10/30/10

GOP's Gearing Up for Assault on EPA

GOP Gearing up for Assault on EPA

With Republicans poised to take control of the House, and perhaps even the Senate, environmentalists are preparing for an all-out assault on the Obama administration’s environmental policies. Senior Republicans are ready to “declare war on the regulatory state,” according to Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Since Obama took office in 2008, the administration and its emboldened EPA have stepped up regulatory pressure on carbon fuel emissions, oil and gas drilling, vehicle and utility emissions. With control of one or both houses of Congress, the GOP would enjoy the power to launch investigations—as the Democrats did after 2006—that can have the effect of paralyzing the work of a government agency saddled with legal pressures. In anticipation of a GOP onslaught, the administration is considering bringing more attorneys into the Office of Legal Counsel to defend its activities and its record.



The Stink of Right-wing Moral Failure Is About to Overcome America

The Stink of Right Wing Moral Failure Is About to Overcome America

Who is the Republican Far Right and what do they want? To understand our Republican future — check out our recent Republican past. These are the “patriots” who gave us:

  • Two non-stop wars that needlessly killed over 5,000 Americans
  • Replaced our military with a mercenary killers-for-hire dirty world of “contractors” that now outnumber our men and women in every American military operation
  • Destroyed our economy by deregulating business and the banks
  • Launched an anti-gay “gays-choose-to-be-gay” mythology on America leading to the further oppression of gay men and women
  • Put secretive Far Right religious operatives including the “C-Street” (“Family”) in positions of influence through members of congress who are in their pockets
  • Aided and abetted the death to gays legislation in Uganda
  • Tried to launch a race and religion war in America by stirring up hate against the Muslim minority
  • Have tried to turn non-Latino Americans into a Latino-fearing xenophobic anti-immigrant mob
  • Created the climate wherein abortion providers were first labeled “baby killers” then murdered
  • Lied about the President, saying he isn’t American, is a Muslim, is the Antichrist
  • Unleashed a plague of guns on America feeding one murder spree after another
  • Struck down over a century of legal rulings limiting the buying and selling of elections by corporations, giving us a “new” and “improved” system of unlimited secret contributions to eviscerate even the pretense of actual democracy and finally hand America over to the super wealthy — maybe forever
  • Run candidates for Congress who are calling for the violent overthrow of the American Government should they fail at the ballot box
  • Supported anti-science, anti-education biblical mythology
  • Backed candidates who want to force rape victims to carry their pregnancies to term
  • Fought people fighting global warming and plunged us into an irrevocable date with global death while reaping short term profits for the coal and oil industry
  • Turned America into a permanent war machine and made a buck off the volunteers (like my Marine son) who serve
  • Put the American future in hock to Far Right Zionists forever by backing the settlers in the State of Isreal and by trying to undermine peace iniatives
  • Put America in hock to Far Right Evangelicals who are rooting for the “return of Christ” and the Apocalypse…

And should the Republicans take Congress you haven’t seen anything yet.




Many great reasons to ROCK the vote!!!!

10/28/10

(via chris@ southernstudies.org)
DATELINE: THE SOUTH - News and trends

A POPE OF CLIMATE DENIAL: Art Pope, North Carolina's leading conservative benefactor, has worked closely with the Koch oil barons and spent millions of his own discount retail fortune to sow doubt about the scientific consensus on global warming. Now he's hoping to reap the political benefits. (10/26/2010)

STILL WAITING FOR JUSTICE, BLACK FARMERS RALLY IN NORTH CAROLINA: African-American farmers gathered in the historic New Deal resettlement community of Tillery, N.C. over the weekend to draw attention to the continuing decline of black land ownership -- and to call on the Senate to pay for a long-awaited race discrimination agreement. (10/25/2010)

VOICES: WILL THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT TURN ON CORPORATE AMERICA? The Left often assumes the Tea Party movement is little more than a front for corporate interests, but has David Koch's money created a monster he and his henchmen can't control? (10/28/2010)

N.C. DEMOCRATS LAUNCH BOYCOTT OF BUSINESSES OWNED BY CONSERVATIVE FINANCIER ART POPE: The party is protesting Variety Wholesalers' pouring of hundreds of thousands of dollars into right-wing political organizations running misleading election ads. (10/28/2010)

NC GOP CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN ACCUSED OF POLL INTIMIDATION, ILLEGAL ROBOCALLS: Poll workers aggressively approaching voters inside early voting sites. Automated phone calls from disconnected numbers. Is this any way to run a campaign? (10/27/2010)

EUROPEAN POLLUTERS FINANCING SENATE GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS AND CLIMATE BILL BLOCKERS: A new report finds that U.S. Senate candidates who've helped block action or cast doubt on global warming are getting financial support from European firms with a stake in blocking greenhouse gas regulation. (10/25/2010)

NO DISCIPLINE FOR NEW ORLEANS COP DESPITE COMPLAINTS: Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann has been the target of more than 50 complaints ranging from accusations of brutality, to rape, to improper searches -- yet he was never flagged for entrance into the city's monitoring program for possible problem officers. (10/25/2010)

SPECIAL REPORT - Art Pope bankrolls dubious 'voter fraud' crusade

By Chris Kromm

June 5, 2007. It was poised to be a big day in North Carolina political history: State senators were about to vote on H 91, a historic election reform bill bill that would allow voters to register and vote at the same time at hundreds of early voting sites across the state.

But minutes before the vote, a cryptic email popped into the inboxes of a few state senators from Les Merritt, the state's Republican state auditor. Citing unspecified "sensitive information" about potential "voter irregularities," Merritt made the almost unheard of demand that the N.C. senate call off the vote until he could present his office's findings.

The state lawmakers complied, but not without misgivings. As state senators Dan Clodfelter and Tony Rand wrote back [pdf] to Merritt:
We are sure you appreciate how unusual it is for us to receive a specific request that we not take action on a pending bill, which has already passed the House and has received favorable committee action in the Senate, and we therefore trust that you have substantial, credible, and specific evidence to back up the general inferences in your letter.
But days later, when Merritt was asked to reveal his findings at a June 17 senate committee meeting, he decided he didn't have such evidence after all. As the Charlotte Observer reported:
State Auditor Les Merritt backed away Tuesday from the early findings of a review of North Carolina's voter rolls, telling lawmakers his office might find no irregularities at all.
"We'll eventually get to a correct, final report," Merritt said, "and that final report, it could very well say there isn't anything here, that everything's fine, we're doing a super job.
The Observer called Merritt's abrupt reversal "puzzling." Sam Watts of the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research said "that's as odd as a tutu on a hog." And in the 2008 elections, Merritt's challenger Beth Wood successfully used the controversial incident as proof that Merritt had politicized the auditor's office, en route to sweeping Merritt out of office after one term.

