If there ever was a time for some hard, pipe-hitting liberals to go to work on the homes with a pair of pliers and blowtorch…
OneWest bank, which Donald Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, ran from 2009 to 2015, repeatedly broke California’s foreclosure laws during that period, according to a previously undisclosed 2013 memo from top prosecutors in the state attorney general’s office.
The memo obtained by The Intercept alleges that OneWest rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes, illegally backdated key documents, and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions.
Every time a Trump nominee is blocked, an angel gets its wings. I’m calling my Senators about this today, telling them to block Mnuchin’s nomination.
Update. I’m a Greenwald-phobe too, and yes the first sentence isn’t great in that article, but other outlets are crediting The Intercept with breaking this story.
Update update. Okay, I fixed the first sentence. The first few words were bolded in a way that made me think it was a byline or something.
Downpuppy
Mnuchin is a mnoster but there is only 1 Steve hereabouts.
Cacti
The story is from The Intercept.
Is it corroborated by a reliable publication?
Betty Cracker
Coincidentally, we just watched “Pulp Fiction” last night (for the first time in ages), so I immediately got the “hard, pipe-hitting” reference.
Bobby Thomson
So in addition to being incompetent, they can’t write, either. FSM, that sentence makes my head hurt.
mai naem mobile
Why isn’t this fucker in prison doing hard time with the few mortgage brokers who did do time for fraudulent applications? Oh,yeah,because Eric Holder and the Gensler SEC dude thought fines were just fine for very rich bankstas.
Another Scott
@mai naem mobile: StopFraud.Gov lists lots and lots of prosecutions of various banksters that you won’t hear about elsewhere. (Yeah, too many really bigwigs didn’t get prosecuted for various reasons…)
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
celticdragonchick
Just called my asshole senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr…told them if they get rid of our ACA policy we will send all of our medical bills to their offices and direct all collections calls to their offices.
Doug!
@Bobby Thomson:
Yeah, fair enough. As far as I can tell, they broke this story though.
Ronnie Pudding
What does that mean, “ran from 2009 to 2015”? Ran what?
Ced
You are missing “one west bank” in the quote you excerpted… It’s in bold in the original link…
Mnemosyne
@mai naem mobile:
You realize that Eric Holder doesn’t have any say over violations of California state law, right?
I would call Kamala Harris’s office and ask her why she didn’t prosecute.
Ryan
We’re gonna need a lot more angels.
Major Major Major Major
@Ced: yep. The sentence is actually totally fine.
Fuck Greenwald (and fuck Snowden), though. Fuck Mnuchin too.
Spanky
Paging raven. Mr. Raven to the white courtesy phone.
It’s starting …
cmorenc
@mai naem mobile:
Holder’s timidity is intertwined with the HUGE mistake by Obama right-off-the-bat when he took office of appointing Tim Geithner as Secretary and accepting his advice that if his Administration went aggressively after the too-big-to-fail banksters and sent them to prison instead of coddling them with bailouts, the economy would collapse and democrats would lose their newfound support from Wall Street. The result was correctly interpreted by most of the public as looking out for the bankers first and leaving mostly useless gestures and scraps to the victims that got screwed by them – and helped the Tea Party gain much more traction much faster than they would have been able to achieve otherwise.
Xboxershorts
@Mnemosyne:
Another fine progressive brought to you by the modern DNC?
A LOT of people did not like her. And a LOT of Other people told the original LOT of people to STFU.
Dems have their work cut out for them if they really want to make inroads in 2018
hovercraft
The shit show rolls on.
Trump Adds Key Bridgegate Figure, Trump Org Security Chief To WH Team
A key figure in the 2013 Bridegate scandal and the longtime head of security for the Trump Organization are among the new White House staffers that Donald Trump named on Wednesday.
The President-elect named Bill Stepien, former campaign manager for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), as his deputy assistant to the president and political director. Keith Schiller, Trump’s former bodyguard who has run security for the Trump Organization since 2004, will be deputy assistant to the president and director of Oval Office operations.
Stepien was first introduced to the national stage during the investigation into a politically-motivated traffic shutdown on the George Washington Bridge orchestrated by Christie’s allies. Though Stepien denied any knowledge or involvement of the scheme and was never charged in the case, the New Jersey governor cut ties with him during the scandal after emails were released in which Stepien referred to the target of the Bridgegate plot, Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, as an “idiot.”
His career was derailed until he was hired as the Trump campaign’s national field director in August. During the federal Bridgegate trial this fall, which resulted in the convictions of two former Christie associates, the government’s key witness testified that he told Stepien about the plot less than 24 hours after it was hatched.
Trump’s plan to bring members of his private security team to the White House was first reported by Politico in December. Several Trump associates told Politico at the time that Schiller, who oversaw security at the President-elect’s campaign and transition events, would serve as a “full-time physical gatekeeper.”
Former “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault was also given a prominent role. She will serve as assistant to the president and director of communications for the office of public liaison.
The full list of staffers appointed Wednesday is below:
Marc Short, Assistant to the President and Director of Legislative Affairs John DeStefano, Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Personnel Omarosa Manigault, Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison Josh Pitcock, Assistant to President and Chief of Staff to the Vice President Keith Schiller, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Oval Office Operations George Gigicos, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Advance Jessica Ditto, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Communications Director Raj Shah, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Communications Director and Research Director Bill Stepien, Deputy Assistant to the President and Political Director Jen Pavlik, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff to the Vice President
John McEntee, Special Assistant to the President and Personal Aide to the President
germy
Lindy West wears a shirt with this slogan.
I read she’s quitting twitter:
ruemara
The douchnozzles showing up to make this about kicking Dems need to bugger off. The action item is call your reps to block this guy, not piss on Dems because you think you know banking law and prosecution better than actual lawyers. And, fuck no, this wasn’t why the Tea Party gained traction. It’s like some sort of willful amnesia that the Tea Party blamed handouts to the poor, to get them into homes, not poor bank leaders who had to comply with government programs. If your first understanding of what needs to happen in 2018 is “prosecute banksters” you have missed the point of what caused 2016.
@hovercraft: well, no one ever went broke playing on hatred, venality and corruption.
Doug!
@Ced:
Thanks
Mnemosyne
@Xboxershorts:
The other choice was Loretta Sanchez, who has quite a few ethical entanglements that may not be well-known in the northern parts of the state.
Who actually ran for the office that you preferred? No fantasy candidates, only people who actually filed to run.
hovercraft
@germy:
This constant threat to rape women who speak their minds and express views you disagree with has to stop. There has to be a zero tolerance policy instituted across any forum or medium that purports to be legitimate. Twitter and the rest have to institute lifetime bans with teeth, it’s the only way these lowlifes will stop. These people are doxxing women and then threatening or encouraging others to threaten violence. It is dangerous, and it robs us of powerful voices, who feel for their safety they have no choice but to withdraw.
rp
Keep in mind that this is a memo arguing that a case should be filed. The prosecutors may be 100% right, but doesn’t prove that OneWest broke the law and Harris may have had a good reason not to file.
(which is not to say that Dems should use this for political reasons, but we need to be prepared for the obvious counterargument)
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Seconded. The fact that naive progressives assumed that the Tea Partiers were mad for the same reasons they were is a whole other problem.
