Cenk Uygur: What Obama is missing

I know that everyone will me yelling to write this now. I hear now, "we are trying to win an election." You're not helping! "Criticizing Democrats now looks into bed with Karl Rove"! OK, hopefully not the last one, which seems to be monstrous, but you get the point.

The reality is that many people speak, we really do something. Malan and Mae, we participate in TurkOutTheVote.com. It is part of their efforts more CallOutTheVote.com for people taking care of volunteers and to make calls to reveal the strong progressive vote.Please contribute to this effort if you have a time libre.Certains elections are very narrow and speaking to voters real help enormously.

Now, the reason why I'm writing a critical piece of Obama at this stage is because I've seen just an excellent interview Jon Stewart had with him on The Daily Show. In fact, I thought it was the best Chairman interview I've ever seen (my detailed analysis of the interview is here).

Stewart him actual address critical merits his record for the first time.Almost all others who interviewed him have greatly distorted case or he disputed the droite.Stewart asked all rights issues. And the responses were very informative. This is what I learned.

Unfortunately, the Obama does is it it is not alone.almost the entire media Washington do not understand what the hell we are talking about when we say the change. Obama said he received 90% of what we wanted in the reform of health care and that people are complaining that we get the other 10 %.J'en totally disagree with him on the percentages (I think it was closer to 40%), but that misses the whole point.

We're not quibble about législatifs.Par example compromise, I would have given the exemption of the NRA and all other exemption proposed to the Act of communicating. We are not stupid, we are aware of the need to make trade-offs and the fact that of course you can't get all you want.

The real issue is not whether you changed certain provisions and is not changing. It is question of whether or not you have changed the System. This is the change we need.

Thus, in the case of health care, as long as there were some efforts to break the monopoly of insurance we would all jumped dans.Nous does not have a single payer, we didn't need Medicare buy-in for everyone, we didn't need even the public option for everyone (all those which would have been great, but we were far from these policy cimate). It was just something, something to start the dash system change.

We settled for the Medicare buy-in starting at age 55. We installed the public option only applies to 5% of the country, the latest proposal. There is no wild claim no mythical inflexible progressives requiring 100%. We wanted not just as the core of the system to be exactly as it was before. And unfortunately it is.

Yes, we had more coverage than most people. I am not neglecting the good sides of the Bill, but at the same time, you may not be deliberately dense to what we say.Private insurance is still our only option, pharmaceutical companies have massive monopolies, our bonuses are back and we are always at the mercy of those companies.

But health is an exemple.véritable nub of the issue is how our elections are funded. Lobbyists kill us.Democratic voters hate and do Republican voters.They buy our politicians and corrupt the entire system.This is what the Tea Party protesters are angry about their hearts (73% of the Tea Party supporters were against the decision of Citizens United allowing companies to spend unlimited money on elections) .c ' is the only progressive are angry about their hearts (86% of Liberals are against Citizens United).The system is broken.Our politicians do not work for nous.Nos representatives represent us. That is what we wanted to change!

And what was done about it?Almost nothing!Yes, Obama administration brought a little more transparency in the process initially (although after Citizens United we have taken a giant step backward - and it is a part of the reason is one of the most unpopular decisions in the history of the Supreme Court) .Oui, administration prohibited particularly lobbyists to work for them directly.But is there any major piece of legislation fixing the core of the system.

If we continue to let the special interests, corporate interests and lobbyists are buying our politicians, there is no hope on one of the questions.Obama was right, the best we can hope for is a little change in different domaines.Si you agree this false premise, Obama was the best he could do to these constraints.

But we did not elect him to accept this premise, we have elected to change this premise .c ' is change expected - and to not get.

Unfortunately, based on responses from President Obama Jon Stewart again that he does not and is there no intention to push this agenda for the next two années.Et it will probably be just as flummoxed and then to why people are not satisfied with his shyness efforts.Votre is not based on your policies spécifiques.Elle proposals is based on your lack of vision.

