This Weekly Standard item from Bill Kristol is so tantalizing to Ohio’s sensible conservatives that you have to keep telling yourself not to get your hopes up:

Dennis Menaced?
Is Kucinich in trouble?

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained the results of a private poll conducted last night in Ohio-10, the Cleveland-area district held for seven terms by Democrat Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich has been widely viewed as safe—even though he fell short of 60 percent of the vote in 2008, and the district has a Cook PVI of only Dem +8. (Note: According to Gallup in July, the whole state is Dem +7 — Ed.).

The poll (based on a small but respectable 319 person sample, with a margin of error of 5.6 percent, weighted to eliminate gender bias) shows Kucinich ahead of his opponent, Peter Corrigan, by only 4 percent. The profile of undecided voters suggests they may break for Corrigan by about 3-2. And Corrigan’s 4 percent deficit turns into a 4 percent Corrigan lead when voters are given information on Kucinich’s ties to corrupt local Democratic leaders, and on Kucinich’s support for illegal immigration. These are signs that undecided voters could be pushed to go Corrigan’s way. Furthermore, Corrigan is running even with Kucinich among those who’ve already requested their absentee ballot, as early voting has already started in Ohio.

Look at 2008′s results, and you realize that an upset is not out of the question:

Kucinich (D) — 157,268 (57%)
Trakas (R) — 107,918 (39%)
Conroy (L) — 10,623 (4%)

Jim Trakas ran hard in a terrible year for Ohio Republicans with virtually no help from the state or national GOP — and lots of antagonism from ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only) for having the nerve to challenge ultimate general election loser Greg Hartman for a while in the GOP Secretary of State primary in 2006. The guess here is that Barack Obama did far better in the 10th District against John McCain than Kucinich did against his opposition.

Can a strong candidate like Corrigan pull off a miracle? Watch the vid at his web site and you’ll see that he’s clearly a no-nonsense, analytical guy with real-world experience who is surely running a professional, thought-through campaign.

The Libertarian candidate seems to be a non-entity.

Kucinich? There has to be lingering resentment over his comical, embarrassing 2004 and 2008 presidential runs. There has to be fallout from the pervasive corruption in Cuyahoga County and his at least indirect association with it. There has to be a Tea Party-driven wind against him this time around from western suburbs like Bay Village and Rocky River. Yeah, the Plain Dealer inexplicably endorsed him after not doing so in 2008. But Kucinich’s reliance on votes from the West Side of Cleveland gets more problematic with each successive term, because people continue to leave Cleveland in droves, with African-Americans leaving at a faster rate than other population groups.

Will all of this be enough to unseat the Congressman from Outer Space?

Don’t know, but if scenarios like this one are emerging in supposedly untouchable seats in other parts of the country, we may have to find a new word to replace “landslide” on November 3.

“Do you guys believe this?”

When Barney Frank is in panic mode, something anyone could tell when back in August he all of a sudden decided that we should abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after being their champions for decades, I’ll believe anything.

I also believe that Sean Bielat will be a much better Congressman than Barney Frank has ever been. Ads like this one demonstrate Frank’s record of indefensible defense of the two mortgage monsters:

From the alternative universe known as the Toledo Blade:

TPS teacher who watched Obama sign bill is laid off

As Toledo Public Schools teacher Amanda VanNess stood in the Oval Office and watched President Obama sign an education stimulus bill, she already knew she’d lost her teaching job back home to budget cuts and low seniority.

The $26 billion stimulus bill, designed to save 160,000 teacher and other government jobs across the nation, couldn’t save her position at Pickett Elementary.

In fact, Ms. VanNess has been laid off twice from TPS this year.

TPS hasn’t spent a dollar of the $7.6 million in teacher rehire money it received from the Aug. 10 bill, opting instead to save it for next school year to rehire or retain a myriad school employees – probably not teachers.

The legislation allows the one-time money to be spent that way over the two school years.

… And Ms. VanNess’ job loss has become political foil for the anti-Obama right as midterm elections approach.

Blade reporter Christopher D. Kirkpatrick is being such a tool. Sure, Obama badly wanted the legislation, but Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had to get it through Congress and the Senate — and you don’t have to “anti-Obama” or on the right to note what a completely dishonest charade the entire “mini-stimulus” exercise and its claim to have saved 160,000 teaching jobs has been.

