The Rule of Law

So there's been a bit of discussion about libertarians who want to establish a bunch of off-shore countries on floating oil-rig type platforms that would be lil' loonitarian paradises: Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that…
Monday, I wrote about how Standard & Poor's (S&P) downgrade of U.S. debt had political motivations--avoiding fraud investigations as well as 'convincing' the Securities and Exchange Commission to remove new regulations that could undercut their business: ...I won't rule out that S&P is stupid incompetent and ideologically blinkered. But they routinely commit fraud (and I'm certain if other states investigated, they would find the same thing). They are attempting to bully the American people to prevent an investigation into the role in the housing crisis, as well as preserve their…
There's been a lot of excellent posts debunking Standard & Poor's recent downgrade of U.S. debt on the merits--it is poor assessment of risk. Yes, there are substantive economic arguments against S&P's evaluation. But S&P is also fundamentally corrupt. The Coalition of the Sane must point this out too--there is an ethical dimension here, not just an economic one. The critical point is this: during the last year, every negative statement by S&P has followed action by the federal government to investigate possible fraud by S&P (and other ratings agencies) during the…
Not that either the SEC or the Holder-led Justice Department would do anything about it. This happened July 21: Jack Barnes writes : Someone dropped a bomb on the bond market Thursday - a $1 billion Armageddon trade betting the United States will lose its AAA credit rating. In one moment, an invisible trader placed a single trade that moved the most liquid debt market in the world. The massive trade wasn't placed in bonds themselves; it was placed in the futures market. The trade was for block trades of 5,370 10-year Treasury futures executed at 124-03 and 3,100 Treasury bond futures…
One of the most frustrating things about Obama's playing the role of The Great Conciliator is his belief that we should 'look forward, not back', that there should be no accountability for those who have failed or committed fraud. Leaving aside notions of justice (which these days is best for one's sanity), this idiotic belief allows the incompetent and the malfeasant to continue their harmful activities. Case in point: the financial rating agencies. These are the bozos who went along with Wall Street's alchemy wherein shitty loans were magically turned into AAA securities (the highest…
I haven't talked about Big Shitpile (the housing-initiated economic collapse in a while), but this report from the Essex County Register of Deeds (Massachusetts) describes nothing less than the breakdown of the property title system in the U.S.: Yesterday at the Annual Conference of The International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers (IACREOT), Register John O'Brien revealed the results of an independent audit of his registry. The audit, which is released as a legal affidavit was performed by McDonnell Property Analytics, examined assignments of mortgage…
And I'm not talking about the four-legged kind. As I've noted before, whenever some right-wing associated nut shoots someone, we always hear it described as the actions of a 'lone wolf.' Because members of another militia group were arrested for planning to kidnap and murder police officers and judges: Five people in the Fairbanks area were arrested Thursday by state and federal law enforcement on charges connected with an alleged plot to kidnap or kill state troopers and a Fairbanks judge, according to the Alaska State Troopers.... An investigation "revealed extensive plans to kidnap or…
A couple of weeks ago, I found a post, "Is HIV 'fingerprinting' junk courtroom science?", which argues: But calling the comparison of HIV strains' genes "fingerprinting" -- calling to mind the more-familiar matching of human suspects' DNA to blood at a crime scene -- is dangerously misleading, they warn. "By calling such investigations HIV fingerprinting, scientists raise unrealistic expectations" about the method's accuracy among juries and judges, the write. "Unlike for (human) DNA fingerprinting, where a likelihood can be calculated for a full match between the evidential DNA and the…
Note: I wrote this before stumbling across this post which provides pretty good evidence that President Obama's recent sale of his house was also signed by a robosigner. Brazen doesn't even begin to describe the situation.... It's beyond trite to state that the foreclosure crisis has had a huge effect on the economy. But I don't think most people realize how much of the crisis--and the response by banks to the crisis--involves flat-out law-breaking. A small anecdote related to if banks will refile foreclosure applications in Florida from Yves Smith (italics mine): To be blunt, whether…
Have no doubt, despite the claims of propagandists, the foreclosure documentation crisis is not nitpicking. Providing the court with affidavits with unverified information is fraud: were you or I to do this, we would go to jail. One of Yves Smith's commenters describes this in more detail: An affidavit is a legal document which can substitute for live witness testimony in court. All testimony in court is governed by the rules of evidence or by statute. All testimony requires that the witness swears to tell the truth, is competent and has personal knowledge of the facts they are testifying…
