Poor bankers, they accidentally used inadequate/falsified information on at least 55,000 foreclosures! But don’t you worry, they won’t get so much as a slap on the hand. Instead, the powers that be will kiss the boo-boo and make it better:

Wells Fargo said on Wednesday it will re-file documents on 55,000 foreclosures, drawing immediate fire from one of the state attorneys general most critical of banks in the continuing home foreclosure crisis.

The announcement was the first admission of possible problems in the way the San Francisco-based bank repossesses homes.

Wells Fargo – the second largest U.S. home mortgage servicer – has continued to foreclose on delinquent borrowers in recent weeks, even as its rivals instituted moratoriums amid a public furor over whether banks cut corners in the foreclosure process with so-called “robo-signers” of legal documents used to justify taking homes.

Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray – who filed a lawsuit against Ally Financial earlier this month over affidavit problems – said he was “pretty unhappy” about the Wells Fargo announcement.

“We had talked to them and they assured us they didn’t have any of these problems,” said Cordray in an interview with Reuters.

He added that the Wells Fargo admisssion “makes it hard to believe any of the big financial firms in terms of what their process has been.”

Attorneys general in all 50 U.S. states are investigating whether lenders rushed through foreclosures and evicted borrowers from their homes without properly checking documents.

Lawsuits have already begun to trickle in and banks may also face fines or be forced to repurchase faulty loans.

Wells Fargo found problems with foreclosure affidavits in 23 U.S. states where the final internal review or the notarization of the documents did not meet company standards. The bank plans to re-file the affidavits by mid-November.

In cases where the foreclosure is imminent, the bank will ask for an extension from the local courts.

“We found human errors, and we are fixing those errors,” said Teri Schrettenbrunner, Wells Fargo spokeswoman, who declined to discuss the nature of the errors the bank found.

But they told us nothing was wrong!

“Are you sure you didn’t take the cookies from the cookie jar, Joey?”

“No, Mom, I swear!”

“But you have crumbs around your mouth and the front of your shirt, and there’s a trail of crumbs that leads back to the cookie jar.”

“God, Mom, I told you I didn’t do it! You’re always picking on me!”

Little Joey lies on the kitchen floor, sobbing. Mommy brings him some chocolate milk and what’s left of the cookies, and everything’s fine!

Oh, and cowards, too. How many people would vote for them if they understood this? They don’t give a shit about the deficit. Boehner admitted as much today.

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger

War chests from right-wing billionaires and corporate titans are funding tremendous portions of political activity, from the so-called grassroots activism of the Tea Party to the streamlined lobbying assaults of the nation’s largest corporations.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s wildly unpopular ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, secret election financing by elites is exploding, even as the public visibility of such electoral purchasing power evaporates.

Corporations get more freedom as political parties get less

As Jamelle Bouie emphasizes for The American Prospect, election funding from political committees and non-profits is already up 40 percent from 2008 levels. But the oft-cited the liberation of the corporate purse was accompanied by less-well-known constraints on political parties themselves.
While corporations like Wal-Mart and Bank of America are free to spend as much as they want attacking or promoting specific candidates, the political parties themselves cannot.

As Bouie notes, this scenario further rigs the electoral game in favor of the wealthy and corporations. Candidates who know that their party can’t help them out become even more dependent on corporate cash during elections. And while few entities are less popular right now than the Republican and Democratic parties, they are ultimately accountable to their voters. They reach out to a broad array of individuals across the country, while corporations merely advance their own interests.

Political parties—however imperfect—can serve as a check on such destructive corporate influence. Citizens United has made that check much weaker. As Jesse Zwick emphasizes for The Washington Independent, political parties used to dominate independent election spending. This year, for the first time, thanks to Citizens United, front-groups and corporations have taken the lead.

The Tea Party “grassroots” movement is anything but

Billionaires are on the attack, exploiting campaign finance loopholes to prop-up phony “grassroots” political movements. The most egregious—and successful—effort has been waged by David Koch, a long-time GOP fundraiser who is now backing major Tea Party organizers. Koch is the executive vice president of Koch Industries, Inc., which refines and distributes petroleum and other raw materials.

As Adele Stan details in her latest in-depth expose for AlterNet and The Nation Investigative Fund, Koch has found ways to funnel money to the Tea Party in just about every way imaginable. But it’s most sinister maneuver was the establishment of two right-wing front groups that keep their donors anonymous. After Citizens United, we’ll never know how much money Koch is funneling to the Tea Party, and his front groups—FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity—provide the same cover for other elites.

How much cover? Americans for Prosperity brags that they’ll spend at least $45 million on the 2010 elections, while FreedomWorks plans to throw in another $10 million.
Continue reading “Corporations on top” →