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A commenter at my Pajamas Media column yesterday revealed additional issues in the foreclosure documentation mess:

The real problem has come to light in non-trust deed states where judicial foreclosures are required. Homeowner’s attorneys have the right to “discovery” to obtain all relevant documentation of the mortgage and its ownership history and in several cases in 7 states last I heard including California, lenders have been thrown out of court for failure to be able to demonstrate that they actually own the mortgage they seek to foreclose upon. In most cases, they haven’t even been able to find the original note. Uh-oh. The lender just lost its ability to foreclose. As more attorneys began to question lender documentation by filing suits in response to foreclosures in trust deed states – thus requiring judicial oversight, the lenders reasoned they could no longer maintain the subterfuge, and decided to pull back and examine what they’ve been doing – hence the current crisis.

I suspect the answer will be that congress will bail out the lenders in passing federal legislation which forgives or waives the necessity of compliance with local laws regarding proper written documentation and allowing electronic documentation to suffice. Without it, Fannie and Freddie will encounter untold losses, which the U.S. government has unfortunately agreed to make good. The current situation incentivizes NOT paying your mortgage, as the lender cannot foreclose in many if not most cases. A wave could well become a tsunami of mortgage defaults and bring down the entire system – Cloward-Piven. That’s why I believe the waiver legislation is coming.

The trouble with being confident that “the waiver legislation is coming” is that the Cloward-Piven Candidate is now the Cloward-Piven President, and Tim Geithner’s open-ended guarantee to provide relief without limits for Fred and Fan’s losses for the next few years appears to open the door to the opportunity to bring down the entire system.

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Meant to get to this a few weeks ago. Its relevance clearly hasn’t diminished. It’s from an alleged White House insider (“What the Hell Have We Done?”; HT RedState):

… we got Congressmen and Senators running for re-election right now whose political careers are about to be ended because they supported a president and a Democratic Party leadership that told them to do so. They trusted they would be politically protected, that the American people would agree with the agenda. Well guess what? That hasn’t happened. Good people, good Democrats, are being tossed aside like so much trash – and this White House DOES NOT GIVE A DAMN. In my eyes that is absolutely unforgivable. You just don’t do that to your own people. And some of these politicians are talking. They are – but for the most part the media is ignoring them because they don’t want to hurt the administration. To that I say enough! Do your damn job. Report what is going on within the Democratic Party. We need to clean up this mess, and it starts by getting the truth out there. …

… This White House doesn’t give a damn for the concept of loyalty, dedication, sincerity. This White House is the most self-centered, arrogant, and ignorant…they just don’t care to know what they are doing. And when they do it – consequences mean nothing to them. NOTHING. …

… right now – the man is simply not up to the task, and yet it is loyal Democrats who are paying the price for his incompetence and incoherence. The health care bill? Do you know I was told he has never read the bill? Not one part of it? NOT ONE. Sounds like something you would hear on one of the talk radio shows, right? And I wouldn’t normally consider such a possibility, but this came directly from one of those good Democrats who might now see their political careers ended because they supported that bill and now its being used against them like some political sledgehammer. How is that supposed to make someone who put their career on the line feel? Betrayed.

… Guess what? The president was briefed on the bill – he never read it – it was a damn running joke among all of them! But leading up to the vote, back when the battle was raging in Congress, President Obama was throwing fits over the delays, telling his aides something to the effect, “I don’t care what it is I just want something on my desk to sign. Get me a –expletive- bill. Just get me something to –expletive- sign.” And that is just what those Democrats in Congress did – they got the president a bill. And now they are paying a very high political price, and this president appears to care less. He is basically telling members of his own party “You got me my bill and thank you very much. Now go to hell.”

“What the hell have we they done?” indeed — to us.

My well of compassion for them has run dry. Many of them were close enough to Obama to have an understanding of what they were getting into — and did so anyway. Victory uber alles. Others who compromised what they claim are their core beliefs, including Democrats who claim to be prolife like OH-01′s Steve Driehaus, should have suspected that they’d be thrown overboard if others more worthy required saving.

As to the idea that “that the American people would agree with the agenda” — horse manure. They knew better. They thought (sadly, mostly correctly) that they could get “the agenda” through knowing full well that a significant majority of the American people would oppose it once they understood it. They didn’t care, because they thought their incumbency and GOP clumsiness would protect them. They didn’t anticipate the Tea Party movement. Oops.

As to the media, they won’t turn on Obama unless/until they recognize that he’s not able to advance the statist agenda. Despite the complaints noted, we’re not there.

