A little bit of digging and surfing, and here we have a nugget of news about Supreme Court nominee Kagan:
Reps. Lamar Smith and Todd Tiahrt think Miss Elena's got some 'splainin' to do, Lucy.
In 2007, the state of Arizona passed an immigration law that allowed it to revoke the business licenses of businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. This provision was challenged but upheld in both the district court and even the notoriously liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Most recently, the Obama administration decided to challenge the 2007 Arizona immigration law and has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the provision. But what is a little known fact to most Americans is that it was Kagan who was the originator and driving force behind the Obama administration’s decision to ask the Court to overturn the Arizona immigration law. Kagan recently admitted as much in required disclosures to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The administration argued that Arizona’s law revoking the business licenses of businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants is unconstitutional. But this argument is completely baseless as the two lower courts already confirmed.
Furthermore, still on the books today is a 1986 federal statute that created penalties for employers that knowingly employ illegal immigrants. This law specifically addresses the question at issue in the Kagan-backed litigation. Congress authorized states to revoke the business licenses of employers that intentionally hire illegal immigrants. So why has Kagan pursued such an aggressive, unconstitutional political agenda?
The views expressed in the court brief are troubling given the Obama administration’s weak record on enforcing federal immigration laws. Compared to fiscal year 2008, the number of administrative arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in employer-sanctions cases has fallen by 80 percent, the number of criminal arrests has fallen by 68 percent, the number of indictments has fallen by 74 percent, and the number of criminal convictions has fallen by 75 percent.
Hmmm...so that's what The One means when he claims that he's got things well in hand on the border? That the crime rate is dropping?
And further questions come to mind, such as: As this case comes before the Court, assuming she is confirmed, is it proper for her be involved in the deliberations? Do judges get to rule on briefs they once wrote for one side of a dispute or another?
Given the fact that this suit continues to lose at every turn, isn't it a bit excessive to pursue it to the Supremes? What of that 'restraint' she so carefully referred in her profoundly rehearsed speeh?
Is anyone in the Senate, outside of people like Shelby and Coburn, really paying attention? Lindsay Graham certainly isn't, but he did a pretty good job playing the straight man, feeding Ms. Kagan her opportunity for the one-liner that made it to every evening news show.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Dear God, Whatever You Do, Mr. Immelt, Don't Speak Your Mind! (And Don't State The Obvious)
From the Globe and Mail:
So, GE is hosting a dinner overlooking Rome, on the roof-top of Castel Sant’Angelo, a former Vatican fortress and prison. The dinner guests are Italian business executives.
So far, so good. CEO Immelt is on hand, and addresses his audience. That's his job.
He makes the classic 'mistake' of our age: He speaks his mind.
Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, has launched a rare broadside against the Chinese government, which he accused of being increasingly hostile to foreign multinationals.
He warned that the world’s largest manufacturing company was contemplating better prospects elsewhere in resource-rich countries and that those nations did not want to be “colonised” by Chinese investors.
“I really worry about China,” Mr. Immelt told an audience of dozens of top Italian executives, referring to the Chinese government, which he accused of becoming increasingly protectionist. “I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win, or any of us to be successful.”
But wait, there's more!
Mr. Immelt also had harsh words for U.S. President Barack Obama, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” U.S. economic recovery.
Business did not like the U.S. president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry.
“People are in a really bad mood [in the U.S.],” the 54-year-old executive told an audience of somewhat surprised Europeans who had seen higher levels of U.S. growth as a beacon of recovery.
“We [the U.S.] are a pathetic exporter… we have to become an industrial powerhouse again but you don’t do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in synch.”
That's what the howls of protest were triggered by: He dared criticize The Winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! Send in the PR flacks to still the waters! OMG! OMG! OMG!
The real problem is, he's stating the obvious. And he used plain English, without the normal equivocations, to state the obvious.
If GE's board, management and PR division had a spine, they would be cheering for Jeff, giving him high-fives and attaboy's for standing up for them all, the stockholders, the employees, the customers, the country. Instead, it's disavowals and death by a thousand cuts.
Harvard Business Review shares wise words on the incident.
Things won't improve until we begin speaking in plain English, with the assumption that words have meaning.
Attaboy, Jeff!
So, GE is hosting a dinner overlooking Rome, on the roof-top of Castel Sant’Angelo, a former Vatican fortress and prison. The dinner guests are Italian business executives.
So far, so good. CEO Immelt is on hand, and addresses his audience. That's his job.
He makes the classic 'mistake' of our age: He speaks his mind.
Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, has launched a rare broadside against the Chinese government, which he accused of being increasingly hostile to foreign multinationals.
He warned that the world’s largest manufacturing company was contemplating better prospects elsewhere in resource-rich countries and that those nations did not want to be “colonised” by Chinese investors.
“I really worry about China,” Mr. Immelt told an audience of dozens of top Italian executives, referring to the Chinese government, which he accused of becoming increasingly protectionist. “I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win, or any of us to be successful.”
But wait, there's more!
Mr. Immelt also had harsh words for U.S. President Barack Obama, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” U.S. economic recovery.
Business did not like the U.S. president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry.
“People are in a really bad mood [in the U.S.],” the 54-year-old executive told an audience of somewhat surprised Europeans who had seen higher levels of U.S. growth as a beacon of recovery.
“We [the U.S.] are a pathetic exporter… we have to become an industrial powerhouse again but you don’t do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in synch.”
That's what the howls of protest were triggered by: He dared criticize The Winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! Send in the PR flacks to still the waters! OMG! OMG! OMG!
The real problem is, he's stating the obvious. And he used plain English, without the normal equivocations, to state the obvious.
If GE's board, management and PR division had a spine, they would be cheering for Jeff, giving him high-fives and attaboy's for standing up for them all, the stockholders, the employees, the customers, the country. Instead, it's disavowals and death by a thousand cuts.
Harvard Business Review shares wise words on the incident.