But Merritt's retirement from public life was short-lived. Also in 2008, Art Pope, North Carolina's ubiquitous benefactor of conservative causes, swiftly tapped Merritt to head a new non-profit -- launched with a $100,000 grant from Art Pope's family foundation -- called the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service (website is down, here's a cached version).

Among the Foundation's top issues? Supposed "voter fraud," a favorite cause of the political right that -- despite little evidence of its actual existence -- has also been a leading crusade of Art Pope's network of conservative groups in North Carolina and nationally. ...

(To continue reading and to comment, click here.)

ELECTION WATCH 2010 - Help Facing South watchdog the elections!

The right to vote. Free and fair elections. Every person having a say.

Growing up, this is probably what you learned democracy is all about. And millions of people -- like the civil rights veterans who founded the Institute for Southern Studies 40 years ago -- fought to make it a reality.

But with the 2010 elections just a week away, we see dangerous signs everywhere that our democracy and voting rights are under attack:

* Shadowy groups like Americans for Prosperity are flooding our elections with corporate money. In 2010, this secretive spending has ballooned to over a quarter billion dollars.

* In Houston and other cities, Tea Party groups are threatening to send "millions" of activists into African-American and Latino precincts to look for "suspicious" voters.

* Secretive front groups for big energy companies are running attack ads against elected officials who want to combat global warming -- and helping candidates who ignore science and think climate change is a "hoax."

Is this what democracy is supposed to look like?

If you don't think so, then join us in launching Election Watch 2010 -- the Institute investigative team's new project to expose Big Money and threats to voting rights across the South.

Our aims: Shine light on the secretive special interests, arm voters like you with the facts, and give democracy a fighting chance.

Now -- with the elections just days away -- we need your help to make Election Watch 2010 a success.

Can you help us raise $5,000 for Election Watch with a contribution of $35, $50 or more today?

http://bit.ly/isselectionwatch

I hope you can help. Time is short, and every dollar of your tax-deductible contribution will go towards our award-winning investigative team.

Help defend democracy -- make a donation to the Institute and Election Watch today!

INSTITUTE INDEX - Block the vote?
Rank of voter registration problems among the top threats to the franchise this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice: 1

Number of U.S. residents who tried to vote in 2008 but could not due to voter registration problems: around 3 million

Percent decrease in new voter registrations in North Carolina this year over 2006: 28

Percent decrease in Florida: 26.7

Percent decrease in Tennessee: 16.9

Number of voter-registration applications the grassroots community organization ACORN collected nationally in 2006: about 550,000

In 2008: 1.3 million

Month that ACORN disbanded after accusations of criminal conduct from conservative activists that turned out to be untrue: 3/2010

Month that a mysterious and still-unsolved fire consumed a warehouse storing most of the voting machines and other elections equipment in Harris County, Texas: 8/2010

Month that King Street Patriots, a Tea Party group in Harris County, accused a voter registration group called Houston Votes of engaging in widespread voter fraud by pointing to problem registrations filed before Houston Votes was even founded: 8/2010

After the allegations were made, number by which voter registrations collected daily by Houston Votes declined: 800

Estimated number of Harris County residents, most of them people of color, who are eligible to vote but not registered: 600,000

Year in which Texas could go Democratic if all the people eligible to vote in this congressional election and the next cast ballots: 2012
Number of volunteers that True the Vote, a group affiliated with King Street Patriots, called to descend on Harris County to serve as poll observers: millions

Date on which the Texas Democratic Party expanded an ongoing lawsuit to charge the King Street Patriots with Republican collusion: 10/18/2010

Number of complaints received so far in Harris County about intimidating behavior by poll observers affiliated with the King Street Patriots in predominantly minority precincts: about 14

Date on which fliers spreading misleading information about voting were distributed in primarily black neighborhoods in Houston: 10/26/2010

Number of complaints received in Wake County, N.C. about intimidating behavior by poll observers working on behalf of GOP congressional candidate and Tea Party favorite Bill Randall: at least two dozen

Date that voting officials in Buncombe County, N.C. heard complaints about voter intimidation: 10/26/2010

Number of people convicted of election fraud charges between October 2002 and September 2005 when the Bush administration was focusing on such crimes: 55

Of those, number convicted of casting fraudulent ballots: fewer than 20

Number convicted of voter registration fraud: 5

Date on which the U.S. Justice Department vowed to prevent any effort to intimidate voters: 10/27/2010
Important update: Late Monday night, we got a call informing us that Lauren Valle, a MoveOn supporter, was attacked by campaign volunteers for Rand Paul, the Republican Senate candidate in Kentucky. The video is pretty awful: Three men threw Lauren to the ground, held her down, and stomped on her head and neck. She ended up in the hospital with a concussion. She's still recovering, but she's already speaking out about what happened—and pressing charges against her attackers, at least one of whom is so unrepentant he just demanded an apology from Lauren.
This is upsetting and outrageous and fundamentally anti-democratic. What's worse, it's part of a growing pattern of right-wing violence and intimidation, fueled by violent rhetoric from Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, and others.
Here's the thing, folks: we can't let this intimidate us or derail us (which is the intent, after all). Instead, let's work even harder over the next week to defeat the candidates that are stirring up hate. Lauren's not stopping, and we won't either.
If you want to make a contribution in Lauren's name to support Jack Conway (the MoveOn-endorsed Democrat she was trying to help when she was attacked), click here:
(via Naked Capitalism)

