If progressive views are going to get anywhere, progressive writers when discussing the “cognitive dissonance” of numbers like these MUST start pointing out that much of the “don’t like what Obama has done for the economy” comes from the Krugthulu/Keynesian wing of the party who mostly are going to vote for Obama because yes, the alternative is worse.

But unless we start EMPHASIZING that Obama supporters DO NOT LIKE his policies MOSTLY because the alternatives are either, 1) vote for the bat-shit crazy reactionaries or 2) tilt at Green windmills, there WILL BE NO PRESSURE on Obama’s crew to talk about the issue.

It’s a really good idea not to quote these “contrary” figures and even imply that it “puzzling”….

Sounds like a good argument for replacing the Mandate with an Itemized Deduction on Taxes for people who purchase individual policies….might provide enough competition for the employer subsidy to move everyone onto individual policies (which fixes a lot of problems)….

Holder: “Sorry Nancy, it’s too late: we already have an agreement that you should be happy with!”

Yah! Run Nancy out of office! Let’s run all the progressive-curious out of Congress first! Those apostates are SO much worse than the Blue Dogs! Why should we care that she did a better job of herding cats than any Democrat Speaker since Tip O’Neill?

Keep up the amazing work dday: it does indeed make a difference.

IANAL, but it looks to me like there is a Lawyer’s-License-To-Print-Money here: I’m sure that in at least some states, there are penalties or loss of interest provisions tied to all this missing paperwork.

With an 80% bad paperwork rate (remember, although this is a sample of foreclosures, the same paperwork problems are in GOOD loans with able borrowers), there’s probably a huge potential for those owners to get their houses equity FREE by simply establishing to the state that the current loan holder actually has no title, and if the loan holder of record is defunct or clearly has no interest, well, FREE HOUSE!

I’m sure some big damages firms out there can come up with a standard “give us 5% of your house if we release the loans” deal and make bazillions off of this… HEY LEGAL EAGLES! FREE MONEY! :)

Willie Brown, who is as connected and politics-wise as they come had this to say in the SF Chronicle last Sunday:

I hear the White House is mad enough to spit over California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ refusal to go along with their so-called settlement with the nation’s mortgage lenders.

But there’s nothing they can do about her saying the deal they cut is no good, because she’s right.

Plus, she’s starting to pick up the support of other attorneys general around the country.

I’d still watch out if I were her. The White House may not be able to take you out, but the big guns on Wall Street still can.

Just ask former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Or do you think it was a coincidence that all his hooker escapades went public after he started coming down on Wall Street?

Eric and Kamala may have had their knives out, but the White House brought TEC-9′s….

If you’re on Komen’s mailing list, you can get off it and tell them why here: http://ww5.komen.org/Contact.aspx

To quote Adam Savage: “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

Yep, that’s right. Unless we keep it away from the mainstream it won’t be pure and perfect revolution.

Really, at some point, even the corporations start to realize that the conventional wisdom, short-term greed, etc. is actually disadvantageous for the health of the corporation. Insisting that this can never be the case is a self-fulfilling prophecy that *prevents* progressivism from becoming “popular” (“mainstream” if you will).

See this month’s SciAm article on the Cocoa Crisis, where the Chief Science Officer of Mars makes the case for immediate and drastic climate change action (“But!” he sputters, “ALL corporations MUST be promoting the lies against climate change! They must! They’re ALL greedy! By DEFINITION!”)

I know quite a few people who got involved in Occupy Oak when it got started: mainstream progressives. The local view of this–not what’s fed to the MSM–is that participation has steadily shifted to the “traditional leftist/anarchist” activists (the folks who belonged to the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade back when I was a Berkeley). Taking over Kaiser “because The People own it and The People need a place to sleep” is a big step beyond where the vast majority of the progressive crowd is, and this is annoying the vast majority of the folks who support the Occupy movement in general.

The OPD is definitely not past it’s ugly “Riders” past, shoots before asking questions, and should rightly–along with the very confused Jean Quan–be beaten over the head with their stupidity and inability to approach the situation without making it ten times worse.

