I agree. Here's another:
Posted on 01/20/2009 2:50:44 AM PST by VU4G10
> Bush didn’t raise the immigration issue at all until he issued his victory statement.
Did you raise it with him? Did he tell you one thing and do another, or did you forget to ask?
No fair sending your pizza back for being thin crust if you forgot to order thick crust.
Good summation.
And if I were any of those conservative justices, I'd stay the hell away from light planes, secluded beaches, and dark alleys for the next four years.
And a hat-tip to the original poster, Pukin' Dog.
(And bring back the battleships, and the F-14. SLEP the carriers, don't retire them.)
Dubya is from Texas, and so am I.
He knew all about the border issue, and where Texas Republicans and conservatives stood on it. The fact that he didn't raise the issue until he had the primaries won, shows that he absolutely knew where the GOP rank-and-file were on this issue in 2000.
And another thing. Nobody tells the Bushes what their issues are. Not unless he's named Karl Rove, or Ed Rollins.
They're patrician in that, even Dubya, who is the least snobby and to-the-manor-born of the whole bunch, except maybe Neil and Doro. Don't kid yourself, amigo. He wasn't taking advice or soliciting views when he ran.
He just didn't show his hand on OBL until he had the nomination in the bag. And that "you forgot to order" stuff just won't fly. Sorry.
I missed it -- I was in a continuing-education seminar all day. Geophysics was never so engrossing, as when ducking the grossness! ;)
FREEPER DB POSTED Here's what illegals did in my area: Family member buys house and gets teaser loan. Family member sells house to another family member for $50k more. That family member gets teaser loan. That family member sells house to yet another family member for even more again getting a teaser loan. They repeat this multiple times. The last family member defaults on the loan and goes back to Mexico. The other family members walk away with a couple hundred thousand dollars of the banks money through all the repeated selling between family members. No one is accountable. Now repeat this on a broad scale and you can get an idea of what was going on..."
ANOTHER FREEPER POSTED What we have seen in our area is a little less complex: An illegal or legal buys a home. They rent out the garage to 4 or 5 illegals for 3-5 thousand per month. Then, each spare bedroom in the house gets another 2-4 illegals at 2-4 thousand per month. None of this is ever declared as income. The home owners drive Lincoln Navigators and Tundra pickups. Down in E. Contra Costra county, the same thing happens, except the vehicles of choice were Hummers and Escalades.
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The Miami Herald found that more than 10,000 people with criminal histories -- including bank robbers and land swindlers -- were able to peddle home loans across the state this decade. Of those, more than 4,000 cleared OFR background checks despite criminal pasts, with most committing offenses that state law required the agency to screen -- fraud, dishonest dealing and crimes of ``moral turpitude.''
Florida Comes Clean, Allowed Criminals to Enter Mortgage Industry, to Prey on Consumers
September 18, 2008, Miami Herald
In a stinging critique of the state's oversight of the mortgage industry, top Florida investigators found that state regulators failed to alert police agencies to crooked mortgage brokerages, ignored citizen complaints and allowed hundreds of people with criminal histories to peddle loans.
The report released Tuesday to Gov. Charlie Crist and the Cabinet criticized the Office of Financial Regulation, saying the agency broke down in key areas, including screening brokers and shutting down shoddy operations, while the state grappled with the nation's worst home loan fraud crisis.
Investigators said the agency functioned without clear guidelines, making up rules as it went along and operating at times on wrong interpretations of the law. All the while, mortgage fraud skyrocketed during the most explosive housing boom in state history. Today, a quarter of all reported fraudulent loans across the country are for Florida properties. The Miami Herald found that more than 10,000 people with criminal histories -- including bank robbers and land swindlers -- were able to peddle home loans across the state this decade. Of those, more than 4,000 cleared OFR background checks despite criminal pasts, with most committing offenses that state law required the agency to screen -- fraud, dishonest dealing and crimes of ``moral turpitude.''
The newspaper found that convicted criminals went on to steal at least $85 million from consumers and lenders. In fact, the state report showed, there were even more problems with the background checks. Auditors found that state regulators failed to conduct federal background checks or submit fingerprint cards of the applicants to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement until March of this year -- just days after The Herald made a series of requests for the criminal histories of mortgage brokers.
The auditors found the agency was relying on birthdates and Social Security numbers to do background checks, leaving fingerprint cards -- crucial to determining criminal histories -- in office files, unused.