Major Major Major Major
@cmorenc:
Obama signed new bailouts into law? TARP wasn’t repaid in full with a slight profit to the taxpayer?
rikyrah
@Cacti:
From Tiger Beat on the Potomac:
But this isn’t the only instance of legal issues related to Steve Mnuchin and OneWest.
OneWest Bank, a mortgage lender founded and run by Steven Mnuchin until last year, discriminated against blacks, Hispanics and Asians and avoided putting branches in minority communities, according to a federal complaint filed by two California housing watchdogs.
The redlining accusation, filed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was made against CIT Group Inc., which purchased OneWest in a $3.4 billion deal that closed last year.
Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s campaign finance chairperson and a leading candidate for the job of Treasury secretary, is on CIT’s board…
Of 69 OneWest home loans made in Los Angeles County in 2012 and 2013, none went to African-Americans, according to the complaint.
In 2015, when non-white minorities made up nearly 62 percent of the population in greater Los Angeles, they received 18.5 percent of CIT mortgages. CIT was less likely than other lenders to sell mortgages in neighborhoods of color. Fewer than 30 percent of CIT loans were made on houses in minority census tracts, compared to more than 49 percent for the lending industry, according to the complaint.
Miss Bianca
@ruemara: Right on!
germy
@Mnemosyne:
Astroturf group with checks written by the “you-know-who” brothers. Paid for busses, signs, media time, costumes. Something about Obama being president.
Brachiator
@Xboxershorts:
Well, let’s look at the late evening election result, from the Sacramento Bee.
Seems to me that a lot of people liked her, and strongly preferred her over Loretta Sanchez.
And the senate primary race was a 34 candidate field. And yet, no one could come up with a strong alternative candidate.
Yeh, Dems have their work cut out for them. The first thing to do is to drop tired excuses for why candidates you prefer never rise to the top.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: especially since the far left couldn’t come up with anybody who could beat Loretta fucking Sanchez in the primary. Jesus.
trollhattan
@Xboxershorts:
Pro tip: Loretta Sanchez was not the droid you seek.
CA Dems have a lot of heavy lifting between now and 2018. One presumes/prays DiFi is done. Whither Nancy SMASH?
Roger Moore
@Xboxershorts:
We are unfortunately restricted to voting for people who are actually on the ballot. That meant a choice between Harris, Loretta Sanchez, a bunch of inexperienced nobody Democrats, or a bunch of nobodies who weren’t even Democrats. In the general election, it meant Harris or Sanchez.
Weaselone
@Xboxershorts:
Yeah, but first they need to figure out that the goal is to get more Democrats elected and put pressure on the elected officials who actually want to destroy the country instead of being asshats and complaining about democratic politicians making prosecutorial decisions that we don’t actually know the reasoning behind.
It’s not as though Kamala’s decision to prosecute or not has any bearing on 2018. She’s not up for reelection and Trump would just have chosen another equally vile candidate for the position if the current one was behind bars.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
There were 34 candidates in the senate primary. Are you telling me that no one could find a magical progressive unicorn?
34 freaking candidates!
SFBayAreaGal
There was an article written about a senior white couple that voted for Trump here in California. OneWest was the bank that had foreclosed on their home. They found out that Steve Mnuchin could be Treasury Secretary. Can’t remember what the rest of the article was about.
raven
@Spanky: Now listen to these crybaby motherfuckers. It’s be worse than 40 years of crying about no parade.
Calouste
Btw, if you would want to let your displeasure known of one of the cabinet nominees, you could boycott the petroleum company he is working for.
Also, have you ever heard of the company Theranos? Defence nominee James Mattis is one of its boardmembers, and Wikipedia has the following to say about that:
I guess Theranos is looking forward to a nice new DoD contract come 1/21.
Turgidson
@Mnemosyne:
I think there’s room in the mind of even a dolt like a teabagger to be mad about more than one thing at a time. But I do think that anger at the Wall Street Fraud Brigade was down the list (the top of the list would include the ni*CLANG in the WHITE House, being taxed at all, ever, by a Democratic government, Fannie and Freddie (though don’t expect them to explain why coherently), keeping govt out of their Medicare, and eventually zomg Obamacare sockulism and death panels).
But the idiot media hyped the notion that anger at Wall Street was the galvanizing force behind it, to make the teabaggers seem less bug-eyed stupid, insane, and astroturfed by asshole billionaire Republican assholes.
Major Major Major Major
@Calouste: Sure, why not, of course.
Turgidson
@SFBayAreaGal:
Probably an attempt to explain why that couple thought it was all Obama’s fault.
Betty Cracker
@germy & @hovercraft: I recently came across an older story about West confronting an online troll who created an account using her dead father’s image as the avatar. She wrote about how much it hurt that this stranger had used her dead father in that way, and unexpectedly shamed the troll into apologizing. Eventually This American Life ran a piece on it, getting West and the troll together via a phone conference to discuss the incident. An excerpt from West’s article:
Any outspoken woman who is identifiably female online can attest that this is commonplace, and not just on Twitter.
Xboxershorts
@Mnemosyne:
I’m from PA, damned if I know who the CA dems had on the back bench…we failed to kick the worthless Toomey out.
My point was…Do ya really need to be so STFU about not liking someone?
Here in PA we got stuck with the milquetoast boring multi-millionaire Katie McGinty who lost to Toomer…
I don’t know a single person who actually wanted her to run.
Fetterman had really great progressive credentials but
was a generally unkown but he hadsome great grass roots support.
Sestak had solid credentials too but Harrisburg blew him off as well.
PA Establishment threw all their weight behind McGinty though
and we lost to an extremely vulnerable good for nothing Toomer
My point…is this…
There’s almost never any need to go around telling people to STFU.
Mnemosyne
@Calouste:
I read a glowing article about Theranos in the New Yorker a few years ago. IANA scientist, but the whole process sounded like a load of bullshit. I am not surprised to find out I was right and the reporter was too credulous.
Shakti
@SFBayAreaGal:
That’s in a genre with the WV woman and her husband who voted for Trump and hope he doesn’t gut the ACA.
Little Lies is their theme song which is far too subtle for them.
germy
@Mnemosyne: I remember that article. At the time, something felt … off to me about it. Often, I read New Yorker profiles of people who are absolutely horrible, but the writer doesn’t want to come out and say it. But the horribleness sort of seeps out between the lines. (This week, there’s a profile of Sisi)
Mnemosyne
@Xboxershorts:
I hope mai naem didn’t feel that I was telling her to STFU. We’ve both been posting here for a while, so I think (I hope) she knows that wasn’t my purpose. But when the article specifically says “California state law,” why drag Eric Holder into it?
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
The Democrats on the ballot were:
President Cristina Grappo
Kamala Harris, California Attorney General
Massie Munroe, engineer
Herbert G. Peters
Emory Rodgers, activist
Loretta Sanchez, U.S. Representative
Steve Stokes, small business owner and Independent candidate for CA-28 in 2014
Now maybe we’d be better off if some other heavy hitter Democrats had been on the ballot, but they were apparently too intimidated by Harris to even try.