Wells Fargo Finds Foreclosure “Lapses” in 55,000 Current Cases

We criticized Wells for falsely claiming in briefings in Washington DC that it did not have robo signers when there were already depositions in the public domain to the contrary. In these same presentations, Wells claimed to be a good operator, free of the sort of lapses at other servicers that were generating bad press.
Wells was shown to be a liar on the first count, and amusingly in a prominent venue. In a weird bit of cosmic justice, the very next day, the Financial Times ran a first page story on the Wells use of robo signers.
The second shoe dropping, the general lapses in Wells’ foreclosures, has taken more time to come to light, and this time, they are by the bank’s own admission. However, as has proven to be the pattern with all the major parties in the foreclosure process, Wells is claiming that needing to file additional documentation in 55,000 cases is no big deal and of course that nothing really is amiss.
It will be interesting to see what local courts make of this. If any of these new filings contradict previously provided evidence (and by definition, a replacement of a robo signed affidavit is an admission the earlier submission was improper, hence a fraud on the court; the new affidavits may also change substantive information), they may encounter resistance from judges. My guess is that while few judges would dismiss cases with prejudice (meaning the parties to the case could not try to foreclose again), Wells could in some situations be required to file a new foreclosure action from scratch.
From Bloomberg:
Wells Fargo & Co., conceding that some foreclosure affidavits “did not strictly adhere to the required procedures,” said it will file supplemental statements to courts in about 55,000 proceedings….. The bank will begin filings in 23 states immediately and aims to complete them by mid-November, subject to local laws, according to the statement.
“The issues the company has identified do not relate in any way to the quality of the customer and loan data,” the San Francisco-based lender said in the statement. “Nor does the company believe that any of these instances led to foreclosures which should not have otherwise occurred.”….
“The company has identified instances where a final step in its processes relating to the execution of the foreclosure affidavits (including a final review of the affidavit, as well as some aspects of the notarization process) did not strictly adhere to the required procedures,” it said in the statement.
Wells Fargo has assigned 160 employees in four offices to be part of the review, said Teri Schrettenbrunner, a spokeswoman for the company, in a phone intervie
A referendum on those purchasing our elections
The Supreme Court has opened up the floodgates for special interest dollars to pour into our elections, allowing the world’s wealthiest corporations an undemocratic advantage in seating politicians who will do their bidding. Make sure to vote on or before November 2nd for candidates committed to putting the public interest first (find your polling station here). And while you’re at it, encourage your friends and family to vote for the corporation doing the most to undermine our democracy in our Corporate Hall of Shame. (Didn’t vote yet? Vote today!)

Hail to the Chief
President Barack Obama made history last night, becoming the first sitting president to appear on The Daily Show. Watch him discuss all aspects of his first two years in office -- from health care to the economy to the audacity of hope -- with Jon in the latest installment of Indecision 2010: Midterm Teapartyganza.
Obama ShowCan't make it to D.C. this weekend? Watch the Rally live on Comedy Central -- or totally uncensored online -- beginning at 12pm/11c this Saturday.
     

10/27/10

Ohio Sup Ct: How An All-GOP Court & Sky Bank KO'd Your Grandma



Ohio's seven-member Supreme Court had been an exclusively Republican club until Gov. Ted Strickland appointed Chief Justice Eric Brown last April. Now the Chief Justice is joined by Appellate Judge Mary Jane Trapp as excellent Democratic candidates running this year, opposed by two GOP Justices with expiring terms, Maureen O'Connor and Judith Lanzinger.
What difference has a GOP-dominated court made for Ohioans? In short, it has been a long string of favorable decisions for the corporations and business organizations who have poured cash into the campaigns of GOP candidates, and a trail of tears for Ohio working people and consumers. With no balance on the high court, nobody is looking out for the little guy.
One striking example is highlighted in this TV ad that informs Ohioans of the little known story of an elderly Ohio woman named Maxine Spiller and Sky Bank. In the 6-1 decision Spiller v. Sky Bank, 122 Ohio St.3d 279, 2009-Ohio-268 (2009), available as a .pdf file here, GOP Justices O'Connor and Lanzinger joined the majority in reversing the Court of Appeals and essentially taking away Ms. Spiller's money and giving it to the bank.
While moving a dresser that had belonged to her life-long and recently deceased friend Roberta Staybrook, Ms. Spiller discovered four certificates of deposit and $2,500 in cash taped under one of the drawers. The bank could produce no record of the certificates, which were by their own terms automatically renewing year after year. Three of the four certificates in the envelope were issued to Stayrook individually or to Stayrook "or" Spiller, and these were not at issue in the Ohio Supreme Court because Ms. Spiller could not establish that her deceased friend had not previously cashed them. However, the fourth certificate was issued to Spiller alone, and Ms. Spiller testified that she had never cashed it. The Court of Appeals ruled that Ms. Spiller had met her burden of proof and was entitled to her money, which with interest amounted to nearly $30,000.
Ignoring Ms. Spiller's testimony, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the bank's failure to retain records of the certificate of deposit was excused, and the bank was in fact immune from suit, based on a statute (Ohio Revised Code §1109.60) which provides that banks are not required to maintain account records beyond six years after the accounts are closed. The high court discarded the holding of the Court of Appeals, supported by prior precedent, that the statute does not authorize a bank to destroy the records of an active automatically renewable certificate of deposit.
After a lively and informative debate I'm asking myself ... " Yalamanchili the face of the new Washington..?"  I sure hope . Finding any video of debates is more and more difficult but if I can say this this one is worth the watch .
  figgdimension

Falling Into the Chasm

This is what happens when you need to leap over an economic chasm — but either can’t or won’t jump far enough, so that you only get part of the way across.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Paul Krugman
If Democrats do as badly as expected in next week’s elections, pundits will rush to interpret the results as a referendum on ideology. President Obama moved too far to the left, most will say, even though his actual program — a health care plan very similar to past Republican proposals, a fiscal stimulus that consisted mainly of tax cuts, help for the unemployed and aid to hard-pressed states — was more conservative than his election platform.
A few commentators will point out, with much more justice, that Mr. Obama never made a full-throated case for progressive policies, that he consistently stepped on his own message, that he was so worried about making bankers nervous that he ended up ceding populist anger to the right.
But the truth is that if the economic situation were better — if unemployment had fallen substantially over the past year — we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would, instead, be talking about modest Democratic losses, no more than is usual in midterm elections.
The real story of this election, then, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task.
When Mr. Obama took office, he inherited an economy in dire straits — more dire, it seems, than he or his top economic advisers realized. They knew that America was in the midst of a severe financial crisis. But they don’t seem to have taken on board the lesson of history, which is that major financial crises are normally followed by a protracted period of very high unemployment.
If you look back now at the economic forecast originally used to justify the Obama economic plan, what’s striking is that forecast’s optimism about the economy’s ability to heal itself. Even without their plan, Obama economists predicted, the unemployment rate would peak at 9 percent, then fall rapidly. Fiscal stimulus was needed only to mitigate the worst — as an “insurance package against catastrophic failure,” as Lawrence Summers, later the administration’s top economist, reportedly said in a memo to the president-elect.
But economies that have experienced a severe financial crisis generally don’t heal quickly. From the Panic of 1893, to the Swedish crisis of 1992, to Japan’s lost decade, financial crises have consistently been followed by long periods of economic distress. And that has been true even when, as in the case of Sweden, the government moved quickly and decisively to fix the banking system.
To avoid this fate, America needed a much stronger program than what it actually got — a modest rise in federal spending that was barely enough to offset cutbacks at the state and local level. This isn’t 20-20 hindsight: the inadequacy of the stimulus was obvious from the beginning.
Could the administration have gotten a bigger stimulus through Congress? Even if it couldn’t, would it have been better off making the case for a bigger plan, rather than pretending that what it got was just right? We’ll never know.
What we do know is that the inadequacy of the stimulus has been a political catastrophe. Yes, things are better than they would have been without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: the unemployment rate would probably be close to 12 percent right now if the administration hadn’t passed its plan. But voters respond to facts, not counterfactuals, and the perception is that the administration’s policies have failed.
The tragedy here is that if voters do turn on Democrats, they will in effect be voting to make things even worse.
The resurgent Republicans have learned nothing from the economic crisis, except that doing everything they can to undermine Mr. Obama is a winning political strategy. Tax cuts and deregulation are still the alpha and omega of their economic vision.
And if they take one or both houses of Congress, complete policy paralysis — which will mean, among other things, a cutoff of desperately needed aid to the unemployed and a freeze on further help for state and local governments — is a given. The only question is whether we’ll have political chaos as well, with Republicans’ shutting down the government at some point over the next two years. And the odds are that we will.
Is there any hope for a better outcome? Maybe, just maybe, voters will have second thoughts about handing power back to the people who got us into this mess, and a weaker-than-expected Republican showing at the polls will give Mr. Obama a second chance to turn the economy around.
But right now it looks as if the too-cautious attempt to jump across that economic chasm has fallen short — and we’re about to hit rock bottom.

