By
Sen. Ted Cruz launched into a fake filibuster
Tuesday on the Senate floor to block a piece of House legislation that
he himself supports. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell called Cruz’s actions
“the single stupidest legislative strategy in the history of the United
States Senate.”
In the Rewrite Tuesday, O’Donnell wondered why the Washington media resist calling Cruz “stupid,” despite the many erroneous things he says.
“Ted Cruz says things that are profoundly wrong all day long, and the
Washington media does not hold it against him because they all believe
that he is smart enough to know the truth and understand the truth but
that he is simply lying about it,” O’Donnell said. “And the Washington
media actually respects lying, respects political lying. They believe it
is part of the game, because they believe governing–the thing they are
supposed to be covering as reporters–is a game.”
O’Donnell argued that Cruz’s stellar resume as a graduate of
Princeton University and Harvard Law School serves as “academic armor”
to blind the media.
“Many people think that because Ted Cruz was a good law student or a
good lawyer he is therefore smart, smart at everything he does. They are
wrong,” he said. “Being a good law student does not mean that you are a
smart parent, for example. Or a smart driver, or a smart eater. Or a
smart senator. Law school performance is a predictor of
nothing–including your potential ability as a lawyer. And there are many
high functioning lawyers who are absolutely terrible at everything else
they do.”
The only real way to judge Cruz’s legislative intelligence is by his
action as senator. By that measure, O’Donnell said Cruz is “the
stupidest guy in the building.”
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Ted Cruz Has Always Been Hated
By Josh Marshall –
Well, it turns out Ted and I went to college together. And not just we happened to be at the same place at the same time. We were both at a pretty small part of a relatively small university. We both went to Princeton. I was one year ahead of him. But we were both in the same residential college, which basically meant a small cluster of dorms of freshmen and sophomores numbering four or five hundred students who all ate in the same dining hall.
My wife meanwhile was also in the same residential college and she was actually Ted's year - Class of 92. [In case you're wondering, no, my wife and I haven't been together for 25 years. We knew each other in college but only got together as a couple a dozen years later.] She totally remembered Ted and basically as a conceited and fairly nerdy jerk.
But the weird thing was I didn't remember him. And the context here is that I have a really good memory. If we meet after twenty years, I'm far more likely to remember you than vice-versa and I'll probably remember little details about you too. I don't forget a lot of stuff, especially people. But I didn't remember the name or the guy I was seeing on TV.
As it turned out, though, almost everyone I knew well in college remembered him really well. Vividly. And I knew I number of his friends. But for whatever reason I just didn't remember him. When I saw college pictures of him, I thought okay, yeah, I remember that guy but sort of in the way where you're not 100% sure you're not manufacturing the recollection.
I was curious. Was this just my wife who tends to be a get-along and go-along kind of person? So I started getting in touch with a lot of old friends and asking whether they remembered Ted. It was an experience really unlike I've ever had. Everybody I talked to - men and women, cool kids and nerds, conservative and liberal - started the conversation pretty much the same.
"Ted? Oh yeah, immense asshole." Sometimes "total raging asshole." Sometimes other variations on the theme. But you get the idea. Very common reaction.
But that wasn't all. Before retelling this or that anecdote, there was one other thing that everybody said, "A really, really smart dude."
Among other things, it was a mystery to me how and why this guy had made such a strong impression on so many people but I'd just missed or forgotten him. Here's a story about Ted's college years from last month in the Daily Beast. I remember the name and face of every other student mentioned. But not Ted. Maybe that's because I spent a lot of my sophomore year in kind of a fog. But it didn't stop me from getting to know lots of other people who arrived that year - like my future wife, for instance.
Here's the gist from that DB story ...
The stories, well ... the stories. One of the best was one I heard early this year from a number of people. Here's the version I heard from an email back in February.
At each stage, Ted did seem to collect a quite small but core group of friends/followers, mainly people who were deeply in tune with his politics (he was as right-wing on day one at college as he is today) and who took what most found to be his assholery as a form of take-no-prisoners conservative badassdom. Indeed, if you think this is an issue of whom I talked to, just like-minded people maybe, consider this: It perfectly mirrors what's happened over the last year in the Senate. Cruz has a small handful of followers in the Senate; but basically everyone else in his Republican caucus despises him.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Ted was a big, big deal in the hyper-competitive and - c'mon - somewhat ridiculous world of college debate. So again ... let's not even belabor it. "Ted?" "Unbelievable Asshole."
Over the last few months I did some poking around too in Ted's last past his late 20s. Unlike his college and law school years when I had tons of mutual acquaintances I could go to, here I had fewer.
But the gist was the same.
And this is why I've been saying since Ted Cruz replaced Michele Bachmann as the King of the Tea Partiers that the reaction to Cruz in the senate is simply the reaction Ted's gotten at least at every stage of his life since he arrived at college in 1988. An incredibly bright guy who's an arrogant jerk who basically everybody ends up hating.
Well, it turns out Ted and I went to college together. And not just we happened to be at the same place at the same time. We were both at a pretty small part of a relatively small university. We both went to Princeton. I was one year ahead of him. But we were both in the same residential college, which basically meant a small cluster of dorms of freshmen and sophomores numbering four or five hundred students who all ate in the same dining hall.
My wife meanwhile was also in the same residential college and she was actually Ted's year - Class of 92. [In case you're wondering, no, my wife and I haven't been together for 25 years. We knew each other in college but only got together as a couple a dozen years later.] She totally remembered Ted and basically as a conceited and fairly nerdy jerk.
But the weird thing was I didn't remember him. And the context here is that I have a really good memory. If we meet after twenty years, I'm far more likely to remember you than vice-versa and I'll probably remember little details about you too. I don't forget a lot of stuff, especially people. But I didn't remember the name or the guy I was seeing on TV.
As it turned out, though, almost everyone I knew well in college remembered him really well. Vividly. And I knew I number of his friends. But for whatever reason I just didn't remember him. When I saw college pictures of him, I thought okay, yeah, I remember that guy but sort of in the way where you're not 100% sure you're not manufacturing the recollection.
I was curious. Was this just my wife who tends to be a get-along and go-along kind of person? So I started getting in touch with a lot of old friends and asking whether they remembered Ted. It was an experience really unlike I've ever had. Everybody I talked to - men and women, cool kids and nerds, conservative and liberal - started the conversation pretty much the same.
"Ted? Oh yeah, immense asshole." Sometimes "total raging asshole." Sometimes other variations on the theme. But you get the idea. Very common reaction.
But that wasn't all. Before retelling this or that anecdote, there was one other thing that everybody said, "A really, really smart dude."
Among other things, it was a mystery to me how and why this guy had made such a strong impression on so many people but I'd just missed or forgotten him. Here's a story about Ted's college years from last month in the Daily Beast. I remember the name and face of every other student mentioned. But not Ted. Maybe that's because I spent a lot of my sophomore year in kind of a fog. But it didn't stop me from getting to know lots of other people who arrived that year - like my future wife, for instance.
Here's the gist from that DB story ...
In addition to Mazin and Leitch, several fellow classmates who asked that their names not be used described the young Cruz with words like "abrasive," "intense," "strident," "crank," and "arrogant." Four independently offered the word "creepy," with some pointing to Cruz's habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm's hallway where the female students lived.But there's more to the story. Because my wife didn't just go to college with Ted. She also went to law school with him. They were both in the same class at Harvard Law School. And it was actually from Harvard where she seemed to have the strongest and most negative memories of him. So I started asking Harvard classmates about him too. Same stories. Let's call it AASS. Asshole, Arrogant, Super Smart.
...
While Cruz may have been disliked, and intensely so, by many of his classmates, he found a close and longtime friend in a gregarious, popular student from Jamaica named David Panton, who became Cruz's tag-team partner on Princeton's renowned debate squad, as well as his roommate for the remainder of their time at Princeton and when they both attended Harvard Law School.
