Month: November 2010

by Jacob Davies

The story you must read today is Matt Taibbi on the massive fraud by banks and loan servicers in the ongoing foreclosure crisis.

I had a few things to say about this over the last month or two, but I think people had a hard time believing that fraud and perjury on this scale was actually possible; that people were being thrown out onto the street on the basis of affidavits that were forgeries and perjury through and through. Forged, back-dated documents purporting to be contemporaneous records of the transfer of mortgage notes from one party to another. Complete circumvention of the existing legal system for recording real estate ownership – and its associated taxes and fees – and its illegal replacement with an unreliable, understaffed private system. The employees of the corporation running that system passing themselves off as vice-presidents of dozens of banks and servicers so they could foreclose on mortgages. Banks even claiming both that they were and were not the actual owner of the mortage in the very same filings. Failures to convey the actual mortgages to the real estate trusts that backed the securities that were sold to investors. Attempts to convey mortages to those trusts only at the moment of foreclosure. Servicers with a vested interest in the mortages they service going into foreclosure so they can collect fees, and associated failures to collect payments. People given mortgage modifications by the bank, then foreclosed on for failing to pay the original amounts. People without mortgages being foreclosed on. Multiple banks claiming to own the same mortgage foreclosing on the same property.

And at the sharp end of all this, an automated process of perjury and fraud. Notarized affidavits claiming that the signer has personal knowledge of the facts of the case described that were signed by someone else with no knowledge of the facts and not notarized at all. And a court system overloaded with foreclosures unable to and uninterested in examining the facts of the cases in front of it. Families thrown out on the street in the tens or hundreds of thousands on the basis of minute-long hearings in courts where judges refused to consider questions of fraud.

It’s hard to comprehend just how pervasive and serious this problem is. Trillions of dollars have already been lost in the bursting of the real estate bubble, but trillions of dollars more of the remaining mortgage-backed securities may be entirely worthless. Not to mention the massive destruction of households and neighborhoods wrought by a mindless, mechanical legal process.

If you don’t have time to read the whole thing at RS, I’m excerpting the key parts after the fold. But I recommend taking the time to read it.

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by Doctor Science

Last week, the voters of Oklahoma overwhelmingly approved a state Constitutional amendment to prohibit judges from considering international or Shariah law. As Marcia Hamilton said on Findlaw (I believe sarcastically), this
seems to be Oklahomans’ reaction to the demonic Taliban and al-Qaeda forces that are pledged to end our way of life and America itself [ominous music].

As has become customary, much of the rhetoric about “Shariah Law”[1] focuses on the legal status and treatment of women. In this case, one of the standard talking points is that “Shariah Law” mandates unjust wills, because it prescribes that, in dividing an estate each son should inherit twice as much as each daughter. The Muslim who has filed the initial lawsuit against the amendment is doing so on the basis that his will states “that his possessions be divided ‘in accordance with the guidance contained in the prophetic teachings’ of Islam” — which pretty much makes the point for his opponents.

Echidne of the snakes said

I’m not certain if there is anything “especially nefarious” about the shariah laws when compared to other religious laws created during the middle ages, and that’s when most of them seem to have been created. They all tend to give women fewer rights than men, though.

I’m more knowledgeable about Islam than Echidne, and I’ll go further: before the Enlightenment, Islamic inheritance law, in particular, was in many ways *more* just and equitable than that current in Europe, and some Islamic legal creations have become part of the structure of Western law.

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by russell

While the Republicans celebrate their historical victories, the Democrats lick their wounds, the bankers count their bonus money, and the rest of us try to hold on to our jobs, homes, and retirement savings, some large US cities are facing a real challenge:

They're running out of water.

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posted by Doctor Science

The following was published in a different venue by an e-friend who’d like to be known here as “Lizzie”. I’m posting a slightly-edited (by her) version here with her permission, because I think she says some important and frequently-overlooked things particularly well.

I used to work in politics.

I started local, running GOTV for my county, and I ended local, running a successful county-wide campaign. In between I worked two presidential cycles and a congressional campaign, which meant for four years I ate, breathed, slept, and thought about very little but votes, votes, votes.

When I worked in politics there was nothing worse than the day after the election. Everything you'd worked for, sometimes for two whole years, came down to the votes people cast, and sometimes, despite everything you did, how they voted was mind-boggling. You were exhausted; you'd eaten nothing but junk food for weeks and you drove and canvassed and planned and organized events; you'd worked 18 hours on election day and stayed up to watch every last return from every corner of the country come in.

There was nothing left for you to do. Everything was over. It was depressing as hell.

But now . . .

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