If he fought tooth and nail for full public financing of elections for the next two years, even if he did not win, us have any return him 100 %.Il is not 100% success, but we need you at least head in good direction.Et we need you to understand what it means by change.

Watch the young Turks here

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Michael Russnow: 2010 elections: Obama Marc Antoine needs to define this right

-Is this just me or does that Shakespeare was right when he rejected the masses so effectively in Julius Caesar? Are we rabble just, which twist and turn to the emotional rhetoric without the ability to think for ourselves?

Two years ago our country was in a crisis of so many ways, not the least was the economic turmoil that have caused the bankruptcy almost worldwide and the tragedy of so many lives lost in unnecessary wars persisted in the Middle East.

There are other problems of course, more important than others but all contributing factor to our misfortunes.If we changed of course with a landslide that elected our first bi-raciale President who won not only with a significant majority, but therefore unlikely supported Republican States such as Virginia and Indiana.

The majority of the Democratic Congress is almost irreversible, with 60 votes in the Senate and the voices of save in the House of représentants.Les people were eager to change, which was indeed a bit slow to be forthcoming.

Part of it is due to Barack Obama pledge and stubborn insistence that his presidency would be composed of things we do given avant.Son administration would not in politics and it could affect the Republicans, who had not had the the thanks to do the same for the Democrats in 2000, even though more than people voted for Al Gore than George W. Bush..

Obama attempts were arrested and he took a year or for him to go into account that the Republicans achieved right when they took her fonctions.Il had said, Hey, "we care not how we got here, but we're here and we will be running the show." So finally, after the Democrats have lost their majority as a result of the death of Senator Ted Kennedy and the election of Republican Scott Brown has been acting difficult when they pushed by landmark, health care package which had already passed the Senate and the House in persuading still formidable democratic majority in the House to accept the Bill in the Senate.

Republicans am, but they work, a feat that had escaped the nation since Harry Truman attempted to ball rolling sixty years ago. A fiscal stimulus package was also transmitted, as well as reforms in the credit card industry.Folks, much progress has been made, and the administration has been in Office less than two years.

However, because there is still much unemployment, even if job losses have declined and there is still much to solve, there is a roll the buttocks of fate fervor sweeping the nation.Most experts predict definitive loss of the Chamber - a huge turnaround - and a Senate even with Democrats in control, what will be the majority as the name.

Of course, this is because while the Republicans are primarily a stripe, except for the two women, who represent the State of Maine, there are so many different types of democracy across the nation, it's a miracle when Trues reforms are made of tissue which reminds us a party when the FDR, Truman f. John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson was in charge.

The reality is that we are on target to improve things, and things are better that they were two years if we are forced to paraphrase request Ronald Reagan for us in 1980, "are you better off that you were four years ago."We are in excellent shape, the finished work, the answer is of course, aucun.Mais should stop and hand the reins of power to the spokespersons of the large enterprises and the so-called moral, folks who proclaim themselves as the only true American conspiracy because they promote discrimination against immigrants and denounce gay patriotic who want to serve in the army? to me, this is a self.

But it seems we are on the verge of doing so, and if it happens then the country deserves what he fait.Il will be largely dependent on short-sighted and a high degree of racism by those who believe that a guy with a very dark Kenyan father has somewhat become our President self interest Act.

And media like controversy and promoting governmental disorders, undoubtedly increased ratings of Brian Williams at NBC, those of Katie Couric on CBS, Diane Sawyer on ABC and Anderson Cooper on CNN.

There is still time to stop the madness and give leaders that we elected the time to do what must be fait.Disons tweet on Twitter rant on Facebook or absurd position Tea Party candidate outlined on YouTube.Je must admit I'm not too optimiste.Comme I mentioned at the beginning, William Shakespeare included people and their weaknesses too much and he excelled in dramatic form which could well be enclosing our nation as transfigures in modern tragedy.

Site Web de Michael Russnow is ramproductionsinternational.com

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Michelle Obama & Jill Biden Take The Stage In L.A. (PHOTOS)

It was ": Stop Next Los Angeles" Tuesday night as first lady Michelle Obama and second Lady Jill Biden continued their tour of the West Coast in a fundraising for Senator Barbara Boxer of California. And we...

