Eideard

Eric Schneiderman with Eric Holder announcing DOJ investigation of foreclosure fraud
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Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase were sued by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman over the use of a mortgage database that the state said led to improper foreclosures.

The banks’ use of the database, known as MERS, misled homeowners, undermined foreclosure proceedings and created uncertainty about ownership interests in properties, the state said in the complaint filed today in New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.

“The banks created the MERS system as an end-run around the property recording system, to facilitate the rapid securitization and sale of mortgages,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Once the mortgages went sour, these same banks brought foreclosure proceedings en masse based on deceptive and fraudulent court submissions.”

The lawsuit comes three days before a Feb. 6 deadline for states to join a proposed multistate agreement over foreclosure practices said to be worth as much as $25 billion. Last week, he was selected by the Obama Administration to help lead a state-federal group probing misconduct in the packaging and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities…

The state’s complaint…states that MERS eliminated the ability of the public and homeowners to track the purchase and sale of properties through the traditional public records system. That information is stored in the MERS private database, which Schneiderman called unreliable and inaccurate. The mortgage industry has saved more than $2 billion in recording fees with the system, according to the complaint.

Banks’ use of the registry, coupled with “faulty and sloppy” document preparation, has resulted in foreclosures being filed against New York homeowners where the foreclosing party lacked the authority to sue, Schneiderman said.

By relying on legally invalid mortgage assignments using MERS, foreclosure judgments have been obtained “through fraudulent and illegal means,” according to the complaint.

Go get ‘em, Eric!

The National Rifle Association has filed a lawsuit challenging a new federal regulation requiring gun merchants along the border with Mexico to report bulk sales of certain semiautomatic rifles, contending that the Obama administration exceeded its powers by imposing the rule last month without Congressional permission.

The N.R.A. is bringing the lawsuit in the name of two firearms dealers in Arizona. Its complaint asks a judge in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia to issue an injunction barring enforcement of the rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“N.R.A. has always viewed this as a blatant attempt by the Obama administration to pursue their gun control agenda through back-door rule-making, and the N.R.A. will fight them every step of the way,” said Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the gun rights group…

“We think that the action we have taken is consistent with the law,” Eric Holder told reporters, “and that the measures that we are proposing are appropriate ones to stop the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico.”

The rule requires licensed firearms dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas to report within five days whenever someone buys more than one weapon like a variant of the AK-47 assault weapon. The rule covers any semiautomatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine and ammunition larger than .22 caliber.

The rule is meant to make it harder for Mexican drug cartels to obtain military-style weapons and smuggle them to Mexico, where they are illegal to sell to consumers. American weapons — often bought by “straw buyers” who have a right to buy them for themselves — have been flooding across the Southwest border for years, fueling drug violence in Mexico.

We’ve blogged about “straw buyers” before. None of this means much of anything to the monomaniacs running the NRA. There was a time when they were a useful organization supporting sensible practices for hunting and sports gun owners. Now, they’re the military center of the nutball brigade.

Plus – I get to crap on people who really defame my background. Just as I can joke about flying with my wife’s family full of pilots – I come from an extended family full of gunsmiths, trap shooters and hunters. Some of the best fun I’ve had in the Southwest was handgun hunting when I lived in the Navajo Nation. Would I join the NRA? Not even with counterfeit money from the Koch Bros.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
The latest photo of corporate meat puppets

House Republicans have hired a prominent conservative attorney to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act in a pending lawsuit, legal sources say, and will make an effort to divert money from the Justice Department to fund its high-profile fight. House Speaker John Boehner disclosed the legal and political strategy in a letter Monday to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi…

“The burden of defending DOMA, and the resulting costs associated with any litigation that would have otherwise been born (sic) by DOJ (The Department of Justice), has fallen to the House,” Boehner said. “Obviously, DOJ’s decision results in DOJ no longer needing the funds it would have otherwise expended defending the constitutionality of DOMA. It is my intent that those funds be diverted to the House for reimbursement of any costs incurred by and associated with the House, and not DOJ, defending DOMA…”

Paul Clement is a former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, serving from 2005 to 2008. It was his job to defend federal laws and executive actions in court, similar to what he will be doing now as a private lawyer on retainer. He was mentioned at one time as a possible Supreme Court nominee. He would have fit in perfectly with the other reactionary liars appointed by Bush.

