Put on your seat belts people, and a good hard helmet if you have one, because what is coming to 'Our Town'...Washington DC is the vampire squid deluxe Orgy of Greed, that above all must protect the FRAUD TO COVER UP THE FRAUD.

The financial services industry has launched an aggressive campaign on Capitol Hill to bolster the legality of the way companies have turned mortgages into securities and traded them across the globe in recent years. The companies have opened wide their wallets for lobbying and are flying top executives to Washington for one-on-one meetings with lawmakers. They are holding briefings for key staffers, including an event last week that drew more than 60 aides. And they are blanketing Congress with white papers, memos and other documents that lay out their arguments. The focal point of their efforts is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, the controversial, privately run electronic database that is used by practically every lending institution and investment company to track the transfer of the ownership of mortgages as they are packaged into securities and traded at lightning speed around the globe. But MERS does more than just track the trading of loans. In the vast majority of mortgage documents at local courts and offices across the country, it is listed as the holder of the loans. That allows the financial industry to trade mortgages as much as it wishes without spending the time and money to refile the paperwork. The industry is seeking legislation that would effectively affirm MERS's legality and block any bill that would call into question what MERS does. MERS has spent more than $1 million in lobbying since fall 2008, when lower courts around the country began to rule against it. But MERS had kept its name under the radar until the recent uproar over foreclosures revealed broad problems in mortgage paperwork. If successful on Capitol Hill, the industry could in one quick swoop make all lawsuits related to MERS across the country moot and remove one of the key uncertainties dangling over the mortgage industry. On the flip side, lawmakers could create a new federal registry, effectively killing MERS's business and forcing the industry to submit to greater oversight. In recent years, MERS has become the target of numerous legal challenges from homeowners in foreclosure who allege that mortgage transfers made through the system are invalid because they bypass local recording laws. MERS, the lawsuits contend, does not have standing to foreclose because it is only a database and not the actual holder of the mortgage. The liabilities could be astronomical for MERS. One lawsuit in California alone is seeking recording fees that could cost the company from $60 billion to $120 billion. But the consequences for the financial industry are even greater, as challenges to the validity of transfers done by MERS call into question the entire process of how loans were securitized and could render the 66 million mortgages in its system foreclosure-proof. Consumer advocates say such legislation would retroactively bless all mortgage transfers made through MERS - and eliminate one of the strongest legal arguments that homeowners in foreclosure are using to challenge their cases. There's also concern among state officials that such a bill might permanently remove some of their power over property law and place it within federal jurisdiction. Some of the advocates are referring to the idea as the "great MERS whitewash bill." "Fixing MERS on a federal level to give them a free pass from complying with what we have known as the law for many years because the banks screwed up is really a bad precedent," said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Thank you for putting it so nicely Mr. Rheingold, but 'bad precedent,' doesn't even begin to describe what this MERS White Wash would really do, if this new Locust of Lobbyist end up having their way.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Illicit Foreclosure Mills in our nation. When these greedy bastards got caught red handed, people in our nation turned to their local sheriffs, judges and Attorney Generals and said: "Hey wait a fucking minute here, we pay your tax revenues, we pay your jobs, and these ass hats from hell, can't even show us the Note to our own properties.'

And that, ladies and gents, is where the rubber meets to the road. This is a matter of States' rights, which is exactly why (as Timothy Geithner and President Obama tried to slither out the door and pretend it was no big fucking deal) 50 State Attorney Generals gave the big finger to our fabulous suck up to Wall St./the Banks government. Of COURSE Geithner was not going to call for a National Moratorium of Foreclosures, I mean after all, we know after his FAKE HAMP program shit the bed, and only sent people directly into foreclosure who the hell he was really working for....(clue, it ain't us people).