Things won't improve until we begin speaking in plain English, with the assumption that words have meaning.
Attaboy, Jeff!
An Interesting, If Chilling, Exchange Of Views: David Leonhardt In The New York Time
Let it never be said that OS doesn't read a variety of opinion during the course of a week. After all, this project is much about the education of the author, attempting to publicly make sense of what appears to be a nonsensical period of history.
So, in today's Yew Nork Times, we have this offering by David Leonhardt.
He has an interesting premise, that perhaps it wasn't the inflation of the 20's that paved the way for Hitler's rise to power in the early '30's, but rather the deflation that followed the 1929 crash. He debates a bit with another contributor, all very civil and informative. Then he concludes with this bit of insight:
Last year, I wrote a column pointing out that Germany was one of the few countries in the 1930s to try aggressive economic stimulus — and, as a result, escaped the Great Depression faster than other countries. Opponents of stimulus, on blogs and talk radio, then cited that column to suggest that Keynesian was a cousin of Nazism.
Well, that conclusion is a bit simplistic. Keynes was not even a second-cousin-twice-removed to a neo-Nazi. Puhhleeeeze!
At the same time, Leonhardt glosses over a chilling fact: Hitler's 'stimulus' did work, and made him a hero to 'der volk' in the late 1930's. He made the trains run on time, 'tis true. But he did it by building a massive war machine that was obviously designed for aggressive ends. How many hundreds of Stuka dive bombers and Panzaer divisions does one need to defend der Vaterland, after all? And as he pumped the economy up, civil liberties (and niceties like elections, free press, freedom of religion, etc.) went away, replaced by a blatantly pagan worship of the state and der Fuhrer. By April 1945, it could be stated with assurance that much too high a price had been paid for the Great Stimulus of the 1930's.
And then, there's that little detail of those trains that ran on time, and where they ran, and the millions of people packed upon them that were transported to their gruesome deaths.
All to emphasize, once again, the OS mantra about culture and economy. A lot more than a deflation or inflation allowed this monster to come to power and push the world over the cliff. By the time the little guy with the mustache, lunatic ideas, and ecstatic speech-making ability showed up, Germany was a disaster waiting to happen, a once-great culture in severe disarray, willing to listen to anyone who would tell them what they wished to hear whilst lining their pockets.
So, in today's Yew Nork Times, we have this offering by David Leonhardt.
He has an interesting premise, that perhaps it wasn't the inflation of the 20's that paved the way for Hitler's rise to power in the early '30's, but rather the deflation that followed the 1929 crash. He debates a bit with another contributor, all very civil and informative. Then he concludes with this bit of insight:
Last year, I wrote a column pointing out that Germany was one of the few countries in the 1930s to try aggressive economic stimulus — and, as a result, escaped the Great Depression faster than other countries. Opponents of stimulus, on blogs and talk radio, then cited that column to suggest that Keynesian was a cousin of Nazism.
Well, that conclusion is a bit simplistic. Keynes was not even a second-cousin-twice-removed to a neo-Nazi. Puhhleeeeze!
At the same time, Leonhardt glosses over a chilling fact: Hitler's 'stimulus' did work, and made him a hero to 'der volk' in the late 1930's. He made the trains run on time, 'tis true. But he did it by building a massive war machine that was obviously designed for aggressive ends. How many hundreds of Stuka dive bombers and Panzaer divisions does one need to defend der Vaterland, after all? And as he pumped the economy up, civil liberties (and niceties like elections, free press, freedom of religion, etc.) went away, replaced by a blatantly pagan worship of the state and der Fuhrer. By April 1945, it could be stated with assurance that much too high a price had been paid for the Great Stimulus of the 1930's.
And then, there's that little detail of those trains that ran on time, and where they ran, and the millions of people packed upon them that were transported to their gruesome deaths.
All to emphasize, once again, the OS mantra about culture and economy. A lot more than a deflation or inflation allowed this monster to come to power and push the world over the cliff. By the time the little guy with the mustache, lunatic ideas, and ecstatic speech-making ability showed up, Germany was a disaster waiting to happen, a once-great culture in severe disarray, willing to listen to anyone who would tell them what they wished to hear whilst lining their pockets.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
You Can 'Call Me Al': AlGore And His Massage Therapist
From ABC News--honest folks, ya jes' can't make this stuff up!
The dormant investigation into AlGore, winner of both The Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar, into the allegations of sexual assault upon a massage therapist in 2006, is rousing its sleepy self back to life, complete with preserved clothes and DNA samples, etc., etc., etc....
According to a 73-page "Confidential Special Report" made public by authorities on June 23, the "licensed massage therapist" stated she was summoned to a suite at the upscale Lucia Hotel at the request of a guest, where "during the course of this massage session Al Gore did sexually assault me in his room."
In a detailed statement given to police more than two years after the alleged incident the woman described her surprise at arriving for the VIP massage appointment to find Al Gore drinking beer and opening his arms in a hug saying "Call Me Al."
Ya'll gotta understand something about Tennessee, the state that birthed The Inventor Of The Internet: At about every third interstate exit, next to the truck stop, ya' gotcha one of them 'massage parlors', sporting names like 'Tokyo Massage'. In other words, massage of a sort is offered, but the possibility of something somewhat, shall we say, more exotic is promised as well. The line between the theraputic trade of someone who actually offers relief from muscle spasms in the arms and shoulders and The World's Oldest Profession is somewhat blurred in the mind of your average Tennessee male. It's in the water 'round heah.
So, what's a lonely former Vice-President to do, all alone in his hotel room, far away from the sensual delights of his Tipper? He's already invented the internet, won the Nobel Prize, won the Oscar, and made himself a kajillion bucks saving the world from itself.
What would Bill do at a moment like this? Or his buddy John E from NarthCarulinah?
Well, shoot-fahr! Let's order up some Buds and get ourselves one of them 'massages', jes' lahk back home! Always cheered Bill up, 'specially after a few days of trying to keep Hillary off the warpath.