Ella in New Mexico
@celticdragonchick: Clever approach! I’ll be doing the same for fucktard Steve Pearce here in New Mexico.
Rey
Watching our POTUS give his farewell to the military has me in tears. How do we as a country go on without him. I’m devastated that what we have coming as the next commander in chief, does NOT DESERVE this honor. With Barack Obama as President is the first time I’ve been soooo proud to be an American. God help us…
Mnemosyne
@Xboxershorts:
Also, too, when you’re living out of state and criticize the new Senator from California, and a bunch of Californians tell you that you’re wrong, you may want to consider that maybe the people who actually live here know something about the state’s politics. When you say that PA’s choices sucked, I believe you. Why don’t you believe us when it comes to CA?
Ella in New Mexico
@hovercraft: So if he want’s his own security team to protect him so be it. The Secret Service and all it’s infrastructure for providing protection to the POTUS should walk right out the door on January 20th.
Just as long as he doesn’t ask the taxpayers to foot the bill.
Xboxershorts
@Mnemosyne:
It’s not about not believing you guys.
It’s about all the cross country angry STFUs I saw on my FB and Twitter feeds.
StringOnAStick
@Mnemosyne: I read today at Washington Monthly that Harris didn’t prosecute Mnuchin’s bank because it would have been a long drawnout and expensive project with no guarantee of winning because of how CA foreclosure rules are written, and at the end of the day a prosecutor’s office has to decide where to most efficiently deploy its limited resources. I am not an expert in CA foreclosure law, maybe someone else here is but until then Im giving the WM story the benefit of the doubt.
Mnemosyne
@Xboxershorts:
Well, people are kinda pissed at the voters in your state right now for picking Trump. It sucks, especially if you yourself voted the right way, but sometimes the cookie crumbles that way. God knows that Omnes is tired of all of us being pissed off at Wisconsin and all its works.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Basically, Theranos is a long con. They made up a bunch of vaguely plausible but ultimately BS claims about wonder diagnostics. That was enough to bring in a politically connected board of directors and enough venture capital to make much more elaborate BS claims with fake science and engineering behind them. They tried to bamboozle the FDA into approving their tests, but the FDA is actually pretty tough to bamboozle on that kind of thing; at the very least, they failed to spend enough money on experts at getting BS past the FDA.
trollhattan
@Rey:
The interesting sidebar is the majority of enlisted men/women will miss him while the majority of officers are all giddy at the prospect of serving under Trump.
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: There sure seem to be a lot of super-popular well-supported excellent lefty grassroots politicians… overwhelmingly losing all their fucking elections when it comes time to vote _within their own fucking party_. For fuck’s sake, man, give a moment of thought to why that is.
trollhattan
Beginning to believe Trump has a randomizser deployed, making his decisions.
All shall kneel before Zod.
Lee
Remember Obama pulled Daschel (?) as a nominee because he had tax issues (I don’t remember all the details).
Do you think this will even cause the Republicans to even hesitate in their support?
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Their front woman and her claims did not seem legit, even when she was hailed as the new tech wonder.
Lee
@trollhattan:
Because both groups know they are going to get involved in another war.
Spanky
@trollhattan: Soooooo, he invited Omarosa so she could translate from Jive?
(Tip o’ the hat to Barbara Billingsley.)
Betty Cracker
O/T, but Eagle Cam is especially fascinating right now: Mama Eagle was feeding Junior bits of what looks like a deceased squirrel, and Daddy Eagle flew up with a fish! Now Junior is enjoying a surf-n-turf dinner, attended by both parents.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Also, it was an open primary, including seven Democrats, 12 Republicans, and 15 third-party candidates. Presumably, a well liked independent progressive would have had a chance if he or she had significant support. I mean, this is one of the reasons Democrats supported an open primary, so that candidates who were not supported by establishment bigwigs would have a shot.
And yet, even in the 34 candidate field, Harris got 40% of the vote. People who want to claim that they were stifled, that a magical progressive unicorn was kept from the people, have a tough case to make. Although obviously, the California Democratic Party Establishment wanted Harris, there was some room to move for an independent candidate with strong grass roots support.
NR
Wait, I thought Greenwald was Putin’s puppet and would never say a single negative word about Trump or anyone on his team? But here he is breaking news that one of them broke the law?
I’m so confused. You guys obviously couldn’t possibly be wrong about Greenwald, so help me square this circle.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: But it’s so invigorating to complain about how the all-powerful ESTABLISHMENT stopped the good thing once again! DAMN YOU ESTABLISHMENT!
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
California now has what they call a “jungle primary,” so the primary isn’t even restricted to party members. Anyone can vote for anyone. That’s how we ended up with two Democrats running against each other in the general election.
If there was a more liberal candidate who could have bested both Harris and Sanchez, s/he was sure keeping their light under a barrel.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Probably The Establishment built that barrel.
Mnemosyne
All right, who slipped up and used the “B” word? You guys know that sends out a Google alert to the trolls.
Betty Cracker
@NR: Greenwald didn’t write the article.
StringOnAStick
Heh. I just got through to Senator Gardner’s office, and I do believe they’ve gotten so many calls today that the young lady answering the phone is reconsidering her job choice. Commenter Rafael mentioned 3 threads down that he got read a prepared speech about “affordability”, and that he pushed back on it, so she was willing to engage earlier today. I didn’t even get a greeting and she wanted off the phone ASAP and was obviously tired of hearing it; I wonder if she even bothered to write down my comments. Keep up the good work, fellow unwashed masses!
Calouste
@Lee: I’m reminded of War and Peace, where the Russian officers were looking forward to war because the strict seniority system meant that pretty much the only way to make promotion was if some of the guys above you didn’t come back from the battlefield.
James Powell
@Major Major Major Major:
Late 2008. I remember thinking at the time the Democratic PTB should have configured their agreement with the Bush administration to allow Senators Obama & Biden to vote against the bank bailout to be sure that the Republicans had to take credit for it.
What happened instead, and there were several reasons, was that President Obama and the Democrats ended up wearing the jacket for the bank bailouts and, oddly enough, for the whole financial crisis. There was never really any anger directed at the Republicans for it.
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig:
A very lefty Bernie-or-bust type acquaintance on my FB feed today said something along the lines of “the democratic party left me”, and I was wondering which mythical far-left party he thought he’d been a member of, since his beef with the party goes back before he was born.
ETA: @James Powell: cmorenc was attacking ‘the Obama administration‘ from the left and saying that he ‘coddled them with bailouts’, I was wondering how the weather was in his universe (it’s quite rainy in mine).
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I guess the G-word also triggers the alert.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: George?
patroclus
The article I read at the link was written by David Dayen – what does Glenn Greenwald have to do with it? I thought he focused on national security stuff. It would seem odd to see him discussing much other than that – he certainly dropped gay rights when Obama was changing the law and culture about that.
As for the issue, didn’t any of those foreclosed against have attorneys? If a bank violates time periods and waiver rights, that would seem to be a defense against the foreclosure. And then the next avenue of relief would seem to be administrative remedies by bank regulators. I’m not sure why some above are blaming Holder, Obama or anyone in the political sphere. Can’t this be handled civilly?
burnspbesq
@mai naem mobile:
As I’m sure you know, neither DOJ nor the SEC have jurisdiction to investigate or prosecute violations of California law. You may want to ask Kamala Harris about this one before slandering Holder, Mary Jo White, and the four U.S. Attorneys in California.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat: BTW. I was ill and away from all things computer for a while.
