Category: Corruption

With Friends Like These…..

No Comments

Specifically Penny Pritzker, Obama’s national campaign finance chair.

It turns out that she was chairman of the board, and from all accounts an engaged and active one at that, of the, “borderline shady and failed Superior Bank”, which collapsed in 2002.

It appears that these guys were the folks who created the so-called innovations that have led in large degree to the subprime mess, and it led to their downfall in the middle of the most bullish housing market in history.

See here, here, and here.

If there is one lesson to be had from the Bush administration, it is look at who the candidate keeps around him.

I agree with Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s assessment, “If Obama’s for real on the sub-prime crisis, he’ll dump his campaign finance chair“.

Kibosh Kommitted on Kansas Kangaroo Kourt*

No Comments

Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline, who was defeated as Kansas AG because of his jihad against planned parenthood, has failed to get a grand jury to indict the clinic in Overland Park, KS.

This guy is like 0 for 12 now, with hundreds of thousands if not millions of taxpayer dollars down the hole.

Perhaps its time for the voters to remove him from public life.

*Yes, it’s immature. And you are surprised by this?

Wack Job Religious Fundamentalist Nutjobs Should Not Be Given Secular Power Over People: Israel Edition

No Comments

The story is in the New York Times.

Basically, a Jew, from a long line of Jews, wanted to get married, and the Rabbinic courts there made her jump through a series of hoops to prove she was Jewish.

I’d say that the officials on the Chief Rabbinate’s office can to go to hell, but that would be superfluous. They are already well on their way toward Gehenna.

Pelosi Refers Contempt Citation to Mukasey

No Comments

How quaint, she expects the Attorney General of the United States of America to enforce laws when they are inconvenient for his boss.

To quote a scion of the Bush Crime Family, “Not gonna happen.”

Perhaps she should send the House Sargent at Arms, or whatever it is called, out with a pair of handcuffs.

February 28, 2008

The Honorable Michael B. Mukasey
The Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

In accordance with 2 U.S.C. § 194 and the attached House Resolution 979 (adopted on February 14, 2008), I have today sent a certification to the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeffrey Taylor, advising him of the failure of former White House Counsel, Harriet Miers, to appear, testify and produce documents in compliance with a duly issued subpoena of a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee and of the failure of Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff and custodian of White House documents, to produce documents in his custody as required by a duly issued subpoena of the House Judiciary Committee.

Under section 194, Mr. Taylor is now required “to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.” The appropriate grand jury action is a criminal charge for violation of 2 U.S.C. § 192, which provides: “Every person who having been summoned as a witness by the authority of either House of Congress to give testimony or to produce papers . . . willfully makes default . . . shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor” and shall be subject to a fine and “imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months.”

According to the testimony of your predecessor, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and your recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department intends to prevent Mr. Taylor from complying with the statute and enforcing the contempt citations against Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten. You claimed that “enforcement by way of contempt of a congressional subpoena is not permitted when the President directs a direct adviser of his… not to appear or when he directs any member of the executive not to produce documents.” Hearing on Oversight of the Dep’t of Justice Before the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 110th Cong. 87-88 (Feb. 7, 2008). You purported to base your view on a “long line of authority,” but cited no court decision that supports this proposition.

There is no authority by which persons may wholly ignore a subpoena and fail to appear as directed because a President unilaterally instructs them to do so. Even if a subpoenaed witness intends to assert a privilege in response to questions, the witness is not at liberty to disregard the subpoena and fail to appear at the required time and place. Surely, your Department would not tolerate that type of action if the witness were subpoenaed to a federal grand jury. Short of a formal assertion of executive privilege, which cannot be made in this case, there is no authority that permits a President to advise anyone to ignore a duly issued congressional subpoena for documents.

Your press spokesman has stated that you will “act promptly” to review this matter and reach a final decision. We will appreciate your acting with appropriate dispatch on this important matter. I strongly urge you to reconsider your position and to ensure that our nation is operating under the rule of law and not at presidential whim. If, however, you intend to persist in preventing Mr. Taylor from carrying out his statutory obligation to present this matter to the grand jury in the District of Columbia, we respectfully request that you inform us of that decision within one week from today, so that the House may proceed with a civil enforcement suit in federal district court.

Thank your for your prompt consideration and attention to this matter.

best regards,

NANCY PELOSI
Speaker of the House

_______________________________

February 28, 2008

The Honorable Jeffrey A. Taylor
United States Attorney
District of Columbia

The undersigned, The Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, pursuant to the attached House Resolution 979, One Hundred Tenth Congress, hereby certifies to you the failure and refusal of Harriet Miers, former White House Counsel, to appear, testify, and furnish certain documents in compliance with a subpoena before a duly constituted subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. The undersigned further certifies to you the failure and refusal of Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff, to furnish certain documents in the custody of the White House in compliance with a subpoena before said committee. These failures and refusals are fully shown by the certified copy of the House Report 110-423 of said committee which is also hereto attached.