Now, the visual image of a bloated, drunk and horny AlGore is almost too awful to contemplate, but since the alleged victim put it into play, and it's in the police report, well...(eeewwww!)...
Well, anyway, in honor of The Producer Of An Inconvenient Truth, The Winner Of Both The Nobel Prize And An Oscar, and the man who came within a few hundred hanging chads of become President of the United States, Paul Simon offers his delightful song: You Can Call Me Al. It's almost like Mr. Simon was time-travelling ahead some twenty-five years as he penned the lyrics...
The dormant investigation into AlGore, winner of both The Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar, into the allegations of sexual assault upon a massage therapist in 2006, is rousing its sleepy self back to life, complete with preserved clothes and DNA samples, etc., etc., etc....
According to a 73-page "Confidential Special Report" made public by authorities on June 23, the "licensed massage therapist" stated she was summoned to a suite at the upscale Lucia Hotel at the request of a guest, where "during the course of this massage session Al Gore did sexually assault me in his room."
In a detailed statement given to police more than two years after the alleged incident the woman described her surprise at arriving for the VIP massage appointment to find Al Gore drinking beer and opening his arms in a hug saying "Call Me Al."
Ya'll gotta understand something about Tennessee, the state that birthed The Inventor Of The Internet: At about every third interstate exit, next to the truck stop, ya' gotcha one of them 'massage parlors', sporting names like 'Tokyo Massage'. In other words, massage of a sort is offered, but the possibility of something somewhat, shall we say, more exotic is promised as well. The line between the theraputic trade of someone who actually offers relief from muscle spasms in the arms and shoulders and The World's Oldest Profession is somewhat blurred in the mind of your average Tennessee male. It's in the water 'round heah.
So, what's a lonely former Vice-President to do, all alone in his hotel room, far away from the sensual delights of his Tipper? He's already invented the internet, won the Nobel Prize, won the Oscar, and made himself a kajillion bucks saving the world from itself.
What would Bill do at a moment like this? Or his buddy John E from NarthCarulinah?
Well, shoot-fahr! Let's order up some Buds and get ourselves one of them 'massages', jes' lahk back home! Always cheered Bill up, 'specially after a few days of trying to keep Hillary off the warpath.
Now, the visual image of a bloated, drunk and horny AlGore is almost too awful to contemplate, but since the alleged victim put it into play, and it's in the police report, well...(eeewwww!)...
Well, anyway, in honor of The Producer Of An Inconvenient Truth, The Winner Of Both The Nobel Prize And An Oscar, and the man who came within a few hundred hanging chads of become President of the United States, Paul Simon offers his delightful song: You Can Call Me Al. It's almost like Mr. Simon was time-travelling ahead some twenty-five years as he penned the lyrics...
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
'The Best Option Is An Orderly Default': Roubini On Greece
Found in today's Financial Times:
It is time to recognise that Greece is not just suffering from a liquidity crisis; it is facing an insolvency crisis too. Rating agencies have started to downgrade its public debt to junk level, while spreads on Greek sovereign bonds last week spiked to new highs. The €110bn bail-out agreed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in May only delays the inevitable default and risks making it disorderly when it comes. Instead, an orderly restructuring of Greece’s public debt is needed now.
The austerity measures to which Greece signed up as a condition of its bail-out require a draconian fiscal adjustment of 10 per cent of gross domestic product. This would prolong the country’s recession and still leave it with a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 148 per cent by 2016. At this level, even a small shock is likely to trigger a further debt crisis. Sharp austerity may be needed – as agreed by the Group of 20 over the weekend – to stabilise debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016 in advanced economies; but for Greece such “stabilisation” would be at levels that are unsustainable.
Compare Greece today with Argentina in 1998-2001, a crisis that culminated in a disorderly default. Argentina’s fiscal deficit at the onset was 3 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is 13.6 per cent. Argentina’s public debt was 50 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is 115 per cent and rising. Argentina had a current account deficit of 2 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is now 10 per cent. If Argentina was insolvent, Greece is insolvent to the power of two or three.
And that's just the beginning of his article!
Again, it's about the culture: How long has this day been coming? How many attempts have been made to stave it off, in hopes that somehow the problem would just go away?
How many trips to the brink, followed by announcements by The People In Charge Of Such Things that all is well, move on, nothing to see here...
Qatar is being called in to hoover up cash for an equity stake. That'll fix it, no worries...
It will take at least a decade to clean up this mess, but the first step in the process will have to be truth-telling: The present situation is unsustainable, and a sober solution will have to be found. No more pretending, no more delays, no more press releases. For the sake of our grandchildren, let's clean this mess up.
It is time to recognise that Greece is not just suffering from a liquidity crisis; it is facing an insolvency crisis too. Rating agencies have started to downgrade its public debt to junk level, while spreads on Greek sovereign bonds last week spiked to new highs. The €110bn bail-out agreed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in May only delays the inevitable default and risks making it disorderly when it comes. Instead, an orderly restructuring of Greece’s public debt is needed now.
The austerity measures to which Greece signed up as a condition of its bail-out require a draconian fiscal adjustment of 10 per cent of gross domestic product. This would prolong the country’s recession and still leave it with a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 148 per cent by 2016. At this level, even a small shock is likely to trigger a further debt crisis. Sharp austerity may be needed – as agreed by the Group of 20 over the weekend – to stabilise debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016 in advanced economies; but for Greece such “stabilisation” would be at levels that are unsustainable.
Compare Greece today with Argentina in 1998-2001, a crisis that culminated in a disorderly default. Argentina’s fiscal deficit at the onset was 3 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is 13.6 per cent. Argentina’s public debt was 50 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is 115 per cent and rising. Argentina had a current account deficit of 2 per cent of GDP; Greece’s is now 10 per cent. If Argentina was insolvent, Greece is insolvent to the power of two or three.
And that's just the beginning of his article!
Again, it's about the culture: How long has this day been coming? How many attempts have been made to stave it off, in hopes that somehow the problem would just go away?