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Paging Kathleen “Shut up and eat your costs” Sebelius:

Health Care Reform Blamed for Huge Hike in Premiums

The state has given Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield the go ahead to raise premiums by as much as 47 percent for some members, and says health care reform is the reason why.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to Insurance Commissioner Thomas Sullivan on Oct. 6, asking what he called “excessive” increases were approved without full consideration of all the facts. His letter mentioned rate increases for both Anthem and Aetna.

The new rates took effect Oct. 1, and include increases from 19 percent all the way to 47 percent depending on the individual, the Hartford Courant reported.

Sullivan responded to Blumenthal saying the new rates included “very rich benefits” mandated by federal law.
“There is not one person in the state of Connecticut who will see an increase in their current premiums based on what the department approved for Anthem and Aetna,” Sullivan said in a release. “The rates that were filed and approved reflect the current cost to deliver care and the impact of more comprehensive benefit designs required under the federal healthcare reform law. If the attorney general wants to complain to someone, he should complain to Congress.”

Sebelius threatened to cut companies whose rate increases are “excessive” and who — correctly — blame them on ObamaCare out of health insurance exchanges. What is she going to do to a state bureaucracy that does the same thing?

From Massachusetts Citizens for Life, in an e-mail:

Mildred Fay Jefferson, MD, nationally known pro-life leader, has died at the age of 84. Dr. Jefferson was the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School. She was the first woman to be a surgical intern at Boston City Hospital and the first woman admitted to membership in the Boston Surgical Society. Dr. Jefferson was the recipient of honorary degrees from twenty-eight colleges and universities.

Nationally known for her leadership in the right-to-life movement in America, Dr. Jefferson asserted, “I became a physician in order to help save lives. I am at once a physician, a citizen, and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow the concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged, and the planned have the right to live.”

Dr. Jefferson helped to establish the National Right to Life Committee and served three times as its president. At the time of her death, Dr. Jefferson served as President of the Right to Life Crusade, Director of NRLC, and Director of Massachusetts Citizens for Life. She was a founding member of the Board of Governors and a past President of the Value of Life Committee of Massachusetts. She was also active with the American Life League and Americans United for Life Legal Defense Fund and Black Americans for Life.

Born in Pittsburg, Texas, Dr. Jefferson was the daughter of Guthrie (Roberts) Jefferson, a public school teacher, and Millard F. Jefferson, a Methodist minister. She attended public schools in East Texas, earned a B.A. degree summa cum laude from Texas College in Tyler, Texas and a M.S. degree from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts before attending Harvard Medical School.

After her Harvard Medical School graduation, Dr. Jefferson served as a general surgeon with the former Boston University Medical Center and Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at Boston University Medical School.

More: National Right To Life Committee press release.

Also: An item about the near-absence of media coverage of Dr. Jefferson’s death is here at NewsBusters.org.

Rasmussen’s latest: Hickenlooper 42, Tancredo 38, Maes 12, on October 14.

Other polls at Real Clear Politics show Tancredo trailing by double digits, but they are all over two weeks old.

Here’s a vid from Tancredo’s web site showing why Hickenlooper needs to be stopped:

Related, from Gregg Jackson:

I have personally confirmed that Constitution Party Colorado Gubernatorial candidate, Tom Tancredo, has retracted his 2008 endorsement of Mitt Romney, according to the head of the Colorado Constitution Party.

Presumably, Mr. Tancredo’s retraction was based on the information shared with him recently in person by representatives of Colorado Right to Life and American Right to Life that outlined Romney’s fully documented far left-wing social and fiscal record …

Read the whole thing. Though Gregg would like to see the expression more public, I think it’s best left as presented, simply because, though Romney and his supporters may not yet get it, Romney’s institution of Commonwealth Care in Massachusetts and its role as a precursor for ObamaCare has probably/hopefully ended Mitt’s chances of ever becoming president — at least as a member of the Republican Party. So why bring attention to a mistaken endorsement of a has-been?

Tancredo’s retraction undoes the concern expressed here in late 2007.

At Investors Business Daily:

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has given the green light for more quantitative easing to boost inflation expectations and, hopefully, the economy. But such a move will only come to grief.

… Why do this? The idea is that if Americans are convinced prices will go up, they’ll start buying things to avoid paying higher prices later. That, theoretically, will increase economic activity.

This is demand-side foolishness, which essentially tells people: “You dummies won’t spend, so we’re going to make it cost you not to spend by deflating the value of your savings and investments.”

It’s not an exaggeration to characterize a strategy that deliberately ramps up inflation as a form of theft from those who continue to be spending holdouts — and from those who aren’t able get pay raises to compensate for their lost earning power. And it does nothing to solve the underlying problem.