Have you seen or have any opinion about the film “Dangal?”
Mnemosyne
@James Powell:
And when voters went to the polls this November, Democrats who were pissed about Wall Street voted for Stein or left that line blank, and Republicans who were pissed about Wall Street voted for Trump, who never met a fraudulent bankster that he didn’t like.
This is why we lose, people.
Major Major Major Major
@patroclus:
Quiet, you. Everybody Knows that only the bad guys have agency.
Barbara
@hovercraft:
Twitter, at least for now, appears to be paying the only way Silicon Valley cares, and that is in its valuation and the willingness of anyone to pay its founders a lot of money to buy it. I only follow Twitter when I have a real time need. I used it to follow presidential debates, and to follow road conditions in my recent jaunt to snowy places. Otherwise, I mostly ignore it, although I have found some new voices to follow by some of the retweets from those I was already following. And of course, I never personally tweet anything. Ever, ever, and I cannot imagine any circumstances in which this would change.
Mnemosyne
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, when you’re trying to pretend that Trump didn’t benefit from Russian interference while collecting a paycheck from Moscow …
Roger Moore
@patroclus:
People get very attached to their homes and spend their last available cent trying to keep them. By the time they get to foreclosure, they probably can’t afford an attorney. I suspect this is part of the reason the banks have been so successful abusing the process.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Some friends in Ben Lomond (Santa Cruz county) posted a video of the creek that runs past their backyard. It’s not a creek right now.
burnspbesq
@patroclus:
In theory, you could maybe build a case for securities fraud; I doubt that One West ever admitted violating California law in any of its 34 Act filings. But that didn’t work against Blankenship, and it might not have worked here either. And from a broader policy perspective, I’m not comfortable with turning securities fraud into the thing you charge when you can’t charge anything else.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ma pop my head up and note that California, like many western states has deeds of trust, not mortgages so processes and procedures are quite different here. Our big kerfuffle was over robo-signings.
Another Scott
Drum points us to PwnAllTheThings for a quick but thorough rundown of how Podesta’s e-mail was “hacked”.
I wonder if Donnie and Julian know that much about it? I’d guess, not.
The lesson for everyone: NEVER click on a button without knowing where it goes.
Cheers,
Scott.
NR
@Betty Cracker: Touché.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: Fun Fact: Podesta asked the IT guy about the email, who gave a somewhat unclear response.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Evidence?
patroclus
@Major Major Major Major: Most banks don’t actually foreclose on mortgages these days. They usually securitize the asset and sell it to suckers (er, investors) or they just outright sell and assign bad loans – mostly to collection agencies, who have lawfirms that specialize in that sort of work. If the bank can’t dispose of the asset because they’re stupid or they don’t understand the Basel capital rules, then they do, but that’s not all that common anyway. More likely, this bank farmed out the collection/foreclosure to someone else who is foreclosing only in the bank’s name. We’d really have to know the specifics of each and every foreclosure before drawing any real conclusions here and all of that is usually hashed out in bankruptcy or other courts anyway where all parties are entitled to legal representation. Like I said, my inclination is to rely on the courts and the regulators before getting all hot and bothered about political responsibility or criminal prosecution. The more salient issue would seem to be whether this is a practice specifically followed by the Trump nominee and, if so, it should be the subject of his confirmation hearing. (I’m really not seeing the Greenwaldian connection here).
Turgidson
@James Powell:
Well, I think the crisis put some wind at Obama’s back down the stretch in the 08 election and changed what would have been a 2012-esque margin of victory to the closest thing to a landslide we’re likely to see in this era. But agree that, once in office, he ended up saddled with disproportionate shares of blame for both the fact that the crisis happened and continued to exist and for the fact that TARP, which his administration took charge of handling once in office, was a bailout aimed at the TBTF banks and not at “Main Street”.
My view is that Obama tried, very unsuccessfully, to thread the needle between propping up the banks so as to keep the economy from bottoming out even further and unfreeze credit, and expressing anger at them and sympathy for “Main Street.” What he ended up doing was getting pretty much everybody pissed off at him. Wall Street turned against him completely because some of the things he said hurt their tender fee-fees and then he later insisted on passing regulations to stop them from being rapacious assholes on quite so grand a scale, and the voting public didn’t think what he was doing was working or helping them.
In my idiot opinion, Obama made a long-lasting mistake when he didn’t immediately call for Congress to work on a fairly draconian Wall Street reform bill the moment the ink was dry on his signature on the stimulus bill. Obviously this is 20/20 hindsight, but I think there was an opening politically in spring 2009 to harness all the public anger about the crisis, get a strong bill passed fairly quickly, and not lose any political capital needed for the health care battle. If they resisted too strenuously, the GOP would have looked even more out of touch and bought by their plutocrat funders than usual. They might not have been able to mount their all-out, completely unified obstruction plan as early, and health care might not have been as brutal a process as it was.
James Powell
@Xboxershorts:
I pretty much agree, but with all due respect you were talking out of your hat. Which is fine. Sometimes a bold, poorly informed bloviation can provide a release for accumulated bad vibes. Been there myself and no doubt will go again. But when one goes there one simply has to weather the STFUs and other associated responses.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Also, Harris concentrated more on getting some restitution for people hurt by the mortgage mess than putting people in jail. From an SF Chronicle story:
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig:
DNC, all too often, has to chase the big bucks too. And a lot of people feel that separates the DNC from the needs of the working stiffs. Fetterman was a great candidate with a great message. DNC blew him off completely here in PA. Zero funding for him. 100% for Katie. Who was a lousy candidate with a boring message.
laura
@patroclus: my humble opinion is that anything Dave Dayen “DDay” writes is well worth your time -especially his writings on the forclosure fraud rolling crime spree.
He is Teh Awesome!
patroclus
@burnspbesq: Maybe, but I’d first look to the bank’s principal regulator – if a state bank, than California’s banking commissioner, if federal, the OCC and backstopping both would be the FDIC and the Fed. They’ve got the banking/bankruptcy expertise – the SEC and DOJ and state AG’s have other things to do (unless it’s a really egregious set of facts).
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig:
When Harrisburg Dem establishment manages the funding of a candidates campaign and has the power of life or death over that campaign then yes. That phrase has real meaning.
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: If only there was a way to defeat an unappealing candidate. WAITAMINIT WHAT ABOUT THIS by getting more votes!
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: Interesting. (I was going to say ‘Wow – an actually useful article from Slate’, until I read it. :-/ Must be nice for the reporter to have never encountered an e-mail with a missing word or a bit of ambiguity before, or an IT guy who didn’t know what a phishing e-mail was, …)
Thanks for the link – I hadn’t heard any of that.
Cheers,
Scott.
