Learning to Speak, Fighting Financial Fraud, Mortgage Deal? Evicting Occupy DC

January 29th, 2012 - by: danny

TUNE IN: This morning; I will join Reverend Jesse Jackson on his weekly radio show from 8-10 AM. If the show is not carried in your area, listen in on http://keephopealiveradio.com

Video of the Week: Deb Roy: The Birth of a Word

MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language — so he wired up his house
with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son’s life, then parsed 90,000 hours of homevideo to watch “gaaaa” slowly turn into “water.” Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.

Da Sunday Nooze:

Cops Crack Occupy Heads in Oakland:

AP: Update: “Dozens of police maintained a late-night guard around City Hall following daylong protests that resulted in 300 arrests. Occupy Oakland demonstrators broke into the historic building and burned a US flag, as officers earlier fired tear gas to disperse people throwing rocks and tearing down fencing at a convention center.”

CLG: Police use tear gas and flash bang grenades on Occupy protesters –Full-blown confrontation between police and protesters taking place in Oakland 28 Jan 2012 Police in Oakland, California, used ‘chemical agents’ against Occupy Oakland protesters on Saturday. (Fox News) Police have used tear gas and flash bang grenades on demonstrators in Oakland, Calif., as authorities say a protest involving an estimated 2,000 people ‘turned violent.

Meanwhile, about 100 police officers surrounded City Hall while others were swept the inside of the building to see if any protesters broke in. USA Today reports. Report in New York Times.

•Occupy Supporters Have Issued A Statement Calling for An End To Violence Against Peaceful Protest

Excerpt: “To put the matter bluntly, but truly: the state planned and unleashed naked and systematic violence and repression against people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed. This response by those who wield power in this society is utterly shameful from a moral standpoint, and thoroughly illegitimate from a legal and political one.

Now this movement faces a true crossroads. Will it be dispersed, driven into the margins, or co-opted? Or will it come back stronger? This question now poses itself, extremely sharply.

One thing is clear already: if this illegitimate wave of repression is allowed to stand… if the powers-that-be succeed in suppressing or marginalizing this new movement… if people are once again “penned in”—both literally and symbolically—things will be much worse. THIS SUPPRESSION MUST BE MASSIVELY OPPOSED, AND DEFEATED.

You can write to this group at: dontsuppressows@yahoo.com.

• Fluent News: ‘Topless Protesters Detained at Davos Forum’

•NYT: Former Taliban Officials Say U.S. Talks Started

Former officials said Taliban negotiators traveled to Qatar for discussions with American officials that included a possible prisoner transfer.

• Cain supports Gingrich, My hunch: Newt will help him pay off campaign debts….The New York Times reports that pro-Israel extremist and gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson has given $17 Million to Gingrich’s various campaigns. That’s $17 million!…Palin Calls Criticism Of Gingrich ‘Stalinesque’…Floriduh Congressman Alan West Tells GOP dinner: Liberals :”Should Get The Hell Out of the US.”

*Fluent: ‘UN inspectors visit Iran as nuclear tensions rise’

•Could Wall Streeters Be Finally Sent To Jail?

Taibbi: Good Foreclosure Deal Could Open the Door to Ending Up With Half of Wall Street in Jail

Last night on Countdown, Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi talked about the recent foreclosure settlement deal being negotiated between the state Attorney Generals, including California’s bold Kamala D. Harris, and the banks.

“If they do this for real, if they do this like an Enron-style investigation, you could have half the luminaries on Wall Street doing prison time…. they all made enormous profits from selling mismarked and over-evaluated mortgages to unsuspecting investors,” Taibbi said.

The question in terms of broader national policy, says Taibbi, is whether the Obama Administration has really gotten the Occupy Wall Street message, or “will it be a cosmetic investigation” only? ”

I would go “cosmetic.” Here’s why:

Dissector Essay: Remember Rousseau: Property Rights and Human Rights Are Still At War

The conflict between property rights and human rights has entered a new chapter. It is a debate that goes back to the challenge by landowners and merchants behind the American Revolution’s war on British control over the colonial economy.

Only today, as those speaking in the name of the 99% challenge the super wealthy of the 1% (actually the .001 %) there is a new battleground in what’s known as the housing market with as many as 14 million Americans in or facing foreclosure.

The defense of property rights is the holy of the holies for the propertied classes with a whole industry set up to enforce their claims of ownership.

We have seen how this plays out with the courts, run by often bought off and complicit judges rubber-stamping claims by banks and realty interests even when laws are disregarded amidst fraudulent filings, biased contracts, and phony robot signings. They control the marshals who seize your property, and constantly denigrate the real victims as “irresponsible.”