The stories, well ... the stories. One of the best was one I heard early this year from a number of people. Here's the version I heard from an email back in February.
My friend [redacted] went to Harvard Law with Ted. [He] says that Ted shocked people when during the first week, he announced that he was creating a study group and only people with high GPA's from the Big Three Ivies could apply for admission. In short, Ted managed to come off as a pompous asshole at Harvard Law.As my correspondent notes, Ted managed to distinguish himself as a arrogant a#@hole at Harvard Law School, which is an amazing accomplishment since the competition there for that description is intense. This is the story Jason Zengerle managed to confirm for his new article in GQ. And I'm glad he did. I've been wondering about how much of this to report out myself. But I felt like I had kind of a conflict of interest or maybe unfair advantage knowing so many of the people first hand.
At each stage, Ted did seem to collect a quite small but core group of friends/followers, mainly people who were deeply in tune with his politics (he was as right-wing on day one at college as he is today) and who took what most found to be his assholery as a form of take-no-prisoners conservative badassdom. Indeed, if you think this is an issue of whom I talked to, just like-minded people maybe, consider this: It perfectly mirrors what's happened over the last year in the Senate. Cruz has a small handful of followers in the Senate; but basically everyone else in his Republican caucus despises him.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Ted was a big, big deal in the hyper-competitive and - c'mon - somewhat ridiculous world of college debate. So again ... let's not even belabor it. "Ted?" "Unbelievable Asshole."
Over the last few months I did some poking around too in Ted's last past his late 20s. Unlike his college and law school years when I had tons of mutual acquaintances I could go to, here I had fewer.
But the gist was the same.
And this is why I've been saying since Ted Cruz replaced Michele Bachmann as the King of the Tea Partiers that the reaction to Cruz in the senate is simply the reaction Ted's gotten at least at every stage of his life since he arrived at college in 1988. An incredibly bright guy who's an arrogant jerk who basically everybody ends up hating.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Single Player Co-op
Requiring one player to independently control two characters, one with each
hand, the recently released Brothers: A Tale of Two
Sons (Steam/360/PS3) has been receiving high praise for its intertwining of
emotional storytelling and gameplay.
"Brothers is a compellingly beautiful game, yet remarkably dark... it's a single-player co-op, executed sublimely." - Rock Paper Shotgun.
"The resulting journey is so singularly devoted to creating a specific tone and atmosphere that you won't likely be able to stop thinking about it until long after you've seen it through to the end." - Giant Bomb.
"We see so many games striving to be interactive movies, but Brothers is something more akin to poetry. Mechanics are stanzas, and together they pack more of an emotional wallop than some scripts achieve with thousands upon thousands of hollow words." - Polygon.
From developer Starbreeze, more known for gritty shooters like The Darkness and Syndicate, Brothers has been one of the surprises of the summer, drawing comparisons with Gone Home (GWJ article, clearly marked spoilers) and Total Biscuit calls it his favorite game of all time.
Giant Bomb's Patrick Klepek has a great (but spoilers filled) interview with Aramean-Swedish director Josef Fares who created the game.
Source
"Brothers is a compellingly beautiful game, yet remarkably dark... it's a single-player co-op, executed sublimely." - Rock Paper Shotgun.
"The resulting journey is so singularly devoted to creating a specific tone and atmosphere that you won't likely be able to stop thinking about it until long after you've seen it through to the end." - Giant Bomb.
"We see so many games striving to be interactive movies, but Brothers is something more akin to poetry. Mechanics are stanzas, and together they pack more of an emotional wallop than some scripts achieve with thousands upon thousands of hollow words." - Polygon.
From developer Starbreeze, more known for gritty shooters like The Darkness and Syndicate, Brothers has been one of the surprises of the summer, drawing comparisons with Gone Home (GWJ article, clearly marked spoilers) and Total Biscuit calls it his favorite game of all time.
Giant Bomb's Patrick Klepek has a great (but spoilers filled) interview with Aramean-Swedish director Josef Fares who created the game.
Source
Buy a House, Make Your Payments, Then Discover You've Been Foreclosed On Without Your Knowledge
By David Dayen
This should never happen, but it did, thanks to the sordid mortgage servicing industry.
A few months ago, Ceith and Louise Sinclair of Altadena, California,
were told that their home had been sold. It was the first time they’d
heard that it was for sale.
Their mortgage servicer, Nationstar, foreclosed on them without their knowledge, and sold the house to an investment company. If it wasn’t for the Sinclairs going to a local ABC affiliate and describing their horror story, they would have been thrown out on the street, despite never missing a mortgage payment. It’s impossible to know how many homeowners who didn’t get the media to pick up their tale have dealt with a similar catastrophe, and eventually lost their home.
As finance writer Barry Ritholtz has explained, home purchases involve a series of precise safeguards, designed to protect property rights and prevent situations where borrowers who are perfect on their payments get evicted. “In a nation of laws, contract and property rights, there is no room for errors,” Ritholtz writes. “The only way these errors could have occurred is if several people involved in the process committed criminal fraud.”
Any observer of the mortgage industry since 2009 is no stranger to foreclosure fraud, and the fact that virtually nobody has paid the price for this crime. But the case of the Sinclairs involves a new player in that rotten game: Nationstar. Unheralded just a few years ago, the firm, owned by a private equity behemoth, has been buying up the rights to service mortgages, accepting monthly payments and distributing the proceeds to the owners of the loan, taking a little off the top for itself.
Nationstar has racked up an impressively horrible customer service record in its short life, failing to honor prior agreements with borrowers and pursuing illegal foreclosures. The fact that Nationstar and other corrupt companies like it are beginning to corner the market for mortgage servicing should trouble not only homeowners, but the regulators tasked with looking out for them. It didn’t seem possible that a broken mortgage servicing industry could get worse, but it has.
Nationstar is at the forefront of a massive shift in mortgage servicing. In the past few years, the largest servicers were arms of major banks, like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi and Ally Bank. Those were the “big five” servicers sanctioned for an array of fraudulent conduct in the National Mortgage Settlement, which mandated specific standards for servicers to follow, like providing a single point of contact for customers and an end to “dual tracking,” when a servicer offers a trial modification to a borrower and pursues foreclosure at the same time.
The banks realized that they could sell the servicing rights and evade these standards, along with the higher labor costs associated with implementing them. What’s more, they would avoid new, higher capital requirements associated with holding servicing assets, allowing them to give bigger dividends to shareholders and bigger bonuses to executives.
So the big banks started selling off their servicing rights, not to other banks, but to specialty financial services firms like Green Tree, Nationstar, Walter Investment Management and Ocwen, all of whom are in kind of an arms race to become the biggest servicer.
Last October, Ocwen purchased the entire servicing portfolio of Ally Bank, covering about $329 billion in loans. Ocwen has also purchased part of JPMorgan Chase’s servicing, as well as a slice from OneWest Bank; it is attempting to dominate the market.
Nationstar acquired business from Bank of America and Aurora Bank in 2012, and more in 2013.
Wells Fargo is poised to sell some servicing rights as well, and Nationstar will surely bid for those rights. As of June 30 of this year, Nationstar has the right to collect on $318 billion worth of home loans—growing three-fold in under two years—and it will seek to add even more in the future. The company, majority owned by the private equity firm Fortress Investment Group, recently raised $1.1 billion in capital to buy up more servicing rights from banks around the country.
This means that homeowners victimized by big-bank servicers, who were supposed to get a commitment to honest treatment as part of the National Mortgage Settlement, instead got their servicing rights sold to companies no longer bound by the terms of that settlement. So homeowners lose all of their protections, and often have to start back at square one with their new servicer. For example, if a borrower was in process on a loan modification with their old servicer, the new servicer can choose to simply not recognize that modification, and demand the full monthly payment under threat of foreclosure. This is a very common practice.
