What do you call people who lie, cheat and steal?

How do you characterize people who lie, cheat and steal? Well, it all depends on who those people are. If they are poor people who lie on welfare application forms in order to steal food money from the government, they are called criminals and they are subjected to prison time. If they lie to homeowners in order to steal homes, they are called "banks" who are simply doing "banking," and they won't face prison time. I've learned from my own law practice over the past few years that it is common for banks to concoct false paperwork, including false affidavits and court filings, when they are trying to foreclose against homeowners. My experience is also the experience of numerous other attorneys who represent home owners. Now I do need to be clear: No homeowners should have the right to live in their houses for free. On the other hand, no bank should be allowed to kick a homeowner out of his or her house until and unless the bank proves that it is legally entitled to kick the homeowner out of the house, and there are specific rules for how a bank would know whether it would be entitled to kick a family out of a house. In millions of foreclosure cases, however, banks have been making shit up. They are engaged in flagrant robo-signing, they are allowing unauthorized people to sign critically important legal papers, and they are filing this false paperwork in courts from coast to coast. The centerpiece for much of this chaos is a artificial entity called MERS that has been created by the banks to stand in for them whenever convenient and to provide plausible deniability when it is not convenient. I've written about MERS previously. This practice of the big banks should stop, and the people doing these things should go to prison (The Missouri Attorney General recently brought a criminal case against an entity that was cranking out fraudulent paperwork). These banks should also be punished by not allowing them to foreclose. Instead, they should be declared to have, at best, unsecured status regarding the home loans they have screwed up, and they should be made to stand in line with all of the other unsecured creditors (e.g., credit card companies and utility companies). This is not a harsh remedy for huge sophisticated entities that are intentionally breaking the law to unfairly assert the extraordinarily harsh legal remedy of foreclosure. I'm attaching the Complaint recently filed by the New York Attorney General, The People of the State of New York, by Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General vs. JP Morgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and others. This suit concerns the common practice of America's biggest banks to concoct MERS to circumvent the proper recording of real estate in the state of New York (this same problem is going on in each other other states too). The end result is that the banks are cheating local government recording offices of substantial fees, and destroying the right to confidently trace property rights in real estate (i.e., The American Dream, i.e., the most expensive thing most people will ever own). In sum, banks have intentionally created a system called MERS that makes sure that transfers of title to real estate are not being properly recorded. It is now the case in many states that one cannot determine who actually has property interests in real estate. This is true for 70 million pieces of property in all 50 states. The New York suit is extremely well written; it provides a detailed look into many of the things that the big banks have done in an attempt to rewrite laws in order to make money unfairly and to screw consumers. I invite all concerned citizens (lawyers and non-lawyers) to read the NY AG's new lawsuit to see how incredibly corrupt the system has become, thanks to the efforts of big banks. Next time you are wondering why well-informed people refer to banks as "house-jackers" or "banksters," consider these allegations by New York's Attorney General (this is but a small sampling of what you will find in the NY AG's suit):

20. When the subprime mortgage crisis hit and the number of defaults and foreclosures skyrocketed around the country, the shortcomings of the MERS System and its impact on tracking a property's chain of title became readily apparent, sparking widespread litigation. The creation and use of the MERS System by Defendant Servicers and other financial institutions have resulted in a wide range of deceptive and illegal practices, particularly with respect to the filing of New York Foreclosure Proceedings in state courts and federal bankruptcy courts.

21. The use of the MERS System, coupled with faulty and sloppy document preparation and execution practices, have resulted in foreclosures being filed against New York homeowners where the foreclosing party lacked the authority or standing to sue. MER members, including Defendant Servicers, have brought over 13,000 foreclosures against New York homeowners naming MERS as the plaintiff/foreclosing party. Indeed, for years MERS affirmatively encouraged its members to file foreclosures in MERS' name, again based on the rationale that doing so would save banks time and money. However, MERS often lacked standing to foreclose, and representations in court submissions that MERS owned and/or held the promissory note in such proceedings were often false and deceptive.

22. Even when foreclosures were not initiated in MERS' name. New York Foreclosure Proceedings involving MERS-registered loans often included deceptive submissions. Because MERS Inc. served as the mortgagee of record, the foreclosing party needed to be assigned the mortgage before filing the proceeding to have standing. In many instances, this assignment was not properly made. MERS certifying officers, including Defendant Servicers' employees and agents, have executed and submitted to court MERS mortgage assignments that contain many defects, including affirmative misrepresentations of fact, which render them false, deceptive, and/or invalid. These assignments were often automatically generated and "robosigned" by individuals who did not review the underlying property ownership records, confirm the document's accuracy, or even read the document. These false and defective assignments have often masked gaps in the chain of title and the foreclosing party's inability to establish its authority to foreclose, and as a result have misled homeowners and the courts.

