pkarnig’s posthaven

Sorry to hear you got fired by National Public Radio for saying on Fox that you get nervous when you see Muslims on a plane with you. It was dumb to say such a thing, but I don't think saying one dumb thing should be a firing offense. (I DO think an NPR journalist wanting to take money from Fox News to be a regular commentator should be a firing offense, but that's another story).

But there's more to this -- and some important things that everyone is missing.

Please read this thoughtful and clear analysis of the Juan Williams "racist" comments and subsequent firing by NPR. Why can't mainstream media do this kind of accurate reporting. Let me know if you agree.

On Wednesday, administration spokesmen declined to endorse any dramatic federal action. They declared that they had found no "systemic" threat to the financial system from the foreclosure problems, spoke of "mistakes" and "errors" rather than pervasive fraud and said the banks and servicers now need to "fix" their "processes."

They "cannot even bring themselves to use the 'f' word -- fraud," Black and Wray write. "They substitute euphemisms designed to trivialize elite criminality."

The central problem appears to be that Obama Administration continues to see the mortgage and foreclosure crises primarily through the eyes of the banks -- not through the eyes of the regular people who became their victims, or even the taxpayers who bailed out the very fat-cat bankers who are now back to their tricks.

Black and Wray write:

This nation's most elite bankers originated and packaged fraudulent nonprime loans that destroyed wealth -- and working class families' savings -- at a prodigious rate never seen before in the history of white-collar crime. They created the worst bubble in financial history, echo epidemics of fraud among elite professionals, loan brokers, and loan servicers, and would (if left to their own devices) have caused the Second Great Depression.

The two professors call for "[n]othing short of removing all senior officers who directed, committed, or acquiesced in fraud."

For more on William K. Black, read my Oct. 20 story on his blistering critique of the press coverage of the financial crisis: Nine Stories The Press Is Underreporting -- Fraud, Fraud And More Fraud.

If you care about equal rights for Americans under the law, read this article and share it with your friends. Americans need to fight for the return of non-predatory banking practices and for the right to expect our elected officials to look out for us when Big Business takes advantage as it did in the Recession and the recent BP oil spill. Speak out and share information.

NPR announced late on Wednesday night that it has terminated the contract of longtime analyst Juan Williams over his comments on Fox News that, when he is on a plane with Muslims, "I get nervous."

Juan Williams has a history of speaking out for civil liberties, but here he makes what is clearly a racist comment. Should he be fired? Should he be reprimanded and given a second chance? What do you think?

"Now, what does 'broken chain of title' mean? Simple: when a homebuyer signs a mortgage, the key document is the note. As I said before, it's the actual IOU. In order for the mortgage note to be sold or transferred to someone else (and therefore turned into a mortgage-backed security), this document has to be physically endorsed to the next person. All of these signatures on the note are called the 'chain of title.'

"You can endorse the note as many times as you please...but you have to have a clear chain of title right on the actual note: I sold the note to Moe, who sold it to Larry, who sold it to Curly, and all our notarized signatures are actually, physically, on the note, one after the other.

"If for whatever reason any of these signatures is skipped, then the chain of title is said to be broken. Therefore, legally, the mortgage note is no longer valid. That is, the person who took out the mortgage loan to pay for the house no longer owes the loan, because he no longer knows whom to pay.

"To repeat: if the chain of title of the note is broken, then the borrower no longer owes any money on the loan.

This is what is driving Bank of America to make statements in the media about how all of their loans are in order. In fact, they are not! They made Billions by bundling up your mortgages into financial instruments that were used as collateral for investments and then managed to hide the bad mortgages in with the good ones so that the Rating agencies would be able to give good ratings to all the investments. Their fraud in this is what led to the broken chain of title that could very well mean that you do NOT owe money on your mortgage.

The intense focus placed on the money being spent in the 2010 elections has had an unexpected impact within the small the world of campaign finance reformers. While the delicate system of fundraising constraints born in the wake of Watergate has crumbled -- allowing for the unprecedented flow of corporate and even anonymous funds -- the chaos has also created a modicum of opportunity. The current climate, campaign finance reformers say, may be one of the most opportune moments to spur the reform of the system.

This is great news. We need finance reform in the WORST way. We need to get closer to a system whereby all campaigns are equally funded by the electorate. Each candidate should have an equal fund for their campaigns. This way the message is the determinate, not the amount of the fund raise. Candidates should not be allowed to buy elections with money from special interests. This is an important first step towards a congress that represents the electorate and NOT the elected officials.