How many trips to the brink, followed by announcements by The People In Charge Of Such Things that all is well, move on, nothing to see here...
Qatar is being called in to hoover up cash for an equity stake. That'll fix it, no worries...
It will take at least a decade to clean up this mess, but the first step in the process will have to be truth-telling: The present situation is unsustainable, and a sober solution will have to be found. No more pretending, no more delays, no more press releases. For the sake of our grandchildren, let's clean this mess up.
Obama v. Alexander June 28 Meeting: The True Agenda Comes To Light
From Planet Gore:
Second, today Roll Call reports (subscription required) that during today’s White House meeting — called by the president to try and advance his global-warming agenda by using the Gulf spill as the tail to wag that otherwise dead dog — Obama accused Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander of raising a “talking point” by seeking to discuss response measures the government might employ in the Gulf, and went on to say that the oil spill was not the topic of the meeting.
Remember, the point of the meeting was supposed to be how to pass a spill-response bill, though the substance was revealed to be how to use the Gulf spill to pass a global-warming bill calling it a spill-response bill.
Ignore for the moment that this lecturing comes from a man without experience in anything; his main qualification for the presidency — by his own admission — was having run a campaign (well, OK, the campaign manager really did that, but no one as big on blame as this guy is would be too concerned about stealing credit). Focus instead on what this episode reveals incontrovertibly: This administration views crises in exactly the same way as its chief of staff does: They’re to be used.
Not solved — used for other purposes.
News is finally trickling in today that help offered weeks ago from other countries, such as Japan, is finally, reluctantly being accepted. Obama does not respond to reason or conscience, but apparently public humiliation does serve as a prod in the end.
The White House will allow the Gulf Coast to die, if that's what it takes to get its way with Congress.
The Chicago Way, come what may.
Second, today Roll Call reports (subscription required) that during today’s White House meeting — called by the president to try and advance his global-warming agenda by using the Gulf spill as the tail to wag that otherwise dead dog — Obama accused Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander of raising a “talking point” by seeking to discuss response measures the government might employ in the Gulf, and went on to say that the oil spill was not the topic of the meeting.
Remember, the point of the meeting was supposed to be how to pass a spill-response bill, though the substance was revealed to be how to use the Gulf spill to pass a global-warming bill calling it a spill-response bill.
Ignore for the moment that this lecturing comes from a man without experience in anything; his main qualification for the presidency — by his own admission — was having run a campaign (well, OK, the campaign manager really did that, but no one as big on blame as this guy is would be too concerned about stealing credit). Focus instead on what this episode reveals incontrovertibly: This administration views crises in exactly the same way as its chief of staff does: They’re to be used.
Not solved — used for other purposes.
News is finally trickling in today that help offered weeks ago from other countries, such as Japan, is finally, reluctantly being accepted. Obama does not respond to reason or conscience, but apparently public humiliation does serve as a prod in the end.
The White House will allow the Gulf Coast to die, if that's what it takes to get its way with Congress.
The Chicago Way, come what may.
There Has To Be A Hell To Hold These Lawyers For Eternity
NPR reports one of the most abusive real-estate scams ever: Homeowners associations with non-judicial foreclosure language in their covenants, which allow the association to foreclose and sell 300k homes over a $300 delinquent monthly payment of HOA dues.
Capt. Mike Clauer was serving in Iraq last year as company commander of an Army National Guard unit assigned to escort convoys. It was exceedingly dangerous work — explosive devices buried in the road were a constant threat to the lives of Clauer and his men.
He was halfway through his deployment when he got a bolt from the blue — a frantic phone call from his wife, May, back in Texas.
"She was bawling on the phone and was telling me that the HOA [homeowners association] had foreclosed on our house, and it was sold," he says. "And I couldn't believe that could even happen."
Clauer had a hard time understanding what his wife was saying. His $300,000 house was already completely paid for. Could it be possible that their home was foreclosed on and sold because his wife had missed two payments of their HOA dues?
In many states it is not difficult for an HOA to foreclose on a member's home for past dues even if the amount owed is just a few hundred dollars.
"I was really in a hurry trying to get home before my family was living on the streets," Clauer says.
Sold For A Steal
But by the time he got back to Texas, it was too late. The Clauers' four-bedroom, 3,500-square-foot home had been sold on the courthouse steps for just $3,500 — enough to cover outstanding HOA dues and legal costs.
The new owner quickly sold it for $135,000 and netted a tidy profit.
Millions of dollars are being made on this particular scam. All the HOA management firms have to do is monitor, swoop in, and clean up. Assign the collections to a friendly law firm, use straw buyers to pick off properties, quickly auction them off, everybody walks away with their pockets lined. Sure as hell beats working for a living!
OS noted some deeply reduced prices for beachfront condos outside of Jacksonville. Lots of empty units laying around these days. If the covenants include this sort of nonsense, they need to stay empty. The developers (and their bankers and lawyers) can eat them until they starve.
It's about the culture. An economy based upon 'I-get-to-scam-you-cuz-I-can' will inevitably grind to a halt, and this may be what we are witnessing.
OS realized over the past few years that he had simply become inured to it, bit by bit, one scam after another, actually had unconsciously trained himself to look for the scams hidden in the sales pitches and legalese. Some were simply breathtakingly audacious.
More than once, he found he had stumbled into business situations that were fronts for laundering drug money; learning in retrospect that these respectable folks in their nice big houses, members of large local churches, were in fact up to their hips in it, and had not a moment's pause over it. All that mattered was the money, pure and simple. Lives were disposable, money was precious.
There has to be a hell. Pastor Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Cranmer, Muggeridge, Lewis, Dickens and a whole unnamed host of saints cannot possibly be sharing eternity with the lawyers who drafted and enforced these covenants against this family.
Capt. Mike Clauer was serving in Iraq last year as company commander of an Army National Guard unit assigned to escort convoys. It was exceedingly dangerous work — explosive devices buried in the road were a constant threat to the lives of Clauer and his men.