Continuing (bolds mine throughout the rest of this post):

… The problem is, future inflation indicators aren’t down; they’re up — big time.

… In the first nine months of 2010, producer prices rose at an average annual rate of 7.1%. These costs will ultimately hit consumers.

… Worse, the Fed’s plan for a second round of quantitative easing, unfortunately, will enable Washington to continue its spending binge. Over the last two years, Congress and the president have jacked up federal spending by a record 22%, creating deficits of $1.4 trillion and $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2009 and 2010, respectively. That’s $2.7 trillion added to our nation’s stockpile of debt.

And guess who’s going to buy a big slug of it to make the spending gravy train continue? You got it: the Fed. The second round of quantitative easing is designed to buy up Treasuries and agency debt, thereby pushing down interest rates and stimulating the economy.

… The Fed has it exactly backward. An enormous reservoir of liquidity already exists in the financial system. Corporations and small businesses have an estimated $2 trillion in cash and liquid investments on the sidelines in banks, ready to deploy. And banks themselves already have $1 trillion in reserves on hand.

Despite calls that will only increase in volume that folks sitting on the sidelines have some kind of civic duty to invest when the opportunities aren’t there, they don’t — and they won’t, until what the editorial’s concluding section says needs to happen actually happens:

Businesses will borrow and hire workers when they’re convinced they won’t have their added profits taxed or regulated away. It’s that simple. Sadly, the Democrat-led Congress and White House have made this the most uncertain business climate since the 1970s, with TARP, stimulus, ObamaCare and finance reform.

… What’s needed is not more Fed action. It’s lower taxes, fewer regulations and less government spending — none of which the Fed controls. Those things, not funny money, will form the basis of a sustainable economic boom.

In other words, as I have been saying since July 2008, shortly after the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy began, “It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid!“

It’s here.

The subheadline:

The system is nearly overwhelmed. It’s not an accident.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Tuesday (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

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Supplemental Support: From Megan McArdle at the Atlantic (HT Instapundit) –

The foreclosure mess is now spreading to Fannie and Freddie, as our government-owned mortgage machines starts looking into what, exactly, its servicers have been doing with their loans.

… it’s clear that overwhelmed servicers decided the fastest way to move through their vast backlog of foreclosures was to muster a sort of heroic insouciance about the legal niceties surrounding the paperwork. Courts (and banks) are right to say that the process needs to slow down until that’s straightened out.

There’s that word: “Overwhelmed.”

Cloward-Piven, housing edition, at work.

Here’s more — From the Wall Street Journal item to which McArdle linked (WSJ item appeared shortly after my PJM column was drafted):

Raising questions for the first time about the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the unfolding mortgage-foreclosure crisis, the two government-owned giants are reviewing the work of a Florida law firm they recommended to process foreclosures.

… their use of so-called foreclosure mills, law firms that specialize in quickly processing thousands of foreclosures on behalf of lenders, is dragging the companies into the latest crisis.

Last Friday, Freddie told mortgage servicers to stop sending cases to the Law Offices of David J. Stern, of Plantation, Fla. Fannie followed suit on Monday. The law firm has been at the center of recent allegations by the Florida attorney general’s office, which released a deposition of a former law-firm employee. In the deposition, the employee alleged the firm routinely forged notarized documents amid closed-door screaming matches that broke out because files weren’t moved fast enough.

… The Florida firm processed more than 70,000 foreclosures last year, and Mr. Stern was named “attorney of the year” by Fannie in 1998 and 1999, according to his biography.

… Fannie and Freddie don’t actually issue mortgages, but purchase them from banks and sell them to investors as mortgage-backed securities, providing guarantees to cover losses in the event of default. While they rely on banks and other firms to service those loans, they helped build the framework for managing those loans. They provide lists of approved vendors to handle everything from issuing foreclosure filings to selling homes.

… The delays are an unwelcome development for Fannie and Freddie, because carrying costs will mount on their stable of foreclosed and vacant properties. This summer, Fannie warned servicers that they could face fines if foreclosures became unreasonably prolonged.

… The push to keep up with the rising tide of foreclosures has exposed sloppy practices across the mortgage-servicing industry, analysts say. “They’re just overwhelmed,” said Todd J. Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

… “The final losses for Fannie and Freddie will be more expensive than we anticipated” due to the current crisis, said Mr. Miller.

There’s that word (“Overwhelmed”) again. Cloward-Piven, housing edition, at work.