I love the way that Karl Denninger from Market Ticket analysis this:

First, there are two parts to a mortgage - and MERS only tracks one. That is, the deed - the recorded part of the mortgage - is what MERS tracks. The promissory note is not recorded, and MERS does not track that. But there is a long line of court decisions that have held that the mortgage itself is an incidental component of the whole. That is, it serves as little more than a means of providing notice of a lien (and who holds it), but not the terms. For privacy reasons (among others) the note is not recorded. Then there's the general view of agency in the law. That is, if I have a right I can assign to you that right and have you execute things on my behalf. For instance, I can give you permission to foreclose on my behalf. But to do that, I have to have the right I am going to assign to you. If I have no rights, then I cannot assign anything since I have nothing to assign. Make sense? The issue MERS has as an institution/company is that there are jurisdictions that require that an actual person or identified entity be the holder of a recorded interest. That is, the "opaque" nature of MERS is repugnant to the laws of those jurisdictions. This is what the lobbying effort is attempting to override. This is a serious State's Rights issue. That is, it is a matter of long-settled law that land titles and similar are a state function. To usurp this authority of the states would be an inherent violation of the separation of state and federal powers and is repugnant to the Constitution. Such an act is therefore no law at all, and an attempt to enforce a law that is facially void would be worthy of the strongest response - assuming it succeeds through to the Supreme Court (and it almost certainly would get there toot-sweet.) But none of this bears on the true underlying problem: A so-called assignee of a promissory note, who holds the real interest, cannot grant to MERS rights they do not hold. If the notes were not transferred into the trusts as required by the Pooling and Servicing Agreement, with said PSA being a private contract that amends and in fact requires stricter conformance with procedure than the UCC, then the "Trust" holds nothing and thus cannot grant to MERS the right to do anything! Notice how few people are talking about the real underlying issue? There are a few - Mr. Garfield being one, I being another, Yves being a third and, I might add, Arthur Levitin. This is where the attention has to be focused - by Congress, by the OCC, and by everyone else looking into this matter. Before we can reach into the propriety of what MERS is doing, we first must establish that the alleged Trust which gives MERS "nominee" status actually has rights it is legally able to delegate. The evidence currently available to us strongly suggest that the Trusts in point of fact have no such rights, as the PSA's requirements for actual transfers into the trust, along with the ministerial requirements of both the REMIC sections of the IRS code and NY Trust Law, were not complied with. Once again I ask: If all these notes were actually endorsed over as required and tendered into the trusts at the time of the establishment of the trust, as is required by both the PSA and REMIC rules, why is it that neither I or anyone else that I'm aware of has actually seen any properly-conveyed notes? IF THEY EXIST, WHERE ARE THEY AND WHY DO THE SERVICERS CONTINUALLY REFUSE TO PRODUCE THEM?

http://market-ticker.org/...

Back to square one: THE FRAUD TO COVER UP THE FRAUD. Strange how it always goes back to that one central theme isn't it, because this is exactly why Geithner, et., al, keep trying to slither out the door. If the Illicit Foreclosure Mills are not brought to justice, and if this Locusts of Lobbyist get their way, by paying off what ever whores they can in our beloved Congress, then know this:

The only reason that this is happening is because the entire Great House of Cards, the ultimate Ponzi Scheme upheld by our fully corrupt government in both parties, has one essential aim: Regardless of what it costs Americans, and regardless of how badly Wall St./the Banks financially ruined our economy and the world's economies, (and then got fucking paid off for doing so, and are no doubling down to take down the rest of what is left of our safety net), the main rule is this up Our Town, Washington DC:

Circle the Wagons people, because if one of the crooks go down, we all go down.

I believe the Honorable Senator Bernie Sanders said it best today:

The billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. The very rich want more, more and more and they are prepared to dismantle the existing political and social order to get it. During the last campaign, as a result of the (Republican) Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, billionaires were able to pour hundreds of millions of dollars of secret money into the campaign -- helping to elect dozens of members of Congress. Now, having made their investment, they want their congressional employees to produce. Republicans in Congress, needless to say, are all on board. The key question is whether a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate go along to get along, or whether they draw a clear line at protecting the interests of the middle class and vulnerable populations of our country while tackling our economic and budgetary problems in earnest. In the next month, despite all their loud rhetoric about the "deficit crisis," the Republicans want to add $700 billion to the national debt over the next 10 years by extending Bush's tax breaks for the top 2 percent. Families who earn $1 million a year or more would receive, on average, a tax break of $100,000 a year. The Republicans also want to eliminate or significantly reduce the estate tax, which has existed since 1916. Its elimination would add, over 10 years, about $1 trillion to our national debt and all of the benefits would go to the top 0.3 percent. Over 99.7 percent of American families would not gain a nickel. The Walton family of WalMart would receive an estimated tax break of more than $30 billion by repealing the estate tax. That's just the start. The billionaires and their supporters in Congress are hell-bent on taking us back to the 1920s, and eliminating all traces of social legislation designed to protect working families, the elderly, children and the disabled. No "social contract" for them. They want it all. They want to privatize or dismantle Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and let the elderly, the sick and the poor fend for themselves. But what about the Democrats? Will President Obama continue to reach out and "compromise" with people who have made it abundantly clear that the only agreement they want is unconditional surrender? Or, will he utilize the powerful skills that we saw during his 2008 campaign for the White House and bring working families, young people, the elderly and the poor together to fight against these savage attacks on their well-being? Will the Democrats in the Senate continue to pass tepid legislation, or will they use their majority status to protect the interests of ordinary Americans and, for a change, put the Republicans on the defensive? The time is late. The stakes are extraordinary. While it is true that the billionaires and their supporters are "fired up and ready to go," there is another more important truth. And that is that there are a lot more of us than there are of them. Now is the time for us to stand together, educate and organize. Now is the time to roll back this orgy of greed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

