Hold Fast

I’m coming off a two-week period where I was offline. I’m catching up on work and emails, but this blog should be back up and kicking later this week.

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In his series building up to the announcement of his Wanker of the Decade, Atrios has declared Joe Klein the third runner-up. That post includes a link to a Greg Sargent piece wherein Sargent eviscerates Klein’s casual accusation of Atrios as an “ideological extremist,” with no explanation of what ideas make Atrios extreme. To highlight [...]

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I think David Dayen has consistently offered the best coverage and analysis of the campaign to get the FHFA to change policy to allow for GSEs to pursue principle reduction, be that by Ed DeMarco making a change on his own or him getting fired and replaced by someone who will. No one really disagrees [...]

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Matt Stoller has a long and thought-provoking post on two recent Democratic primary elections where ostensibly progressive candidates with strong support from online progressive organizations were handed crushing defeats. The whole post is worth reading, as it’s a chilling look in the mirror that reveals a lack of effective progressive infrastructure. Noting that the IL-10 [...]

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Duncan Black: I’m not sure how anyone expects “the housing market” to “recover” when buying a house now involves handing a bunch of money over to a bank which will then proceed to steal your house from you. This behavior will continue until lots of people go to jail. And that, apparently, is off the [...]

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As always, Abigail Field is a must-read in her ongoing coverage of the 49 state and federal foreclosure fraud immunization settlement. The fact that the settlement was approved by a federal judge with no hearings into it is both disappointing and truly sickening. Of course, as Field notes, the lack of transparency in this settlement [...]

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Given how little has happened with the new mortgage fraud task force, will New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman walk away from it? I think now would be the time to start making that threat and it should be followed through on shortly thereafter.

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Matt Taibbi has a stunning report on an NYPD program put in place under Mayor Bloomberg called “Clean Halls,” which extends the already invasive and racist “Stop and Frisk” policy into the hallways of privately owned buildings, with the landlords’ permission. According to the NYCLU, which filed the suit, “virtually every private apartment building [in [...]

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Apparently President Obama gave a speech today attacking the Ryan budget. In the Q&A he went after the GOP for making rightward shifts which prevented them from finding common ground. Jed Lewison writes: Obama continues hammering Republicans for moving so far to the right. “Cap and trade was originally proposed by Republicans … now they [...]

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This is a good read on the Chinese government’s efforts to crack down on online rumors, particularly those occurring on microblogging platforms. Patrick Meier’s entire piece is worth reading, but the closing captures the challenge the Chinese Communist Party faces in an age of instant communication. So if Chinese authorities and state media aren’t even [...]

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