He was halfway through his deployment when he got a bolt from the blue — a frantic phone call from his wife, May, back in Texas.
"She was bawling on the phone and was telling me that the HOA [homeowners association] had foreclosed on our house, and it was sold," he says. "And I couldn't believe that could even happen."
Clauer had a hard time understanding what his wife was saying. His $300,000 house was already completely paid for. Could it be possible that their home was foreclosed on and sold because his wife had missed two payments of their HOA dues?
In many states it is not difficult for an HOA to foreclose on a member's home for past dues even if the amount owed is just a few hundred dollars.
"I was really in a hurry trying to get home before my family was living on the streets," Clauer says.
Sold For A Steal
But by the time he got back to Texas, it was too late. The Clauers' four-bedroom, 3,500-square-foot home had been sold on the courthouse steps for just $3,500 — enough to cover outstanding HOA dues and legal costs.
The new owner quickly sold it for $135,000 and netted a tidy profit.
Millions of dollars are being made on this particular scam. All the HOA management firms have to do is monitor, swoop in, and clean up. Assign the collections to a friendly law firm, use straw buyers to pick off properties, quickly auction them off, everybody walks away with their pockets lined. Sure as hell beats working for a living!
OS noted some deeply reduced prices for beachfront condos outside of Jacksonville. Lots of empty units laying around these days. If the covenants include this sort of nonsense, they need to stay empty. The developers (and their bankers and lawyers) can eat them until they starve.
It's about the culture. An economy based upon 'I-get-to-scam-you-cuz-I-can' will inevitably grind to a halt, and this may be what we are witnessing.
OS realized over the past few years that he had simply become inured to it, bit by bit, one scam after another, actually had unconsciously trained himself to look for the scams hidden in the sales pitches and legalese. Some were simply breathtakingly audacious.
More than once, he found he had stumbled into business situations that were fronts for laundering drug money; learning in retrospect that these respectable folks in their nice big houses, members of large local churches, were in fact up to their hips in it, and had not a moment's pause over it. All that mattered was the money, pure and simple. Lives were disposable, money was precious.
There has to be a hell. Pastor Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Cranmer, Muggeridge, Lewis, Dickens and a whole unnamed host of saints cannot possibly be sharing eternity with the lawyers who drafted and enforced these covenants against this family.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Quietly, The Illegals Begin To Exit Arizona
This article in Arizona Central discusses the effect of the departure of illegals in anticipation of the Arizona law coming into effect.
Mr. Rollie Rankin, who built his business upon knowingly building and renting apartments to illegals, is portrayed with sympathy, once again proving the newspaper editors long ago lost their ethical bearings. It was an enterprise deliberately built on breaking laws already in place, with the assumption that the law would never be enforced.
There are similar bills in process in many states, which will be adjusted as the Arizona bill is litigated. As the economy weakens, state budgets tighten, and patience runs out, many states will continue the process of 'demagnetization', and the flow of illegals back home should, finally and blessedly, increase.
In the meantime, the Mexican drug wars claimed yet one more notable victim.
We can't solve Mexico's ills, nor should we try. But we do have the right and responsibility to see that we don't import them.
Mr. Rollie Rankin, who built his business upon knowingly building and renting apartments to illegals, is portrayed with sympathy, once again proving the newspaper editors long ago lost their ethical bearings. It was an enterprise deliberately built on breaking laws already in place, with the assumption that the law would never be enforced.
There are similar bills in process in many states, which will be adjusted as the Arizona bill is litigated. As the economy weakens, state budgets tighten, and patience runs out, many states will continue the process of 'demagnetization', and the flow of illegals back home should, finally and blessedly, increase.
In the meantime, the Mexican drug wars claimed yet one more notable victim.
We can't solve Mexico's ills, nor should we try. But we do have the right and responsibility to see that we don't import them.
The Kagan Nomination: Public Policy Polling Asks The Correct Question
Does anyone care, is anyone paying attention?
As Elena Kagan begins her second day of testifying, gallons of oil continue to flow into the Gulf, General Petraeus prepares to go before the Senate to be confirmed to redirect a messy war, immigration laws are being written in state capitals and the economy, well… So it’s no surprise that Americans are unusually uninterested in Elena Kagan’s nomination. According to a Gallup poll Americans are not tuning into this nomination at the same rate they did for the past four Supreme Court nominations. 24% of Americans have no opinion of Obama’s nomination for the highest court.
Well, we should. OS tuned in for the opening statement, a well-crafted piece of lawyer-speak designed to fill time, evoke nostalgia, create sympathy, soothe doubts, say very little, and mean precisely nothing. It was an example of how the Left views language, e.g., 'an organized series of intrinsically meaningless sounds emitted with the goal of getting one's way'.
After a lifetime of aggressively shilling for the Left, in Clinton's White House, and later at Harvard, the language offered about 'restraint','respect', 'a trustee of that inheritance', delivered in well-rehearsed humble tones seems a bit, shall we say, suspect.
So, we don't know much about this lady, but we do know this: One way or another, over the next ten years, the BP oil spill will be capped and the Gulf cleaned up. Fifteen years from now, we will have been out of Afghanistan for several years, and our military focus will be elsewhere. (OS ate shrimp farmed in Vietnam for supper last night!) Twenty years from now, the economy will have sorted itself in some fashion. Obama will be holding forth from some created academic post at Harvard, still spewing his poison, overseeing the rewriting of history, blaming George Bush for his shameful failures as a leader and person.
Thirty years from now, Kagan will likely be on the Court, Obama's longest legacy.
We had best be paying attention.
As Elena Kagan begins her second day of testifying, gallons of oil continue to flow into the Gulf, General Petraeus prepares to go before the Senate to be confirmed to redirect a messy war, immigration laws are being written in state capitals and the economy, well… So it’s no surprise that Americans are unusually uninterested in Elena Kagan’s nomination. According to a Gallup poll Americans are not tuning into this nomination at the same rate they did for the past four Supreme Court nominations. 24% of Americans have no opinion of Obama’s nomination for the highest court.