Separately, he also is representing more than two dozens states in their lawsuit against the administration over the sweeping health care reform law passed by Congress last year. That case is pending in a federal appeals court in Atlanta.
In the Defense of Marriage Act dispute, groups on both sides of the issue noted the highly charged political aspects.

“Not only are House Republican leaders defending the indefensible, they’ve brought in a high-priced attorney to deny federal recognition to loving, married couples,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “Speaker Boehner appears ready to go to great lengths, and the great expense of a high-power law firm, to try to score some cheap political points on the backs of same-sex couples…”

President Barack Obama on February 23 ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the law. “The president has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. The key provision in the law “fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional…”

These bigots have a perfect right to maintain their fight against the tide of progress and civil rights. Hate-mongers are a protected species under our Constitution.

There’s no good reason why American taxpayers should pick up the tab for their revanchist politics. There’s no shortage of wealthy thugs like the Koch Bros around to pay the bill for rightwing politicians running for office. Let ‘em pay for the fightback against the 21st Century.

Gay rights activists are celebrating another step forward after the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend legislation that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

The decision opens the way for the federal government to recognise same-sex marriages. It comes only three months after the White House said it would end legislation discriminating against gay men and lesbians in the military.

Eight US states permit same-sex marriages but these are not recognised by the federal government, which does afford these couples the same treatment as heterosexual couples in terms of taxation, health benefits and in other areas.

The Obama administration said on Wednesday it would no longer ask the justice department to defend the 1996 Defence of Marriage Act in court.

The decision will spark another row with social conservatives, who are almost certain to challenge it in court.

The White House press spokesman, Jay Carney…said the president did not believe the law was constitutional, though his personal view on gay marriage was still evolving. “He’s grappling with the issue,” Carney. “But I want to make a distinction between his personal views” and the legal decision not to defend the law…

A federal judge in Massachusetts last year ruled the act unconstitutional.

Only a fool would expect the entire course of United States history to be reversed for long on issues of civil rights. What will be achieved by Republicans and their assorted flunkies is further polarization of those who vote – and more important – revitalization of those who don’t often vote.

Questions of principle, especially principles of democracy and equal opportunity serve best to activate fence-sitters and those suffering political ennui for whatever reason. Certainly better than rote recitation of 14th Century ideology by squads of disaffected bumpkins – already recognized as backwards enough to be the butt of TV comedy.

The criminal accusations spanned several states and several decades, encompassing figures from seven mob families, and led to the arrest of nearly 125 people on federal charges on Thursday…

The charges were included in 16 indictments handed up in federal courts in four jurisdictions. Taken together, they amounted to what federal officials called the “largest mob roundup in F.B.I. history…”

The sweep began before dawn, with 800 federal agents and state and local investigators fanning out across the region. The targets, officials said, ran the gamut from what they called small-time bookmakers and shakedown artists to mob middle managers and the entire current leadership of the Colombo crime family, as well as two senior Gambino family figures. Prosecutors said 34 made members of New York’s five crime families — Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Luchese — and crime families in New Jersey and New England were among those arrested.

By taking out the leadership of the Colombos and charging large numbers of reputed crime figures from the other families, the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors hoped the case would have a significant impact. But at the same time, officials acknowledged that the mob had shown itself to be remarkably resilient.

At the news conference, Eric Holder also announced that the Justice Department was merging its Organized Crime and Racketeering Section with its Gang Unit, a move he said would provide more-experienced prosecutors and increased resources for cases like the one announced on Thursday…

Most of the defendants whom prosecutors characterized as higher-ranking mob figures were held without bail after pleading not guilty.

RTFA for the details. Lots of details.