10/20/10

There are just 13 days left until the election, and with many Democrats trailing in races across the country, Republicans are now within reach of taking over the Senate.
That means Democratic control of the Senate is likely to come down to just a handful of races, including these three which are basically tied but still very winnable:
  • Illinois—Alexi Giannoulias: Every poll in this race for two months has been tied. It's the closest Senate race in the country and Alexi is a real progressive fighter.
  • Washington—Patty Murray: Murray is the highest-ranking Democratic woman in the Senate. She's been narrowly ahead, but with lots of secret outside money attacking her, her seat is still at serious risk.
  • Colorado—Michael Bennet: Outside interests are spending $750,000 each day in the race, but Bennet has been gaining on his extreme right-wing opponent, and the polls are now showing a statistical dead heat.
If Republicans win these seats, they'll likely gain control of the Senate. And big corporations are flooding Illinois, Washington state, and Colorado with campaign cash—Karl Rove's organization alone has spent more than $5 million on these races in the last two weeks.1
These campaigns are about to make their final spending decisions, so this is the last chance to give. Can you chip in to these three key candidates?
Here's more about these three candidates in tight races who need our help right now:
We've added Alexi Giannoulias to our Progressive Heroes list because this race is so important, and because he's running a populist campaign focused on taking on the corporate special interests and cleaning up Washington, D.C.
Sen. Patty Murray supported the public option, fought for clean energy jobs, and has worked with other pro-choice Democratic women senators to eliminate egregious gender disparities in insurance coverage. Her Republican challenger significantly out-raised her in the last three months, and Murray needs our help to win.
Sen. Michael Bennet has been steadily closing in on his Republican opponent, Ken Buck, so the race is now a statistical dead heat. Bennet wants to create clean energy jobs for Colorado and improve access to health care.
Can you chip in to these candidates' campaigns and help stop the takeover?

10/19/10

KASICH & MURDOCH BUY OHIO CHEAP! // Current

KASICH & MURDOCH BUY OHIO CHEAP! // Current

Saving the Country Murdoch-style

Media Matters: Saving the country, Murdoch-style





At the annual News Corp. shareholders meeting in
New York this
morning, CEO Rupert Murdoch was forced to answer a battery of questions from frustrated shareholders regarding the
company's controversial contributions of $1 million to both the Republican Governors Association and
the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce.



Asked to explain the reasoning
behind the contributions, Murdoch said they were made "in the interest of the country
and of all the shareholders ... that there be a fair amount of change in
Washington."



According to Murdoch, the donations,
while "unusual," had "nothing to do with the editorial policies" of News Corp.'s
media properties. He also brushed off his widely reported comment that News
Corp.'s donation to the RGA was a result of his friendship with former Fox News
employee and current GOP gubernatorial candidate John Kasich, calling it a
"throwaway line."



However, Sir Rod Eddington, chairman
of the audit committee, did tell a representative from the Nathan Cummings
Foundation -- which sent a letter to the board of directors earlier this week
calling for full disclosure of News Corp.'s political contributions -- that
the foundation's
proposal would be reviewed and that News Corp. would "act
expeditiously."



Whether or not a disclosure policy
is actually implemented, Murdoch made one thing clear: Shareholders will not select recipients of donations. If
shareholders disagreed with directors' decisions, Murdoch said, "you have the
right to vote us off the board."


Fox News: "simply unstoppable"



Murdoch may not agree with everything
that's said on Fox
News
or know who exactly is advertising on
Beck these days
, but there is one thing he does know: Fox News is "simply
unstoppable."



In his letter to shareholders this
year, Murdoch wrote: "The
Cable Network Programming segment was again our biggest growth driver. In 2010,
operating income increased 37% over the prior year to a record $2.3 billion. All
major networks showed impressive growth and, in the U.S.,
the FOX News Channel is simply unstoppable. FNC led the increase in affiliate
revenue growth and outperformed CNN, MSNBC and CNBC combined in total viewers,
for both prime time and total day categories."



In 2010, Fox News' revenues increased 23
percent
from 2009.



Now, admittedly, 2009 was a rough
year for News Corp. Overall, the company's revenues decreased 8
percent
, and according to
Murdoch
, it was "among the most challenging in our Company's 56-year
history."



Yet there was a bright spot. In
2009, Fox News' revenues increased 26
percent
from 2008.



In 2008, Fox News' revenues increased 21
percent
from 2007.



In 2007, Fox News' revenues increased 19
percent
from 2006.



In 2006, Fox News' revenues increased 13
percent
from 2005.



In 2005, Fox News' revenues increased
20
percent
from 2004.



You get the picture. Rupert Murdoch is cashing in big on hate and
lies
.


Beck's big
Chamber bailout



This week, Fox News host Glenn Beck joined News Corp.
as a major backer of the Chamber of Commerce: Beck's call for donations to the Chamber on
the October 14 edition of his radio show earned him on-air praise from the
group's top brass and drove so much traffic to the Chamber's contribution
website that it crashed.



Apparently an adherent of the view
that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," so-called populist warrior
Beck implored his audience to fork over their hard-earned cash to corporate
darling Chamber of Commerce, "just because
the Obama administration hates them."