The only quarrel I have with the coverage of WSJ reporters Nick Timiraos and Carrick Mollenkamp is that Fan and Fred having a role in all of this has been pretty obvious from the beginning Combined, the two wards of the state are simply too big not to have been involved. Now their involvement is just getting more specific definition.

UPDATE: O … M … G, at Bloomberg (HT 4Closure Fraud) –

Citigroup Inc. said it stopped steering foreclosure work to a Florida law firm whose court filings to support home seizures are under investigation by the state’s attorney general.

The bank, which is proceeding with seizures as some rivals stop to recheck documents, had used the Law Offices of David J. Stern PA.

… “Pending the outcome of the AG’s investigation, Citi is not referring new matters to this firm,” the New York-based bank said in an e-mailed statement. Citigroup services loans, including for government-sponsored entities, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Stern “was approved by the GSEs during the time in which it was retained by Citi,” the bank said.

That’s interesting, because in 2002, Stern was publicly reprimanded for (as described at the South Florida Business Journal) “deceiving the courts and clients about his web of businesses that do legal support work.”

More smoke … and more … and this, from the New York Times in early September:

A foreclosure crisis that has forced millions of delinquent borrowers from their homes across Florida and elsewhere has also created enormous profits for the law firms and foreclosure servicers that represent banks and financial services in these actions.

Among the busiest of these firms are the three under investigation by Florida’s attorney general: the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson; Shapiro & Fishman; and the Law Offices of David J. Stern.

“These law firms appear to be mills,” says Mr. McCollum. “They submit false documents, fabricate the documents, or the documents actually don’t exist. They wanted to speed the process up because the faster they get the foreclosures done the better.”

But Mr. Stern said: “I can’t speak for the other firms, but I can assure you there has not been submission of fraudulent documents. We feel a lot of it is politically motivated. We have done nothing wrong and are going to cooperate fully.”

Despite the reprimand and at least two years of court filings indicating serious concerns about Stern’s work — and despite the fact that publicly-traded company DJSP Enterprises, of which Stern is the most important shareholder, was sued in July for securities fraud — the WSJ item above notes that Fred and Fan “told mortgage servicers to stop sending cases to the Law Offices of David J. Stern” only a week ago(!).

UPDATE 2: For entertainment purposes, here are a few paragraphs from a recent regulatory filing by DJSP — a Virgin Islands-based company without a Federal Tax ID number — describing some of its risk factors –

Risks Related to our Business

David J. Stern, the President and Chief Executive Officer of DAL, is also the sole owner of Law Offices of David J. Stern, P.A. (“DJS”), which is our primary law firm customer, and he may, under certain circumstances, have interests that differ from or conflict with the interests of our shareholders.

David J. Stern, DAL’s President and Chief Executive Officer, is the sole shareholder of DJS, which is our primary law firm client. Revenues from this relationship account for approximately 94%, 97% and 98% of our total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively. As a result of this relationship with both us and DJS, Mr. Stern may encounter conflicts of interest in the execution of his duties on behalf of us. These conflicts may not be resolved in a manner favorable us. For example, he may be precluded by his ethical obligations as an attorney or may otherwise be reluctant to take actions on behalf of us that are in its best interests but are not in the best interests of DJS, his law firm, or its clients. Further, as a licensed attorney, he may be obligated to take actions on behalf of DJS or its clients that are not in our best interests. Mr. Stern has other direct and indirect relationships with us that could cause similar conflicts including as our largest creditor. See Note 2 to the consolidated financial statements of the operating subsidiaries for a description of these relationships.

David J. Stern plays a critical role in the success of both DJS and the Company. Should Mr. Stern become incapacitated or die, it is likely that our business and results would be adversely affected to a significant degree.

Although both DJS and the Company have substantial management teams that are capable and experienced, the majority of the client relationships of DJS and our customer relationships were established and continue to be managed by Mr. Stern. If Mr. Stern becomes unable to perform his duties under his employment agreement or die, it is possible that the client relationships of DJS, and therefore the volume of referrals that we receive from DJS, would suffer, materially reducing our revenues and profitability.

Mr. Stern has recommended four members of the Board, and Mr. Stern’s affiliates may accelerate the maturity date of indebtedness due to him upon his removal as CEO of the Company or DAL, which may make it difficult or impossible to remove him as CEO of the Company or DAL, even if that were considered desirable.