The Miami Herald found 88 former federal criminals were licensed by regulators, including former bank robbers. While state auditors found 588 people with serious criminal backgrounds who were granted licenses since 2003, The Herald examined brokers from the entire decade, finding 2,000 with felonies, and another 2,000 guilty of lesser crimes. The Herald's investigation also found scores of brokers were able to commit crimes while licensed -- including mortgage fraud -- and stay in the business.
The two enforcement arms -- administrative and criminal -- rarely communicated, the report found. Agency examiners were often kept in the dark on law enforcement investigations, and as a result, rarely pulled brokers from the business. Of the 51 criminal cases closed by the office between 2003 and 2007, the report found only one resulted in a license revocation. In addition, investigators found a 40 percent decrease in examinations of licensed mortgage brokers between 2003 and 2007 -- even as the numbers of brokers nearly tripled.
Further, auditors found that, in some cases, the agency failed to warn law enforcement of crooked brokers and boiler rooms, and that penalties imposed on bad brokers were often inadequate and far lower than proceeds from a single illicit mortgage transaction.
The report also noted that telephone complaints about bad brokers were not recorded by state agents or even acted upon. Separately, the report found that loan originators -- the largest segment of mortgage professionals in Florida -- do the same work as mortgage brokers but aren't licensed.
Saxon told auditors that licensing loan originators would be next to impossible because of the ``influence of the industry.'' But industry leaders in Florida told The Miami Herald they had asked Saxon's office in 2002 and 2006 to license loan originators -- but regulators refused. Blog credits Miami Herald http://ciercus.blogs.com/mortgage_fraud_blog/2008/09/florida-comes-clean-allowed-criminals-to-enter-mortgage-industry-prey-on-consumers.html
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Husband And Wife Plead Guilty To Massive Florida Straw Buyer Scheme ("God's children" $15M fraud)
by Staff Reporter on 06/02/08 at 03:25 AM
FR POSTED several times
Juan and Rachael Torrens pled guilty to conspiracy charges in connection with their participation in a recent multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme in South Florida. The defendants acknowledged as part of their guilty plea that their scheme produced over $15,000,000 in fraudulent loans, and resulted in losses of over $5,000,000 to various lenders. With Juan and Rachael Torrens‘ guilty pleas, 15 of the original 31 defendants charged have pled guilty.
As previously reported by Mortgage Fraud Blog, defendants Juan Torrens, the de facto owner of Amsouth Trust & Investment Corp. (”Amsouth”) and president of Countryside Land & Development, Inc., Rachael Torrens, president of 1st Choice Realty of South Florida, Inc. and de facto owner of First United Mortgage USA Corp., Daniel Ramos, Alfonso A. Muxo, a State of Florida certified real estate appraiser and owner of Palm Bay Real Estate Appraisals, Inc., and Katherine Harris, former president and part owner of Floridian Home Title Corporation, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and/or wire fraud for their participation in this massive mortgage fraud scheme. The scheme involved fraudulent mortgage loans obtained for the purchase of 28 properties located in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, Florida, and in the City of Marco Island. All except Katherine Harris have already pled guilty, and are awaiting sentence.
The Indictment also charges defendants Mario E. Diaz, Aurelio Pozo, Oscar Barreiro, Lellany Rordriguez, Jose Asensi, Carlos Morales, Damaris Jimenez, Lizabeth Perez, Mario Blanco, Rene Rodriguez, Tamaris Angulo, Alicia Loaiza, Ester Crespo, Jesus Enrique Guevara, Janette Lugo, Priscilla Fleitas, Erick Clavijo, Luis DeJesus Planas, Moises Llorens, Milva Roque, Aurora Ramentol, Gladys Lens, Nancy Fundora, Yanny Cruz Pavon, Roger Rosario and Jacqueline Perez-Castillo ("the straw buyer defendants") with wire fraud for their participation in this mortgage fraud scheme. To date, guilty pleas have been entered by defendants Aurelio Pozo, Oscar Barreiro, Carlos Morales, Damaris Jimenez, Mario Blanco, Jesus Enrique Guevara, Janette Lugo, Priscilla Fleitas, Moises Llorens, Gladys Lens, and Roger Rosario.
According to the Indictment, Juan Torrens would identify sellers of residential properties who were willing to overstate the true selling price of their properties. Daniel Ramos and Juan Torrens would then recruit and pay the straw buyer defendants to pose as buyers and ostensibly participate in the purchase of the selected properties. Defendants Rachael Torrens and Juan Torrens would prepare fraudulent mortgage loan applications for the straw purchasers that included false employment verifications, pay stubs, income and funds on deposit, and IRS Forms W-2.