(The White House's request that the
Chamber disclose its anonymous campaign donors evidently qualifies as "hating"
them.)



"I don't agree with everything the
Chamber does," Beck said, citing the Chamber's pro-immigration reform position,
but that hardly hampered his newfound solidarity.



Any reservations anti-TARP,
anti-stimulus Beck may have had about the pro-TARP,
pro-stimulus Chamber
were tossed aside. Declaring the Chamber "our
parents, our grandparents -- they are us," Beck ponied up $10,000 and told his listeners, "I
would like to make this the biggest fundraising day in the Chamber's
history."



Bruce Josten, the Chamber's
executive vice president for government affairs, even went on Beck's
show that day to thank Beck personally for his
efforts
. "Glenn, just
so you know, as a result of you," Josten said, "[our website
has had] the single
highest contribution we've ever received for an entire day, and that's just for
the first hour."



Indeed, a Chamber official later
told Politico:
"I don't have exact numbers, because money is continuing to pour in. It even
crashed our servers. The phones blew up today -- people were calling all day long. Bottom
line: Today was the single largest day of online fundraising that we have ever
had in the history of the Chamber."


Rupert Murdoch's
other speech



Murdoch gave another speech in
New York this
week. Two days before he spoke to News Corp. shareholders, he stood before the
Anti-Defamation League and
said
: "Today it seems that the most virulent strains" of anti-Semitism "come
from the left."



There was no acknowledgment that his
own Fox News personalities have a history of
promoting anti-Semitic sources and mainstreaming people who have associations
with anti-Semitic groups.



Last week, we pointed out that "[o]ver the past few months,
several anti-Semitic authors and theories have popped up in Glenn Beck's TV and
radio monologues, and Beck's audience of millions is, unwittingly or not, being
exposed to some of the most hateful rhetoric of the last
century."



And according to the Anti-Defamation
League, Beck historian and frequent Glenn
Beck
guest
David Barton has spoken at events hosted
by the Christian
Identity movement
, which "asserts that Jews are 'the synagogue of Satan';
that Blacks and other people of color are subhuman; and that northern European
whites and their American descendants are the 'chosen people' of scriptural
prophesy."



That's Murdoch's Fox News: simply unstoppable.



10/18/10

Joe Miller's Thugs Handcuff Alaska Dispatch Editor For Asking Questions

The tea party's dirty underbelly is showing, and it isn't pretty. If a picture paints a thousand words, this one of the editor of Alaska Dispatch with handcuffs on is about as ugly as it gets, especially when the reason for those handcuffs is fully explained.

Just for perspective, here's how it ended. The Anchorage Police made Miller's thugs take the handcuffs off editor Tony Hopfinger, took statements and left. ADN's report:

Anchorage Police freed Alaska Dispatcher editor Tony Hopfinger from Senate candidate Joe Mlller's body guards at Central Middle School early Sunday evening. Sergeant Mark Rein of the Anchorage Police Department said Hopfinger is not in custody or under arrest.

Hopfinger had been trying to ask Miller questions when two or three guards told him to leave or risk being charged with trespassing.

When Hopfinger continued to try to ask questions, one of the guards put the reporter in an arm-bar and then handcuffed him.

Hopfinger was released after police arrived.

The reporter was on public property where a public event was being held at the time of the incident.

Miller has been adamant about his desire to avoid talking to the Alaska media, but no one in the working press in Alaska has ever before seen a candidate go to this length to avoid questions.

But wait! There's more. Here's a look at the handcuffing thugs' office windows. Nice guys, eh? Infowars.com is Alex Jones' site where he pimps truther theories and Glenn Beck wingnut ideas about George Soros and every other wild conspiracy out there. It's no surprise to see his URL on those photos.

But wait! There's still more. Here is the official Joe Miller campaign response to this incident -- one where the police had to actually rescue the dude in handcuffs from his captors. Here it is, and I kid you not:

The Miller campaign was required by the facility to provide security at the event. Even though Joe had spent nearly an hour freely answering questions from those in attendance, the blogger chased Miller to the exit after the event concluded in an attempt to create and then record a 'confrontation' with the candidate. While Miller attempted to calmly exit the facility, the blogger physically assaulted another individual and made threatening gestures and movements towards the candidate. At that point the security personnel had to take action and intervened and detained the irrational blogger, whose anger overcame him. It is also important to note that the security personnel did not know that the individual they detained was a blogger who reporting on the campaign. To them, the blogger appeared irrational, angry and potentially violent.

I cannot possibly add anything to the audacity of their claims. Even if Hopfinger was shouting out his questions, that doesn't make him a threat. But this is what they do. They instigate, then claim they were threatened. They do it all the time -- it's a standard tactic intended to give them an opening to play the victim.

Even for a wonk like me, I'm amazed at the people the Republican Tea Party considers legit. Here's Miller, who didn't seem to have any problem using computers at a public agency where he was employed to try and oust the local Republican party chairman. When confronted, his answer was to say there would be no answers. No denials. No explanations. Just one response: "I won't answer you."

It's not just Joe Miller. Allen West seems to be running with biker gangs. Most of the so-called Young Guns are thugs who don't seem to have a problem victimizing women in one way or another. And Joe Miller hires "personal security guards" who just happen to be fans of Alex Jones and have a thing for putting people asking questions in handcuffs?

I guess Joe Miller respects the Constitution as long as he ignores the 1st, 4th, 10th and 14th amendments. What does that leave? Oh yeah...the second amendment. That one, he loves.

Welcome to the teabagging mafia. Or, as reporter Shannyn Moore reports, Joe Miller's militia.

About karoli
karoli's picture
Mom of an adult drummer, teenage dancer and another adult entrepreneur-type. Pug-owned, heart to hand. Passionate about getting to the truth of things rather than letting lies stand unchallenged.


Banks Shared Client's Profits, But Not Losses...

Via New York Times
 article by Louise Story
JPMorgan Chase & Company has a proposition for the mutual funds and pension funds that oversee many Americans’ savings: Heads, we win together. Tails, you lose — alone.

House Advantage

This series examines the ways that Wall Street banks can, and often do, gain advantages over their customers.

Previous Articles in the Series »

Lee Celano for The New York Times

“If I were a shareholder, I would say, ‘I love Jamie Dimon to death.’ ” — Jerry D. Davis, Chairman of the municipal employee pension fund in New Orleans

Here is the deal: Funds lend some of their stocks and bonds to Wall Street, in return for cash that banks like JPMorgan then invest. If the trades do well, the bank takes a cut of the profits. If the trades do poorly, the funds absorb all of the losses.