Well, we should. OS tuned in for the opening statement, a well-crafted piece of lawyer-speak designed to fill time, evoke nostalgia, create sympathy, soothe doubts, say very little, and mean precisely nothing. It was an example of how the Left views language, e.g., 'an organized series of intrinsically meaningless sounds emitted with the goal of getting one's way'.
After a lifetime of aggressively shilling for the Left, in Clinton's White House, and later at Harvard, the language offered about 'restraint','respect', 'a trustee of that inheritance', delivered in well-rehearsed humble tones seems a bit, shall we say, suspect.
So, we don't know much about this lady, but we do know this: One way or another, over the next ten years, the BP oil spill will be capped and the Gulf cleaned up. Fifteen years from now, we will have been out of Afghanistan for several years, and our military focus will be elsewhere. (OS ate shrimp farmed in Vietnam for supper last night!) Twenty years from now, the economy will have sorted itself in some fashion. Obama will be holding forth from some created academic post at Harvard, still spewing his poison, overseeing the rewriting of history, blaming George Bush for his shameful failures as a leader and person.
Thirty years from now, Kagan will likely be on the Court, Obama's longest legacy.
We had best be paying attention.
Monday, June 28, 2010
And Now I Am The Adm'ral In The Queen's Na-vy: Or, Why We Have Hundreds Of Idle Skimmers, And Oil Coming Ashore In Mississippi
Cue the music of Gilbert and Sullivan--one could almost write a patter-song from this dolt's use of English.
From Friday's briefing by the one and only Admiral Allen:
OPERATOR: Your next question is from Carol Rosenberg with the Miami Herald.
Q: Admiral, thanks for taking my call. Whatever came of the idea to have the Navy provide skimmers to this effort? And have you guys waived the Jones Act? And if so, where are the foreign vessels?
ADMIRAL ALLEN: Carol, at the outset of this event, we went to the Navy supervisor of salvage and asked for any oil skimming capability they had that they could give to us. The supervisor of salvage is the one that contains most of the Navy's skimming and booming response capability, and they worked with us on many of these large spill responses. And they, in effect, at that point, released all their strategic stockpiles of boom and skimming equipment to us.
The discussions we are having with the Navy and other folks right now is the availability of skimmers that are on standby because they might be needed for a spill someplace else and how we might go about assessing the availability of those resources. So I would separate out the resources that the Navy had that they've already given to us and the discussions we're having across the entire country where we have equipment that's out there as a requirement—legal requirement to cover spill response of those areas and how we might free those up, and that's a work in progress inside the administration right now.
OS again airs his suspicion that the White House desires a truly major catastrophe, for whatever perverse reasons it may have. What else could explain this sort of behavior? Read the transcript, and note the good admiral's complete lack of urgency.
Meanwhile, the situation is truly deteriorating along the Gulf Coast.
If this situation were in Lake Michigan, and the oil were coming ashore along the Chicago waterfront, what would the response of the Obama White House be?
From Friday's briefing by the one and only Admiral Allen:
OPERATOR: Your next question is from Carol Rosenberg with the Miami Herald.
Q: Admiral, thanks for taking my call. Whatever came of the idea to have the Navy provide skimmers to this effort? And have you guys waived the Jones Act? And if so, where are the foreign vessels?
ADMIRAL ALLEN: Carol, at the outset of this event, we went to the Navy supervisor of salvage and asked for any oil skimming capability they had that they could give to us. The supervisor of salvage is the one that contains most of the Navy's skimming and booming response capability, and they worked with us on many of these large spill responses. And they, in effect, at that point, released all their strategic stockpiles of boom and skimming equipment to us.
The discussions we are having with the Navy and other folks right now is the availability of skimmers that are on standby because they might be needed for a spill someplace else and how we might go about assessing the availability of those resources. So I would separate out the resources that the Navy had that they've already given to us and the discussions we're having across the entire country where we have equipment that's out there as a requirement—legal requirement to cover spill response of those areas and how we might free those up, and that's a work in progress inside the administration right now.
OS again airs his suspicion that the White House desires a truly major catastrophe, for whatever perverse reasons it may have. What else could explain this sort of behavior? Read the transcript, and note the good admiral's complete lack of urgency.
Meanwhile, the situation is truly deteriorating along the Gulf Coast.
If this situation were in Lake Michigan, and the oil were coming ashore along the Chicago waterfront, what would the response of the Obama White House be?
Supreme Court Confirms The Second Amendment: Chicago's Political Machine Gets The Smackdown
The Supreme Court ruled local ordinances interfering with the right to keep and bear arms unconstitutional.
The case comes in a suit brought against the City of Chicago's ban on handguns, which of course, only guaranteed that thugs could carry guns.
A big sigh of relief, and three cheers for justices who read black-letter Constitutional language for what it is.
The Chicago machine suffers another setback, blessedly.
The ruling, however, was 5-4, which means that the next Obama appointee would have voted against the Constitution, and in favor of the thugs.
Little wonder that Himself is so eager to ram through the Kagan nomination as quickly as possible.
He may also wish to reconsider his public scoldings of the Court during State of the Union addresses. This sort of thing comes back to haunt.
The case comes in a suit brought against the City of Chicago's ban on handguns, which of course, only guaranteed that thugs could carry guns.
A big sigh of relief, and three cheers for justices who read black-letter Constitutional language for what it is.
The Chicago machine suffers another setback, blessedly.
The ruling, however, was 5-4, which means that the next Obama appointee would have voted against the Constitution, and in favor of the thugs.
Little wonder that Himself is so eager to ram through the Kagan nomination as quickly as possible.
He may also wish to reconsider his public scoldings of the Court during State of the Union addresses. This sort of thing comes back to haunt.
