Indefinite Detention? But I Have Soccer Practice at 4: U.S. Politics 2012

Wells Fargo, Citi, Ally/GMAC, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America just sealed a deal with 49 State Attorneys General that will release them from liability for out-right defrauding millions of homeowners. In exchange, families defrauded by the banks can apply for what amounts to 2 months rent ($1,800-$2,000) compensation for losing their homes.

I heard the Maryland Attorney General on the radio defending this and insisting that he and the NY, California and Delaware attorney generals improved this and made it strong--pushing the amount up from 6 billion to 26 billion and making other changes

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/faq-the-foreclosure-settlement/2011/08/25/gIQAcvGV1Q_blog.html

The deal is currently worth $26 billion. Is that really a lot of money? Depends what you mean by “a lot of money.” The deal is the largest of its kind since a multi-state agreement with the tobacco industry in 1998. But that deal was worth around $350 billion in today’s dollars. It’s also not a lot of money compared to the $700 billion in underwater mortgage debt, or the bailout of the banks that issue and bought the debt in the first place.

The settlement increased in size thanks to the participation of California and New York’s attorneys general, who had been holdouts. However, some critics say the amount is relatively paltry, given the extent of the nation’s housing crisis.

What’s in it for the banks? The banks have been operating under a cloud of legal uncertainty over their exposure to bad mortgages that were not properly documented. That has hurt banks’ stock prices and tied up capital. As part of today’s deal, officials have promised not to pursue certain mortgage-related claims against the targeted banks.

So are they off the hook entirely? No. One reason the deal is relatively small is that it doesn’t fully end the banks’ legal liability. New York AG Eric Schneiderman, for instance, is able to move forward with his lawsuit.

I have no reason to doubt Harris will aggressively go after the banks on behalf of California.

“‘I was thinking about how sexy it would be to kiss you,’” world renowned pickup artist Wayne Elise told a group of young Rick Santorum fans. “You can say that (to a girl), it’s a cool.”

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/professional-pick-up-artist-teaches-cpac-crowd-how-to-run-game.php

it's a cool

positively Wilsonian....

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/09/obamas_unprecedented_war_on_whistleblowers/singleton/

giving up politics on ILE & Facebook for Lent

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Thursday, February 9, 2012 1:39 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol Lent doesn't start until the 22nd

oh, didn't realize. i'll just update my calendar then...

(altho i guess i did realize that since we're going to NOLA soon during mardi gras and i know that's like the last hurrah before lent.)

positively Wilsonian....

Jesus!

A+ trolling, someone buy this dude a beer:

Mississippi State Rep. Steve Holland has had a busy afternoon. After we reported his introduction of H.B. 150 yesterday, a bill that aims to rename the Gulf of Mexico the very pro-'Merican, Onion-worthy title "Gulf of America," the Democrat's office has been flooded with press calls to respond to, essentially, "what the hell are you doing?"

Turns out Holland has a bit of a goof streak going on. He called Gambit to tell us the bill is his tongue-in-cheek single-finger salute to mock his Republican peers obsessed with illegal immigration.

"That's exactly what it is," he says. He's throwing the bill into session with his Republican counterparts, who he says should be focused on helping "feed, clothe and educate children, take care of older adults, provide economic development and high systems in this state, and all the hell they want to talk about is running illegal immigrants out, and drug testing welfare and Medicaid recipients — all superfluous crap as far as I'm concerned. So I thought I'd just join them with a bill to chew on, saying the Gulf of America instead of the Gulf of Mexico, since everything Mexican and Hispanic is 'so bad.' Nothing but a 'spamalot' bill is all it is. Tongue-in-cheek."

Despite his ruse, he's drawn ire from Café Con Leche, a GOP group of Minnesota Latinos who demanded Holland withdraw the bill, which the group dubs anti-Mexican. Café Con Leche suggested Holland rename the Mississippi River “Lincoln River,” while he’s at it. But his home state hasn't peeped yet.