It was ": Stop Next Los Angeles" Tuesday night as first lady Michelle Obama and second Lady Jill Biden continued their tour of the West Coast in a fundraising for Senator Barbara Boxer's Californie.Et we...

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The Obama direction: "nothing to see here"on the foreclosure crisis".

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The Obama Administration is entirely predictable. It ever and always sides with large corporate interests, while trying to create the impression that it is actually concerned for the welfare of the average citizen. Admittedly, the occasionally tough talk with little follow through feeds a perverse spectacle of plutocrats sulking, pouting, and claiming that they are really, really badly treated.

Yesterday, the Financial Times reported “Foreclosure crisis tops Obama agenda” and described a closed door meeting scheduled with top officials. This mountain of effort so far seems to be producing a molehill, apparently by design. Team Obama is resorting to another of its well ingrained bad habits, of using PR as the preferred solution for all policy problems.

The only question here is whether the powers that be are so out of touch that they regard the foreclosure crisis version of extend and pretend as a viable strategy, or whether they are simply using it to buy time. And if the latter, is the object to get more breathing room while they do a proper diagnosis or simply to keep things on an even keel through the elections? Presumably, any bank-favoring measures would be radioactive right now, while voters will lack immediate recourse after November 2. Indeed, in a DC version of Br’er Rabbit’s pleas not to be thrown in the briar patch, expected Republican gains could serve as a very useful excuse for the Administration to rescue the banks once again: “Congress made us do it”.

A very good account by Shahien Nasiripour and Arthur Delaney at the Huffington Post lays bare the Administration’s dubious logic. The message starts with the usual suspect promises about doing the right thing for individuals, but then repeats a pet mantra of the Administration, “look ahead, not back”:

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Wednesday that the Obama administration will attempt to protect homeowners and police the kind of paperwork fraud that led the nation’s largest banks to temporarily halt foreclosures this month, but added that the administration had yet to find anything fundamentally flawed in how large banks securitized home loans or how they foreclosed on them.

“Where any homeowner has been defrauded or denied the basic protections or rights they have under law, we will take actions to make sure the banks make them whole, and their rights will be protected and defended,” Donovan said at a Washington press briefing. “First and foremost, we are committed to accountability, so that everyone in the mortgage process — banks, mortgage servicers and other institutions — is following the law. If they have not followed the law, it’s our responsibility to make sure they’re held accountable.”

He added, however, that the administration is focused on ensuring future compliance, rather than on looking back to make sure homeowners and investors weren’t harmed during the reckless boom years. The administration is “committed to forcing institutions to change the way that they conduct business,” Obama’s top housing official said, “to make sure these problems don’t happen again.”

Yves here. The “we haven’t found anything yet” posture is awfully convenient. I wish I had time to do a Freedom of Information Act request on the calendars of Geithner, Donovan, and their deputies tasked to the foreclosure mess over the last two weeks. I guarantee that their calls and meeting with outsiders on this matter are skewed 4:1, if not heavier in favor of banks or their supporters (industry incumbents, lobbyists, bank lawyers) versus anyone who might have a different point of view.

And another aspect of the DC insider versus outsider dynamic is the blatant bias in favor of people with the right credentials, meaning top schools, past roles at well respected firms or top policy positions. That bias means anyone representing the borrower point of view is going to be discounted because they are not members of the club. The people on the front lines of the foreclosure crisis are consumer lawyers, and a handful of academics, largely from second tier institutions (real estate law has been a backwater until the crisis made it sexy). One of the things that has given the critics’ case real cred is that Adam Levitin, a Georgetown law professor (meaning someone deemed to pass the class test) has supported many of their contentions.

So it isn’t surprising, as the Huffiington Post story intimates, that the preliminary clean bill of health is based on framing the inquiry awfully narrowly:

When it came to the larger issue of what some legal experts describe as a fundamentally-flawed and fraud-ridden mortgage market — fraudulently-underwritten loans that passed through a maze of institutions that failed to properly maintain basic paperwork or follow legal procedures in bundling, securitizing and ultimately selling those mortgages to investors — Donovan said that, thus far, all is well.