James Powell
@Mnemosyne:
The True Left argument against the bank bailouts, like most True Left arguments, was aimed squarely and solely at Democrats. Now, I’m no Democratic Party apologist, but the True Left has no place in the Democratic Party coalition. And it’s not because they aren’t welcome to come in and play a part. It’s because they don’t want to be part of something other than themselves.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Michigan alone had more than 5 times as many blank presidential votes than Trump’s margin of victory.
But I realize that, without a sworn affidavit from each individual voter stating their party preference, you will never believe that they didn’t do it by mistake.
Barbara
@Calouste: Theranos is dead as a door nail. There is almost no way that the would be female Steve Jobs whose name I can’t remember is going to resurrect her company. At this point, the FDA or the SEC or maybe both have banned her from having a leadership role of any kind in the company that she actually owns. The short story is that she claimed to have an amazing technology that she absolutely could not prove. She chose a trophy board of people with no biotechnology credibility but a lot of recognition to keep marketing in the apparent hope that eventually her company would hit pay dirt. Even if Trump doesn’t care, hospitals and doctors and even insurance companies that want accurate laboratory results are not going to use Theranos.
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: I can’t believe they suspended the primary out of spite, as I assume had to have happened.
patroclus
@Roger Moore: Some are like that, to be sure, but others can be downright Trumpian in just stiffing the banks and not paying regardless of their ability to repay. The courts are there to sort it all out. It usually isn’t criminal and it usually isn’t political. But if the nominee was directing that notice and waiver provisions be ignored, that’s relevant to a confirmation hearing. I’d like to know more.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, but those Democrats remain pure.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Betty Cracker:
I wonder about the light at night. I hope it’s infrared and not a constant visible glare on the nest.
Barbara
@patroclus: Or, you know, the California legislature could pass laws that better protected California home owners. The refi/repo fraud occurred in states that lacked particular protections. It did not hit Texas or Pennsylvania all that hard. Whereas, Ohio, Michigan and California were disproportionately affected. There were a lot of shenanigans going on, but there were protective state laws that limited the damage in many places. I am all for prosecuting people when they break the law, but often the biggest scandal isn’t that they weren’t prosecuted but that what they were doing wasn’t actually against the law. Maybe in this case it was — maybe if you criminally prosecute someone with a lot of resources and lose you completely undermine your ability to get significant restitution for people who were defrauded.
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig: Jesus, it’s entirely possible to kill a candidates campaign by just refusing to fund them or back them. What, you just wanna be a contrarian to me? Is there some lesson here you think I need to learn?
State party establishments, especially here in PA, have that power. Even before a single vote is cast.
FlipYrWhig
@James Powell: Well, see, if 8% of the country could just have a chance to lord it over the other 92% without having to persuade anybody or otherwise earn it, things would be totally amazing.
Mnemosyne
@Barbara:
If you can find the New Yorker article, it’s pretty jaw-dropping in its credulity. FFS, I have two fine arts degrees and even I could tell that the “science” made no sense.
Bg
@Betty Cracker: Earlier, mama eagle was sitting on the baby and grooming the nest and he kept sticking his wobbly little head out looking for food.
I got tweets from the Unions and emails from Grey Panthers that today was a day to call congress about healthcare and medicare, so I did both. Bill Nelson’s Washington office is impossible to get through to. I did reach all 3 local offices. Do you ever reach anything but a recording at Nelson’s office?
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: First run Hindi movies don’t come to a theater near me. The closest is in Connecticut, almost 2 hours away. I did see some songs and promos on YouTube. Would definitely like to catch it when it becomes available on DVD or streaming
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: Pray tell, how did Tom Wolf best Allyson Schwartz, then?
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: And yet, she was able to bamboozle an awful lot of people who might have been expected to know better. A lot of typical biotech venture capital investors declined to give her money — but they did not do that in any public way, as these kinds of opportunities typically require would be investors to sign an NDA. Nonetheless, Walgreen’s entered into some kind of arrangement with Theranos, and that is somewhat amazing in retrospect.
James Powell
@Roger Moore:
As an attorney who was working the foreclosure and real property areas at the time of the financial crisis – still anecdata, I know – I can tell you that nearly every person who called our office was already out of cash, had tapped all their credit cards, and had trashed their credit ratings so badly that they could not find an apartment to rent so that they could move out of the house that was being foreclosed.
I don’t know if it was their attachment to their homes as much as it was the belief if they could just hang on a little longer, things would turn toward the good. And in the early to middle part of 2007 there was a fairly widespread failure to understand the depth and breadth of what was happening.
California foreclosure is a little odd if you are not familiar. Foreclosures are almost never done through the courts.
patroclus
@Barbara: Good point. The article raised a lot of these issues but I still don’t know enough about the specifics in each state and regarding each foreclosure to draw a lot of conclusions. Maybe Congress should hold investigatory hearings (well, under the Republicans, probably not). This is the sort of issue that won’t be addressed while they’re in control and will continue to fester and the situation in each state will vary and it will be a huge mess in the next recession. In the meantime, each state will have to deal with it on its own, which will lead to haphazard laws all over the country. A confirmation hearing for Mnuchin focusing on these issues could prove useful.
Mnemosyne
@Xboxershorts:
And here is where I repost the Meteor Blades essay on how to change that.
Don’t just sit on the internet and complain about the mean ol’ Establishment. You — yes, you — have the power to drive them out by joining them and influencing who gets chosen.
Go. Fight. Win!
(insert Edna Mode gif here)
NR
@Mnemosyne: Actually I’d be happy with some evidence that a majority of those who didn’t vote in the presidential race would have voted for Clinton had they bothered to cast a vote. You seem to be laboring under the assumption that every third-party vote or non-vote was actually a vote that rightfully belonged to Clinton and was unjustly withheld from her.
But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this point. You’re always looking for a scapegoat. Today it’s stupid liberals. Tomorrow it’ll probably be the Russians again. You just have to find someone, anyone else to blame for the election results other than the leadership of the party that ran the losing campaign. You can set your watch by it at this point.
James Powell
@Turgidson:
It’s not just 20/20 hindsight because there were people calling for more investigation & reform, but as Senator Durbin – no far leftie he – noted, “[The banks} frankly own the place.”
It would have taken a different Obama, perhaps the Imagined Obama that so many voted for, to stand up to the banks rather than let the legislative process work these things out.
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig: He had tons of money and corporate backing. Trusted by the industry that owns us here in PA. He is surprisingly well liked where I live, here in deeply red Marcellus country, but not at all among the crowd I tend to associate with.
But what does this have to do with the way campaign funding is doled out? Wolfe pretty much funded his own campaign, so, Harrisburg Dems loved him for that.
Xboxershorts
@Mnemosyne: I do what I can already. I don’t just come here to shake tiny fists at the clouds.
Betty Cracker
@Bg: I’m pretty sure I reached a human at Nelson’s DC office once, but maybe it was the local office. You’re right, though — tough to get through in general.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
No, I think that if those third-party voters and vote withholders knew how the election would have turned out, they would have made a different choice. I think people like you made them think it didn’t matter who they voted for, and now they’re going to wake up every morning for the next four years (at a minimum) wondering if they could have stopped Trump by making a different choice.
And the fact that you prefer to blame all of the Bad Mommies in the Democratic Party for your own poor decisions says a lot more about you than it does about the Democrats.