Nice to see the FBI spend some time – productive time at that – on something of benefit to the whole nation.

With prodding from a Bay Area judge, the Obama administration has quietly withdrawn regulations by President George W. Bush’s Justice Department that would have helped California and other states put their death penalty cases on a fast track in federal courts.

The change, authorized by Congress in 1996 but never implemented, was intended to compress a federal review process that can last anywhere from two years to a decade or more.

Death penalty appeals in California now typically take 20 to 25 years to resolve. Most of that time is spent in state court waiting for trial court records to be prepared, appeals lawyers to be appointed, and a badly backlogged California Supreme Court to rule.

But proceedings can also be lengthy in federal courts. The last inmate executed in California, Clarence Ray Allen, was put to death in January 2006 after more than 23 years of appeals – 17 of which were in federal court…

But Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., and an opponent of capital punishment, said revelations about wrongfully convicted prisoners on death row show that this is no time for a speedup…

The fast-track system was authorized by Congress and President Bill Clinton in 1996 as part of a law designed to limit federal court review of state criminal cases, especially capital cases.

It would allow states to speed up federal review of death sentences if they have adequate procedures for appointing and paying lawyers to represent condemned prisoners…

The 1996 law let federal judges decide whether states qualified for fast-track, and the answer was uniformly no…

In 2005, a Republican-controlled Congress voted to bypass the judges and authorize the U.S. attorney general to review the state’s procedures, subject to final approval by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., which has a conservative majority. But the change has never taken effect.

After 14 years, no doubt Republicans and those who see no requirement to balance adequate defense and timely resolution will try, again.

Then there are the judges and lawyers, too often working at their political careers more than anything else.

Federal prosecutors have charged 1,215 people in hundreds of mortgage fraud cases that resulted in estimated losses of $2.3 billion, said administration officials unveiling a crackdown after the housing market collapse…

In the last three-and-a-half months, authorities have made 485 arrests in the fraud cases, obtained 336 individual convictions and recovered more than $147 million, the Justice Department said.

“We have seen cases that have resulted in dozens of foreclosures and millions in losses, as well as fraudsters who have bankrupted entire companies and national lenders who were not playing by the rules,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder said.

The announcement came a day after prosecutors accused the former head of a defunct mortgage lender, Lee Farkas, of a scheme that led to multibillion-dollar losses.

Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, said that authorities were pursuing more than 3,000 mortgage fraud cases, a number that has nearly doubled since 2008.

You didn’t seriously think the politicians who removed oversight and regulation were going to be prosecuting the fraudsters they unleashed, did you? That required – ready for the word? – CHANGE.

Throw away the key!

The Justice Department is preparing to impose new limits on the government assertion of the state secrets privilege used to block lawsuits for national security reasons. The practice was a major flashpoint in the debate over the escalation of executive power and secrecy during the Bush administration.

The new policy…would require approval by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. if military or espionage agencies wanted to assert the privilege to withhold classified evidence sought in court or to ask a judge to dismiss a lawsuit at its onset.

“The department is adopting these policies and procedures to strengthen public confidence that the U.S. government will invoke the privilege in court only when genuine and significant harm to national defense or foreign relations is at stake and only to the extent necessary to safeguard those interests,” says a draft of a memorandum from Mr. Holder laying out the policy and obtained by The New York Times.

Under the Bush administration, the Justice Department frequently asserted the state secrets privilege, blocking lawsuits by people who claimed that they had been illegally wiretapped or tortured as part of the government’s counterterrorism efforts…

Several lawmakers adopted a cautious stance on whether they would press forward with the privilege legislation, because they had not yet seen the policy. Still, the lead sponsor of the House version of the bill, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, noted in a statement that the bills would affect courts, too.

“Fixing the executive branch’s assertion of the privilege is only one part of the equation,” Mr. Nadler said. “Congress must still enact legislation that provides consistent standards and procedures for courts to use when considering state secrets claims. Our constitutional system requires meaningful, independent judicial review of governmental secrecy claims.”

Say “Amen!”