"Nobody in Mississippi has responded, but I've been responding to phone calls all over the world," Holland says. "Maybe I didn't think about it, but hell, I've been here 29 years, I got to try and have some fun as best I can with all these jerks."

Speaking of fun, you might catch Holland at Mardi Gras.

"I'm coming into New Orleans the week after next to raise hell," he says. "Just time to have my New Orleans fix. I go once a quarter. I love it."

lol Mordy can't wait

positively Wilsonian....

Jesus!

judge for yourself:

One of the things to which he paid particular attention at this time was the matter of the pardon of Eugene V. Debs. The day that the recommendation for pardon arrived at the White House, he looked it over and examined it carefully, and said: "I will never consent to the pardon of this man. I know that in certain quarters of the country there is a popular demand for the pardon of Debs, but it shall never be accomplished with my consent. Were I to consent to it, I should never be able to look into the faces of the mothers of this country who sent their boys to the other side. While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines, sniping, attacking, and denouncing them. Before the war he had a perfect right to exercise his freedom of speech and to express his own opinion, but once the Congress of the United States declared war, silence on his part would have been the proper course to pursue. I know there will be a great deal of denunciation of me for refusing this pardon. They will say I am cold-blooded and indifferent, but it will make no impression on me. This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration."

"They will say I am cold-blooded and indifferent, but it will make no impression on me."

The crazy thing is that he probably meant this to be taken unironically.

wmc's real name is Steve Holland?

lol

Was really hoping dude would turn out to be director "Savage" Steve Holland in a new career phase, but alas.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/white-house-to-announce-accommodation-for-religious-organizations-on-contraception-rule/

One source familiar with the decision described the accommodation as “Hawaii-plus,” insisting that it’s better than the Hawaii plan — for both sides.

In Hawaii the employer is responsible for referring employees to places where they can obtain the contraception; Catholic leaders call that material cooperation with evil. But what the White House will likely announce later today is that the relationship between the religious employer and the insurance company will not need to have any component involving contraception. The insurance company will reach out on its own to the women employees. This is better for both sides, the source says, since the religious organizations do not have to deal with medical care to which they object, and women employees will not have to be dependent upon an organization hostile to that care in order to obtain it.

David Frum:

The Contraception Fight
by David Frum Feb 9, 2012 12:00 PM EST

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U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (R) takes questions as Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Richard Gilfillan (L) looks on during a news conference December 19, 2011, Alex Wong / Getty Images

Glendower:

I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Hotspur:

Why, so can I, or so can any man;

But will they come when you do call for them?

- Henry IV, Part 1.

As Republicans go to war over including contraception in health plans, they are repeating to themselves a reassuring mantra:

"This is not a contraception issue. This is not a social issue. This is a constitutional issue."

The idea is that they are not against contraception. They are only against requiring any employer or plan to provide contraception if that employer or plan conscientiously objects to contraception.

So they say, so they may sincerely believe.

But politics is not only about what you say. It is also about what your intended audience will hear.

If the audience is paying attention, for example, it will notice that Republicans are not proposing to allow employers and plans to refuse to cover blood transfusions if they conscientiously object to them (although there are religious groups that do). Or vaccinations (although there are individuals who conscientiously object to those as well). Or medicines derived from animal experimentation. (Ditto.)

No, Marco Rubio's Religious Freedom Restoration bill provides for one conscientious exemption only: contraception and sterilization.

Which means it will be very hard if not impossible to persuade the target audience that this debate is not in fact about contraception. Everybody quite sure that's a wise debate to have?

ha what the hell do republican voters care about jehovahs witnesses

obvs they don't but it's just nice to have them publicly called on their bullshit.

Seriously, how the fuck can all these religious organizations get so many tax exemptions and then have the chutzpah to complain about shit?

Also, you'd think a nation of people with 2 kids a family, give or take, pretty much settles the stance on birth control. It'd be a different debate if we were all running around with dozens of kids underfoot per household, like in "Meaning of Life."

