If the new CBS News Poll can be believed, Sarah Palin has joined Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi in being approximately as popular as contracting a venereal disease.
Palin is viewed favorably by just 22 percent of Americans, according to the poll – including less than half (44 percent) of Republicans. Twenty-one percent of independents and 6 percent of Democrats view her favorably.
People are really down on our political leaders in this country.
Except Obama is still hovering around the 50% approval and doing better than Reagan or any recent President at this stage in his Presidency – despite one of the most difficult recessions in recent history…
Good point, Frank. Has anyone seen good analysis of why this is so?
I suspect part of it is his “No Drama Obama” steadiness, and another part is his refusal to demonize his opponents.
Your thoughts?
And with extremely good reasons.
Too bad that Reid and Pelosi are more symbolic than Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Mike Ross, and Bart Stupak.
Foreclosure Cover for Banks Seen in Bill at Obama’s Desk
Shepherded by our own champion of working people, Bob Casey.
can you blame them, Booman? Can you blame them for being angry? these people, unanimously, are siding with the powerful over the powerless to support criminal activity.
i wish we had a viable third, fourth, fifth party, i do NOT want to support crooks like this.
If Obama doesn’t veto this or pocket veto it, this one will come back to haunt him in 2012 along with the failed HAMP program. It is continuing foreclosures as much as anything else that is creating a drag on recovery.
And the paper economy continues to prosper. Having saturated their accounts with T-bills, corporations are now investing in what they know by buying back their own stock when the buyback price is low.
Except prices aren’t low right now. CEO’s are selling their own holding back to the companies they run. Basically more pillaging.
This bill passed the House back in April and most likely was delayed in the Senate because they couldn’t be bothered to get around to it. All it really does is further clarify what states already do under the Full Faith and Credit clause – you know, the same one that says a marriage license issued in one state shall be honored in another. It also adds in electronic notarizations, which makes sense given how many docs have gone digital in our brave new paperless world. As for fraud, it doesn’t give the mortgage robo-signers a pass if they didn’t do their due diligence and actually review the title documents. So I’m not sure what’s got so many progressive types upset about this, other than the usual hair-triggeryness that some fevered bloggers have.
bullshit.
it’s not modernizing anything, it’s protecting the big banks from the consequences of their actions.
Oh, you’ll get no argument from me about the slipshod paperwork that the mortgage lenders passed along in a hurry, and as I said and you noted that is coming home to roost for them in court. So now the banks will have to pay a hell of a lot more to clean up the mess and prove they are in fact the mortgagee. But the bill that passed doesn’t protect the banks from being prosecuted for fraud, and the Ohio Sec. of State should know that. If I might hazard a guess here, I’m suspecting the Ohio Sec. of State is more interested in slowing down the rate of foreclosures for her own self-interested political reasons. YMMV on that, I’m sure.
yeah, there’s a debate going on among progressives about what this means. One side is taking your side, but the other is quoting the Democratic Secretary of State in Ohio, who has raised a red flag.
Some say Leahy was behind it, others say Carper. Others say it was part of a deal to get nominees confirmed.
I don’t know. It appears to me that it would add wire fraud to the penalties mortgage companies are facing. If the problem is fraudulent notaries then this doesn’t change much. The root of the problem is the fraud itself, not that states recognize each other’s documents as valid. I mean, do you want a system where out-of-state notarized documents are presumed to be invalid?
On the other hand, the timing is suspicious and what’s wrong with the system that was in place?
I go with the nominees confirmed hypothesis.
And if I had to choose between Leahy and Carper, it was probably Carper.
what a deal!
“you’ll confirm our nominees, we’ll allow you to keep throwing people into the street.”
such fighters for working people.
Casey said he made the unanimous consent motion at the instructions of the Democratic leadership.
Sure looks like it was to get something else passed. Confirmations are the first suspect.
Second thought.
On fraudulent cases, not only is the existence of the mortgage subject to fraud, which this law would not help or hinder in determining. But often the claim is from a legal entity that does not in fact hold the mortgage.
And it will not dig the economy out of the mortgage mess. It will make it worse by adding another thing that homeowners and their lawyers (if they have one) have to check.
What has allowed this to happen is the privatization of the inter-state mortgage registration system.
the timing and the way the bill was passed is exceedingly suspicious.
I do not trust these people, based on past record, and I think anyone who trusts a bill passed with no public debate (and in the house with no recorded vote) is a fool.
every econ blog and news source i’ve seen says it’s to protect the banks.
reuters says it was leahy.
Read BTD:
He has like 4 diaries about this bill and demands Obama veto it.
D-Day’s summary of Armando’s point:
Mortgage documents filed at Registers of Deeds are presumed to be non-fraudulent until proven otherwise. These documents are not like that. Does this bill extend the assumption that they are non-fraudulent to stuff received from private entities and notarized electronically?
Jake Tapper says Obama will pocket veto this bill.
I would be encouraged, except it’s Jake Tapper reporting this.
I agree it’s suspicious. Apparently the White House is going to have some announcement at 12:30.
any word on that announcement?
jennifer brunner’s kos diary on the topic is pretty staggering.
if the pocket veto report is true:
,
i have one thing to say: THANK YOU PRESIDENT OBAMA.
What’s got folks upset is that it was originated by a Republican House member and passed in both chambers without public debate.
Honest public debate would have aired the points you make and the implications of them. It also would not have put Obama on the spot right before a midterm election.
The problem with the mortgage market is that going digital means that documents are no longer filed with Registers of Deeds in the counties in which the property exists. It is filed by the mortgage issuer in a system controlled by the mortgage issuer. Notarization just certifies that the document is as digitally sent, not that the document is valid in the first place. And it places the burden of proof on the homeowner instead of the mortgage holder.
The problem with the mortgage market is that going digital means that documents are no longer filed with Registers of Deeds in the counties in which the property exists.
Um, no, that’s not true at all and I have no idea where you get that notions from this legislation. At least in my jurisdiction where I work in Minnesota, we require such title signatures to be duly notarized and filed with the Registrar’s office. Really. This is more about what procedures Federal courts must follow when reviewing foreclosure cases.
And state courts reviewing cases from other states.
I got that notion from the description of the way mortgages are recorded in the MERS database. Apparently some states are not as strict as Minnesota on property recording.
If so, this law moves everyone to the lowest common denominator.
That’s inaccurate, according to reuters:
Also note:
and surprise, neither leahy nor sessions is talking. That sounds AWFULLY fishy to me. let’s not forget what Durbin said: “the banks own this place.”