What’s more, this new breed of non-bank servicers scooping up all these servicing rights has proven themselves as a bunch of cheats profiting off their customers. Green Tree Servicing has a terrible record of ripoffs. Ocwen has been sued in state court over its practices, including an innovative scam involving sending homeowners a check for $3.50, and claiming that cashing the check automatically enrolls the customer in an appliance insurance plan, which costs $54.95 a month.
Fitch, the credit rating agency, wrote in a research note in June that the growth of non-bank servicers “may pose challenges to a potential orderly transfer of servicing,” and that the involvement of private equity firms “raises questions” about the ultimate endgame for these servicers. In effect, servicing has shifted from big banks to private equity and hedge funds, and neither really have the customer’s needs in mind.
Nationstar is no different in the non-bank servicer space. While the company promised California that it would adhere to all settlement obligations on the servicing rights it purchases, the Sinclairs were subjected to familiar abuse. The family paid their mortgage on time since purchasing their home in 2003. Last year, they received a loan modification. But their servicer sold the rights to Nationstar, and Nationstar didn’t honor the modification. In June, the Sinclairs sent in their mortgage payment, and Nationstar sent it back in full. Then it sold the home. When questioned, Nationstar claimed the Sinclairs didn’t notarize one page of their modification, which turned out to be untrue.
It was a clear attempt to find an excuse to deny the modification and push the Sinclairs into foreclosure. Mortgage servicers actually make more money with foreclosures than with loan modifications, because of how their compensation structure works. Servicers load up various foreclosure fees on homeowners that they get to keep, and they get paid off first in a foreclosure sale.
A loan modification simply cuts their percentage balance on the loan.
This is not Nationstar’s only scam. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which recently started examining non-bank servicers, put out a report this summer on the illicit practices of these firms. CFPB found that servicers like Nationstar often failed to inform homeowners about the change in servicing rights when they are transferred, meaning that the homeowner kept paying the wrong servicer. This is a clever way to facilitate late fees; just don’t tell the customer where to send their money.
Servicers also delayed property taxes paid out of escrow accounts, making borrowers late on those taxes and triggering more delinquency fees; failed to refund insurance premiums and other fees due back to borrowers; did not communicate properly with borrowers in need of a loan modification; lost documents solicited from borrowers for that process and made it impossible to complete the applications; failed to even properly file documents associated with the transfer of servicing rights; and charged customers default fees “without adequately documenting the reasons for and amounts of the fees,” and neglected to waive certain fees or interest charges.
CFPB also found that non-bank servicers like Nationstar had no comprehensive compliance management system in place to ensure that they followed all applicable consumer protection laws. Many didn’t even have formal, written policies or independent auditors. They hadn’t been subject to any examination prior to CFPB, so this stands to reason.
Nationstar is being sued in New York’s Supreme Court for auctioning off non-performing loans that it would rather not service at a severe discount, shortchanging investors in the process. The company’s auction sales, made with an online auction company that its private equity parent firm has a “business affiliation” with, end up allowing Nationstar to recoup its take, with all the losses falling on the underlying loan owners. So Nationstar has managed to infuriate both sides of the mortgage deal, the lenders and the borrowers, with its unscrupulous practices.
Getting examiners inside these “specialty” companies is a start, and new servicer rules coming from CFPB in January would cover non-bank servicers as well. But no regulator has the resources to deal with such flagrant abuses. Mortgage servicing is a sewer, and it needs to be completely overhauled from the ground up. If Nationstar represents the future, then until it faces real penalties or an expulsion from the industry for its conduct, private property rights in America will have to be seen as theoretical. Just ask the Sinclairs.
This should never happen, but it did, thanks to the sordid mortgage servicing industry.
Their mortgage servicer, Nationstar, foreclosed on them without their knowledge, and sold the house to an investment company. If it wasn’t for the Sinclairs going to a local ABC affiliate and describing their horror story, they would have been thrown out on the street, despite never missing a mortgage payment. It’s impossible to know how many homeowners who didn’t get the media to pick up their tale have dealt with a similar catastrophe, and eventually lost their home.
As finance writer Barry Ritholtz has explained, home purchases involve a series of precise safeguards, designed to protect property rights and prevent situations where borrowers who are perfect on their payments get evicted. “In a nation of laws, contract and property rights, there is no room for errors,” Ritholtz writes. “The only way these errors could have occurred is if several people involved in the process committed criminal fraud.”
Any observer of the mortgage industry since 2009 is no stranger to foreclosure fraud, and the fact that virtually nobody has paid the price for this crime. But the case of the Sinclairs involves a new player in that rotten game: Nationstar. Unheralded just a few years ago, the firm, owned by a private equity behemoth, has been buying up the rights to service mortgages, accepting monthly payments and distributing the proceeds to the owners of the loan, taking a little off the top for itself.
Nationstar has racked up an impressively horrible customer service record in its short life, failing to honor prior agreements with borrowers and pursuing illegal foreclosures. The fact that Nationstar and other corrupt companies like it are beginning to corner the market for mortgage servicing should trouble not only homeowners, but the regulators tasked with looking out for them. It didn’t seem possible that a broken mortgage servicing industry could get worse, but it has.
Nationstar is at the forefront of a massive shift in mortgage servicing. In the past few years, the largest servicers were arms of major banks, like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi and Ally Bank. Those were the “big five” servicers sanctioned for an array of fraudulent conduct in the National Mortgage Settlement, which mandated specific standards for servicers to follow, like providing a single point of contact for customers and an end to “dual tracking,” when a servicer offers a trial modification to a borrower and pursues foreclosure at the same time.
The banks realized that they could sell the servicing rights and evade these standards, along with the higher labor costs associated with implementing them. What’s more, they would avoid new, higher capital requirements associated with holding servicing assets, allowing them to give bigger dividends to shareholders and bigger bonuses to executives.
So the big banks started selling off their servicing rights, not to other banks, but to specialty financial services firms like Green Tree, Nationstar, Walter Investment Management and Ocwen, all of whom are in kind of an arms race to become the biggest servicer.
Last October, Ocwen purchased the entire servicing portfolio of Ally Bank, covering about $329 billion in loans. Ocwen has also purchased part of JPMorgan Chase’s servicing, as well as a slice from OneWest Bank; it is attempting to dominate the market.
Nationstar acquired business from Bank of America and Aurora Bank in 2012, and more in 2013.
Wells Fargo is poised to sell some servicing rights as well, and Nationstar will surely bid for those rights. As of June 30 of this year, Nationstar has the right to collect on $318 billion worth of home loans—growing three-fold in under two years—and it will seek to add even more in the future. The company, majority owned by the private equity firm Fortress Investment Group, recently raised $1.1 billion in capital to buy up more servicing rights from banks around the country.
This means that homeowners victimized by big-bank servicers, who were supposed to get a commitment to honest treatment as part of the National Mortgage Settlement, instead got their servicing rights sold to companies no longer bound by the terms of that settlement. So homeowners lose all of their protections, and often have to start back at square one with their new servicer. For example, if a borrower was in process on a loan modification with their old servicer, the new servicer can choose to simply not recognize that modification, and demand the full monthly payment under threat of foreclosure. This is a very common practice.
What’s more, this new breed of non-bank servicers scooping up all these servicing rights has proven themselves as a bunch of cheats profiting off their customers. Green Tree Servicing has a terrible record of ripoffs. Ocwen has been sued in state court over its practices, including an innovative scam involving sending homeowners a check for $3.50, and claiming that cashing the check automatically enrolls the customer in an appliance insurance plan, which costs $54.95 a month.
Fitch, the credit rating agency, wrote in a research note in June that the growth of non-bank servicers “may pose challenges to a potential orderly transfer of servicing,” and that the involvement of private equity firms “raises questions” about the ultimate endgame for these servicers. In effect, servicing has shifted from big banks to private equity and hedge funds, and neither really have the customer’s needs in mind.