We agreed to have Mr. Stern propose four of seven directors for election by our shareholders. In the event that Mr. Stern does not diligently and faithfully discharge his responsibilities as CEO of the Company or DAL, the fact that he chose four of our directors may make taking disciplinary action against him difficult, if not impossible, notwithstanding that all of the directors will have fiduciary duties to our shareholders to do so. In such a case, the only recourse available to our shareholders may be to bring an action against the directors for breach of their fiduciary duty, but as with any litigation, it can be costly, time-consuming and drawn out, and there is no assurance that it would succeed.

In addition, the involuntary termination of Mr. Stern by the Company or DAL is an event of default under the terms of the Stern Deferral Note and $35 million of post-closing cash due to affiliates of Mr. Stern, permitting Mr. Stern’s affiliates to accelerate the due date of such obligations. As a result, the Company could not involuntarily terminate Mr. Stern’s employment as CEO of the Company or DAL unless it is able to repay in full these obligations.

… The majority of file referrals to DJS come from fewer than a dozen lenders and loan servicing firms. If DJS were to lose any of these sources of business, in whole or in part, it would adversely affect our financial performance.

In 2008, the top ten clients for DJS, on an aggregate basis, accounted for 94% of its case files referred to DJS for mortgage default and other processing services; and its largest single customer, accounted for 21% of DJS’ total foreclosure file volumes for the same period.

UPDATE 3: This is from someone who claims to have sat in on public company DJSP’s conference call headed by foreclosure mill lawyer David J. Stern two weeks ago:

So yeah, we’re in the 2nd inning, but guess what – when we get to the 9th inning, it’s going to be a doubleheader and we got a second game coming. So when people say, “Oh my God, the economy is bad!” I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s great.” I mean, I hate to hear people are losing their homes and credit isn’t available and credit is such that they can’t re-fi, but if you are in our niche, it’s what we do and it’s what we want to see.

No matter what Obama rolls out, there is no stopping this inflow of continued defaults that we anticipate to go for another two or three years late behind that is the math of REO’s that need to be liquidated and at the end of the day, the cycle will start again. Well, foreclosure volumes through 2012 are expected to increase dramatically and remain at high levels going on till 2017 …

“Increase in Modification Services… This is what Obama rolled out. . Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Unfortunately, it’s what…folks if you do what I do…unfortunately it is failing. We have the opportunity to handle the modification or where we do have a modification, we get to charge for title search, we get to charge for title exam, we get to charge for doc prep we get a 600.00 dollar incentive fee?

And at the end of the day when it’s all said, 66,000 have been done to date… of the 66,000 more than 20% have failed. So we can get the file in, we start with the foreclosure, we bill for the foreclosure, we get the mod in, we make the incentive, we doc prep, we get the title, the mod is done and guess what? It falls out. It all comes back to foreclosure land and we get to start the foreclosure all over again! So no matter what the Obama Administration brings our way. We have found a way to create a profit center on it and that I think is part of that success!

The nationwide HAMP fail rate is close to 50%.

This is almost enough to make you think that the administration started up HAMP knowing it would fail often enough to wreak havoc on the system. “Oddly enough” — That would be consistent with Cloward-Piven, wouldn’t it?

From Vatican City:

Oct 13, 2010 / 10:27 am

God has “a thousand ways” to touch souls and to teach them how to “really live,” Pope Benedict XVI told a crowd of more than 25,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 13.

Continuing his series of teachings on holy women in the Church’s history, the Pope turned to the 13th-century mystic, Blessed Angela of Foligno in his weekly general audience.

Blessed Angela’s life has much to teach people today, many of whom are “living as if God did not exist,” the Pope said.

The lesson of her life, he said, is that “God has a thousand ways, for each of us, to make himself present in the soul, to show that he exists and knows and loves me.”

Born into wealth and privilege, Blessed Angela led a carefree life until in her late-30s, when personal tragedies made her aware of her sinfulness. She made a confession after receiving a vision of St. Francis of Assisi. Following the death of her husband and children, she entered the Franciscan Third Order.

Her story is retold in the “Book of Blessed Angela of Foligno,” composed from the writings of the friar who served as her confessor. The book details how she overcame fear of sin and punishment through ever greater love for God. It also describes the many mystical experiences that marked her life, but which she found difficult to put into words.

This book, the Pope said, is a guide for others seeking to turn to God. Blessed Angela’s life, he added, shows how the Lord touches the soul so that one can learn the “way with God and towards God.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Only the New York Times could burn through 2,500 words about Japan’s economy and not use the word “stimulus.” The Old Gray Lady’s Martin Fackler did refer to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke’s just-announced second attempt to “stimulate” economy, but dodged the central lesson: The government created the Japanese people’s malaise, and our government, despite Japan’s experience, seems determined to do the same to us.