The strategy is called securities lending, a practice that is thriving even though some investments linked to it were virtually wiped out during the financial panic of 2008. These trades were supposed to be safe enough to make a little extra money at little risk.

JPMorgan customers, including public or corporate pension funds of I.B.M., New York State and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, ended up owing JPMorgan more than $500 million to cover the losses. But JPMorgan protected itself on some of these investments and kept millions of dollars in profit, before the trades went awry.

How JPMorgan won while its customers lost provides a glimpse into the ways Wall Street banks can, and often do, gain advantages over their customers. Today’s giant banks not only create and sell investment products, but also bet on those products, and sometimes against them, putting the banks’ interests at odds with those of their customers. The banks and their lobbyists also help fashion financial rules and regulations. And banks’ traders know what their customers are buying and selling, giving them a valuable edge.

Some of JPMorgan’s customers say they are disappointed with the bank. “They took 40 percent of our profits, and even that was O.K.,” said Jerry D. Davis, the chairman of the municipal employee pension fund in New Orleans, which lost about $340,000, enough to wipe out years of profits that it had earned through securities lending. “But then we started losing money, and they didn’t lose along with us.”

Through a spokesman, JPMorgan’s chairman and chief executive, Jamie Dimon, declined a request for an interview. The spokesman, Joseph Evangelisti, said that JPMorgan had a long record of success in securities lending, and that the losses represented only a small fraction of the funds in the program.

Moreover, Mr. Evangelisti said, all of the investments had been permitted under guidelines negotiated with the bank’s clients. JPMorgan, he said, did not take undue risks.

“We have powerful incentives to take only prudent investment risks,” Mr. Evangelisti said. If customers lose money that they have entrusted with the bank, he said, that “can lead to a loss of clients and can affect the reputation of the business.”

The financial regulation bill that Congress just passed, after fierce lobbying by banks, is aimed at curtailing some of the practices that caused the financial crisis. But much of Wall Street has mostly gone back to business as usual. Nowhere are the potential conflicts more apparent than on the trading floors, where executives must balance their pursuit of profits and their duty to customers.

In addition to losing money for New Orleans workers and others, securities lending also played a central role in the near-collapse of the American International Group. Through securities lending, pensions and mutual funds borrow money to make trades, adding to the risks within the financial system.

Lawsuits are flying against JPMorgan and others, including Northern Trust. Clients say that they were not warned of the risks associated with this practice and that the banks breached their fiduciary duty. Wells Fargo lost such a suit over the summer and was ordered to pay four institutions a combined $30 million. The State Street Corporation, which took a $414 million charge in July to cover some of its customers’ losses, faces suits from other clients.

Representatives for these banks said the companies had acted appropriately and that they intended to fight the suits.

Despite such troubles, the securities lending business has rebounded after plummeting during the crisis. Today shares with a combined value of $2.3 trillion are out on loan, according to SunGard, which provides technology services to financial companies. In 2007, before the bubble burst, the total on loan was worth $2.5 trillion.

The quick revival of securities lending raises concerns about whether banks and their pension customers have learned any lessons.

“What happened was the banks got greedy and they looked at the return they were getting on the collateral and said, ‘Why don’t we go further with this?’ ” said Steve Niss, the managing partner at the NFS Consulting Group, an executive search firm specializing in investment management. “But the clients got greedy right along with the banks.”



Homeowners Limbo !?

Via: The Wall Street Journal/Digital Network

David Stiles was minutes away Tuesday from seeing his house sold in a foreclosure auction when he got a surprise phone call from his lawyer.

"I've got good news," said his lawyer, Pamela Simmons. GMAC Mortgage, which loaned him $333,700, had called off the sale. The reason: The lender decided to review its foreclosure cases because of mounting industrywide concerns about shoddy procedures used in document preparation.

Across the U.S., the mortgage mess is deepening the anxiety and uncertainty swirling around homeowners who are facing foreclosure. Foreclosure is already a slow process, but the decision by lenders such as Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to halt most or all foreclosure sales and internal scrutiny by other financial institutions likely will keep many troubled borrowers in their homes for weeks or even months longer.

The decision by GMAC, a unit of Ally Financial Inc., means that Mr. Stiles and his two teenage sons can stay in their three-bedroom home, surrounded by redwood trees in California's Santa Cruz Mountains. Still, the foreclosure sale is set to proceed Nov. 18.

Editors' Deep Dive: Mortgage Industry Faces Fallout

Access thousands of business sources not available on the free web. Learn More

"I'm grateful that I have some extra time so I can make a decision of what to do," says Mr. Stiles, 50 years old, who hasn't paid his $2,700-a-month mortgage since February. He left his job as a project manager for a construction company because he has Parkinson's disease.

A GMAC spokeswoman wouldn't comment on Mr. Stiles's case. She says the lender is conducting additional reviews before proceeding with any foreclosure sales.

So far, there are few signs lenders and servicers will undo substantial numbers of the foreclosure proceedings being reviewed across the U.S. No one has been "evicted out of a home who shouldn't have been," James Dimon, J.P. Morgan Chase's chairman and chief executive, said in a conference call last week.

Wall Street analysts generally are taking a similar view, saying the halts in foreclosure sales are likely to cause little financial impact on banks in the long run. "Sorry, no free houses," wrote Glenn Schorr, an analyst with Nomura Securities International, in a research report to clients Friday.

Americans for Financial Reform, a group of consumer, investor and small-business organizations, on Friday called for a temporary moratorium on foreclosures, saying there should be a new process ensuring lenders are following the rules.

"It is the lenders' and servicers' own actions that have now created overwhelming uncertainty in the system," said a statement from the Washington-based group.

Mark Stopa, a Florida lawyer who represents homeowners in bankruptcy proceedings, says he has received many inquiries from clients about the sputtering foreclosure machine. "I am telling them that there is some uncertainty about the impact," he says.

Rebecca Townsend, Credit: Peter Newcomb for The Wall Street Journal Rebecca Townsend

Rebecca Townsend: 'I want to see if there's any hope for me.'

In Wood River, Ill., Rebecca Townsend is scheduled to be back in court on Thursday for the foreclosure case on her house, just down the street from where she grew up. She hasn't made the $800-a-month mortgage since 2008 because she can't afford it.

HSBC Bank USA filed a foreclosure lawsuit against Ms. Townsend in 2008. The unit of HSBC Holdings PLC dropped the case and then refiled it last year.

A spokesman for HSBC declined to comment on Ms. Townsend's case but said that "whenever such concerns are brought to our attention, we will always take another look to ensure correct procedure has been followed."