Nationstar is no different in the non-bank servicer space. While the company promised California that it would adhere to all settlement obligations on the servicing rights it purchases, the Sinclairs were subjected to familiar abuse. The family paid their mortgage on time since purchasing their home in 2003. Last year, they received a loan modification. But their servicer sold the rights to Nationstar, and Nationstar didn’t honor the modification. In June, the Sinclairs sent in their mortgage payment, and Nationstar sent it back in full. Then it sold the home. When questioned, Nationstar claimed the Sinclairs didn’t notarize one page of their modification, which turned out to be untrue.
It was a clear attempt to find an excuse to deny the modification and push the Sinclairs into foreclosure. Mortgage servicers actually make more money with foreclosures than with loan modifications, because of how their compensation structure works. Servicers load up various foreclosure fees on homeowners that they get to keep, and they get paid off first in a foreclosure sale.
A loan modification simply cuts their percentage balance on the loan.
This is not Nationstar’s only scam. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which recently started examining non-bank servicers, put out a report this summer on the illicit practices of these firms. CFPB found that servicers like Nationstar often failed to inform homeowners about the change in servicing rights when they are transferred, meaning that the homeowner kept paying the wrong servicer. This is a clever way to facilitate late fees; just don’t tell the customer where to send their money.
Servicers also delayed property taxes paid out of escrow accounts, making borrowers late on those taxes and triggering more delinquency fees; failed to refund insurance premiums and other fees due back to borrowers; did not communicate properly with borrowers in need of a loan modification; lost documents solicited from borrowers for that process and made it impossible to complete the applications; failed to even properly file documents associated with the transfer of servicing rights; and charged customers default fees “without adequately documenting the reasons for and amounts of the fees,” and neglected to waive certain fees or interest charges.
CFPB also found that non-bank servicers like Nationstar had no comprehensive compliance management system in place to ensure that they followed all applicable consumer protection laws. Many didn’t even have formal, written policies or independent auditors. They hadn’t been subject to any examination prior to CFPB, so this stands to reason.
Nationstar is being sued in New York’s Supreme Court for auctioning off non-performing loans that it would rather not service at a severe discount, shortchanging investors in the process. The company’s auction sales, made with an online auction company that its private equity parent firm has a “business affiliation” with, end up allowing Nationstar to recoup its take, with all the losses falling on the underlying loan owners. So Nationstar has managed to infuriate both sides of the mortgage deal, the lenders and the borrowers, with its unscrupulous practices.
Getting examiners inside these “specialty” companies is a start, and new servicer rules coming from CFPB in January would cover non-bank servicers as well. But no regulator has the resources to deal with such flagrant abuses. Mortgage servicing is a sewer, and it needs to be completely overhauled from the ground up. If Nationstar represents the future, then until it faces real penalties or an expulsion from the industry for its conduct, private property rights in America will have to be seen as theoretical. Just ask the Sinclairs.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
I Will Gladly Knock Alex Jones The FUCK Out!
By David Sparks
Radio Host Alex Jones makes his living connecting seemingly unconnected events, and connecting them with his world view of a giant global oligarchical movement to enslave all souls.
But what Jones really does, is make it harder for people to question the possibility of actual conspiracies, because he has enabled the mainstream narrative to label all who don't buy the official line of conventional wisdom as kooks, through his hyperbolic baboonish behavior.
And since Jones claims that he likes to fight so much, I decided to offer him up the chance to the world to show what a tough guy he is in an old-fashioned boxing match.
Radio Host Alex Jones makes his living connecting seemingly unconnected events, and connecting them with his world view of a giant global oligarchical movement to enslave all souls.
But what Jones really does, is make it harder for people to question the possibility of actual conspiracies, because he has enabled the mainstream narrative to label all who don't buy the official line of conventional wisdom as kooks, through his hyperbolic baboonish behavior.
And since Jones claims that he likes to fight so much, I decided to offer him up the chance to the world to show what a tough guy he is in an old-fashioned boxing match.
Chinese Chicken, Food Safety, and the USDA
By rickpace1
Here’s a bit of news that might make you drop that chicken nugget midbite.
Just before the start of the long holiday weekend last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly announced that it was ending a ban on processed chicken imports from China. The kicker: These products can now be sold in the U.S. without a country-of-origin label.
For starters, just four Chinese processing plants will be allowed to export cooked chicken products to the U.S., as first reported by Politico. The plants in question passed USDA inspection in March.
Initially, these processors will only be allowed to export chicken products made from birds that were raised in the U.S. and Canada. Because of that, the poultry processors won’t be required to have a USDA inspector on site, as The New York Times notes, adding:
“And because the poultry will be processed, it will not require country-of-origin labeling. Nor will consumers eating chicken noodle soup from a can or chicken nuggets in a fast-food restaurant know if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants.”
Earlier in the week I reported on the concerns that small farmers have about the newly proposed FDA food safety regulations. Now I read the USDA allows CHINESE poultry processing plants to convert American or Canadian chickens (chickens raised 2,000 miles from the processor) and to market them WITHOUT country-of-origin labeling. The Chinese processor will also NOT need a poultry processing inspector on site.
Don’t get me wrong…I want all the people of the world to prosper and be healthy…and the Chinese are part of ‘all the people of the world’.
Call me crazy, but combining what I know about the new FDA proposed food safety regulations with what I know about this recent USDA ruling….I think the American political leaders on food and agriculture look like fools.
Again I’m going to go out on a political limb – but it does not appear that these policies are being driven by government decision-making in the public interest.
And there is more:
And, chicken lovers, brace yourselves: There’s more. A report suggests chicken inspections here in the U.S. might be poised to take a turn for the worse. The Government Accountability Office report said this week it has serious “questions about the validity” of the new procedures for inspecting poultry across the country.
Basically, these changes would replace many USDA inspectors on chicken processing lines with employees from the poultry companies themselves. The USDA has been piloting the new procedures, which will save money and significantly speed up processing lines, in 29 chicken plants. As The Washington Post , the plan is to roll out the new procedures eventually to “most of the country’s 239 chicken and 96 turkey plants.”
The problem? According to the GAO, the USDA did a poor job of evaluating the effectiveness of the pilot programs it has in place.
As a result, the report concludes, it’s hard to justify the USDA’s conclusions that the new procedures will do a better job than current approaches at cutting down on the number of dangerous bacteria like salmonella that pop up on the birds that will later end up on our dinner tables.
LOVELY!
Here is the NPR Report
Here is one of the many comments at the NPR Report (I find it too cynical, but the reference to food as ‘protein’ is totally valid commentary on our industrial food industry’s mechanistic view of what nourishes us.)
I think US-Based poultry producers are playing The Long Game here, looking for a quid pro quo from China hoping it will now open its doors to US produced chicken – it’s all about the money – Agra-producers of protein need to push the cheapest possible product out to the largest number of consumers, regardless of the ethical questions of how the animals are raised or slaughtered, regardless of the conditions of the workers who do the processing, and regardless of the safety of product that finds it’s way onto the tables of our families. It’s about a Machine that processes protein worldwide for mass consumption at the lowest possible unit cost. It’s about how Industry’s money subverts the safety process via purchased politicians. It’s going to happen, and there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it.
Here is the USDA Ruling on the Chinese Processors.
And, by the way, I think there ARE things you and I can do about these food ethics issues!
Here’s a bit of news that might make you drop that chicken nugget midbite.
Just before the start of the long holiday weekend last Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly announced that it was ending a ban on processed chicken imports from China. The kicker: These products can now be sold in the U.S. without a country-of-origin label.
For starters, just four Chinese processing plants will be allowed to export cooked chicken products to the U.S., as first reported by Politico. The plants in question passed USDA inspection in March.
Initially, these processors will only be allowed to export chicken products made from birds that were raised in the U.S. and Canada. Because of that, the poultry processors won’t be required to have a USDA inspector on site, as The New York Times notes, adding:
“And because the poultry will be processed, it will not require country-of-origin labeling. Nor will consumers eating chicken noodle soup from a can or chicken nuggets in a fast-food restaurant know if the chicken came from Chinese processing plants.”