“The primary issue that’s been the focus of the moratoria is, is the foreclosure process being followed correctly? Are affidavits being filed correctly, and are notarizations and other things being done correctly? That is one set of issues,” he said. “A second set of issues — and we think this is very important — that we look more broadly at, ‘Are servicers taking steps to help keep people in their homes?’”

The lesser, third issue that has been raised, Donovan said, is whether the process underlying the securitization of mortgages is “in question.”

“So that’s the point that I’m trying to make, is that the issues that we are finding … that we’re focused on are, ‘Are there particular servicers that are not following these processes?’”

Donovan added that “we have not found any evidence at this point of systemic issues in the underlying legal or other documents that have been reviewed.”

That review, however, is fairly new. Experts in mortgage processes, housing law and bankruptcy say the practices employed by the big mortgage originators, securitizers and servicers is largely flawed, and that in some cases the basic process of how a loan came to be securitized and sold can be legitimately questioned. It’s unclear how hard the administration looked into the matter prior to Donovan’s diagnosis.

Even though Donovan steered clear of specifically endorsing bank assertions that the fuss over affidavits was unwarranted and the underlying information is fine, the “we see nothing wrong so far” amounts to the same thing. Others in positions of authority are less credulous. Per Bloomberg:

Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray on Oct. 19 expressed deep skepticism that Bank of America had managed to complete its internal review in just 2 1/2 weeks, saying, “I would caution that they still have significant financial exposure in many, many cases.”

The officialdom’s attempts to diminish the severity of the mortgage securitization mess isn’t that hard to discern if you are paying attention. But it isn’t the only version of three card Monte at work. EmptyWheel points to a more complicated, less obvious version. Fidelity, the biggest title insurer in the US, is demanding that lenders warrant all foreclosure sales. That has the effect of moving liability for defective title off the title insurers and back onto the sellers, who just happen to be TBTF banks, meaning the taxpayer is now in the title insurance business. As bad as that is, EmptyWheel points out another advantage if you believe in protection a bad system at all costs, that it sweeps a lot of the concerns about title under the rug:
Note, too, that Fidelity National instituted this policy (as distinct from the agreement it signed with Bank of

America on the day BoA halted foreclosures) in consultation with Fannie and Freddie. That is, in consultation with government owned entities holding a majority of the mortgages out there.

So the government and Fidelity National have gotten together and said, “rather than actually check for fraud we’ve got abundant evidence exists not just in foreclosures being processed now, but in foreclosures already sold and–significantly–in performing loans that were securitized at the height of the boom, let’s just have the banks sign off on any foreclosures going forward.” As a particularly nice touch, they’re describing this fraud not as fraud, but “incompetent or erroneous affidavit testimony or documentation.”

From the standpoint of an industry and a government hoping to prevent people from learning about the extent to which our property system has been tainted by the banksters, that might be shrewd. After all, the most common time for real people to challenge bank conduct here is when they are foreclosed on or when they buy a house–when they are involved in a legal transaction. We only came to understand the true extent of foreclosure fraud after foreclosure and bankruptcy lawyers had dealt with such volume of cases that they came to learn the tricks of the servicers and even reviewed enough documents to have solid evidence of notary and robosigner fraud. By getting indemnity from the banks, Fidelity National (and our government acting through Fannie and Freddie) will ensure that one entity at least will continue to offer lenders title insurance, helping them unload those properties that may or may not have fraudulent title, but will never look closely at the documentation to see if there has been fraud. (boldface original)

So the effect of the official “don’t rattle the markets” posture is a refusal to dig too deeply, and the end result is to sanction fraud. Rewarding criminal behavior has never been the foundation of a well functioning capitalist society; indeed, Singapore was able to become an economic success against considerable odds by having a clean government and tough enforcement. But the powers that be seem determined to try this experiment, since they’d rather not rattle the power structure, no matter how rotten it might turn out to be.

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