The Times item is the first in a series, so I suppose Fackler may get around to it in subsequent reports, but it doesn’t seem likely.

Here are some paragraphs from Fackler’s report that show how intent he and the Times were on not getting to the real root causes of Japan’s nearly two-decade malaise (bolds are mine):

Once Dynamic, Decline Leaves Japan Disheartened

Few nations in recent history have seen such a striking reversal of economic fortune as Japan. The original Asian success story, Japan rode one of the great speculative stock and property bubbles of all time in the 1980s to become the first Asian country to challenge the long dominance of the West.

But the bubbles popped in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Japan fell into a slow but relentless decline that neither enormous budget deficits nor a flood of easy money has reversed. For nearly a generation now, the nation has been trapped in low growth and a corrosive downward spiral of prices, known as deflation, in the process shriveling from an economic Godzilla to little more than an afterthought in the global economy.

… Even as the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, prepares a fresh round of unconventional measures to stimulate the economy, there are growing fears that the United States and many European economies could face a prolonged period of slow growth or even, in the worst case, deflation, something not seen on a sustained basis outside Japan since the Great Depression.

Many economists remain confident that the United States will avoid the stagnation of Japan, largely because of the greater responsiveness of the American political system and Americans’ greater tolerance for capitalism’s creative destruction. Japanese leaders at first denied the severity of their nation’s problems and then spent heavily on job-creating public works projects that only postponed painful but necessary structural changes, economists say.

“We’re not Japan,” said Robert E. Hall, a professor of economics at Stanford. “In America, the bet is still that we will somehow find ways to get people spending and investing again.”

Still, as political pressure builds to reduce federal spending and budget deficits, other economists are now warning of “Japanification” — of falling into the same deflationary trap of collapsed demand that occurs when consumers refuse to consume, corporations hold back on investments and banks sit on cash.

… Just as inflation scarred a generation of Americans, deflation has left a deep imprint on the Japanese, breeding generational tensions and a culture of pessimism, fatalism and reduced expectations. While Japan remains in many ways a prosperous society, it faces an increasingly grim situation, particularly outside the relative economic vibrancy of Tokyo, and its situation provides a possible glimpse into the future for the United States and Europe, should the most dire forecasts come to pass.

… And the future looks even bleaker, as Japan faces the world’s largest government debt — around 200 percent of gross domestic product — a shrinking population and rising rates of poverty and suicide.

But perhaps the most noticeable impact here has been Japan’s crisis of confidence. Just two decades ago, this was a vibrant nation filled with energy and ambition, proud to the point of arrogance and eager to create a new economic order in Asia based on the yen. Today, those high-flying ambitions have been shelved, replaced by weariness and fear of the future, and an almost stifling air of resignation. Japan seems to have pulled into a shell, content to accept its slow fade from the global stage.

The clear evidence is that the budget deficits and the easy money, instead of failing to prevent Japan’s decline, have instead extended it.

The quoted Robert E. Hall can say, “We’re not Japan” all he wants, and try to claim we’re in better shape to absorb economic stress. But in some important ways, we’re in worse shape. No one can credibly deny that the U.S., like Japan, “at first denied the severity of their nation’s problems and then spent heavily on job-creating public works projects that only postponed painful but necessary structural changes.” But a lot of our spending also went to direct transfer payments with no future value, especially in the beginning, as the president himself has admitted that his core early-2009 contention that there were all kinds of shovel-ready projects just waiting to be funded was a load of rubbish.

Additionally, our savings rate is nowhere near Japan’s, meaning that a shift to intense frugality might be have a more negative effect here than it did in Japan, where many people were always quite frugal.

The point at which our deficit hits 200% of GDP is not that far away, but because of our relatively low savings rate, America’s point of malaise may be much lower than that. No, Martin Fackler didn’t deal with that topic, although I suppose he might go there sometime during the rest of his series. But don’t count on it.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

To the national establishment press, this appears to be another one of those “It’s at the Politico, so we can ignore it” incidents.

Thursday night, before a debate with GOP opponent George Phillips, nine-term New York Democratic Congressman Maurice Hinchey “had a heated exchange with a local reporter … that became physical.” Quite physical, in fact, to the point where Hinchey “pushed … (the reporter) backwards into Phillips himself.”