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: He wasn’t favored to win at first, another candidate had the inside track. and yet he won. Remarkably enough, this can happen. Sometimes it can be a guy with a funny name who’d been an unknown a scant 4 years before. This claim about the Establishment smacks of excuse-making.
Turgidson
@James Powell:
I agree it would have taken a different Obama to undertake the public lynchings of Wall Street executives that the Professional Left wanted. But it wouldn’t have taken a different Obama to call for tighter regulations on the banks. He did that, and we eventually got Dodd Frank. My beef is that, to maximize his political leverage, he should have prioritized that over everything else, except the stimulus, and lobbied hard for a bill that would have been stronger than Dodd Frank eventually turned out to be. I just think there was a window of opportunity there to rally the public behind him and perhaps preempt the rise of the teabagger morons.
But Obama is smarter than me, so there could be good reasons he did it the way he did that I’m not aware of.
Or maybe he was just a corrupt Wall Street shill like I’ve been told so many times.
Barbara
@James Powell: Yes, the latter. I remember having a discussion with someone before the deluge, maybe around 2006, about whether it made sense for him to “overreach” his then income to buy a house in the expectation that the value would increase, along with his income. In my humble view, this is never a good idea for someone who works for a living and for whom a house will form a disproportionate share of their investments over time. But then, I was in high school when the bottom dropped out of my local economy at the same time my father became mentally ill and lost his job. I don’t do excessive leverage. He thought I was nuts. I have no idea how he fared, but I suspect a lot of people thought like him.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Meanwhile your explanation is that conservatives who used to vote for conservative Democrats but now vote for conservative Republicans will OBVIOUSLY be lured back with someone super-liberal. GENIUS!
EBT
@Betty Cracker: When I ran a trans support IRC I was threatened with rape a few times as well. Which makes no sense “I don’t think you are a real woman but I will rape you anyway” The lack of logic is just jaw dropping.
Mnemosyne
@Turgidson:
I think Obama knew he could only get one major reform, and he wanted healthcare reform more than financial reform.
And that’s a truly nasty fight I really don’t want to get into, because there are commenters on this very website who would be six feet under today if PPACA had not passed.
Kay
Well, the Goldman Sachs coup is complete. It was bloodless, and hardly caused a ripple.
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig: I won’t bother your greater intellect, ever again.
FlipYrWhig
@Turgidson: I think you’re right about the potential upside — even if the result were Dodd Frank it would have been dramatically different, ugh, “optics.” Because it would have played out more like punishment and less like high-minded reform. More visceral. Because, let’s face it, nobody knows the details of anything, whether they support or oppose it. They mostly want to know how it looks and who’s happy and unhappy. It hurt Obama that he didn’t have enough moments where Wall Street could be made to look unhappy.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Didn’t the elections of Senator Feingold and Congresswoman Teachout make it obvious?
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: if everyone loves the candidates you do but somehow they never win, something doesn’t add up. It could be that some shadowy powerful interest is snuffing them out, or it could be that you’re wrong about how widely loved your favored candidates are.
Another Scott
@Turgidson:
Dunno.
If you believe Dean Baker’s arguments, something like $8T disappeared from the US economy when the housing bubble burst. That money was simply gone. The banks didn’t have it, the insurance companies didn’t have it, Fannie and Freddie didn’t have it. The Fed, the Treasury, and lots of others seemed to think that saying that money was gone would make things much worse (general panic of people pulling their remaining money out of the economy, etc., etc.). Maybe they were right, maybe not.
The time to put conditions on the bailout was when the money was handed out – not later. Wikipedia:
Or, more succinctly, “Lend freely at a penalty rate.”
The US was right to shovel as much money as necessary at the banks, insurance companies, GM, etc., etc. But the US should have taken temporary ownership of the things bought, charged a hefty interest rate, and not done things like merging weak banks with Citi and Chase, but winding them down. (Or at least requiring that they be spun off from the parents when they were stable again. Even more bigerer banks isn’t the solution to banks run amok.)
There’s probably still a huge amount of bad debt on the banks’s books that they still don’t want to write down. An $8T hole takes a very long time to fill….
Cheers,
Scott.
mai naem mobile
I admit it, the one issue that I cannot see straight on is the banksters getting away for the most part with paying fines. I just strongly feel some of the bigwigs should have been frog marched to prison to set an example. You do it with young punks and freaking copyrighted music downloaders,you damn well do it to banksteer who caused so much misery. Eric Holder saying that trials weren’t worth it had always stuck in my craw. And Gary Gensler quit his job after taking care of his pals and went back to working for Wall Street and getting directly paid for it. I don’t mean to be pissing on Dems,it drives me nuts.
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig:
Or perhaps as a volunteer for that candidate and got nothing but shat on by Harrisburg.
But then again…what the fuck do I know, I’m just a fuckin rube.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: In 2008 Democrats were riding high with Heath Shuler, Phil Bredesen and Dan Boren! What happened? Thanks, Obama, for squandering all that progressive potential!
Barbara
@Kay: As Daniel Larison, a self-described conservative, put it, the “G” in MAGA actually stands for Goldman. Truer than ever.
Turgidson
@Mnemosyne:
That was probably the determination he made, and if he felt he might only get one done, I think he was right to choose health care. Like I said, I just think there was that early window of opportunity to get Wall Street reform done quickly, while public anger and fear was still near its apex and there ought to have been maximum support for such an effort, without negatively affecting health care’s prospects. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I have been and probably continue to be wrong about many things.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
The emos got their wish in 2010. The Blue Dog Caucus was no more.
Yet they lament the loss of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy.
mai naem mobile
@Calouste: Theranos is not going to get any contract. Trust me on that. There’s a last long story on Theranos on WSJ not behind a pay wall . I think around Thanksgiving which is just breathtaking and sad. It talks about George Schultz’s(who is on the board) grandson and what Theranos did to him and the Schultz family.
Yarrow
@mai naem mobile: Yep, there’s a reason the ‘Jump, You Fuckers!” sign in that photo resonated so much. People were pissed off and they wanted those banksters to pay in a way that looks like people are really paying a price. Perp walks, prison terms, paying massive fines, preferably back to the little people. Having to sell all the extra houses and downsize into a small condo. That kind of thing.
Instead almost no one was charged, one or was it two (?) people were convicted and basically all the rich people who stole from the poor people are as rich as ever. It may be legal but it’s morally wrong. People are still pissed off about it.
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: In my state they let people “vote” now, instead of in yours, where I take it party thugs hit them with cudgels until they run away broken and humiliated from the polling place.
Turgidson
@Another Scott:
Sure, I agree with all of that, but I wasn’t talking about the TARP bailout. That was passed before he was elected, much less took office. What he should or shouldn’t have done to shape what TARP looked like as the likely incoming president is its own discussion. I was talking about prioritizing the effort that eventually became Dodd/Frank as soon as the ARRA was passed. I think that was the best time to pass a strong bill and, if done fairly quickly, would have been a political boon that did not imperil the health care push. But it’s all arm chair QB bullshit at this point.
