It’s simply hard to imagine this passes for a Presidency.  At what point does he become simply too much for the senses?  Sure we have had some interesting and bad Presidents before – recently in fact.  Nixon changed our view of the Presidency for the worse.  Carter was beyond ineffectual.  Bush 41 broke a huge promise. Clinton wagged his finger while lying – and a bit more than that.  But this President is truly something and it’s not just the facts that are bad – it’s his excuses and manners that make this Presidency so incredibly bad.

Let us count the ways:

A.  The Economics.

This list is well known by now – but that doesn’t mean it is highlighted by the Media as it would be of a Republican was president.

1. Unemployment at 9% for a historically long time.  According to Obama he inherited this mess and blames President Bush and ATMs.  Yes Obama believes automation, like ATMs, is to blame – as if such automations like automobiles (accounting for nearly 20% of our economy) and computers (creating employers like EBAY and Microsoft)  are the cause of our unemployment.  Beyond that, Obama joked that he was wrong about “shovel ready” projects, created the “Saved” jobs category out of thin air, and claimed that the stimulus bill would prevent unemployment from going above 8%.  What’s missing, of course, is a plan to lower unemployment – let alone actually lower unemployment.
2. Gas Prices.  They are currently 85% higher than when he took office.  He shut down our Gulf oil production for ideological not actual reasons and delayed a Canadian pipeline for political reasons.  When Bush 43 saw high gas prices, the Media told him to go his friends in the Middle East to ask them to raise production.  Since Obama wanted $5 gasoline all along, he has no plan to lower energy prices and the Media doesn’t harp on the issue.  Meanwhile the economy is hurt badly because of the higher costs of energy that reduce purchasing power and hurt employers everywhere.
3. Foreclosure/Home Mortgage Crisis.  This is the one part of the economy that actually is in a crisis that is “the worst since the Great Depression” – a phrase Obama is fond of overusing.  Obama has continued the policy of bailing out the Banks for foreclosure related losses, encouraged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts instead of reforming them and now he has sued the very Banks he bailed out because of their foreclosure practices – and no, there is no plan in sight let alone true relief.
4. The Deficit.  It has quadrupled under Obama.  Yet he says inherited it – and rather than change it, spending has actually gone up each of this 3 years.  Obama’s solution: have other people come up with a plan – he was traveling or on vacation. When it failed, he said he knew it would fail.  So Chris Christie rightfully asks:  What are we paying Obama for?

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The contractual mortgage screw-up by the banks gives us a great way to speed up the recovery and reclaim what was lost in the the Great Bank Heist of 2008.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the MERS violations, you’ll need to read up to understand this idea…

But essentially, the chain of title on almost all the foreclosures going on in the mortgage market are in jeopardy: lawsuits as far as the eye can see; title companies unwilling to insure title; squatters; banks suspending all ongoing foreclosures.

It’s a frigging mess.

Meanwhile, ever since Rick Santelli launched the Tea Party on CNBC, we’ve been split down the middle class between those people who bought too big a house and are now desperately underwater–and those people who played by the rules.  We all have friends in both groups.

Over at oligarch central (the Fed), Bernacke is suggesting that to kick start the economy we need more inflation.  After all, the mortgages behind all the toxic assets they bought aren’t worth squat if home prices fall and people stop making payments.

I have a Tea Party solution…. and it is one Obama either gets behind or is exposed once-and-for-all as a Wall Street Stooge; his own left flank will desert him if he fights it.   It’s radical, and there will be howls from the Wall Street crowd, but to Main Street Republicans this could be a silver bullet.

The incoming Republican House should draft legislation, making it clear to the Credit Reporting Agencies that MERS Violations are valid grounds for removal of a foreclosure from credit reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  If title companies aren’t willing to insure title, then Credit Reporting Agencies shouldn’t accept the validity of the foreclosures either.

The goal here is to encourage those underwater on their mortgages to mail in the keys, accept the foreclosure, stop squatting, without the ding to their credit – so they can buy a cheaper house later.

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Yesterday, at a candidate forum in Chicago held by the American Muslim Task Force, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) was asked point-blank about H.R. 3808 (the Interstate Recognition of Notarizatons Act).

Her answer reveals exactly why Americans are frustrated with Congress, and why incumbents like her are in trouble:

“I don’t know what it is.”

There’s really no excuse!

H.R. 3808 would make states recognize documents notarized in other states. It has drawn wide criticism, since many banks have recently admitted that they have been using people called “robo-signers” to sign hundreds of documents without reading them. That is partly why Bank of America and other banks have halted foreclosures in the past few days.

H.R. 3808 could theoretically allow abuses of the foreclosure process to happen more easily. Yet it passed unanimously and without debate in both the House and the Senate, because nobody bothered to read it or object to it.

Unlike the ObamaCare legislation, H.R. 3808 is not thousands of pages long. In fact, it is less than one page long.

Yet almost nobody, Republican or Democrat, bothered to examine it or to think about its possible effects.

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It’s tough enough to sell a house with home sales in the Twin Cities undergoing the biggest decline in the country, down 42 percent in July year to year. Yet some local governments make it even tougher for homeowners by imposing some of the country’s most onerous before-sale residential inspection ordinances, adding to the cost and red tape of buying and selling a house at the worst possible time.

Currently, fourteen metro-area municipalities have so-called “point-of-sale” ordinances in place, requiring home sellers to pay for a city inspection prior to selling their property. (In some cases, the ordinances are referred to as “time-of-sale” and “truth in housing” inspections.) In fact, in many cases, sellers are required to pay for the inspection before being permitted to put their home up for sale. These inspections are in addition to, not in lieu of, the private inspections for which home buyers routinely pay $300 or more.

That’s because, as several cities readily admit, these ordinances are not intended to help the buyer or seller. They are intended to help the city.

On its website, the City of Richfield states “inspections are not for the benefit of buyer or seller, but are a community effort to maintain the quality of Richfield’s houses and neighborhoods.” Common code violations cited by Richfield inspectors include bare wood, peeling paint, missing or deteriorated window glazing, and clogged gutters.

The laws require sellers to undergo a comprehensive city inspection for potential code violations at an initial cost that varies from $50 to $200, often before allowing the property to go on the market.

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Statement from Bertha Lewis, Chief Organizer, ACORN Regarding Recent News Reports:

The relentless attacks on ACORN’s members, its staff and the policies and positions we promote are unprecedented.  An international entertainment conglomerate, disguising itself as a “news” agency (Fox), has expended millions, if not tens of millions of dollars, in their attempt to destroy the largest community organization of Black, Latino, poor and working class people in the country.  It is not coincidence that the most recent attacks have been launched just when health care reform is gaining traction.  It is clear they’ve had these tapes for months.

We are their Willy Horton for 2009.  We are the boogeyman for the right-wing and its echo chambers.  If ACORN did not exist, the right-wing would have needed to create us in order to achieve their agenda, their missions, their ideal, retrograde America.  This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen.  I am appalled and angry; I cannot and I will not defend the actions of the workers depicted in the video, who have since been terminated.  But it is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist “filmmaker” O’Keefe and his partner in crime.  And, in fact, a crime it was – our lawyers believe a felony – and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators. (more…)