23. Although there are several New York court decisions finding that foreclosing parties lacked standing, the issue of standing is rarely raised and litigated because most homeowners lack counsel and are unfamiliar with MERS' precise role in their loan. Indeed, a significant percentage of foreclosure actions result in default judgments.

24. In addition, MERS' indiscriminate use of non-employee certifying officers has confused, misled, and deceived homeowners and the courts and made it even more difficult to ascertain whether a foreclosing party actually owns or holds the note and mortgage to have standing to foreclose. MERS certifying officers, including Defendant Servicers' employees and agents, have routinely executed and submitted in court mortgage assignments and other legal documents on behalf of MERS without disclosing that they are not MERS employees, but instead are employed by other entities, such as the mortgage servicer that filed the case or its counsel. As a further complication, the same MERS certifying officer might execute multiple documents on behalf of different parties in a single proceeding.

25. In short, MERS' conduct, as well as Defendants Servicers' use of the MERS have resulted in the filing of improper New York Foreclosure Proceedings, undermined the integrity of the judicial process, created confusion and uncertainty concerning property ownership interests, and potentially created clouds of title on properties throughout the State of New York.

Continue ReadingWhat do you call people who lie, cheat and steal?

Glenn Greenwald laments liberal hypocrisy

The political left lashed out at the Administration of George W. Bush when he shredded the Constitution, but applaud in lockstep when Barack Obama does it. Glenn Greenwald comments:

Indeed: is there even a single liberal pundit, blogger or commentator who would have defended George Bush and Dick Cheney if they (rather than Obama) had been secretly targeting American citizens for execution without due process, or slaughtering children, rescuers and funeral attendees with drones, or continuing indefinite detention even a full decade after 9/11? Please. How any of these people can even look in the mirror, behold the oozing, limitless intellectual dishonesty, and not want to smash what they see is truly mystifying to me.

One of the very first non-FISA posts I ever wrote that received substantial attention was this one from January, 2006, entitled “Do Bush Followers have an Ideology”? It examined the way in which the Bush-supporting Right was more like an “authoritarian cult” rather than a political movement because its adherents had no real, fixed political beliefs; instead, I argued, their only animating “principle” was loyalty to their leader, and they would support anything he did no matter how at odds it was with their prior ostensible beliefs. That post was linked to and praised by dozens and dozens of liberal blogs: can you believe what authoritarian followers these conservatives are?, they scoffed in unison.

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald laments liberal hypocrisy

Passages from Nietzsche’s “The Gay Science”

I recently finished reading The Gay Science, by Friedrich Nietzsche. In many ways, it is a profound work. For me it was a formative book--I encountered it in a philosophy class in college. As to the meaning of the title, see paragraph 327 (below). The numbers refer to paragraph numbers rather than page numbers. These quotes are taken from the 2001 translation by Josefine Nauckhoff. As far as why I chose the following excerpts rather than others? They "spoke" to me more than the others. Having written this, I would also note that The Gay Science is loaded with far more thoughtful passages than I have presented here. I did also enjoy this newer translation (I also have the translation by Walter Kaufmann, which is also excellent). For those not familiar with Nietzsche, many of his works, including this one, are written in numbered paragraphs. Preface, Paragraph 3 Life--to us, that means constantly transforming all that we are into light and flame and also all that wounds us; we simply can do no other. And as for illness: are we not almost tempted to ask whether we can do without it at all? Only great pain is the liberator of the spirit, as the future of the great suspicion that turns every U into an X, a real, proper X, that is the penultimate one before the final one. Only great pain, that long slow pain that takes its time and in which we are burned, as it were, over green wood, forces us philosophers to descend into our ultimate depths and put aside all trust, everything good-natured, veiling, mild, average--things in which formerly we may have found our humanity. I doubt that such a pain makes us "better"--but I know that it makes us deeper. Paragraph 19- Evil. Examine the lives of the best and the most fruitful people and peoples and ask yourself whether a tree which is supposed to grow to a proud height could do without bad weather and storms: whether misfortune and external resistance, whether any kinds of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, mistrust, hardness, greed and violence do not belong to the favorable conditions without which any great growth even of virtue is scarcely possible? The poison from which the weaker nature perishes strengthens the strong man--and he does not call it poison. Paragraph 110. Origin of knowledge. Through immense periods of time the intellect produce nothing but errors; some of them turned out to be useful and species-preserving; those who hit upon or inherited them fought their fight for themselves and their progeny with greater luck. Such erroneous articles of faith, which were passed on by inheritance further and further, and finally almost became part of the basic endowment of the species, are for example: that there are enduring things; that there are identical things; that there are things, kinds of material, bodies; that a thing is what it appears to be; that our will is free; that what is good for me is also good in and of itself. Only very late did the deniers and doubters of such propositions emerge; only very late did truth emerge as the weakest form of knowledge. It seemed that one was unable to live with it; that our organism was cured for its opposite: all its higher functions, the perceptions of sense and generally every kind of sensation, worked with those basic errors that have been incorporated since time immemorial. Further, even in the realm of knowledge those propositions became the norms according to which one determined “true" and “untrue"--down to the most remote areas of pure logic. Thus the strength of knowledge lies not in its degree of truth, but in its age, its embeddedness, its character as a condition of life. Where life and knowledge seem to contradict each other there was never any serious fight to begin with; denial and doubt were simply considered madness.

