Political Theatre category archive

Once again, it wasn’t the persons taking out the mortgages. It was the banks and mortgage companies issuing them.

And they didn’t get busted because there were not enough government bureaucrats FBI agents to investigate the crimes.

Now we are all busted.

“It is clear that we had good intelligence on the mortgage-fraud schemes, the corrupt attorneys, the corrupt appraisers, the insider schemes,” said a recently retired, high FBI official. Another retired top FBI official confirmed that such intelligence went back to 2002.

The problem, according to the two FBI retirees and several other current and former bureau colleagues, is that the bureau was stretched so thin that no one noticed when those lenders began packaging bad mortgages into bad securities.

“We knew that the mortgage-brokerage industry was corrupt,” the first of the retired FBI officials told the Seattle P-I. “Where we would have gotten a sense of what was really going on was the point where the mortgage was sold knowing that it was a piece of dung and it would be turned into a security. But the agents with the expertise had been diverted to counterterrorism.”

Via Raw Story.

Fact Check dot org looks at Minnesota. Follow the link for the full analysis:

Republican incumbent Norm Coleman headed into the Minnesota U.S. Senate recount leading Democratic challenger Al Franken by more than 200 votes. But on Jan. 5, the state Canvassing Board certified recount results showing Franken received 225 more votes than Coleman in the general election, out of nearly 2.9 million votes cast. How did this happen?

Unlike many right-leaning blogs and commentators, Coleman makes no claim of partisan funny business by the five members of the Canvassing Board, which has only one clearly identified Democrat. Coleman’s lawyer once praised the panel’s makeup, in fact.

Coleman’s appeal challenging the board’s certification, which a three-judge panel began hearing Jan. 26, lays out his theory: “Not every valid vote has been counted, and some have been counted twice.” Coleman raises several issues, among them: duplicate ballots, “missing” ballots, “improperly” rejected absentee ballots and discrepancies in rulings made on ballots concerning voter intent.

The outcome of this squeaky-close race now rests with the courts. But even if Coleman wins on all points it’s far from certain that he would gain enough votes to change the outcome. When the Canvassing Board was forced to count some disputed absentee ballots, for example, it was Franken who won a majority of them. Now Coleman wants even more rejected absentee ballots opened and counted, but nobody can say if he would get a higher percentage of those, or if he would just see Franken’s margin increase.

TerranceDC sums it up.

This is an example of someone who believes her own press releases.

It reminds me of when Buffalo Bob visited my campus during his short revival of popularity.

He visited during midterms.

In the words of one of my friends, “Dozens thronged the stage. Autograph hunters by the twos and threes stormed the stage door.”

Wailin’ Palin is going to be surprised at how far the public, except for the nutcase fringe deadenders, are so much just so over her.

H/T Karen for the link.

An update from the frozen north.

Here.

Whitehouse dot com, which was a porn site for as long as anyone can remember (as many embarrassed websurfers found out while helping their kids with homework about the presidency of the United States, the site for which is Whitehouse dot gov) is now a news site.

The “About” page says the site is non-partisan (but, then, most everyone claims to be, don’t they? Especially when they are not), but does not specify the source of their support.

In other news, Whitehouse dot org seems to have been experienced a burst of two or three new items after a long period of dormancy.

Whitehouse dot com story via NSP.

Bushes wither in the plain light of day.

President Obama moved swiftly yesterday to begin rolling back eight years of his predecessor’s policies, ordering tough new ethics rules and preparing to issue an order closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has been at the center of the debate over the treatment of U.S. prisoners in the battle against terrorism.

Acting to address several promises he made during his campaign, Obama met with top generals about speeding the withdrawal from Iraq and gathered his senior economic advisers as he continued to push for a massive spending bill to create jobs.

He also signed a series of executive orders and directives intended to slow the revolving door between government service and lobbying, and ordered his administration to share information more freely with the public.

But wait! There’s more! Dan Froomkin.

I promise, this is the last one. But it is just too good to pass up.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Frankly, I think the Reverend Lowery stole the show.

And his roots are deep. He was one of the founders of the SCLC.

Most white folks didn’t realize–as a white folk, I didn’t realize until I heard about it on CNN–that he quoted liberally from the “Black National Anthem.”

He put Rick Warren’s arrogant pomposity in its place.

Fiat wants to come back to the States:

Fiat is going to take a 35% equity interest in Chrysler, the companies and Chrysler’s owner Cerberus Capital Management said Tuesday in a tentative agreement that needs U.S. Treasury approval. Chrysler will get “access to competitive, fuel-efficient vehicle platforms, powertrain, and components” to be produced at Chrysler manufacturing sites.

No cash is changing hands. Fiat’s investment is all “in kind.”

I don’t think Tony will have much luck fixing this one.

The Onion, January 17, 2001.

That’s right. 2001.

I’m going to follow their stock market advice from now on. Read the whole thing. It’s eerily prescient:

“My fellow Americans,” Bush said, “at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us.”

Bush swore to do “everything in [his] power” to undo the damage wrought by Clinton’s two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

Via Noz.

No pardons yet, just a clemency for ICE agents who shot a brown person in the back. Had he been a white guy sneaking over the border into North Dakota from Canada, I guarantee, no clemency.

I expressed my thoughts on pardons yesterday over at Noz’s place.

In the Guardian. A nugget:

Bush was elected on the slogan of less government and more freedom – but then he changed his mind about both (except where business regulations were concerned) and wrecked everything but claimed he didn’t.

Warning: Language

H/T Alison for the link.

“Well, sure Katrina was bad, but, think about it, we don’t know how many hurricanes George Bush has prevented.”

Via Andrew Sullivan.

The Booman explains the name game.

From the New York Times:

While much of the debate over the $700 billion federal bailout plan has focused on whether the money is being spent wisely or well, concerns are growing among many conservatives about its constitutionality.

Why

am

I

not

impressed?