Earlier in the week I reported on the concerns that small farmers have about the newly proposed FDA food safety regulations. Now I read the USDA allows CHINESE poultry processing plants to convert American or Canadian chickens (chickens raised 2,000 miles from the processor) and to market them WITHOUT country-of-origin labeling. The Chinese processor will also NOT need a poultry processing inspector on site.
Don’t get me wrong…I want all the people of the world to prosper and be healthy…and the Chinese are part of ‘all the people of the world’.
Call me crazy, but combining what I know about the new FDA proposed food safety regulations with what I know about this recent USDA ruling….I think the American political leaders on food and agriculture look like fools.
Again I’m going to go out on a political limb – but it does not appear that these policies are being driven by government decision-making in the public interest.
And there is more:
And, chicken lovers, brace yourselves: There’s more. A report suggests chicken inspections here in the U.S. might be poised to take a turn for the worse. The Government Accountability Office report said this week it has serious “questions about the validity” of the new procedures for inspecting poultry across the country.
Basically, these changes would replace many USDA inspectors on chicken processing lines with employees from the poultry companies themselves. The USDA has been piloting the new procedures, which will save money and significantly speed up processing lines, in 29 chicken plants. As The Washington Post , the plan is to roll out the new procedures eventually to “most of the country’s 239 chicken and 96 turkey plants.”
The problem? According to the GAO, the USDA did a poor job of evaluating the effectiveness of the pilot programs it has in place.
As a result, the report concludes, it’s hard to justify the USDA’s conclusions that the new procedures will do a better job than current approaches at cutting down on the number of dangerous bacteria like salmonella that pop up on the birds that will later end up on our dinner tables.
LOVELY!
Here is the NPR Report
Here is one of the many comments at the NPR Report (I find it too cynical, but the reference to food as ‘protein’ is totally valid commentary on our industrial food industry’s mechanistic view of what nourishes us.)
I think US-Based poultry producers are playing The Long Game here, looking for a quid pro quo from China hoping it will now open its doors to US produced chicken – it’s all about the money – Agra-producers of protein need to push the cheapest possible product out to the largest number of consumers, regardless of the ethical questions of how the animals are raised or slaughtered, regardless of the conditions of the workers who do the processing, and regardless of the safety of product that finds it’s way onto the tables of our families. It’s about a Machine that processes protein worldwide for mass consumption at the lowest possible unit cost. It’s about how Industry’s money subverts the safety process via purchased politicians. It’s going to happen, and there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do about it.
Here is the USDA Ruling on the Chinese Processors.
And, by the way, I think there ARE things you and I can do about these food ethics issues!
A full-blown crisis on Capitol Hill
The House passed a resolution to fund the government and defund The Affordable Health Care Act.
After the Senate turns it down, the bill goes back to the House.
Can John Boehner convince his caucus not to hold the government hostage to what’s become their only issue?
NBC White House Correspondent Kristen Wekler reports on President Obama’s call to John Boehner.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Rep. Luke Messer, R-Ind., talk about the situation with MSNBC’s Karen Finney.
After the Senate turns it down, the bill goes back to the House.
Can John Boehner convince his caucus not to hold the government hostage to what’s become their only issue?
NBC White House Correspondent Kristen Wekler reports on President Obama’s call to John Boehner.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Rep. Luke Messer, R-Ind., talk about the situation with MSNBC’s Karen Finney.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Defund the Affordable Health Care Act? This is like the Civil War
By Morgan Whitaker
With Friday’s vote, the Republican party moved one step closer towards their goal of stopping President Obama’s healthcare reform law from going into effect, an effort that could very well lead to a government shutdown. Sadly, after the political battles of the last few years, the threat of a government shutdown is no longer unique.
Whether they are bargaining for spending cuts, or in this case, pushing back against a law they openly oppose, the debt ceiling has become a negotiating tool.
But when Rev. Sharpton asked one of his favorite professors, Melissa Harris-Perry, to put the current debate into historical context, she argued that it’s the worst intransigence we’ve seen since the Civil War.
“Of course we’ve seen this before, and the last time that we saw this, this level of dysfunction, this level of unwillingness to implement the laws of the land, it led to the Civil War,” she said.
“Now, I don’t think that we are on the brink of a civil war,” she added. “But the kind of behavior that we are seeing here, where a set of states and individual congresspersons have such an ideological disagreement with the fundamental laws of the nation that they are willing literally to secede from those laws, to not implement them, to not be part of them. Yes, we’ve seen this before and it nearly destroyed us.”
While the House and Senate still has a little over a week to come to an agreement to keep the lights on in Washington, President Obama showed no signs of backing down from the battle.
According to House Speaker John Boehner’s office, the President reached out to the speaker late Friday to tell him he had no plans to negotiate.
“The President called the speaker this evening to tell him he wouldn’t negotiate with him on the debt limit,” Press Secretary Brendan Buck told NBC News. “Given the long history of using debt limit increases to achieve bipartisan deficit reduction and economic reforms, the speaker was disappointed but told the President that the two chambers of Congress will chart the path ahead. It was a brief call.”
With Friday’s vote, the Republican party moved one step closer towards their goal of stopping President Obama’s healthcare reform law from going into effect, an effort that could very well lead to a government shutdown. Sadly, after the political battles of the last few years, the threat of a government shutdown is no longer unique.
Whether they are bargaining for spending cuts, or in this case, pushing back against a law they openly oppose, the debt ceiling has become a negotiating tool.
But when Rev. Sharpton asked one of his favorite professors, Melissa Harris-Perry, to put the current debate into historical context, she argued that it’s the worst intransigence we’ve seen since the Civil War.
“Of course we’ve seen this before, and the last time that we saw this, this level of dysfunction, this level of unwillingness to implement the laws of the land, it led to the Civil War,” she said.
“Now, I don’t think that we are on the brink of a civil war,” she added. “But the kind of behavior that we are seeing here, where a set of states and individual congresspersons have such an ideological disagreement with the fundamental laws of the nation that they are willing literally to secede from those laws, to not implement them, to not be part of them. Yes, we’ve seen this before and it nearly destroyed us.”
While the House and Senate still has a little over a week to come to an agreement to keep the lights on in Washington, President Obama showed no signs of backing down from the battle.
According to House Speaker John Boehner’s office, the President reached out to the speaker late Friday to tell him he had no plans to negotiate.
“The President called the speaker this evening to tell him he wouldn’t negotiate with him on the debt limit,” Press Secretary Brendan Buck told NBC News. “Given the long history of using debt limit increases to achieve bipartisan deficit reduction and economic reforms, the speaker was disappointed but told the President that the two chambers of Congress will chart the path ahead. It was a brief call.”
Friday, September 20, 2013
Republicans vote to slash food stamps
By Morgan Whitaker
Conservative Republicans in the House passed a bill that will cut $39 billion from food stamps over the next decade, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
Passed in a 217 to 210 vote, the bill–supported only by Republicans–amends the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with an number of new provisions expected to knock nearly 4 million people out of the program in 2014, and an average of nearly 3 million people each year through 2023.
This is the second version of the food stamps bill pushed by House Republicans this year, after an earlier plan to cut $20.5 billion failed to pass the House–in part because many conservative Republicans believed the cuts were insufficient.
This version of the legislation, split off from the rest of the farm bill after the plan to cut $20.5 billion was rejected, creates new provisions that nearly double cuts, primarily by imposing new work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents between the age of 18 and 50, limiting them to three months of benefits in a three-year period unless they work part-time, or are in a job-training program. Currently, those recipients can obtain waivers during times of high unemployment.
According to analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill allows states to cut people out of the program “even if they are actively looking for work, even if they’re on a waiting list for job training, and even if they’re working, but for less than 20 hours a week while they try to find a full-time job.”