The Great Middle Tennessee Flood: Nashville Symphony Faces $42 Million In Costs
The Nashville Symphony will face $42,000,000 in cleanup costs in the wake of the flood.
Schermerhorn Symphony Hall, opened in 2006, at a cost of 123,000,000 was flooded in its basement, within four inches of the performance hall. The two Steinways and the organ console will be covered by insurance, and the Symphony carried ten million in flood insurance. FEMA will pitch in some funds, but there will be a shortfall of several millions to raise separately.
OS, ever the culture warrior, thinks this presents the Symphony an opportunity to connect with the life of this region of the state. Professional orchestras suffer from the perception of being aloof from everyday life, and elaborate halls, as good as they are for musicians to perform in, tend to be off-putting. Many people simply won't walk through those ornate doors.
It's the 'Cathedral Effect'. OS heard a tale, a true one, of an outreach by an English cathedral located at some distance from London. Pains were taken to make certain that everyone in the area knew they were welcome to visit and see the splendors of the historic building. The great day arrives, and amongst the visitors are a married couple in their nineties, who had lived nearby their entire lives. They had a wonderful time, but when asked why they had never visited, they replied: 'We didn't know that people such as us would be allowed in the building!'.
It's time to show up and play in the churches and high school gyms around the region, and build audience and donor base. Musicians hate this, and bitch endlessly about it. Let them.
Rahm Emanuel's infamous quote does have a bit of truth in it--this is a real rough patch in the life of the organization, and an opportunity to serve the culture of Middle Tennessee. On the long pull, the Symphony will benefit as it weaves itself into the fabric of daily life.
Schermerhorn Symphony Hall, opened in 2006, at a cost of 123,000,000 was flooded in its basement, within four inches of the performance hall. The two Steinways and the organ console will be covered by insurance, and the Symphony carried ten million in flood insurance. FEMA will pitch in some funds, but there will be a shortfall of several millions to raise separately.
OS, ever the culture warrior, thinks this presents the Symphony an opportunity to connect with the life of this region of the state. Professional orchestras suffer from the perception of being aloof from everyday life, and elaborate halls, as good as they are for musicians to perform in, tend to be off-putting. Many people simply won't walk through those ornate doors.
It's the 'Cathedral Effect'. OS heard a tale, a true one, of an outreach by an English cathedral located at some distance from London. Pains were taken to make certain that everyone in the area knew they were welcome to visit and see the splendors of the historic building. The great day arrives, and amongst the visitors are a married couple in their nineties, who had lived nearby their entire lives. They had a wonderful time, but when asked why they had never visited, they replied: 'We didn't know that people such as us would be allowed in the building!'.
It's time to show up and play in the churches and high school gyms around the region, and build audience and donor base. Musicians hate this, and bitch endlessly about it. Let them.
Rahm Emanuel's infamous quote does have a bit of truth in it--this is a real rough patch in the life of the organization, and an opportunity to serve the culture of Middle Tennessee. On the long pull, the Symphony will benefit as it weaves itself into the fabric of daily life.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Skewers Obama Eighty Miles North Of The Mexican Border
One minute long, and she says it all:
Peripheral Vision And Hearing: On The Road And Back Again This Week
A few images and thoughts from this week's travels in Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas:
A real giggle occurred at the Georgia border, on I-75 just south of Chattanooga, TN. Someone has purchased a billboard openly petitioning Our Lord to hasten his return to Earth sooner rather than later. As devout Christians, Mr. and Mrs. OS do understand that this day will arrive, because it has been promised by Christ himself, at a date known only to the Almighty. The billboard was a bit of a shock, implying that we would be able to pull this date forward, if we were to try devoutly enough.
Of course, given the traffic that followed in Georgia for the next several hours, one might understand the sentiment behind the sign. The afternoon was exhausting and harrowing, and it was Saturday! The road was rough, littered with shreds of blown and failed truck tires, along with much other debris. Never again. Never another drive through central Georgia.
A few days later, we met a refugee from Atlanta, waitressing at a restaurant. Three years ago, she was married, a homeowner, working in accountancy at a large construction firm. Everything fell apart at once, and now divorced, she sleeps on a friend's couch near Jacksonville, with the house on short sale (with no interest shown), happy to be working as a waitress, with a place to sleep. Away from Atlanta, and the traffic, and the life built on 'keeping up with the Joneses'-her quote. She said she used to feel ashamed at all that happened, losing the house, losing the marriage, losing the life. She says that many of her friends and acquaintances are bailing out of Atlanta, that the jobs have simply disappeared, and laughed grimly at the suggestion that news reports tout a recovery underway. She reports that rents are dropping rapidly on beachfront property, and is looking for a more permanent place to settle.
In Jacksonville, much vacant retail space, and a real shabbiness to many parts of the city, in contrast to the manicured privacy of the upscale developments. OS hit two golf courses, one in an older section of town. The course and clubhouse had certainly seen better days. The drive home in the afternoon was sobering, with scores of young men just hanging out on the stoops and street-corners, no place to go evidently. The newer course was in a planned development near the beach, and was impeccable. OS walked his holes, and had the course to himself.
The drive back to Tennessee took us through the Carolinas, via I-95 to I-16. A stop at an outlet mall south of Savannah was revealing. Three-quarters of the retail space empty, with other stores obviously on clearance. Our visit with friends in the Tryon, NC area was a true contrast. The little towns were thriving, well-groomed, with a wide variety of goods and services. Very little empty storefront evident. We hope to visit again soon. Something is being done right here. A town of 1500 with four prospering bookstores has something good going on.
A visit in one of the larger towns was poignant, as OS overheard a retail store clerk recount that 'this was the job he could find', as the middle-management corporate job went away months ago. In a high-end antique store, a middle-aged gent walked in, attempting to flog a print given to him twenty-seven years earlier by his mom as a wedding gift. Marriage had recently ended, and evidently he was liquidating what remained of that life. The owner was kind, but unwilling to purchase without a clear provenance on the item. It was painful to overhear, and we quietly headed out the door to allow them to finish the conversation without spectators.