Barbara
@mai naem mobile: What Ms. Whatsherface neglected to understand is that it’s okay for a technology company to fail when it is just selling run of the mill consumer goods, but even the experience of 23andme, a vastly less consequential undertaking, should have taught her that yes, people really do care that their laboratory testing technology actually works.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: All three Khans and especially Aamir Khan have been making interesting movies as they are getting older. I have been a fan of his, since his first movie, QSQT in the late 80s.
Close to 50, they have had more staying power than their competition, with the exception Akshay Kumar.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Debbie “the icepick” Wasserman-Schultz personally menaced my voting precinct. ;-)
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig: In my state they withold funding so ya can’t get yer message out or the name recognition needed to show people what you’re accomplishments are.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
No, it does not make sense to do that. When people of ordinary means have to overextend themselves to buy houses aimed at people of ordinary means, it means that house prices are too high and in need of a downward correction. If instead people see it as a great money-making opportunity because they house is going to go up in value and somebody else will buy it from them, it’s a sure sign that you’re in a bubble.
I was going to say “in the middle of a bubble”, but that’s probably not true. When ordinary people are buying houses with the expectation that they’ll be able to sell them for a lot more in a few years but they don’t have to overextend themselves to do it, that’s a sign you’re in the middle of a bubble. When they are doing the same thing except they have to overextend themselves with a zero-down, negative amortization liar loan to do it, it’s a sign that the bubble is fit to burst any moment.
El Caganer
@Xboxershorts: If anybody got jerked around in the primary, it was Sestak. I had moved to FL already before the election, but I still followed it. I’m not a Sestak fan, but he had name recognition and was an OK campaigner. I think he had the best shot at beating Toomey. Of course, I think a lot of things, and most of them are bullshit, but whatever.
Xboxershorts
@El Caganer: I agree with you on Sestak. He got screwed by Harrisburg too.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Ah. I see that Khan produced Lagaan, so his name was somewhat familiar. I’ve checked out the YouTube videos of some films you have recommended, so I think references to Indian movies now regularly pop up as google now cards. “Dangal” looked interesting, and also reminds me of “Queen of Katwe” and other films about “unlikely” success stories.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: I had friends who knew the house they were buying was overvalued but they needed to find a house where their children could go to public schools (if you multiply private school tuition times 24, that all by itself justifies some additional housing related expense). They tried to find somewhere to rent to wait it out, but they literally could not find anywhere to rent. They are lucky in the sense that they can afford their mortgage and have no present desire or need to move, but they live in a high tax jurisdiction and are dreading the choices they will face upon retirement.
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: In Virginia we had a Democratic primary for Senate in 2006. Harris Miller, a well-heeled Mark Warner protégé, vs. Jim Webb, ornery cuss and occasional populist. In a very low turnout election, Webb won. I think he pulled it off in this mindblowing way where more people show up on the right day and fill out the little circle next to his name. TAKE THAT RICHMOND ESTABLISHMENT!
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig:
I was never talking about just voting. I was talking about machinations within a state party
And I think you knew that. I think yer just choosing to be “kind of a jerk” at this point.
Barbara
@FlipYrWhig: Well, either might have won against George Allen, but it’s not clear that Allen’s implosion would have been so well documented had Miller been the candidate.
El Caganer
@Xboxershorts: One guy I think may have a really bright future in PA politics is Gene DePasquale. Auditor General can be the springboard for a whole lot of other offices there.
Mnemosyne
@Xboxershorts:
Who is Harrisburg and why does he have so much power?
And if your answer is that “Harrisburg” is a general name for the shadowy coterie of People Who Really Run Things in PA but you don’t actually know who any of them are, then I think I see what the problem is here, and it’s not “Harrisburg.” The names of those people are a matter of public record if you can be arsed to look them up.
Xboxershorts
@Mnemosyne: Harrisburg is the capital of PA. The heart of corruption in arguably the most corrupt state in America.
We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1! We’re Number 1! Wheeeeeeeeee!
mai naem mobile
@Barbara: Elizabeth Holmes whp should never be given the responsibility of guarding a cemetery forget about people’s healthcare. Here’s the Theranos story: http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-whistleblower-shook-the-companyand-his-family-1479335963
I cannot believe how many smart people got snookered in by Elizabeth Holmes.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Aamir Khan’s uncle, Nasir Hussain was a successful movie producer and director in the 60s and the 70s. Salman Khan’s father Salim Khan is the Salim of the successful Salim-Javed duo. Shahrukh had no film industry connenctions.
Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan have been reigned over the box office and hearts of Indian moviegoers since at least the late 80s. And no AFAIK they are not related.
FlipYrWhig
@Xboxershorts: My point is that if people don’t like the party’s “machinations” they can vote for someone else. If not enough people are choosing to do that, is it The Party Establishment, or is it just inferior numbers, a/k/a losing?
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: “Harrisburg,” “Emmanuel Goldstein,” “Keyser Söze,” all pretty much the same thing. That scary guy pulling the strings.
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig: A good candidate in good standing with the party with an excellent record but no statewide name recognition that is not independently wealthy cannot get past the primary process in PA. Yes, sometimes Party Establishment really does suck that much.
Xboxershorts
@FlipYrWhig:
Wow, Yer not just trying to be a jerk. Yer practiced at it. Hey, fine. you neither want me nor need me in the future. That’s what your mockery tells me.
Good fucking luck in 2018.
jesus fucking krist.
Xboxershorts
Yeah, ya ran me off. well done. Assholes….
Barbara
@mai naem mobile: When regulatory arbitrage is the only real way you have to make money, you need to understand which regulations can be arbitraged successfully. In the case of health care, it is pricing, not efficacy (however pathetically defined that is for some kinds of drugs) that can be leveraged to great success. Theranos did not have successful technology the way they claimed they did. That was and is the only story, which they still seem to be resisting.
tybee
@NR:
and now you trot out your own personal scapegoat.
we’ve heard it before but you just don’t quite understand that bernie lost, lost bigly and he’s gone…never to return.
so stand up, wipe your chin and “move on”.
Mnemosyne
@Xboxershorts:
We’re not trying to run you off. We’re trying to point out that your situation is not as hopeless as you seem to think.
If you’re upset about the way the election turned out, change what you did. A lot of us are. Complaining about “the establishment” is just feeding your sense of learned helplessness.
Roger Moore
@Turgidson:
It’s not as if they exactly dawdled at introducing financial reform legislation. The bill that eventually became Dodd-Frank was introduced in June 2009, which wasn’t that long after ARRA and was certainly a time when people were still plenty upset about the crash. It still took over a year to get through Congress. Maybe some of that is because PPACA was taking away attention, but a huge amount of it was the financial industry fighting it tooth and nail. It’s certainly not clear that it could have gotten through quickly no matter when it was proposed.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
Buying a house as a place to live where your kids can get into good schools is reasonable. It’s buying a house as a form of highly leveraged speculation that’s crazy.
Roger Moore
@mai naem mobile:
The problem is that a lot of those smart people probably thought they were getting in on the con and were going to help her snooker further suckers. That’s the way a lot of long cons work.
Ksmiami
I SAY GO MEDIEVAL ON THEIR ASSES.