It’s not surprising any more to read about banks foreclosing on properties they don’t even own.

Jean-Jacques Rosseau who postulated the “social contract” that gives property rights a moral claim would be turning in his grave if he knew of the many abuses that homeowners in the US face daily.

According to one scholarly presentation I read, “In order to clearly present Rousseau’s views on property in the Social Contract, we must first define what he means by property. Property according to Rousseau is that which is obtained legally thereby purporting legitimate claim to ones holdings. Now we must consider what gives an individual the right to openly claim ownership.

Rousseau points out that right does not equal might. In other words, having a right can never derive from force. A right must be given legitimately which means it is attached to moral and legal code. This makes it contractual whereby the rights of one are applied to the rights of all. Once a right is established, it is beneficial and necessary for the individual to apply this right effectively for his best interests and those of the whole. This motivation is directed at the formation of community thereby creating a social contract between individuals that come together to act as a group.

Now a combination of rights is formed whereby each individual is protected by the whole group that stands together as a community. The concept is that man standing alone is more vulnerable than many men united each in defense of the other. This condition makes it impossible for one to hurt an individual without hurting the whole group or for one to hurt the group without affecting each individual.

There is now a social contract where individual rights are combined. In this case, it is in the best interest of the individual to give over his rights to the group since he has a more powerful protective base than standing alone.”

And yet many of us today do “stand alone:” in the commercial marketplace where borrowers are seen as suckers by lenders and fraud is pervasive, abuse, lying, and theft is built into the equation.

Now President Obama says, four years after the markets melted down and the sub prime mortgages were exposed a sub-crime, which he will crack down on these abuses.

Hallelujah.

It sounds good, and you want to believe, especially because Obama has tapped New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman who has rejected settling with some banks engaged in massive frauds because it’s a deceptive deal, as a top gun for the effort.

Now, the Justice Department has announced the details to the press, minus the official who will run the effort and who was “traveling” and couldn’t make the press conference.

(Lanny Breuer is his name, and before joining the Department that calls itself Justice, was working for a law firm representing big banks, perhaps not a topic he wanted to answer questions about.)

Attorney General Holder was there to reveal that there will be 55 people working on this full time, 30 attorneys and support people, and 10 FBI agents who first blew the whistle on “pervasive real estate fraud” back in 2004.

Yves Smith of NakedCapitalism.com who follows details like this closely was underwhelmed, writing:

“During the Savings and Loan crisis, Bill Black reminds us that there were about a thousand FBI agents working on the various cases. That’s one hundred times the number of people working on a scandal that is about forty times larger and far more complex.

To put it another way, let’s say that this scandal cost the American public $5-7 trillion in lost home equity. That’s about $100 billion of lost home equity per person assigned to this task force. If someone stole $100 billion a corporation, like say, if somehow Apple’s entire cash hoard which is roughly that amount, suddenly disappeared, I’m guessing that the FBI would assign more than one person to the case.”

Ok, these are tough times and the government is pressed and the President is running for reelection with his “bundlers” (i.e . the people who raise the big money) pressing the flesh on Wall Street to find more 1% donors. Will this fund raising effort stymie his hell raising effort?

Stay tuned.

Adds Smith: “For the last eight weeks, nearly 200 federal examiners have labored inside some of the nation’s biggest banks to determine how those institutions would hold up if the recession deepened.

Yup, roughly four times as many people were assigned to conduct sham stress tests as are assigned to investigate the causes of the financial crisis and prosecute the people responsible. So we see that this is a not a serious deployment of government resources to unmask a complex economy-shaking financial scheme. It just isn’t.”

No surprise there.

And, as for the causes of the financial crisis, remember the Commission that was created by Congress and that found the while disaster “avoidable.”
It offered plenty of analysis but quickly led to paralysis with partisan bickering fogging the issues and no agenda for change forthcoming.

Like the 911 Commission report years earlier or the Warren Commission’s findings before that, it was read by many but believed by few.

Matt Stoller, a former aide to former Congressman Alan Grayson tries to unravel a massive contradiction that rises to the man at the top:

“There are two underlying structural problems with the new(ish) Federal task force on financial fraud,” he writes.”

One, it is the policy of the administration to protect the banking system’s basic architecture, which means the compensation structure and the existing personnel who run these large institutions. Any real investigation into the financial collapse will inevitably lead to the collapse of this architecture. Thus, any real investigation will be impeded when it begins to conflict the basic policy framework of the Obama administration. And this framework is set by Obama. It’s what he believes in. He made this clear in his first State of the Union, when he said a priority of the administration was to ensure that “the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times.”