The drive home was extended by a closure of I-40 on the North Carolina side. A detour and overnight in Kingsport up I-26 took us through breathtakingly beautiful country. We wandered about in search of a place to eat after checking in to our hotel, and drove a few miles into Virginia up Highway 23. As depressing a sight as we have seen in years. The despair hung thick in the air.
Home again the next day, and grateful to be back. The contractors begin arriving this week to restore the damage wreaked by The Great Middle Tennessee Flood. We'll be living with the contents of a large living room stowed in the rest of the house. Never knew we owned that much china...
Still, so very grateful for our lives, one another, our kids, our friends, our work, our cats and dogs.
The economy is obviously not in free-fall as in 2008, but there are a lot of people still in a world of hurt, and many more yet to go through the wringer as we go through the inevitable de-leveraging after the governmet's attempts to pump everything back up. The road back will be long and hard.
More to tell, with one particularly poignant foreclosure tale to tell, but that's for another day.
So happy to be home.
A real giggle occurred at the Georgia border, on I-75 just south of Chattanooga, TN. Someone has purchased a billboard openly petitioning Our Lord to hasten his return to Earth sooner rather than later. As devout Christians, Mr. and Mrs. OS do understand that this day will arrive, because it has been promised by Christ himself, at a date known only to the Almighty. The billboard was a bit of a shock, implying that we would be able to pull this date forward, if we were to try devoutly enough.
Of course, given the traffic that followed in Georgia for the next several hours, one might understand the sentiment behind the sign. The afternoon was exhausting and harrowing, and it was Saturday! The road was rough, littered with shreds of blown and failed truck tires, along with much other debris. Never again. Never another drive through central Georgia.
A few days later, we met a refugee from Atlanta, waitressing at a restaurant. Three years ago, she was married, a homeowner, working in accountancy at a large construction firm. Everything fell apart at once, and now divorced, she sleeps on a friend's couch near Jacksonville, with the house on short sale (with no interest shown), happy to be working as a waitress, with a place to sleep. Away from Atlanta, and the traffic, and the life built on 'keeping up with the Joneses'-her quote. She said she used to feel ashamed at all that happened, losing the house, losing the marriage, losing the life. She says that many of her friends and acquaintances are bailing out of Atlanta, that the jobs have simply disappeared, and laughed grimly at the suggestion that news reports tout a recovery underway. She reports that rents are dropping rapidly on beachfront property, and is looking for a more permanent place to settle.
In Jacksonville, much vacant retail space, and a real shabbiness to many parts of the city, in contrast to the manicured privacy of the upscale developments. OS hit two golf courses, one in an older section of town. The course and clubhouse had certainly seen better days. The drive home in the afternoon was sobering, with scores of young men just hanging out on the stoops and street-corners, no place to go evidently. The newer course was in a planned development near the beach, and was impeccable. OS walked his holes, and had the course to himself.
The drive back to Tennessee took us through the Carolinas, via I-95 to I-16. A stop at an outlet mall south of Savannah was revealing. Three-quarters of the retail space empty, with other stores obviously on clearance. Our visit with friends in the Tryon, NC area was a true contrast. The little towns were thriving, well-groomed, with a wide variety of goods and services. Very little empty storefront evident. We hope to visit again soon. Something is being done right here. A town of 1500 with four prospering bookstores has something good going on.
A visit in one of the larger towns was poignant, as OS overheard a retail store clerk recount that 'this was the job he could find', as the middle-management corporate job went away months ago. In a high-end antique store, a middle-aged gent walked in, attempting to flog a print given to him twenty-seven years earlier by his mom as a wedding gift. Marriage had recently ended, and evidently he was liquidating what remained of that life. The owner was kind, but unwilling to purchase without a clear provenance on the item. It was painful to overhear, and we quietly headed out the door to allow them to finish the conversation without spectators.
The drive home was extended by a closure of I-40 on the North Carolina side. A detour and overnight in Kingsport up I-26 took us through breathtakingly beautiful country. We wandered about in search of a place to eat after checking in to our hotel, and drove a few miles into Virginia up Highway 23. As depressing a sight as we have seen in years. The despair hung thick in the air.
Home again the next day, and grateful to be back. The contractors begin arriving this week to restore the damage wreaked by The Great Middle Tennessee Flood. We'll be living with the contents of a large living room stowed in the rest of the house. Never knew we owned that much china...
Still, so very grateful for our lives, one another, our kids, our friends, our work, our cats and dogs.
The economy is obviously not in free-fall as in 2008, but there are a lot of people still in a world of hurt, and many more yet to go through the wringer as we go through the inevitable de-leveraging after the governmet's attempts to pump everything back up. The road back will be long and hard.
More to tell, with one particularly poignant foreclosure tale to tell, but that's for another day.
So happy to be home.
Video Of the Gulf Of Mexico Taken This Weekend: From Gulf Shores To The Deepwater Horizon And Back To Louisiana
This is disturbing footage to watch, especially knowing that the Obama administration sits on its hands as this situation unfolds. OS does not endorse the narrative questioning why BP is doing 'x' vs. 'y' at the spill site, or the final bit with the anthropomorphization of the dolphins. That's a bit odd. But the simple documentation of the spill itself is sobering.
All we need now is a big hurricane...sucking up all that oil to deposit inland.
When OS was a small lad, he visited the Bon Secour Peninsula for many summers in the 1960's. It was a different place then, largely undeveloped, with just a country road running from the village of Gulf Shores out to Fort Morgan, used during the Civil War to guard Mobile Bay. His uncle would take him shrimping in the shallows of Bon Secour Bay, in a small boat, and let him sort through the groaning nets for shrimp and crab, to be served that evening for dinner. It was an enchanted place and time, and the little boy knew it. It was a place apart.
Perhaps, OS's grandchildren, or their children, will be able to experience it for themselves. Heaven only knows what it will take to undo this damage.
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