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@patroclus: I’ve been representing homeowners in foreclosure since 2008. Foreclosure defense is not really a viable practice for a private attorney. It’s a money loser. Most of the experts in the area work for non-profits as do I. But even when a borrower has a skilled attorney and that attorney correctly points out the misdeeds of a bank like OneWest too often NOTHING HAPPENS. The courts look the other way. Judges at least in my state, are susceptible to political pressure from party bosses who want them to rule for the banks. I could go on ad infinitum about OneWest and many other loan servicers and their unethical attorneys who’ve gotten away with mass perjury for years.
La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes)
@La Caterina (Mrs. Johannes): And my colleagues are already collecting OneWest horror stories for the Mnuchin confirmation hearings. It’s going to get ugly.
mai naem mobile
@Yarrow: nothing scares rich people like the possibility of doing time in a prison. Fines can be dealt with. Losing your professional license is okay. Losing your reputation is fine. But doing time scares them shitless. That’s the reason Eric Holder et al should have done it.
mai naem mobile
@Barbara: the sad part of Theranos was that the getting your labs done cheap w/o a doctors order,just at a Walgreens was actually a good idea. My mom used it in AZ. She was paying less than $10(total cost,no insurance) for a couple of monthly labs she gets done. She didn’t have to wait at her doc’s office,get the order etc. And they were using the old technology. That was a sellable idea right there.
Hob
@Xboxershorts: In case you haven’t really flounced off yet, I’d just like to point out again that what originally got people here cheesed off at you was that you made a specific claim about California politics despite not knowing anything about California or Kamala Harris’s background. If you want to talk about what’s wrong with Pennsylvania, I for one am all for that (grew up in Lancaster, have continued to follow PA’s depressing politics from afar). But if you insist on hammering the “Harrisburg = DNC = Kamala Harris because I’ve heard bad things about all of them” line then it’s going to continue not going over well.
If you actually care: Here’s why it makes no sense to say that Kamala Harris was foisted upon us “by the modern DNC.” She became a candidate for Attorney General after working her way up through the San Francisco DA’s office and then getting elected as SF DA twice. She was very popular as CA AG and was re-elected. It was incredibly unsurprising that she would run for Senate and have a good chance at winning. And her leading opponent within the Democratic Party was the considerably more conservative Loretta Sanchez— a Blue Dog from Orange County who supported Dianne Feinstein during the 2003 gubernatorial recall. Just because the people you mentioned did not like some of Harris’s positions (and I’ve often shared that opinion), and other California liberals argued with those people and were rude to them or whatever, does not mean she won due to shady party operatives giving her an otherwise inexplicable career boost. It means California voters are not all identical to the people you’re talking about, and lots of them have been fond of Kamala Harris for more than a decade.
Also, not that you care, but I’m pretty sick of people throwing around DNC this and DNC that when they don’t seem to have any idea what the DNC actually does, or specifically how it would be involved in any particular campaign. It’s not just a synonym for “the establishment,” it is a specific organization with a pretty limited scope.
I’m sure we have pretty similar opinions about a lot of Democratic politicians, but I think if you want to change the party, it’s best to have an accurate picture of what’s currently going on in it and not fall back on “I don’t really know or care if this is true, but I’m mad so it sounds good.”
Another Scott
@Turgidson: Thanks for the corrections. I guess, like most people, the timeline got a bit jumbled in my head. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Hob
BTW, I don’t mean to imply that Harris can’t be at fault for not prosecuting that case. She’s certainly caught some flak for not pushing as hard as she could on mortgage fraud and foreclosure violations. But I think California voters didn’t generally consider punishing the banks to be their top priority, or were impressed enough by what she did do in that regard (and for things like pushing for the California Homeowner’s Bill of Rights, even though the follow-up and enforcement for it was not good), so it didn’t become a big factor in the Senate campaign.
The other big thing many liberals dislike her for is that she often seems to have knee-jerk positions in favor of law enforcement when it comes to things like prosecutorial misconduct. You could ascribe that to her background as a DA, but sadly it’s pretty common in general and I think it’s rare for an attorney general to really suffer politically for such a stance.
I’m really sad to lose Barbara Boxer, and I think Harris is certainly a step down from Boxer, but I can see why she’s popular and I can also see why even someone who didn’t like her approach as Attorney General would be happy to put her in the Senate.
Barbara
@Xboxershorts: Some states have more powerful parties than others. This is definitely true. However, Democrats have won several recent statewide elections in Pennsylvania, including AG this year, but being stuck with Toomey is a serious kick in the teeth. I grew up in Pittsburgh where most of my immediate family still lives, with others living in places like Butler and State College and Harrisburg. The way I look at it, the biggest problem lies with politicians like Kathleen Kane who poison the well and make it hard to maintain a positive united front. We need up and comers to actually progress. We can’t keep running the same people, whether it’s Sestak or yes, Bob Casey. When I look at Harry Reid, I think, there is a guy who gets it — who worked hard to keep his state in Democratic hands, to work at advancing the careers of potential successors. Complaining has its uses but at some point it simply becomes a way of avoiding action.
mai naem mobile
@Roger Moore: I get the feeling that everybody bought into the con because Elizabeth Holmes ran it so well and her family was well connected politically so she managed to get some big shots on the board to give it even more legitimacy. I read that the Google people walked away because Holmes used the super sekret trade secret excuse for not letting them actally look at the technology. The Theranos story is going to make a great HBO/Netflix whatever series.
Barbara
@mai naem mobile: I found a Vanity Fair article that said that Google sent one of its employees to get his blood drawn at a Walgreen’s Wellness Center and when he was asked to give a lot more than finger prick they realized that the technology was not ready for prime time. There is a level of insanity to Holmes’ actions that is hard to comprehend. Anybody would have known that a laboratory testing company can’t just wing it when it comes to accurate test results.
J R in WV
@Calouste:
Boycott his company? Exxon-Mobile, you mean?
I’ve avoided Exxon since their drunken Captain wrecked their flawed super-tanker up in Alaska, polluting permanently an area which was, before the wreck of the Valdez, pristine Pacific waters. Boycotting in the sense that if I was out of fuel and there was only one gas station, I did what I had to do, else buying off-brand gas at a discount.
Anyone still buying Exxon exclusively should be beaten up with a dead otter.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
You think. The fact is you don’t know anything for sure. Maybe those people who didn’t vote on the presidential line were Republicans who hated Hillary but didn’t want to vote for Trump. Maybe they simply didn’t care who the president is but wanted to vote in state or local races. You are making a lot of assumptions about those people, but your assumptions aren’t proof of anything.
Coming from you, this is hilarious. Project much?
You blame scapegoat after scapegoat for the electoral disasters that the Democratic party has suffered, and refuse to so much as acknowledge the possibility that the leadership you unthinkingly and unquestioningly support had any part in causing those disasters. It’s really sad.
NR
@Mnemosyne: @tybee: Hey, you’re back, complete with your disturbing homoerotic comments!
Listen, it’s okay to be attracted to Bernie Sanders, but telling a bunch of total strangers about it is just weird, dude.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Sorry I linked you in that last comment. It was an accident. You’re not as bad as tybee, I’ll give you that much.
No One You Know
@Downpuppy: Cosign. I thought the Cat Blogging tag had been omitted, because, well, STEVE.