corrente

Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that's not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also. I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are. - Sarah Palin (who has no legislative experience too also).

Let that that gibberish rattle around in your hollow skull for a while Joe Lieberman.

Palin The Beguiler:

guile n.
1. Treacherous cunning; skillful deceit.
2. Obsolete A trick or stratagem.

tr.v. guiled, guil·ing, guiles Archaic
To beguile; deceive.

beguiler n.
1. To deceive by guile; delude. See Synonyms at deceive.

If anyone wants to know how thousands of Americans fell victim to the pitch and ballyhoo of sub-prime lending schemes (playing with peoples dreams) just remember that they were sold these deceptive loans by thousands of polished hucksters and confidence artists well rehearsed in the scripted presentation and vivacious awe shucks you betcha' delivery and hook (don't be looking backwards, "let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future") of the predatory lender bender.

And there ya have Sarah Barracuda Palin. Who, dontcha' know, is just a regular hard workin' middle class Joe Six-Pack American Main Streeter just like you too (oh yeah shur yoo betcha).

PALIN: I want to assure you that John McCain and I, we're going to fight for America. We're going to fight for the middle-class, average, everyday American family like mine. - debate transcript/CNN

Oh, and by duh way didja' know also too: Palin and her husband - Todd - dey rake in a quarter of a million clams per year and live in a $552,000 lean-to on the shores of Lake Lucille. Where dey kin park duh airplane right der in duh back yard lake water right der behind duh house. Oh, yep. Just like every day middle class average American families just like yers also.

Palin The Wangler
If ever there was a classic example of a wangler it's Sarah Palin.

wan·gle
v. wan·gled, wan·gling, wan·gles Informal
v.tr.
1. To make, achieve, or get by contrivance: wangled a job for which she had no training.
2. To manipulate or juggle, especially fraudulently.
3. To extricate (oneself) from difficulty.

v.intr.
1. To use indirect, tricky, or fraudulent methods.
2. To extricate oneself by subtle or indirect means, as from difficulty; wriggle.

The wriggle:

PALIN: And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.

translation: I'm not going to answer the actual questions you ask me, but rather, I will regurgitate pre-recorded talking point tracks to the American people which I have approved also. Please press play to continue.

Palin the exrticator; pay no attention to that smoking wreckage in the rear view mirror!:

PALIN: Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.

Palin complaining about "redistribution of wealth":

PALIN: I do take issue with some of the principle there with that redistribution of wealth principle that seems to be espoused by you.

Palin the wealth redistributor (imposed on oil companies to distribute royalties to citizens of Alaska):

BIDEN: And, look, I agree with the governor. She imposed a windfall profits tax up there in Alaska.

That's what Barack Obama and I want to do.

We want to be able to do for all of you Americans, give you back $1,000 bucks, like she's been able to give back money to her folks back there.

But John McCain will not support a windfall profits tax. They've made $600 billion since 2001, and John McCain wants to give them, all by itself -- separate, no additional bill, all by itself -- another $4 billion tax cut.

Palin is a great example of the kind of corporate PR front man you might find selling Archer Daniels Midland oilseed. She's slick and cracker barrel cutesy at the same time. And blessed with the gift of rapid response blatherskite, doggone it. And full of mooseshit right up to the little Kazuo Kawasaki teleprompter screens balanced on the bridge of her studio tanned nose.

She'd make a good Republican White House Press Secretary.

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Palin v Couric

Via Think Progress:

Couric: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?

Palin: Well, let’s see. There’s, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but …

Couric: Can you think of any?

Palin: Well, I could think of...:

Kramer v. Kramer, which clarified parental custodial rights, and Godzilla v. Mothra where the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against Happy Enterprises and in favor of the Shojobin's claim of ownership of the large moth egg. In his dissent Justice Clarence Thomas complained about the "lack of titties" in the film. [TBogg]

Bold emphasis above mine. That TBogg outtake is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

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Time for a new Home Owners' Loan Corporation?

From Boom to Bust Helping Families Prepare for the Rise in Subprime Mortgage Foreclosures (American Progress, March 12, 2007)

Why the original Paulson Plan (and lenders) did not want to allow bankruptcy judges the authority to review mortgages:

The Truth in Lending Act - Let the lawsuits begin!, February 6th, 2008

Federal laws like the Truth in Lending Act(TILA), The Home Ownership Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) the Real Estate and Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) are now being used by lawyers and homeowners to fight back against their lenders and servicers. These laws are also being used by smart lawyers and homeowners in the foreclosure process as an effective foreclosure defense tool and with great results.

Something as simple has reviewing your loan documents to identify violations of these laws can help homeowners in their quest to save their homes from foreclosure. If these viloations are found on your mortgage, you may be entitled to significant monetary damages from your lender.

Often, these damages can run in the tens of thousands of dollars. I personally have seen damages totalling upwards of $125,000 awarded to a homeowner who actually was foreclosed on and their home was sold at auction. This homeowner received her home back, damages, attorneys fees and a new, good loan.

Any consumer harmed by a violation of Truth in Lending Act may bring a civil suit against the lender. [Loan Safe Solutions]

Uh oh: "[S]ignificant monetary damages from your lender"

That can only mean one thing: Activist judges!

What will we tell the Next Generation of Swine?!

Well, if it makes the Right Wing House of Crazies Quorum feel better they can just think of it as a Trickle Down correction. Or the Invisible Hand, holding it's invisible dick, and peeing in their fucking jellybean jar. Or whatever strokes their dainty feelings. Heh, indeedy.

-::-::- update -::-::-

Via Calculated Risk: SOCAL Connected (Los Angeles) video of Foreclosure Alley, the Inland Empire, Riverside County, California.

KCET/SOCAL

-::-::- update -::-::-

Thomas Frank (Wall Street Journal):

The GOP Blames the Victim. Capitalism sure is fragile if subprime borrowers can ruin it.

[...]

I asked Bill Black, a professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and an authority on the Savings and Loan debacle of the 1980s, what he thought of the latest blame offensive. He pointed out that, for all their failings, Fannie and Freddie didn't originate any of the bad loans -- that disastrous piece of work was done by purely private, largely unregulated companies, which did it for the usual bubble-logic reason: to make a quick buck.

Most of the mistakes for which we are paying now, Mr. Black told me, were actually made "by four entities that under conservative economic theory should have exercised effective market discipline -- the appraisers, the originators of the mortgages, the rating agencies, and the investment banking firms that packaged the subprime mortgage-backed securities." Instead of "disciplining" the markets, these private actors "served as the four horsemen of the financial apocalypse, aiding the accounting fraud and inflating the housing bubble." It is they, Mr. Black says, who "turned a crisis into a catastrophe."

Ah, but truth is no ally to a conservative with his back to the wall. So much more helpful are the trusty narratives on which the movement was built. So when we have dispatched this first canard, we learn from other conservatives that it is the sub-prime people who are to blame; that by taking out loans they couldn't possibly pay off, these undesirable borrowers have ruined us all.

There is no way to measure the number of people who took out mortgages they knew they couldn't afford, of course, but for what it's worth, a 2007 report by the Mortgage Bankers Association reports that the FBI estimates "80 percent of all reported fraud losses arise from fraud for profit schemes that involve industry insiders." That means the lenders, not the borrowers.

[...] [read in full at link above]

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