According to CBO estimates, that provision alone will drop 1.7 million people out of the program in 2014, and an average of 1 million people each year over the next decade. Another provision restricting eligibility requirements could cut an average of 1.8 million people a year over the next decade.
The CBO also estimates that 12 million people will “naturally” leave the food stamps program over the next decade as the economy improves, without any legislative changes to the program.
Like many bills championed by the most conservative members of the House, the bill has little chance of making it through the Senate in its current form. The Senate’s version of the bill cuts only $4 billion from the food stamp program. Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, slammed the House’s bill in a statement released shortly after the vote.
“We have never before seen this kind of partisanship injected into a Farm Bill,” she said in a statement. “Not only does this House bill represent a shameful attempt to kick millions of families in need off of food assistance, it’s also a monumental waste of time. The bill will never pass the Senate, and will never be signed by the President.”
But she indicated she was hopeful that a reasonable solution could be found when House and Senate conferees come together to resolve their respective bills.
“The good news is now that this vote is behind us, we are close to the finish line. If House Republican leaders drop the divisive issues, appoint conferees and work with us in a bipartisan way, we can finalize a farm bill that creates jobs, reforms agriculture policy, and reduces the deficit by tens of billions of dollars. It’s time to get a comprehensive farm bill done to give farmers and ranchers the certainty they need to continue growing the economy.”
Ultimately 15 Republicans joined Republicans to oppose the bill, including Rep. Peter King of New York, who told reporters Wednesday he thought it went too far.
“It’s just too much, too quick, and we can’t be talking about possibly shutting the government down at the same time we’re cutting food stamps. We have to do one thing at a time,” he said.
Alaska’s Don Young voted against the cuts as well, which he defended in a statement released shortly after the vote.
“These proposed cuts would result in approximately 10,000 Alaskans losing SNAP support and harm food security for families throughout the state, particularly in rural areas. In fact, many Alaskans use SNAP to supplement their subsistence hunting and fishing,” Young said. “Isolated villages in Alaska face unique and burdensome economic barriers, and SNAP often provides a critical lifeline for residents. While I agree with many of my colleagues that we should continue to improve SNAP, making such drastic reductions in funding is not the best way forward.”
Were it to somehow make its way out of the Senate, the bill already faces a veto threat from the White House.
The bill has also drawn the ire of religious communities, including Sister Simone Campbell of the Catholic social justice group, NETWORK, and the Circle of Protection, a coalition of more than 65 heads of evangelical and Catholic leaders.
Conservative Republicans in the House passed a bill that will cut $39 billion from food stamps over the next decade, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
Passed in a 217 to 210 vote, the bill–supported only by Republicans–amends the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with an number of new provisions expected to knock nearly 4 million people out of the program in 2014, and an average of nearly 3 million people each year through 2023.
This is the second version of the food stamps bill pushed by House Republicans this year, after an earlier plan to cut $20.5 billion failed to pass the House–in part because many conservative Republicans believed the cuts were insufficient.
This version of the legislation, split off from the rest of the farm bill after the plan to cut $20.5 billion was rejected, creates new provisions that nearly double cuts, primarily by imposing new work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents between the age of 18 and 50, limiting them to three months of benefits in a three-year period unless they work part-time, or are in a job-training program. Currently, those recipients can obtain waivers during times of high unemployment.
According to analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the bill allows states to cut people out of the program “even if they are actively looking for work, even if they’re on a waiting list for job training, and even if they’re working, but for less than 20 hours a week while they try to find a full-time job.”
According to CBO estimates, that provision alone will drop 1.7 million people out of the program in 2014, and an average of 1 million people each year over the next decade. Another provision restricting eligibility requirements could cut an average of 1.8 million people a year over the next decade.
The CBO also estimates that 12 million people will “naturally” leave the food stamps program over the next decade as the economy improves, without any legislative changes to the program.
SNAP benefits primarily go to households with children, the elderly, and
the disabled, who make up 76% of those in the program as of 2011. Of those who
can work, 58% do. The
new legislation could also cut off support to 170,000 of the nearly 1 million
military veterans who receive SNAP benefits each month, according
to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Like many bills championed by the most conservative members of the House, the bill has little chance of making it through the Senate in its current form. The Senate’s version of the bill cuts only $4 billion from the food stamp program. Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, slammed the House’s bill in a statement released shortly after the vote.
“We have never before seen this kind of partisanship injected into a Farm Bill,” she said in a statement. “Not only does this House bill represent a shameful attempt to kick millions of families in need off of food assistance, it’s also a monumental waste of time. The bill will never pass the Senate, and will never be signed by the President.”
But she indicated she was hopeful that a reasonable solution could be found when House and Senate conferees come together to resolve their respective bills.
“The good news is now that this vote is behind us, we are close to the finish line. If House Republican leaders drop the divisive issues, appoint conferees and work with us in a bipartisan way, we can finalize a farm bill that creates jobs, reforms agriculture policy, and reduces the deficit by tens of billions of dollars. It’s time to get a comprehensive farm bill done to give farmers and ranchers the certainty they need to continue growing the economy.”
Ultimately 15 Republicans joined Republicans to oppose the bill, including Rep. Peter King of New York, who told reporters Wednesday he thought it went too far.
“It’s just too much, too quick, and we can’t be talking about possibly shutting the government down at the same time we’re cutting food stamps. We have to do one thing at a time,” he said.
Alaska’s Don Young voted against the cuts as well, which he defended in a statement released shortly after the vote.
“These proposed cuts would result in approximately 10,000 Alaskans losing SNAP support and harm food security for families throughout the state, particularly in rural areas. In fact, many Alaskans use SNAP to supplement their subsistence hunting and fishing,” Young said. “Isolated villages in Alaska face unique and burdensome economic barriers, and SNAP often provides a critical lifeline for residents. While I agree with many of my colleagues that we should continue to improve SNAP, making such drastic reductions in funding is not the best way forward.”
Were it to somehow make its way out of the Senate, the bill already faces a veto threat from the White House.
The bill has also drawn the ire of religious communities, including Sister Simone Campbell of the Catholic social justice group, NETWORK, and the Circle of Protection, a coalition of more than 65 heads of evangelical and Catholic leaders.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Wackos intend to cage themselves in Idaho
Posted by Jim Hightower
Listen to this Commentary
I haven't heard such enthusiastic, downright raucous applause since Texas Gov. "Oops" Perry suggested in 2009 that his state just might withdraw from the union. Unfortunately for him, the applauders were not Texans, but the people of the other 49 states.
This year, though, Idaho is the recipient of hip-hip-hoorays from across the country. Why? Because it has been selected as the site of an extraordinary new town to be named "III Citadel." This will be a walled, heavily-fortified, one-square-mile settlement of some 7,000 armed & angry, ideologically-pure, anti-government extremists drawn from cities, towns and gopher holes all across America. Lucky you, Idaho!
Founder and apocalyptic visionary Christian Allen Kerodin, says the Roman numeral III in the name of his Citadel scheme represents what he calls the "3 percenters" – the percentage of Americans who are superpatriot survivalists capable of withstanding the coming economic doomsday and social upheaval. He says that, once established, he and his fellow Citadellians will take it upon themselves to restore America to Americans: "The Southwest will be purged of Latinos," he explains, and "Enclaves of Muslims such as in Detroit will be culled… by fed-up Americans looking for some payback." In Kerodin's barricaded utopia, everyone older than 13 "must possess an AR-15 assault rifle, five magazines, and 1,000 rounds of ammunition." In an odd comparison, he declares that his last bastion of liberty will be like Disneyland – "a walled, gated private property." Yeah – only Goofyer.
Of course, the III in the Citadel's name could also refer to Kerodin's three felony convictions.
Nonetheless, he's doing America a favor if he can actually bring 7,000 like-minded zealots into his compound. Once they're inside, we can sneak up and lock the gates from the outside.
"7,000 Gun-Loving "Patriots" Living in an Walled Citadel Built Around an Arms Factory in Idaho - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" www.alternet.org, August 15, 2013.