But sorry folks, the Oakland Occupy “consensus” is detrimental to the cause because it destroys so much “capital” (as mentioned a couple of times above) that has been getting the movement closer and closer to getting actually positive mainstream coverage. I’m with them that we should do more to help the homeless, but they’ve hijacked the cause for their attitude and goals that even progressives have no problem calling “Trotskyite”….

Jeez, even the libtard press can’t get the headline right.

Should be: “O’KEEFE & BREITBART PROVE HOW HARD IT IS TO GET AWAY WITH VOTER FRAUD”…..

Honest: it is Obama’s giving in to the progressives by providing a stimulus through additional federal dollars for local “shovel ready projects”….

Absolutely. Actually Anthony Batts (just resigned Chief) probably would have told Jean that this was a waste of his resources!

Jean’s in trouble because she and her Trotskyite fringe on the city council don’t want to lose the black vote infringe on the rights of poor gang members from the non-violent legal tactics Batts supported. Now that she’s getting fried for this stand in the media, she has to show how big her balls are….

…that by the way shows that this is a case of “all politics are local”: there really probably is not a banker with a stick up Jean’s rear end.

Oh the irony: In just the last few days, Jean Quan, Oakland’s mayor who had been feuding with just-resigned Police Chief because she wouldn’t back up his desire to bring down the hammer on GANG violence (which makes Oakland one of the top murder capitals in the US), has had a new recall campaign against her started precisely for not doing enough to bring that violence down.

Now she dressed her little police dolls up in jack boots and sends them out to stomp on some hippies.

Smooth move Jean!

RECALL JEAN QUAN!

Dday, thank you for pointing out the duopoly on payment processing.

Unfortunately, the consolidation in the retail banking industry is a similar example of the fact that you do *not* need a “real monopoly=1 vendor” (one of the silliest arguments in the wingnutosphere these days) to have monopoly *behavior*. The market share of the community banks and credit unions is small enough that it can be ignored by the oligarchs of retail banking, who know that their large ATM networks and brands are a significant barrier to “loss of clientele” due to the better deals you describe (cf. “IBM and the Seven Dwarfs”).

We are suffering from a simple consequence of the end of anti-trust prosecution in America that comes from lack of understanding of a simple truth: When there are fewer than 5 entrants in a market, there really is no need for explicit “collusion” to fix prices: everyone is big enough so that they realize that rocking the boat is *against* their interests, and it is much more lucrative to *follow* the competition rather than counter market against them.

Also, claims like those above by simpletons who argue that “people just want the service for free” are disingenuous: these fees are bringing in $16 BILLION per yer for annual costs (*including* amortization of the assets for you MBA types) of just a few hundred million for building and maintaining those networks. Ask yourself: are you really happy to pay a 5000% markup on services?

Asking for a more reasonable markup isn’t really “demanding it for free”.

Banking has unfortunately become a license to print money at their customer’s expense, and due to the lack of anti-trust, we’re left with incurring the inconvenience of going to a small bank (and hoping it will be better for our kids), and showing up at #OCCUPYWALLSTREET (or at least sending them pizzas).

yep. …and last week’s Economist pointed out that federal and state car/gas taxes only pay for 70% of the woefully underfunded construction and maintenance of said roadways… yet ANOTHER FREE GIFT to the rich….

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the rich pay more taxes AND GET MORE BENEFIT FROM GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS.

You and I use the freeway to get to work, resulting in marginally survivable salaries.

The rich as shareholders get subsidized movement of trillions of dollars of goods and services over those same freeways for a much larger profit.

This is simple math and doesn’t require much more than undergraduate econ to analyze.

So tell me why ANYONE–liberal or conservative–must resort to “moral” arguments to justify higher taxes for the rich?

Just watched it, and although at least they said that the banks refused to be interviewed, it sure sounded like Scott Pelley got their spin exactly right for the bottom line of the story: “It wasn’t us, it wasn’t even our subcontractor, it was our sub-contractor’s-sub-contractor–the now defunct DocX–that defrauded us all! Oh well! Too bad! But NOT OUR FAULT!” …and to me Bair said nothing more than “not surprised that the banks won’t talk to you, and I won’t say boo about them, it’s gonna be really bad!”

…thus the story title.

Nothing to see here folks. All ovah. Move along!