A line from my old standup act identified the primary birth-control method in Catholic marriages as "mutual disgust"

q: what do you call ppl who practice the 'mutual disgust' method of birth-control?
a: divorcees!

rmde at this nonsense

Shakey you said this story would blow over quickly, and maybe Obama's accommodation compromise will help that happen. Nah, the Catholic bishops and the Republicans will be ranting about Obama denying first amendment freedom of religion rights from here on, even with today's action (which has now gotten Obama some of that "reasonable adult" attention that he so loves)

I can't see this having legs really - it's only been in the news cycle for what, two days now? let's keep some perspective.

Has Mitt Romney proclaimed himself the anti-contraception candidate yet?

two days? i've been hearing about this for at least two weeks now

This will disappear next week to be replaced by something equally ephemeral. No one will discuss Iran and drone rockets.

If you don't have CNN or FOX, this problem is meaningless.

problem = the miniscule percentage of Catholics ready to break from Obama over diaphragms and colored condoms.

Obama's introduction on friday of the accomodation himself rather than having it done via press release shows though that the White House is more worried about this than Shakey is!

There seems to high percentage of Catholic inside the Beltway media types fixated on this--Chris Matthews, EJ Dionne, hmmm is Cokie Roberts...

If you don't have CNN or FOX, this problem is meaningless.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, February 11, 2012

Unless you work at a Catholic-owned hospital, but yeah otherwise you could say this about just about any political thing we discuss here

"When you wear that blue condom, I go wild!"

you could say this about just about any political thing we discuss here

Except, you know, the important stuff.

Biden was among those reportedly telling O to backtrack, I-tol-ya-so ad nauseum.

i don't defer to Beltway media types about substantive policy (esp since they've been laughably wrong about such things by and large), and i'm damn sure not going to defer to their take on Catholicism or Catholic voters.

by itself, this flap isn't going to swing anyone but grannies who go to novenas (who probably weren't too keen on voting for Obama anyway).

A good pol never leaves a potential vote on the table. Even a small slice of novena-attending grannies is worth making an effort, if it looks like a net gainer.

my mother is an 83-yo granny who hauls a rosary. I'm sure she'll vote for Obama (again) as long as my sister drives her to the poll and tells her to.

you should drive her to the polls and tell her to vote for roseanne

roseanne-ary

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

Almost half of all Americans lived in households that received government benefits in 2010, according to the Census Bureau. The share climbed from 37.7 percent in 1998 to 44.5 percent in 2006, before the recession, to 48.5 percent in 2010.

The trend reflects the expansion of the safety net. When the earned-income credit was introduced in 1975, eligibility was limited to households making the current equivalent of up to $26,997. In 2010, it was available to families making up to $49,317. The maximum payout, meanwhile, quadrupled on an inflation-adjusted basis.

Interesting long piece. I was thinking about it as I saw on Facebook an annoying forwarded photo thing saying: "Got my tax form returned, the government did not like me listing as my dependents, 12 million illegal immigrants, x million on disability, x million on and so on." Conservatives are convinced all these folks are lucky duckies living it up on these far less than six figure amounts. But some want to work and some are Tea party types themselves in denial.

great opening: "Back in 2006, before the Obama administration made leak prosecutions routine..."

How are future Supreme Court appointments such a re-election vote crutch for a regime that has such contempt for a free press?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/sunday-review/a-high-tech-war-on-leaks.html

The White House's fixation on prosecuting whistleblower leak cases is horrible, but again how is enabling Romney or whatever GOPer to appoint Supreme court judges going to make things better. If we had had a Dem in office instead of Bush a more moderate (or even kinda liberal) Supreme Court could act as a screen to prevent such constitution damaging actions.

could have

acted

You're presuming that justices vote the way their presidents want them to. Besides, a liberal judge is apt to rein in King Obama.