Thereafter, to support the overstated sales prices on the properties and the fraudulent mortgage applications, defendant Alonso A. Muxo would prepare fraudulent appraisals attesting to the inflated property values dictated by Juan Torrens. Roger Rosario, an employee of Regions Bank, assisted the fraud by providing, on at least one occasion, a fraudulent verification of deposit in connection with a mortgage loan application for one of the straw buyer defendants.
To effectuate the scheme, defendants Juan Torrens and Rachael Torrens, together with the straw buyer defendants, would create and submit to the banks and lending institutions HUD-Settlement Statement Forms, also known as HUD-1s, which falsely stated that the straw buyers brought their own funds to the closings. Once the mortgage applications were approved, the lenders would wire the loan proceeds to the title company, Floridian Home Title, for closing.
At closing, Amsouth, a company owned and controlled by Juan Torrens, would receive a credit for the difference between the inflated price and the actual selling price of the property. Defendants Juan and Rachael Torrens would make the payments on the mortgage loans to maintain the loans afloat until the properties could be resold again, often to another straw buyer. When the Torrenses failed to make payments on the loans, some properties went into foreclosure, resulting in substantial losses to the lending institutions.
http://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/index.php/weblog/comments/husband_and_wife_plead_guilty_to_massive_florida_straw_buyer_scheme/
> And another thing. Nobody tells the Bushes what their issues are. Not unless he’s named Karl Rove, or Ed Rollins.
I wouldn’t have thought Texans were afraid of their politicians. Now that is indeed a surprise. Around here we tell our politicians what their issues are, and if they don’t listen then it’s “adios amigo, ole!” Either they take our issues to Parliament or we vote for someone who will. That way, we always get the gummint we deserve.
Do you let your waiters choose your pizza toppings for you, too? (I know that’s a cheeky question and I apologize for that: but sticking with the analogy, it fits).
Seriously, if you didn’t want OBL policies you had a responsibility to sit GWB down, before he had the nomination, and say “mate, we gotta talk about OBL...” Because if you don’t tell your polly what you want, he/she is going to think it is OK for them to choose for you. And because you haven’t told him/her, it is OK by default.
Which is what looks like happened here.
I agree. Here's another:
You introduced this whole theme with references to "kneepads" and "servicing" and "Bernie Ward" (think about him much, do you?)...and I'M projecting?
Although I understand you obviously have a lot of anger over your repressed state, please stop the postings filled with gay imagery. This gay Cyberstalking thing seems to be your hobby, but it's creeping everyone else out.
Anymore of your disturbing homosexual-themed posts to me and I'll be alerting administration, as it's highly inappropriate for this site.
bttt
....and Katherine Harris, former president and part owner of Floridian Home Title Corporation, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud ....
That wouldn't be the Katherine Harris who was Secretary of State of Florida during the 2000 election, would it?
We all told everyone on the planet what we thought about aliens overrunning the border -- it's been a hot issue since about 1980.
And as I carefully explained to you, or thought I did, Bush's actions and the timing of his announcement on OBL demonstrated abundantly that he knew exactly what Texans and conservatives thought about open borders and unrestrained, undocumented immigration.
NOT the same Katherine Harris.
US diluted loan rules before crash
Yahoo/AP | 1 Dec 08 | staff
FR Posted on 12/01/2008 4:50:08 AM PST by saganite
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.
"Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories," California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.
Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way. "These mortgages have been considered more safe and sound for portfolio lenders than many fixed rate mortgages," David Schneider, home loan president of Washington Mutual, told federal regulators in early 2006. Two years later, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
The administration's blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of its governing philosophy, which trusted market forces and discounted the value of government intervention in the economy. Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s. (Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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MEXICAN NEWSPAPERS ADVERTISED "FREE HOMES IN AMERICA" Screwing Americans gets a lotta laughts over tequila shots in downtown Tiujana. Millions of illegal aliens got mortgages with no proof of income OR citizenship. They were never asked for proof of employment, pay stubs, etc. As long as they had a pulse, and could write the name of
Illegal con artists promptly flipped the homes among family members for ever-higher prices and mortgages (duping banks at every turn). With enough stolen money to retire in luxury, the last illegal mortgage-holder defaulted and absconded to Mexico leaving banks (and taxpayers) holding the bag.
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Thank Bush and Obama for making sure illegal criminals got toxic mortgages that led to the Wall Street meltdown--and the neverending billion dollar bailouts.
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