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?

“I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that here was a relatively small country that from a strictly military point of view accomplished incredible things. I mean, they took over most of Europe and Russia, and it really took the combined effort of the free world to defeat them. From a purely historical military point of view, that’s incredible.”

–Rich Iott (second from right), Tea Party and Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio’s 9th District, who likes to dress up in Waffen SS uniform and do Nazi re-enactments. Not just any re-enactments, but of one specific division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking. Wonder if they re-enact this thrilling adventure of the 5th Panzers:

Members of the […] column, led by Obersturmführer Braunnagel and Untersturmführer Kochalty, assisted Einsatzgruppe A in rounding up Ukrainian Jews. Witnesses report that the Jewish victims were forced to run a gauntlet formed by soldiers who would beat them as they passed, and when they reached the end of the gauntlet, Einsatzgruppen officers murdered them and their bodies were pushed into a bomb crater.

Bound to be one of the more popular ones. But then, as we’re so frequently told, it’s irresponsible to associate the Tea Klanners with racism. Wouldn’t want to get shrill. This is just a grown man that likes to dress up like a Nazi and play war (crimes). Is that so wrong? Have the PC police finally come for the Nazis?

Source: The Atlantic

Obama, Bush: What’s the Diff?

By 47 to 45 percent, Americans say Obama is a better president than George W. Bush. But that two point margin is down from a 23 point advantage one year ago.

Wow.

“But that doesn’t mean that Americans regret their decision to put Obama in the White House in 2008. By a 50 to 42 percent margin, the public says that Obama has done a better job than Sen. John McCain would have done if he had won. And by a 10-point margin, Americans also say that Joe Biden has done a better job than Sarah Palin would have done as vice president,” adds Holland.

Well, I guess there’s that. Of course, we also know that only 60% of Americans can correctly identify Biden as the Vice President. Which means Team Obama is in good graces with about half the folks that have any idea who’s actually serving. Go Democrats!

Obama, Bush: What’s the Diff?

What is difficult to overlook is her record of being totally ineffective as a four-term assemblywomen, her inability or unwillingness to work with others, even within her own party, and her extreme positions on issues such as Medicare, social security, education, veterans affairs and many others.

Nevada Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio ®, in his endorsement of Harry Reid over Sharron Angle. Curious. Honestly don’t know if this helps or hurts a candidate such as Angle. I know Reid can’t mind it, though.

Will the “Real” McCain Please Stand Up?

…the McCain phenomenon has always baffled me. Even back in the glory days of the Straight Talk Express he seemed like a consummate phony to me, sucking up to reporters not because he was being unusually candid, but because it seemed like a good strategy to beat a well-financed guy who was running ahead of him. He’s always been nasty, he’s always been hot tempered, he’s always looked out for number one, and he’s always been willing to take whatever position was convenient at the time.

Yep. The media enjoyed the perception of total access, and thus created the myth of the maverick. As David Foster Wallace showed us (but whose text no longer appears to be online), the truth of “Bullshit 1” was always out there, they just refused to mention it. Too busy talking about Al Gore being told to wear un-American four button suits while discovering the Love Canal and then lying about these and other entirely media-created falsehoods.

Will the “Real” McCain Please Stand Up?

Consider the rationale driving these who object to real trials: it’s vital that the Government be able to use information that it obtained by torturing people. It’s equally vital that the Government be absolutely assured that it will obtain a conviction against anyone it accuses of being a Terrorist. Because this is a “war,” we can waive our usual rules of justice. Any proceeding which imposes limits on the Government’s ability to profit from its torture, or which introduces any uncertainty as to the verdict, is proven to be both inappropriate and dangerous. We can and should simply imprison whomever we want in the War on Terror without the need for any charges, but if we do charge and try them, it should only be in newly invented tribunals (i.e., military commissions) where traditional due process is severely reduced and the rules are designed to ensure a guilty verdict, even it means allowing torture-obtained evidence.

People who think this way, by definition, simply do not believe in the rule of law. A system that guarantees guilty verdicts is not one that operates under the rule of law. Those are called “show trials” — at least they used to be when other countries did that. And the demand that torture-obtained evidence be admissible not only removes one from adherence to the rule of law, but from the civilized world as well. The whole point of a “justice system” is that there are rules that are well-established and which apply equally to everyone. Although the requirement that the Government adhere to those rules will inevitably mean that some very, very bad people are acquitted — including mass murderers, child rapists, and even Terrorists — that’s the price we’ve always been willing to pay to live under what we call “the rule of law” and a “justice system.” Those pointing to Judge Kaplan’s ruling as proof that Terrorists should not be tried in a real court — all because he applied centuries-old legal principles to the Government — believe in none of that, by definition.

Greenwald (via jonathan-cunningham)

Agree completely, but would add that the key part here that always seems to slide by in this discussion is that the rules are set out in advance and we, as a society, agree to live by them (or, alternatively, agitate through similarly agreed upon channels to change the rules instead of merely ignoring them when it suits us and summarily declaring that incident a state secret). It is only through this unspoken covenant that the governors and the governed can coexist. As soon as it becomes allowable (and even expected in “serious” circles) that the rules can be changed by fiat, or for the convenience of one or the other of these two parties, or because of the relative wealth or perceived “importance” of one party, or by a President (or other high official) who is inexplicably deemed intrinsically incapable of breaking any laws, then a democratic society collapses. Thus is the first link of the chains forged.
And I’d say we’re already several links in. But nobody seems to care. Thus dies our Republic while the Tea Klan hollers about whether or not we should all have to pay for fire departments even if our own house is not actively on fire. I mean, that sort of socialistic fire extinguishing arrangement inevitably helps a lot of immigrants who burn their houses down all the time to cover up the rampant decapitations going on in there in accordance with sharia law. Am I right?