So it turns out that Obama isn't completely tone deaf. To his credit, he has essentially* vetoed a bill that would have forced courts to recognize out of state foreclosure-related documents. Given the wide-scale fraud in forclosure-related documentation--to the point where it's not clear who actually holds the title or liens for millions of homes--this is a great move, since it will allow courts to hold the lenders and foreclosures accountable. Of course, if policy makers had adopted cramdown legislation, this issue probably wouldn't have arisen in the first place. But what I want to know…
When I'm writing about politics, I've been regularly discussing the legal problems related to the collapse of Big Shitpile (the foreclosure crisis). At Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith lays out why this matters (so I don't have to stumble my way through this): Make no mistake about it: the nature and scale of these frauds cut at the very heart of our judicial process. We didn't call the Florida courts "kangaroo courts" lightly. A home is most people's most important asset; shelter is a bedrock of personal security. Both the Fifth and the Fourteenth amendments enshrine the notion of due process…
I remember, back in the 1980s, there was a conservative school of thought that believed many of our problems could be blamed on poor, single, often non-white mothers who refused to 'take personal responsibility' (e.g., welfare queens, Murphy Brown! ZOMG!). I never quite understand how anyone could believe that the most powerless Americans would be able to destroy us. I thought that societal breakdown would be triggered by the failure of political and economic elites. Well, guess what? We're approaching breakdown: Let's look at one example of banana republic faux justice in the US, via a…
I've been meaning to get to this proposal by Matthew Yglesias about judicial term limits for Supreme Court justices. He argues: The strongest argument I can make in favor is that it would create a less-random relationship between election outcomes and the composition of the judiciary.... ...the current system creates too many incentives for a physically or mentally incapacitated justice to try to hang on to his seat until someone more ideologically congenial gets into the White House. Conversely, the current system causes the age of a nominee to loom too large in the decision-making…
Or at least until the next bestest legal opinion comes along. In the NY Times, there's a story about Judge Arthur M. Schack of New York State Supreme Court who has the crazy notion a bank shouldn't be allowed to foreclose on someone's home unless it can prove that it actually holds the mortgage. Nuts, I tell ya! As one observer noted, "His rulings are hardly revolutionary; it's unusual only because we so rarely hold large corporations to the rules." So, in the vast multitude of suck that has become the U.S. political system, occasionally someone does right by people who happen to not be…
Yesterday, I raised the possible specter of violent intimidation breaking out at a health care townhall meeting. Turns out I was off by about twelve hours: Tampa, Florida-- Fireworks were expected, but organizers of a town hall meeting on health care reform were caught off guard Thursday night by just how explosive the issue became. Hundreds showed up for the 6:00 forum held at the Children's Board of Hillsborough County on Palm Avenue in Tampa. The auditorium which holds around 250 people, filled up so quickly eventually Tampa Police were ordered to begin turning people away. Inside, U.S.…
Last week, Glenn Greenwald annotated a campaign speech by Obama about civil liberties and the rule of law (boldface mine): We know it's time to time to restore our Constitution and the rule of law. This is an issue that was at the heart of Senator Dodd's candidacy, and I share his passion for restoring the balance between the security we demand and the civil liberties that we cherish. The American people must be able to trust that their president values principle over politics, and justice over unchecked power. I've been proud to stand with Senator Dodd in his fight against retroactive…
Monday's NY Times, in a story about the remote possibility of torture investigations by the Justice Department, describes the Obama administration's concerns: A series of investigations could exacerbate partisan divisions in Congress, just as the Obama administration is trying to push through the president's ambitious domestic plans and needs all the support it can muster. "He wants to dominate the discussion, and he wants the discussion to be about his domestic agenda -- health care, energy and education," said Martha Joynt Kumar, a professor of political science at Towson University who…
So asks Dave Neiwert (italics mine): If your answer is yes, then stop this cowardly half-assed screwing around. You speak the language of war and honor; but the honor code of the warriors you pretend to revere demands that you declare your intentions. If you really believe that the only way to get the America you want is to negate a fair election, shred the Constitution, and violently cleanse the country of everyone who doesn't agree with you, then man up and get on with it. If it's a shooting war you want, do not doubt that there are plenty of progressives who will oblige you. If this goal…
Since I don't own a television that actually gets reception, and I refuse to pay for cable*, when I'm on the road, I occasionally turn on the TV. What do I see, but CNN criminal shock jock Nancy Grace. For those of you who don't know who Nancy Grace is, she hosts a 'criminal justice' show that consists of finding murdered attractive white women and whipping the audience into a frenzy over whether a relative or husband killed her. It pays the rent, I suppose. What I would like to know is if Grace will turn her talents, such as they are, towards Dick Cheney (not to mention Rumsfeld)? After…