Listen to this Commentary
I haven't heard such enthusiastic, downright raucous applause since Texas Gov. "Oops" Perry suggested in 2009 that his state just might withdraw from the union. Unfortunately for him, the applauders were not Texans, but the people of the other 49 states.
This year, though, Idaho is the recipient of hip-hip-hoorays from across the country. Why? Because it has been selected as the site of an extraordinary new town to be named "III Citadel." This will be a walled, heavily-fortified, one-square-mile settlement of some 7,000 armed & angry, ideologically-pure, anti-government extremists drawn from cities, towns and gopher holes all across America. Lucky you, Idaho!
Founder and apocalyptic visionary Christian Allen Kerodin, says the Roman numeral III in the name of his Citadel scheme represents what he calls the "3 percenters" – the percentage of Americans who are superpatriot survivalists capable of withstanding the coming economic doomsday and social upheaval. He says that, once established, he and his fellow Citadellians will take it upon themselves to restore America to Americans: "The Southwest will be purged of Latinos," he explains, and "Enclaves of Muslims such as in Detroit will be culled… by fed-up Americans looking for some payback." In Kerodin's barricaded utopia, everyone older than 13 "must possess an AR-15 assault rifle, five magazines, and 1,000 rounds of ammunition." In an odd comparison, he declares that his last bastion of liberty will be like Disneyland – "a walled, gated private property." Yeah – only Goofyer.
Of course, the III in the Citadel's name could also refer to Kerodin's three felony convictions.
Nonetheless, he's doing America a favor if he can actually bring 7,000 like-minded zealots into his compound. Once they're inside, we can sneak up and lock the gates from the outside.
"7,000 Gun-Loving "Patriots" Living in an Walled Citadel Built Around an Arms Factory in Idaho - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" www.alternet.org, August 15, 2013.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Buy Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Mink Capes
By Jozen Cummings
One of the more shocking things revealed in Jesse Jackson Jr.'s scandal, in which the Chicago politician was found guilty of illegally spending campaign funds on superfluous items, was his taste in clothing. Jackson had a penchant for mink capes, as if he were trying to bring back the 1970's.
As Halloween fast approaches, those who are interested in dressing up like the disgraced son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson now have their chance to do so, according to the Associated Press.
The U.S. Marshals Service said it will start selling 13 items in an online auction Tuesday - with proceeds going to help repay $750,000 in campaign funds that the Chicago Democrat illegally spent.
One of the more shocking things revealed in Jesse Jackson Jr.'s scandal, in which the Chicago politician was found guilty of illegally spending campaign funds on superfluous items, was his taste in clothing. Jackson had a penchant for mink capes, as if he were trying to bring back the 1970's.
As Halloween fast approaches, those who are interested in dressing up like the disgraced son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson now have their chance to do so, according to the Associated Press.
The U.S. Marshals Service said it will start selling 13 items in an online auction Tuesday - with proceeds going to help repay $750,000 in campaign funds that the Chicago Democrat illegally spent.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
‘Something is wrong here’: Trauma center doctor pleads for an end to gun violence
By
The head doctor at a trauma center handling victims of the deadly Washington Navy Yard rampage gave an emotional plea to end gun violence in America.
“I may be the chief medical officer of a very large trauma center, but there’s something wrong here when we have these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries, there’s something wrong,” said Chief Medical Officer Dr. Janis Orlowski of MedStar Washington Hospital Center during a press briefing.
“The only thing I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it.”
“I’d like you to put my trauma center out of business,” Orlowski added.
MedStar Washington Hospital Center has been treating three gunshot victims–all who are expected to survive—after a heavily-armed gunman opened fire Monday morning Washington, D.C.’s Navy Yard.
While authorities continue to investigate the attack, police have identified the suspected shooter as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old civilian contractor for the Navy. Officials said the 34-year-old civilian contractor for the Navy is now dead, bringing the overall death toll to 13 people. At least 8 others were injured.
Orlowski said she spoke out not only as a doctor, but as a mother and a concerned member of the community.
“I worry about this, I worry about our community,” she told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “Mass murders – people walking through schools, people walking through movie theaters, people walking through work places –unfortunately is common, or more common than what it should be. And I spoke from the heart when I said that we’ve got to work together to stop this.”
President Obama addressed the increasing pattern of shooting sprees across the country, even in the places one might least expect it. “We are confronting yet another mass shooting,” Obama said Monday. “And today it happened on a military installation in our nation’s capital.”
Following the mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary school and the Aurora movie theater, the Obama administration has been pushing for tighter gun control measures across the country. But the Senate bill to require background checks ultimately failed, dealing a major blow to gun control advocates.
Just last week, Colorado also recalled two Democratic state lawmakers who voted in favor of tighter gun restrictions.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Verizon's diabolical plan to turn the Web into pay-per-view
By Bill Snyder | InfoWorld
Think of all the things that tick you off about cable TV. Along with brainless programming and crummy customer service, the very worst aspect of it is forced bundling. You can't pay just for the couple of dozen channels you actually watch. Instead, you have to pay for a couple of hundred channels, because the good stuff is scattered among a number of overstuffed packages.
Now, imagine that the Internet worked that way. You'd hate it, of course. But that's the direction that Verizon, with the support of many wired and wireless carriers, would like to push the Web.
That's not hypothetical. The country's No. 1 carrier is fighting in court to end the Federal Communications Commission's policy of Net neutrality, a move that would open the gates to a whole new - and wholly bad - economic model on the Web.
As it stands now, you pay your Internet service provider and go wherever you want on the Web. Packets of bits are just packets and have to be treated equally. That's the essence of Net neutrality.
But Verizon's plan, which the company has outlined during hearings in federal court and before Congress, would change that. Verizon and its allies would like to charge websites that carry popular content for the privilege of moving their packets to your connected device. Again, that's not hypothetical.
ESPN, for example, is in negotiations with at least one major cellular carrier to pay to exempt its content from subscribers' cellular data caps. And what's wrong with that? Well, ESPN is big and rich and can pay for that exemption, but other content providers - think of your local jazz station that streams audio - couldn't afford it and would be out of business. Or, they'd make you pay to visit their websites. Indeed, if that system had been in place 10 years ago, fledglings like Google or YouTube or Facebook might never have gotten out of the nest.
Susan Crawford, a tech policy expert and professor at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, says Verizon wants to "cable-ize the Internet." She writes in her blog that "The question presented by the case is: Does the U.S. government have any role in ensuring ubiquitous, open, world-class, interconnected, reasonably priced Internet access?"
Verizon: the new Standard Oil
Verizon and other carriers answer that question by saying no.
They argue that because they spent megabucks to build and maintain the network, they should be able to have a say over what content travels over it. They say that because Google and Facebook and other Internet companies make money by moving traffic over "their" networks, they should get a bigger piece of the action. (Never mind that pretty much every person and business that accesses Google or Facebook is already paying for the privilege, and paying more while getting less speed than users in most of Europe.)
In 2005, AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre famously remarked that upstarts like Google would like to "use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it."
That's bad enough, but Verizon goes even further. It claims that it has a right to free speech and, like a newspaper that may or may not publish a story about something, it can choose which content it chooses to carry. "Broadband providers possess 'editorial discretion.' Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others," Verizon's lawyers argue in a brief (PDF).
That's so crazy I won't bother to address it. But the FCC has done such a poor job of spelling out what it thinks it has the right to regulate and how that should work that the door is wide open for the carriers' bizarre - not to mention anticonsumer -- strategies and arguments.
I don't want to get down in the regulatory weeds, but there is one bit of legalese that's worth knowing: common carrier. Simply put, it means that the company doing the shipping can't mess with the contents. A railroad is a common carrier, and as such it can't decide whose cargo it will carry and whose it won't.
Before railroads were common carriers, they did things like favor products made by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, which made him even richer and also led to the creation of a wildly out-of-control monopoly. (Yeshiva's Crawford has an in-depth but readable explanation of these issues in her book "Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age."