And again, this is where the rubber meets the road. This is a pivotal moment in the history of the Democratic Party and our current leadership, and they sure as hell better decide who and what they stand for, because by all appearances and actions to date, it would appear that this is not simply about compromising, even before the debate begins at all. It is becoming clearer everyday, to everyday working Americans who are working 2 and 3 jobs just to get by, who will be soon cut off from their Unemployment benefits, because geeeeeeeeeeeee whiz, Wall St./the Banks fucked our nation up so badly (then got paid off for doing it), that someone who we think, is supposedly on our side, is either complicit, incompetent, or working for the same Greedy Bastard Hall of Shame, that are being eaten alive by.

It doesn't take a genius to wonder why the hell President Obama would appoint the 'Cat Food Commission' instead of a real 'Jobs Commission,' or to ask our President, why the hell he doesn't ask the fucking Republicans to form their own Jobs Commission....duhhhhhhh.

Senator Sanders is right: It is never enough, and it is never going to be enough, until we hold President Obama's feet to the fire, and make him do it. If he refuses to do it, then perhaps its time to find a new leader that will do it.

FDR Wasn't FDR ... Until His Hand Was Forced By Civil Disobedience Progressives are disappointed that - contrary to the hype - Obama is no FDR. But FDR himself wasn't who we think of as FDR until he was forced by protests, strikes and other forms of civil disobedience. As historian Howard Zinn wrote in March 2008: In 1934, early in the Roosevelt Presidency, strikes broke out all over the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country. Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help organizations with hundreds of thousands of members. Without a national crisis—economic destitution and rebellion—it is not likely the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms that it did. Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates [i.e. Obama and McCain] have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War ....They offer no radical change from the status quo. They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for ....They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live. None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.

http://www.zerohedge.com/...

If it takes a National Strike, then that is what it is going to take, and it may end up coming to that sooner than we think.

Consider this: What if the Locust Lobbyist for the White Washing of MERS succeeds, and centuries of basic contractual property rights and laws are overturned?

Well, from where I'm sitting this sounds almost exactly like what Bush did with the OCC law of 1863 that protected States rights to have jurisdiction over their own Banking system. Remember that? I sure as hell do.

Federal Preemption of State Consumer Protection Laws When the states sought to fill the vacuum created by federal nonenforcement of consumer protection laws against predatory lenders, the feds jumped to stop them. "In 2003," as Eliot Spitzer recounted, "during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks."

So remember this: As the Locusts of Lobbyist are descending on our Nation's capitol with more money in their pockets than we can even imagine, to make certain that your basic property rights that had held for centuries will be overturned, then don't be surprised, if you lost your job and are trying to save you home that you love and have paid for dearly with the sweat of your brow, is stolen from you in the dead of night. BECAUSE YOU WILL HAVE NO RECOURSE AND NO RIGHTS, and on top of that you can kiss a lifetime of keeping your credit score clean and all pretty, because in the end, these Viper Vampire Squad teams, doesn't give a rats ass where you and your family end up, and I'm sorry to say, that it would appear that neither Timothy Geithner or President Obama do either.

Keep this upcoming legislation on the front burner, because I have that sinking feeling that 'they' the great Corporate Overlords, are going to try to sneak it through.

Thanks as always.

Ms. B.