Politics Plus

I have a very close friend facing foreclosure due to criminal Banksters.  She fell for the false belief that real estate would always increase in value and took out a loan that is now greater than the value of her house.  Although she was current on her payments, she applied for modification, and followed the Banksters instructions to go into default, because they told her that was how to get the modification.  Because of that lie, repeated across the nation to many thousand homeowners, she does not know from one day to the next whether she will lose the home.  HAMP (the Home Affordable Mortgage Program) has been an abject failure, not because it was a bad idea, but because Banksters have used it to steal people’s homes, not to modify the loans.  Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is calling on Barack Obama to focus on foreclosure in his SOTU message.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is urging President Barack Obama to pledge a new round of foreclosure relief during his State of the Union address next week. In a letter to the president obtained by The Huffington Post, Merkley said the administration’s current anti-foreclosure programs have proven woefully inadequate, and pushed for a more thorough program to keep families in their homes.

"A record one million families lost their home to foreclosure last year," Merkley wrote. "Next week, Mr. President, you will have the attention of the nation. I urge you to use this opportunity to renew efforts to tackle the national foreclosure crisis."

Merkley’s call for presidential leadership on foreclosures comes as infighting among federal regulators appears to have stalled out key reforms to the bank divisions that work with troubled borrowers and process foreclosures.

The FDIC has been pushing to impose new requirements on the operations of those divisions, which are known as mortgage servicers. The agency has been engaged in heated negotiations with other regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). According to a source familiar with the negotiations, the Fed had initially opposed the plan, but agreed to support the rules after a few weeks of negotiations. The OCC, however, which is currently responsible for regulating the largest mortgage servicers — Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup — has resisted those rules. The OCC has never publicly sanctioned a mortgage servicer, despite widespread court findings of servicer fraud in the foreclosure process.

The Treasury Department, which had supported the new rules, had expected an agreement between agencies by Friday, Jan. 14, according to a spokesman. That anticipated agreement has not yet come to fruition.

But Treasury itself is engaged in a delicate dance on foreclosure policy — defending the foreclosure prevention program criticized by Merkley, even as it urges sweeping reform of the bank divisions that participate in that program.

"The goal of the [Home Affordable Modification Program] was to prevent three to four million foreclosures," Merkley wrote, "but to date, fewer than 600,000 homowners have been approved."

Merkley is a persistent advocate for financial reform, and co-authored a key provision of last year’s Wall Street overhaul legislation known as the Volcker Rule, which bars banks from speculating with taxpayer money… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

I fully support Jeff in this effort and am proud to have volunteered for his campaign in 2006.

I can’t wait to hear the Republican spin on the Spokane bomber once the news of what happened circulates.  The American Cancer Society T-shirt will be said to show his connection to “liberal socialist” causes.  And Treasure Island smacks of some liberal fantasy.  They might even manufacture a bogus Facebook page for the bomber, like they did for Loughner, if they catch the bomber.  Once those ideas are thoroughly debunked (immediately), we will next hear the lone crazy person theory with no connection to any Republican.  Thank goodness nobody was harmed in this attempt to kill people celebrating the life of MLK.

A "potentially deadly" explosive device that could have caused severe casualties was found along the intended route of a Martin Luther King Day march in Spokane, Wash., half an hour before the event was to begin, the FBI said Tuesday.

The annual Unity March was rerouted after city workers noticed a black Swiss Army backpack apparently abandoned on a bench about 9:25 a.m. Monday, said Frank Harrill, the supervisory senior resident agent in the FBI’s Seattle division.

The device inside "clearly would have had the potential to inflict multiple casualties, injury and death, to humans," Harrill said in an interview Tuesday. He declined to describe the device.

The FBI said the backpack also contained two T-shirts — one from the 2010 Stevens County Relay for Life, an American Cancer Society fundraiser, and the other reading, "Treasure Island Spring 2009."

About 1,500 people marched along the new route without incident while the Spokane Explosives Disposal Unit neutralized the device.

No one has claimed responsibility or offered a motive, Harrill said. But he called the connection with the King Day march "inescapable."

"We’re treating this as an act of domestic terrorism," he said.

The FBI, which is leading the investigation, is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

The area has a history of white supremacist activity… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <LA Times>

Now I am not making the claim that any individual Republican had anything to do with this attempt.  I am making the claim that this attempt fits perfectly with the ideals and history of the extreme-right, white supremacist militias, a demographic that the Republican Party has embraced and support in their quest to eliminate the middle class and establish one party rule.

The best coverage of this event I have seen comes from Rachel Maddow.

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While Rachel did not go as far as I hav, e in drawing the connections between the bomber and the right, her insinuation made here thinking on this clear enough.

It may well be that, when they catch the bomber, he may turn out to be just one more nut-case.  If it does, I say that words still have consequences, and when one party’s rhetoric presents violence as a solution for civil and political ills, they cannot rightly pass it off, let alone try to blame the other side, when someone takes what they say in ways they may not have intended.

With all the talk on both sides of the aisle about the need to cut spending, you might think that any proposal for budget cuts by a major department head would be met with applause and gratitude.  Think again.  When Defense Secretary, Robert Gates proposed $78 billion in cuts to unwanted, wasteful procurements, there were screams of woe on both sides of the aisle.  Lets take a look at what Gates did, lets watch a video with Rachel Maddow with Michael Isikoff, featuring Eisenhower’s famous speech on the subject, and lets look at how the defense contractors do it.

…The savings would be made by cutting the military ground force by up to 47,000 starting in 2015, increasing healthcare premiums for troops and other measures. 2015 is the year when the Afghan government has said it will be able to handle the bulk of security responsibilities on its own.

Acknowledging that the military could not be immune from sacrifices that other parts of the public sector will be expected to make, Mr Gates told Congressman how he proposed to save money in a bid to pre-empt demand for even deeper cuts from so-called "deficit hawks" in Congress.

After briefing members of Congress on his plans, Mr Gates said that he hoped that “what had been a culture of endless money will become a culture of savings and restraint".

The White House had asked for savings of $150 billion.

His proposed cuts included a $14 billion order for 573 amphibious landing craft for the US marines, which, like many other projects, has gone way over budget, and a surface-launched missile system…

Inserted from <The Telegraph>

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Even progressive Senator Sherrod Brown is opposing these cuts, because his constituents will lose manufacturing jobs if the cuts go through.   What the interview does not cover is that virtually everyone’s will.

The defense contractors have cemented their hegemony far more than just buying members of congress.  Every major piece of hardware our military uses is manufactured in the most inefficient way possible to guarantee political clout.  Almost every state in the country manufactures a part of virtually every weapons system.  It would be far more economical to manufacture a weapons system in one place, saving the fuel and manpower costs of shipping pieces hither and yon all over the nation, but this decentralized system insures that no politician can vote against any weapons system without putting constituents out of work.

I wish I could say I have an easy solution.  I do not.  100% public financing for all federal elected offices would help, but that will not solve the decentralization problem.  Your thoughts?