Ms. Townsend hopes Thursday's hearing will be canceled but isn't sure that postponing it would have any effect on the ultimate fate of her house.

"I don't understand 95% of this stuff, but I want to see if there's any hope for me," says Ms. Townsend, 47, who lives with her two children and 86-year-old mother.

Susan Reboyras, co-owner of an attic-restoration company in St. Petersburg, Fla., hopes the holding pattern on foreclosures will help clear up some of the confusion about who holds the mortgage on her house, which has bounced among several servicers.

"The house isn't worth the money they want, but it's my house and I want to keep it," says Ms. Reboyras, who fell behind last year on her $1,800-a-month mortgage payments. "I think we should be able to come to some sort of resolution because I want to pay the proper parties."

Citigroup Inc.'s mortgage division began foreclosure proceedings against her last year, although there are now indications the mortgage has been sold to another company.

The New York bank hasn't imposed a foreclosure moratorium. In a statement, Citigroup says it "continuously reviews document handling in our foreclosure operations, and we believe the integrity of our process is sound."

Write to Robin Sidel at robin.sidel@wsj.com



Goldman Launches PR Campaign

Goldman Launches PR Campaign to Burnish Its Tarnished Image

via  Naked Capitalism

The Wall Street Journal has a report on Goldman’s new efforts to rebuild its damaged brand. The problem, of course, is that this is certain to be just that, a branding/marketing exercise, not an plan to make fundamental changes.

And why should it be? Goldman, even with the heat it received and the fines it paid, is still a spectacularly profitable firm. The cost of its, um, improprieties are vastly less than the ill gotten gains. So there’s no reason, from the firm’s perspective, to do anything more than damage containment.

As important, Goldman is a cult. I say that as a former employee, based not just on my experience a very long time ago (boy, am I getting old, more than 25 years ago) but also on reports I get from recruits and what I can infer from press reports. If anything the firm has become more inward looking over the years

The people there honestly believe that working for Goldman is the most elevated calling (Blankfein’s bizarre-sounding “Doing God’s work” remark no doubt resonated within the firm) and doing anything else is a fall from grace. Seriously. People who exit Goldman typically take a year or two to get over it the deeply-inculcated belief that departure = failure (this isn’t my own response; I’ve had a number of men volunteer that to me). Similarly, the first person I met at Goldman, which was through personal contacts, made it clear he was blocked in her career (his boss was too close to her in age) said he couldn’t possibly work for another firm. It wasn’t that he had assessed the tradeoffs and decided on balance it was still better to stay; he literally recoiled on a psychological level from the idea of departing. That sort of deep indoctrination was not at all unusual.

And people who had managed not to imbibe the Kool Aid were viewed with some suspicion. I left as a pretty junior person; the only reason I was remembered was a woman in investment banking in the early 1980s was an unusual commodity. Someone who checked out my reputation years after my departure said the party line on me was “She could have made partner, but we would have had to break her.”

Cults are marvelously effective forms of organization. Goldman managed to keep the real productivity-destroyer on Wall Street, internal jockeying, to a minimum (within the partner ranks) and extract even more slavish devotion than is achieved elsewhere on the Street.

But this simply means Goldman is a particularly well tuned machine. And as the constraints on financial firm bad behavior have been eroded by cultural shifts in the industry (the elevated importance of trading), the broader culture (a more widespread acceptance of “might make right” thinking) and the end of the partnership model (which made the firm’s leadership keenly aware of their downside risks), this machine has increasingly been turned to socially destructive ends.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is taking its first steps to change the way it does business after it weathered harsh criticism and paid a $550 million fine tied to its actions before and during the financial crisis.

The Wall Street firm, which is trying to rehabilitate its public reputation with an ad campaign that, among other things, tries to show how it helps create jobs, is planning to make changes in the way it reports its finances and how it relates to clients, investors and analysts, people involved in the planning say. It has also gone outside the company and hired an executive who has been a vocal critic of Wall Street pay practices and weak corporate governance

Goldman announced in May that it formed a Business Standards Committee to reshape its business practices and mend its reputation. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein said at the time that “there is a disconnect between how we view the firm and how the broader public perceives our roles and activities.”

Yves here. It isn’t hard to see the disconnect between the spin the firm is putting out, that it is changing how it is doing business, and the list of things that follow, which are entirely cosmetic. Even the move to hire Bess Joffe, formerly of shareholder-advocacy firm Hermes Equity Ownership Services, is a mere PR ploy. Hiring one executive is not going to make a dent in Goldman culture or processes. And the Journal tacitly acknowledges that later:

Goldman’s Business Standards Committee is examining conflicts of interest and attempting to set guidelines for the firm’s activities involving structured products such as collateralized debt obligations. It is also deciding whether or not to make more disclosures in its financial reporting.

Mr. Elson and others question how much change a committee like Goldman’s can make because it is staffed mostly by insiders at the firm. Companies that have gone through major investigations typically hire outsiders to overhaul business practices. Goldman’s committee is made up of 17 people, nearly all of whom are business heads and senior staff. Former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, who signed on in 2009 to advise Goldman on public policy issues, is also on the committee. “Often, the only way to make real change at companies is to change the leadership,” Mr. Elson said.

The irony is that Elson is head of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. The Weinberg family brought the firm to its preeminent standing and believed in the famed “long term greedy” approach to banking, that a parasitic approach to banking was short-sighted and destructive to the franchise. The Weinbergs are reported to be very distressed about what has happened to Goldman, but the attitude, of treating customers fairly, is now seen as an antique artifact rather than sound business.



10/17/10

Foreclosure Counterattack-Propaganda Pseudo-legality, and Thuggery

Guest Post: Foreclosure Counterattack – Propaganda, Pseudo-Legality, and Thuggery

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 09:20 PM PDT

By Russ, aka Attempter, a sustainability activist trying to help figure out solutions to America’s crisis, who blogs at Volatility

As Foreclosuregate, the legal crisis, looms ever larger and becomes a major political issue, the banks and government have scrambled to mount a counteroffensive against the consequences of their crimes. We can see how flat-footed they were caught. They seem to have become so comfortable with cutting every legal corner and evading every requirement which was even mildly inconvenient that they’re truly surprised this has escalated with such abruptness and violence. Their plan is to try to bluster and bully their way through by any means possible. They expect lies and lawlessness to prevail as always.

The first line of defense is the propaganda line that this is just a technical glitch, not a fundamental problem with the loan or the security, or any kind of systematic intentional fraud. So far this has been the preferred PR line for the administration and the mainstream media. But the banks are also working the line that no matter what the flaw, it can simply be legalized by legislative brute force.