Seems like pretty big news, doesn’t it? Not based on the results of a Google News search on “Hinchey debate” (not in quotes) done at 8:30 this morning:

Wow, 11 whole articles.

Clicking to get to the detail reveals that there are even fewer results than originally indicated:

Clicking to find the sixth result revealed this report out of Binghamton, New York.

The reporter involved, William J. Kemble, is a correspondent for The Daily Freeman in Kingston, New York. In May, the paper’s Ariel Zangla began a report (HT Hot Air) about a development in nearby Saugerties as follows:

U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey has a financial interest in the Partition Street Project, which is to be constructed within the village for which he secured $800,000 in federal funding for a sewer infrastructure project his office called “critical to the village’s commercial future.”

Hinchey, however, says there is no connection between his official actions and the project and that he is not directly involved in the commercial development of the Partition Street property.

Zangla’s lengthy piece identifies a lot of questionably ethical smoke, and it appears to be what has aroused Hinchey’s ire.

Oddly, the Daily Freeman has no coverage of the incident involving its own reporter, who covered Thursday’s debate in this story.

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Update, Oct. 17: The Freeman has responded in a statement posted at Hot Air, saying, among other things, that “the Hinchey camp’s characterizations of the incident as either prompted by aggressive action by Mr. Kemble or by false accusations they claim he and the Freeman have made are untrue.”

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Imagine if New York Congressman Peter King, who has seniority equal to Hinchey’s, had pushed a reporter before a debate and told that reporter to “shut up!” Does anyone think that the New York Times or the Associated Press would have ignored it as they have clearly done in the Hinchey incident (as shown in searches on “Hinchey” at 9:30 a.m. here and here, respectively)? Neither do I.

Another angle: Why isn’t the HInchey-Kemble incident, which involved a push, getting anything resembling the attention the incident between Empire State GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Palladino and New York Post reporter Fred Dicker, which as far as I can tell didn’t?

As noted earlier, if something adverse to a Democrat gets covered at the Politico, it appears to give the rest of the establishment press’s excuse to ignore it. “Been there, done that, olds news, everybody knows about it already.” Sure, guys. This also has the distinct aroma of, “Maybe if we ignore this, our guy will survive Phillips’s challenge,” which looks more formidable with each passing day.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Good for the National Retail Federation for its preemptive strike in hiring Ernst & Young to study the effects of a value-added tax (VAT).

E&Y is a CPA firm, so unless someone shows evidence that it agreed to be steered to a conclusion, their objectivity shouldn’t be questioned.

Here, as described in an IBD editorial is what E&Y’s report preparers believe is likely to happen — and be sure to check out the final excerpted sentence in bold:

A new study warns that a value-added tax would kill 850,000 jobs in a year and cut retail spending by $2.5 trillion over 10 years. Sounds too bad for Washington to pass up.

An analysis for the National Retail Federation by Ernst & Young finds that adding a VAT to the U.S. tax system would reduce GDP for years, causing the loss of “850,000 jobs in the first year,” plus “700,000 fewer jobs 10 years later.”

A VAT imposed in such a way would also cause retail spending to drop by almost $260 billion — or 5% — in the first year alone, according to the study. As a result, “most Americans over 21 years of age when the VAT is enacted would be worse off,” and there would be “significant redistributional effects across generations, reducing real incomes and employment for current workers.”

Significantly, in this election year of the Tea Party, in which spending restraint has more resonance with voters than ever, the report, “The Macroeconomic Effects Of An Add-On Value Added Tax,” also found that reducing the deficit by cutting government spending, rather than adopting a VAT, would mean more economic growth.

Imagine that.

From Santiago, Chile:

Oct 14, 2010 / 05:51 pm

In an Oct. 14 statement, the Bishops’ Conference of Chile expressed their “immense joy” and gratitude to the Lord “for the successful rescue of the 33 miners who were trapped” in the San Jose copper mine.

The bishops noted that throughout the long ordeal, “We joined in prayer with millions in Chile and around the world. We especially thank Pope Benedict XVI for his special closeness and concern.”

The miners had been trapped under a half-mile of rock deep beneath Chile’s Atacama Desert since Aug. 5. Rescue workers originally projected that the miners would be free in late December, however they were all rescued on Oct. 13.

“We are happy to see and hear these miners, their loved ones, government officials and so many people all over Chile thanking God our Father for this gift, for this miracle that he has blessed us with. We appreciate the admirable efforts of the technicians, professionals and other workers, from home and abroad, who contributed to the preparation and execution of the rescue.”

Go here for the rest of the story.