: Bond Supervillain?