But the FCC has never ruled that ISP's are common carriers, partly because it's afraid of the power of the lobbyists to influence Congress and partly because its directors lack spine. And now that lack of spine is about to bite the butt of everyone who uses the Web.
According to people who follow this stuff closely, because ISP's are not common carriers the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., are looking askance at the FCC's defense against Verizon's lawsuit, although a verdict isn't likely for months.
Here are the stakes: "If Verizon - or any ISP - can go to a website and demand extra money just to reach Verizon subscribers, the fundamental fairness of competing on the Internet would be disrupted. It would immediately make Verizon the gatekeeper to what would and would not succeed online. ISP's - not users, not the market - would decide which websites and services succeed," writes Michael Weinberg, vice president of Public Knowledge, a digital advocacy group.
A taste of the Web's future: The Time Warner vs. CBS dust-up
You don't have to wait for the Verizon verdict to get a taste of what the New Web Order would be like. Time Warner Cable and CBS just had a dust-up over how much Time Warner would pay CBS to carry its programming. When the pair couldn't agree, the cable giant stopped carrying CBS programming in New York City, Los Angeles, and Dallas. CBS then retaliated by stopping Time Warner subscribers from streaming its programming over the Internet.
They settled after about a month. Staying true to form, Time Warner refused to give customers a rebate as compensation for lost programming.
That's not exactly the same issue that we're facing in the fight over Net neutrality, but it should give you a sense of what life is like when the giants fight it out over what you're allowed to access and for how much. Users get caught in the middle, and the rights we've taken for granted simply disappear.
I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Post them here (Add a comment) so that all our readers can share them, or reach me at bill@billsnyder.biz. Follow me on Twitter at BSnyderSF.
This article, "Verizon's diabolical plan to turn the Web into pay-per-view," was originally published by InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bill Snyder's Tech's Bottom Line blog and follow the latest technology business developments at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.
Think of all the things that tick you off about cable TV. Along with brainless programming and crummy customer service, the very worst aspect of it is forced bundling. You can't pay just for the couple of dozen channels you actually watch. Instead, you have to pay for a couple of hundred channels, because the good stuff is scattered among a number of overstuffed packages.
Now, imagine that the Internet worked that way. You'd hate it, of course. But that's the direction that Verizon, with the support of many wired and wireless carriers, would like to push the Web.
That's not hypothetical. The country's No. 1 carrier is fighting in court to end the Federal Communications Commission's policy of Net neutrality, a move that would open the gates to a whole new - and wholly bad - economic model on the Web.
As it stands now, you pay your Internet service provider and go wherever you want on the Web. Packets of bits are just packets and have to be treated equally. That's the essence of Net neutrality.
But Verizon's plan, which the company has outlined during hearings in federal court and before Congress, would change that. Verizon and its allies would like to charge websites that carry popular content for the privilege of moving their packets to your connected device. Again, that's not hypothetical.
ESPN, for example, is in negotiations with at least one major cellular carrier to pay to exempt its content from subscribers' cellular data caps. And what's wrong with that? Well, ESPN is big and rich and can pay for that exemption, but other content providers - think of your local jazz station that streams audio - couldn't afford it and would be out of business. Or, they'd make you pay to visit their websites. Indeed, if that system had been in place 10 years ago, fledglings like Google or YouTube or Facebook might never have gotten out of the nest.
Susan Crawford, a tech policy expert and professor at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, says Verizon wants to "cable-ize the Internet." She writes in her blog that "The question presented by the case is: Does the U.S. government have any role in ensuring ubiquitous, open, world-class, interconnected, reasonably priced Internet access?"
Verizon: the new Standard Oil
Verizon and other carriers answer that question by saying no.
They argue that because they spent megabucks to build and maintain the network, they should be able to have a say over what content travels over it. They say that because Google and Facebook and other Internet companies make money by moving traffic over "their" networks, they should get a bigger piece of the action. (Never mind that pretty much every person and business that accesses Google or Facebook is already paying for the privilege, and paying more while getting less speed than users in most of Europe.)
In 2005, AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre famously remarked that upstarts like Google would like to "use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it."
That's bad enough, but Verizon goes even further. It claims that it has a right to free speech and, like a newspaper that may or may not publish a story about something, it can choose which content it chooses to carry. "Broadband providers possess 'editorial discretion.' Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others," Verizon's lawyers argue in a brief (PDF).
That's so crazy I won't bother to address it. But the FCC has done such a poor job of spelling out what it thinks it has the right to regulate and how that should work that the door is wide open for the carriers' bizarre - not to mention anticonsumer -- strategies and arguments.
I don't want to get down in the regulatory weeds, but there is one bit of legalese that's worth knowing: common carrier. Simply put, it means that the company doing the shipping can't mess with the contents. A railroad is a common carrier, and as such it can't decide whose cargo it will carry and whose it won't.
Before railroads were common carriers, they did things like favor products made by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, which made him even richer and also led to the creation of a wildly out-of-control monopoly. (Yeshiva's Crawford has an in-depth but readable explanation of these issues in her book "Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age."
But the FCC has never ruled that ISP's are common carriers, partly because it's afraid of the power of the lobbyists to influence Congress and partly because its directors lack spine. And now that lack of spine is about to bite the butt of everyone who uses the Web.
According to people who follow this stuff closely, because ISP's are not common carriers the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., are looking askance at the FCC's defense against Verizon's lawsuit, although a verdict isn't likely for months.
Here are the stakes: "If Verizon - or any ISP - can go to a website and demand extra money just to reach Verizon subscribers, the fundamental fairness of competing on the Internet would be disrupted. It would immediately make Verizon the gatekeeper to what would and would not succeed online. ISP's - not users, not the market - would decide which websites and services succeed," writes Michael Weinberg, vice president of Public Knowledge, a digital advocacy group.
A taste of the Web's future: The Time Warner vs. CBS dust-up
You don't have to wait for the Verizon verdict to get a taste of what the New Web Order would be like. Time Warner Cable and CBS just had a dust-up over how much Time Warner would pay CBS to carry its programming. When the pair couldn't agree, the cable giant stopped carrying CBS programming in New York City, Los Angeles, and Dallas. CBS then retaliated by stopping Time Warner subscribers from streaming its programming over the Internet.
They settled after about a month. Staying true to form, Time Warner refused to give customers a rebate as compensation for lost programming.
That's not exactly the same issue that we're facing in the fight over Net neutrality, but it should give you a sense of what life is like when the giants fight it out over what you're allowed to access and for how much. Users get caught in the middle, and the rights we've taken for granted simply disappear.
I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Post them here (Add a comment) so that all our readers can share them, or reach me at bill@billsnyder.biz. Follow me on Twitter at BSnyderSF.
This article, "Verizon's diabolical plan to turn the Web into pay-per-view," was originally published by InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bill Snyder's Tech's Bottom Line blog and follow the latest technology business developments at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Raspberry Pi as an Ad Blocking Access Point
Ads? What Ads?
Advertising is prevalent on the web. It's a necessary evil at times, but can also be greatly overused by companies slowing down your page loads, and bringing your connected devices to a crawl. Learn how to block these ads using your Raspberry Pi.
Learn More
Friday, September 13, 2013
The Day John Boehner Admitted He's Totally at a Loss
The speaker is out of ideas for dealing with his restive right wing.
By
“No. Do you have an idea?” Boehner replied, according to Politico. “They’ll just shoot it down anyway.”
Boehner’s dilemma -- finding a way to satisfy the right wing of his caucus that doesn’t involve shutting down the government -- isn’t new. The debate rages in Washington over whether he has an impossible job or whether he’s just terrible at it, but it doesn't really matter.
Throughout it all, as Congress lurches from crisis to crisis, he has always evinced a survivor’s weary optimism that this, too, shall pass. But now he is finally, totally, out of ideas.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
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