Witness my hand and seal of the House of Representatives of the United States, at the City of Washington, District of Columbia, this twenty-eighth day of February, 2008.

__________________________________
Speaker of the House of Representatives

Attest:

___________________________________
Clerk of the House of Representatives

Bush Holds Press Conference, Desparately Tries to Convince Congress to Cover His Law_Breaking

No Comments

Yes, in addition to other matters, Bush is going full fear factor to sell the telco immunity.

I hope it won’t work. My sense is that the House stood up to him, and when they went home for the recess, they had constituents high-fiving them.

If they have any sense at all, they will tell Mr. 19% to pound sand.

They tried to collect all the phone records, and all the internet traffic, and they started in February 2001, 7 months before 9/11, and Bush is terrified that he’ll have to pay for his law breaking.

Let him twist in the wind.

Massachusetts Judges Rules Some Mortgages “Structurally Unfair” Under State Consumer Protection Law

1 Comment

This is interesting. The judgehas basically ruled that this business model is fradulent and illegal:

A Suffolk Superior Court judge has issued a potential landmark order slowing down thousands of Massachusetts foreclosures and declaring whole classes of subprime mortgages “structurally unfair” under state law.

“It is both imprudent and unfair to approve mortgage loans that the borrowers cannot reasonably be expected to repay if housing prices were to fall,” Judge Ralph Gants wrote in a preliminary injunction against notorious subprime mortgage lender Fremont Investment and Loan. “Just because we as a society failed earlier to recognize that (many subprime loans) were generally unfair does not mean that we should ignore their tragic consequences and fail now to recognize that unfairness.”

My guess is that it will either be overturned on appeal, or the foreclosures will resume after 90 days, or both.

Fannie and Freddie Near Deal to Clamp Down of Appraisal Fraud

No Comments

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) are near a deal on appraisal fraud and self dealing (see also here):

At its core, the deal would bar lending companies that sell loans to Fannie and Freddie from using preferred or internal appraisers who may be subject to pressure to overvalue properties. The deal would establish a “home valuation protection code” to set standards on compensation and independence issues, and it would create an institute with a separate board of directors to monitor complaints from consumers and appraisers, according to documents described to The Washington Post by a source not authorized to speak publicly about the issues.

If the agreement takes hold, Fannie and Freddie would no longer purchase mortgages from lenders who fail to abide by the standards, a powerful economic force that could influence the entire housing landscap

As Tanta of Caluclated Risk so eloquently puts it, “It appears that Fannie Mae has finished or nearly finished its review, and is about to ruin several very large aggregators’ and thousands of pissant brokers’ day with a new set of rules regarding how appraisals can be obtained and what affiliations between lender and appraiser are acceptable.”

GOP to Congressinal Investigators: Piss Off

No Comments

Well, after white house staff admitted using RNC emails to avoid the record keeping laws, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requested backups of the emails.

Henry Waxman, the committee chairman, has now revealed that the GOP has told Congress to go pound sand, saying that they, “has no intention of trying to restore the missing White House e-mails.”

These folks are absolutely lawless.

New York Times Puts Siegleman News Blackout in Alabama In OP/ED

No Comments

They write about the fact that WHNT, a CBS affiliate, went to black during the 60 minutes presentation of the politicization of the prosecution of former governor Don Siegleman.

Last two ‘graphs:

In 1969, the F.C.C. revoked the license of WLBT in Jackson after the commission established a systematic effort by the broadcaster to suppress information about the civil rights movement. Today, broadcast rules have changed, giving stations more leeway to decide what to air. Dropping a single report is unlikely to set the regulators in motion. Still, it would be deeply troubling if a partisan broadcaster could suppress information on the public airwaves and hide behind a technical fig leaf.

In this case, if the blackout was intentional, it may also have been counterproductive. Rather than take attention away from allegations that Mr. Siegelman was the victim of a partisan campaign, WHNT’s technical glitch seems to lend support to the charge.

Based on what is going on in Alabama, I’m coming to believe that this prosecution was driven by political considerations.

Otherwise, why would the GOP there be so freaked out and hypersensitive about this.

Welfare for American Arms Manufacturer

No Comments

The US Army is now planning to replace the Iraqi Army’s AK-47s M-16s, claiming, among other things, that the M-16 is more reliable.

Yeah, right.

While the M-16 is unquestionably more accurate, reliability and cost are on the AK’s side. Additionally, this will require significant retraining.

This is just a way to get the M-16 into service so that Colt (or maybe FN, when I last checked they made weapons in South Carolina under license) make lots of money.

Things You Do Not Expect Out of the WSJ Editorial Page

No Comments

It should be noted that the WSJ dishonesty editorial page was one of the prime media outlets enabling this:

Renzi and Republicans

Extortion and money laundering are usually the province of gangsters, not Western Congressmen. That changed yesterday with the indictment of GOP Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona on charges that he used his seat on the House Natural Resources Committee to enrich himself through a trail of payoffs on land deals.

…