Rather than deal with the considerable consequences of these abuses, the banks are prepared to bulldoze well settled state laws to give them an easy way out. And I’m not basing my view on this story alone; I had a conversation yesterday with a Congressional staffer who matter-of-factly said (but with little understanding of the underlying issues) that Congress would intervene on behalf of the industry, via its authority over national banks.

Congress took one step in this direction by frantically grabbing and unanimously passing a pre-existing bill which would require all states to accept the weakest state-authorized electronic notarizations. This would be only a minor fix of one of the technical issues, and isn’t very important in itself. But it probably foreshadows the far more expansive legislation we can expect to see after the election. Bolstering all of this, the banks are making extortionate threats against the real economy. They promise to wreck it even further if they aren’t given a clear path on this.

At the same time a concurrent propaganda line, seeming to somewhat contradict the other, is a hectic emphasis on speed.

Federal regulators sought Wednesday to prevent the growing furor over improper foreclosures from escalating, pressing mortgage lenders to replace flawed and fraudulent court documents while insisting that foreclosures continue apace.

It’s unclear why they’re simultaneously trying to downplay the significance of all this but also to drum up a sense of crisis which requires a stampede. You’d think they’d at least pretend to want to slow things down in order to make sure all those alleged “technical glitches” are properly fixed.

Demonstrating that the banks understand the significance of how the blogosphere has driven this story, the PR offensive has descended to the comment thread level, as we’re seeing the biggest surge yet of pro-bank commenters, many repeating the same talking points with suspicious discipline.

As Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism observed,

One regular reader has noticed that every time I put up a foreclosure post, the first comment, suspiciously close to the post time, is always a version of “deadbeat borrower”. He reads enough blogs that he is pretty convinced that NC is being targeted for this sort of message.

Perhaps the most insidious propaganda line, and certainly the most scabrous, is the bashing of alleged “deadbeats”. While the subprime borrower – powerless, often a minority – has long been an easy target, and the contempt has been spreading up the income scale as more people are engulfed in the catastrophe, the fact remains that few people intentionally bought more house than they could afford. Most were induced by the massive propaganda barrage from the banks, government, MSM, and even consumer groups, to see a house as a guaranteed investment which could only appreciate in price. More importantly, the main cause of inability to keep up the mortgage is losing one’s job or suffering a medical disaster. It’s the banks themselves who have presided over the destruction of America’s jobs, especially over the last two years. And it’s the government which refuses to counteract the banks’ campaign of socioeconomic scorched earth. (That’s the same government which also pointedly refused to reform the health care system, choosing instead to further entrench the existing larcenous dysfunction under a facade of lies and misdirection.)

So it’s the banks and government themselves who are overwhelmingly responsible for the wave of defaults. The defaults are the knock-on effects of the bank crimes, and now the banks want to seize the homes by further criminal means. Even after all this, few people fight foreclosures if they can’t afford to pay. The great majority of them say they can pay if they get a promised modification, or claim to be the victims of servicer error. So by any measure – moral, rational, or legal – the “deadbeat borrower” talking point is a sham.

But it’s no surprise, given the scurrilous character of the banks and their functionaries. A good indication of the kind of “legal” recourse they assume they can take are the kangaroo courts of Florida. These are not really courts of law but dedicated foreclosure machines manned by judges pulled out of retirement, apparently selected specifically for their bank-friendliness and/or ignorance of mortgage law and existing programs like the HAMP. These were given the mandate to process foreclosures as fast and lawlessly as possible. That puts the administration rhetoric about the need for speed in a new light. Evidently Florida’s rocket docket is the federal government’s dream solution as well.

But even this is failing to work for them. Political scrutiny and demands for legality are becoming more insistent, and the rocket docket has had to slow down and at least pretend to respect the law.

Underlying all of this, the foreclosures continue in spite of the vaunted moratoria. Perhaps they think they can still fool the judges this way: “We announced our moratorium, so obviously we’re only going ahead with fully legit foreclosures. Here’s the lost note affidavit on this one…” Now that this scam has been exposed, they’re spouting a reprise of the original lies – it’s a mistake, it’s miscommunication, we don’t know what’s happening with those bad apples….(Anyone who actually took anything they said seriously would have to wonder how it’s possible to be such a Master of the Universe, and warrant such a “bonus”, and yet make so many self-admitted mistakes and be so ignorant of everything all the time.)

This preference for lawlessness, this knee-jerk recourse to lies and crimes, is however no joke. At the lower levels, outside the regular media eye, the banks have repeatedly demonstrated their comfort with pure brutality. The examples proliferate of thugs threatening people, breaking and entering, bashing in doors, terrorizing occupants. So long as government at every level is the waterboy of the banks while people on the ground remain unorganized, atomized, and vulnerable, this will only get worse. We hear rhetoric, “joking” of course, about how they need to start burning houses down.

“The question to me is not do you foreclose or do you not foreclose. The question is when and with what philosophy you foreclose,” the man on the bank restructuring team said. “If you want to reduce the amount of leveraged homeowners you have, you need to ultimately kick them out of their homes.” A colleague walked up: His recommendation was to burn houses. It would lower the supply.

Even if that’s still a joke at the moment, how long can it remain so? It’s certainly in the mainstream of the logic.

Look, our hope is is that this moves rapidly and that this gets unwound very, very quickly and that if they can go back, reconstruct their paperwork and what we’ve stressed to them is that they need to expedite that process and work very, very quickly to get it done. we’re going to continue to push for that.

That’s Obama factotum Axelrod. And more from the firebugs:

“The first thing that needs to happen, I think, is to get these people out of their homes,” a man wearing a bespoke blue-striped shirt, a Hermés tie patterned with elephants and Ferragamo loafers said recently. “Correct! I’ll explain,” the veteran member of a bank restructuring and advisory team said.

Right here at Naked Capitalism we may have seen the pro-bank handiwork, a shot across the bow. Yves was the target of a Denial of Service attack. Now that’s taking trolling to a whole new level. If it was organized on behalf of the banks, it’s part of the logic.

All of this, from the original predatory lending, to flippancy about conveying the titles and legally securing the trusts, to the Bailout dedicated to propping up those toxic MBS, which we now know are probably nothing but unsecured loans, to the government-led propaganda campaign and legislative hankering to cover up and eventually “legalize” this latest revelation, down to the brutish violence and dirty tricks of the gutter, is one coherent whole, one simple train of logic. It’s simply the logic of might makes right, feudal greed, and total nihilism via the law and democracy. The mortgage debacle reveals so many abdications of the system, and this abdication of the rule of law is one of the most thorough.