Perhaps this is why so few bankers have spoken out loudly about this latest effort to target their financial frauds. They know it’s not serious and recognize that political business like the news business is now a branch of show business.

And John-Jacques Rousseau is not talking either He has been dead for hundreds of years along with his social contract.

Mortgage Liability Settlement In The Works

Sam Stein and Zach Carter,Huff Post: Obama Administration and Banks Near Deal on Mortgage Fraud Legal Liability

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, state attorneys
general, and, perhaps, the nation’s largest banks are
close to a final settlement on the years-long struggle
over allegations of massive foreclosure fraud, according
to several sources familiar with the talks. And the
final details of the arrangement, according to the
source who revealed them, will apparently not preclude
prosecutors and regulators from taking legal action
against many of the common abuses during the house
bubble. It remains to be seen whether all parties will
ultimately sign off on the language.

The settlement is worth $25 billion, a sum which will be
distributed to homeowners who were wrongfully foreclosed
on as well as those who remain underwater. In addition,
banks could still face future legal action over 12
specific violations.

According to someone intimate with the negotiations,
there will be no legal release of the banks with respect
to:

1 Criminal liability.
2 Tax liability
3 Fair lending, fair housing, or any other civil rights
claim.
4 Federal Housing Finance Agency or the GSEs [Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac]
5 CFPB claims for the period after they came into
existence in July 2011
6 SEC claims
7 National Credit Union Association Claims
8 FDIC claims
9 Federal Reserve Board claims
10 MERS claims

In addition, the source said, there will be preservation
of the vast majority of securitization claims including
all claims regarding state pension funds as well as the
vast majority of the origination fraud claims from HUD,
the VA and the USDA.

Company Obama cited in SOTU speech just went bankrupt

Business Insider – Andrew Restuccia of The Hill is reporting that Ener1, a battery company that President Obama referenced in his State of The Union Speech on Tuesday as an example of successful energy investments, has just filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

That’s just two days after the speech.

“In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries,” Obama said in his speech.

According to Phil Milford and Dawn McCarty at Businessweek, Ener1 had received a $118 million U.S. Energy Department grant to make electric-car batteries. And the grant received bi-partisan support, so it is not entirely on Obama’s shoulders

•Singing About Bam: David Rovics, singer-songwriter:

I was inspired to verse by the Republican “debates.” I have long thought about how wonderful the world would be if President Obama really were the tree-hugging, immigrant-loving, pacifist Muslim hippie class warrior that the rightwing nutjobs love to portray. The other day it occurred to me to write the song. Here’s the YouTube broadside version recorded with my phone.

“If Only It Were True”

Occupy News: Appeal To Defend Occupy DC

It took just 72 hours for the National Park Service and their Director, Jonathan Jarvis, to cave-in to Republican pressure to remove the Occupy protesters who are camping at Freedom Plaza and McPherson Park. Despite glowing praise from Democrats for a job well done in the handling of the protesters at a congressional hearing held this past Tuesday, January 24, 2012, leaflets were passed out Friday PM by National Park Service police. These require the removal of all tents by Monday, January 30 at 12 PM.

The Official Notice: January 27, 2012

This communication serves as notice that, on or about noon, January 30, 2012, the United States Park Police will commence enforcement of the long-standing National Park Service (NPS) regulations that prohibit camping and the use of temporary structures for camping in McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza. The NPS has repeatedly advised participants in both parks of the camping regulations, and had sought voluntary compliance. On or about noon, January 30, 2012, if camping violations are observed, individual violators may be subject to arrest and their property subject to seizure as evidence. Any temporary structure used for camping also will be subject to seizure as an abatement of a public nuisance, and may be reclaimed by the property owner between the hours of 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. at the Park Police D-1 Station located at 960 Ohio Drive, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024, if done within the 60 days. Items determined to be trash or a bio-hazard, however, will be disposed of as refuse, so you are advised to promptly dispose of any such items.

NPS REGULATIONS PROHIBIT THE FOLLOWING:

1. CAMPING, defined as the “use of park land for living accommodation purposes such as sleeping activities, or making preparations to sleep (including the laying down of bedding for the purpose of sleeping) or storing personal belongings, or making any fire, or using any tents or shelter or other structure or vehicle for sleeping or doing any digging or earth breaking . . . .” Title 36 CFR § 7.96(i)(1).