Continue ReadingPassages from Nietzsche’s “The Gay Science”

You Don’t Get Me. I’m Part of the Union

I remember the song “You Don’t Get Me, I’m Part of the Union," by the Strawbs, from my high school days. My father often told me of the early days of union organizing in the rock quarries in the St. Louis area. In the early 30’s my dad worked with my grandfather who was an organizer for the Crushed Rock and Gravel Workers’ Union, Local 1. It was often pitched warfare between unions and management. There were often riots and violence when miners struck, with management armies, deputies and National Guard troops shooting down striking miners. Mother Jones, a famous United Mine Workers organizer and supporter of all things labor, is buried with striking miners who where killed in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois off Highway 55 as one goes north from St. Louis up to Litchfield, Illinois. I’ve traveled to the Union Miners Cemetery, said prayers for the workers buried there and all workers and left a rock on Mother’s grave as a promise to remember the sacrifices which have given me the life I have today. As I walked the cemetery grounds, family members of the miners buried there drove by. I went over and introduced myself and told the guys what I was up to and asked if there were anyone in particular they wanted me to pray for that day. We talked about family and unions and went our separate ways. Republicans have declared war on unions. The first shot fired in The Republican War on Christmas was President Reagan’s firing of all the members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO). Please understand, the firings had nothing to do with the legality or illegality of any public employee union strike but, manifested a deep visceral Republican hatred of any union at any workplace. All over the country, public employee unions are under attack by Republican Governors and Republican legislatures to cut off the collective bargaining rights of millions of employees. Now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is about to pass from any ability to protect union members’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, which allows unions to organize in workplaces. [More . . . ]

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Catholic Bishops Hunt More Sharks on Mississippi with Screeds against HHS Contraceptive “Mandate”

Catholic bishops are having conniption fits over a recent HHS regulation which requires employers which provide health insurance to employees to have coverage which includes contraceptives. The HHS regulation is comparable to 28 states which have laws which also require insurers to have such coverage as part of their policies. The regulation, as do many states’ laws, explicitly excludes purely religious institutions from its purview but, schools, hospitals and foundations among others would be included. Many critics of the regulation call it a “mandate” but, the requirement is only imposed as to those employers which voluntarily provide insurance coverage as an employee benefit. If the employers chose to not directly provide insurance coverage to their employees as a benefit, they would have no requirement to provide the contraceptive coverage to which the bishops and other religious groups and employers object. If the institutions covered by the new regulation were to instead provide a cash benefit to an employee equivalent to the cost of health insurance for that employee and their dependents, there would be no conflict between the regulation and the “conscience” of the respective religious institutions. The employees then would be free to exercise their individual informed conscience as to what coverage they would then purchase, if any, from the health insurance exchanges which must be set up by next year under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Some employees might instead choose to pay the new fines under the ACA and keep the difference in cash they obtained from their employer. All I see here is more anti-Obama rhetoric by neo-conservative Catholic Bishops much as was ado about nothing over the supposed threat of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). Even before President Obama took office we Catholics were bombarded with scares and flares of inflammatory rhetoric about how the first thing President Obama would do as President would be to sign FOCA into law. Post cards were laid in pews, to be signed and after strident sermons against FOCA, to be sent to Washington opposing FOCA. Just as there is now no "mandate" regarding the choice of employers to provide any particular benefit, no such bill even existed at the time of the scares and flares. It was all shark control on the Mississippi. The whole shibboleth about "religious freedom" is a stalking horse for the neo-conservative bishops to inflame independent Catholic voters into supporting Republican candidates with their votes and reward the wealthy contributors to the Church which have taken over donations to the Church after the masses' rebellion against the clergy sex abuse scandal in the US and abroad. Religious freedom is not threatened by the recent Obama administration's guidelines about employer's voluntary benefits to employees. Religious freedom is threatened by the neo-conservative Catholic bishops' adherence to a world view which only supports Republican candidates and wealthy contributors.

Continue ReadingCatholic Bishops Hunt More Sharks on Mississippi with Screeds against HHS Contraceptive “Mandate”