2. USE OF TEMPORARY STRUCTURES FOR CAMPING: “Temporary structures may not be used outside designated camping areas for living accommodation activities such as sleeping, or making preparations to sleep (including the laying down of bedding for the purpose of sleeping), or storing personal belongings, or making any fire, or doing any digging or earth breaking or carrying on cooking activities. The above-listed activities constitute camping when it reasonably appears, in light of all the circumstances that the participants, in conducting these activities, are in fact using the area as a living accommodation regardless of the intent of the participants or the nature of any other activities in which they may also be engaging . . . .” Title 36 CFR § 7.96(g)(5)(vi).

The NPS camping regulation has been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. The NPS has a long and proud tradition of providing opportunities for the exercise of First Amendment rights, but it also is obligated to protect our important cultural and natural resources. Although 24/7 demonstration vigils and the use of symbolic temporary structures, including empty tents used as symbols of the demonstration, may be permitted in the park areas, camping and the use of temporary structures for camping is not.

TO COMPLY WITH NPS CAMPING REGULATIONS, YOU MUST DO THE FOLLOWING:

1. Remove all camping material from the park, AND
2. Leave one side of all temporary structures open at all times to ensure public health and safety and to allow NPS personnel to monitor compliance with camping regulations.
At both parks, NPS rangers will be distributing this notice to persons and at each temporary structure, and will post it in conspicuous locations in the parks, and on the park’s website at www.nps.gov/nacc/parkmgmt.
Despite Director Jarvis’ statements to Congress that there had been no less than two previous long-term encampments on Washington DC property the National Park Service bowed to Republican pressure. Vehement support for the Occupiers was given by committee Democrats including Eleanor Holmes Norton, whose district these camps are in ,and Elija Cummings,the ranking member on the committee. The flyers, which were posted at both camps and handed out to all Occupy campers in attendance ,stated that they would be subject to arrest and their possessions seized ,if they did not vacate the park by the noon deadline.

Attorneys representing both camps have already filed suit in Federal District Court in an attempt to obtain a restraining order barring the Park Service from implementing its order. The court hearing is set for this Monday Feb 1 at 9:30AM. These attorneys have twice been successful in stopping previous evictions of McPherson Park.

Walking Occupation Reaches Atlanta

Elizabeth Freud sends this news of an Occupy Long Walk along:

We are a group of 20 marchers who have walked over 750 miles to arrive at the Martin Luther King Jr. eternal flame. We began our journey Dec. 1, 2011 at the MLK Jr. memorial in Washington DC. We hope our effort will suggest a link of continuity between historic events of the civil rights movement and the emerging “Occupy” movement, which similarly seeks redress of systemic injustice in our society.

We will arrive in Atlanta Saturday evening and plan to hold a press event Sunday, January 29th at 2pm at the MLK Memorial & Eternal Flame, at which we will discuss our formative experiences on the march, plans for future marches, and constructive visions for the evolution of Occupy, our nation, and world.

Undernews: Hull House closes after 120 years

Huffington Post – Hull House, the Chicago social services organization founded more than 120 years ago by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams, closed Friday after running out of money.

The agency said the poor economy resulted in more demand for its services but also made it harder to raise money to cover its costs. Hull House has been providing child care, job training, housing assistance and other services for 60,000 people a year in the Chicago area.

The agency had announced plans to close in the spring, but Friday’s shutdown was unexpected, striking some 300 employees with a devastating and unexpected blow. They received layoff notices and final paychecks and then spent the day packing their belongings and saying tearful good-byes. Many said they were startled to learn their insurance ended almost two weeks ago.

Founded in 1889, Hull House was the best known of the 400 settlement houses in the United States in the early 1900s. The settlements were designed to provide services to immigrants and the poor while uplifting them through culture, education and recreation. At its peak, Hull House served more than 9,000 people a week, offering medical help, an art gallery, citizenship classes, a gardening club and a gym with sports programs.

Victoria Brown, a history professor at Grinnell College and author of “The Education of Jane Addams,” said the closure was “an absolute puzzle” and wondered why officials had not publicized the financial problems earlier in an effort to save the agency.

“I wish we would have known. Why weren’t they screaming this from the rooftops?” said Brown. Addams “was known as gentle, not confrontational, but one of her favorite words was `stupid.’ She would say, `This is just stupid. How could this have happened?’”

•Fluent: ‘British Police Arrest 5 in Tabloid Bribery Probe’

Music: Outernational Sings Dylan’s “When The Ship Comes In” With Jim Keltner

Letters

Bruce Morgan writes: “What Social Contract?”

As Obama has shown over the past three years, his words are meaningless; particularly now that he is in full campaign mode. He may be an excellent orator, but he remains the handmaiden of the uber-rich.

Thanks for Joining me. I will be leaving the country for a week on Monday. Hope to write from there.

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