Thank You, Mr. Gramm

If there is any one thing that is more irritating than fire-ants, it’s the obvious lack of understanding on the part of news media reporters and their willingness to parrot the public-relations line of the financial industry and certain politicans.

Over and over again, the “problem” of subprime lending is defined as something that must be laid at the feet of “borrowers with less than perfect credit.”

This magical reversal of the laws of reason is akin to being able to push a rope and have something happen at the other end. For those who can’t seem to make this journalistic alchemy work for them, it is more than just frustrating to see Washington, the US Attorneys Offices and Attorneys General throughout the nation get very excited about CDOs, SIVs, hedge funds and the losses on Wall Street while deliberately ignoring the millions of civilian victims of this massive scheme.

The media is more than happy to keep ignoring the real victims. They like to differentiate themselves from the “people with credit problems” by repeating the discriminatory smear as if it were fact.

The fact is, some number of people who shouldn’t have gotten abusive loans got them. A small percentage of those knew they were on thin financial ice but went ahead anyway. But the vast majority of them were set up to pay usurious amounts of interest and are still, even as I write this, making their payments. And they're suffering as a result.

What we’re really seeing is what I call “wealth recapture.” It’s reverse wealth-distribution; Washington likes to take from the rich and give to the poor. In response, the rich figured out how to get it back from the lower-middle and middle classes through the mortgage and credit-card industry and a hopelessly-fraudulent credit-scoring schema that was used to artificially inflate interest rates. There were enough people in Washington who were willing to see the duplicitous nature of the system but not do anything about it.

What most people don’t realize is the roots of this problem can be found with just a little research. Once the industry succeeded in getting rid of usury laws, the game began. And any potential interference was quickly thwarted by among others, one very powerful Senator, Phil Gramm of Texas. With all the warning flags being raised about predatory lending years back, it was Senator Gramm that blocked any meaningful controls with his ‘you can’t regulate it because you can’t define it’ nonsense.

That effectively cleared the playing field of any defenders and the birth of the monster was at hand. The money flowed like water and large amounts of it went to Washington in both campaign contributions and lobbying expenses.

Millionaires were created by the thousands. All while the average person loaded themselves up with exorbitant interest debt because, conveniently, the game was rigged to provide a tax deduction for it, and still is in terms of the mortgage industry.

There was so much money made so quickly that they got even more creative with it. Too creative. And this creativity has come home to roost – for the gamblers who thought they had the game rigged, that is.

But they couldn’t have rigged the game if folks like Phil Gramm hadn’t been willing to protect them early on and folks like Bob Ney weren’t there to cheer them on in the early part of this decade. (Gramm is now with UBS Investment bank and is an economic advisor to John McCain. Ney is serving time.)

Yet we still have the news fools lapping up the industry PR flack’s line about “loose lending standards” being the root cause of the debacle, without finishing the sentence, which should read: “Loose lending standards designed to entrap as many people as possible."

Then there’s the “call your lender if you think you’re going to have trouble with your payment,” dogma. What that provides for most people who’ve already been abused is a quicker ticket to hell. Instead of a bus, you’ll be on the next plane to moving out of your home. First, the servicer they’re supposed to call is the only party who stands to actually make money in the foreclosure process. Everyone else loses, especially the borrower. Worse yet, the alleged workout deals will effectively shield the lender and servicer’s illegal and fraudulent acts.

“You want a lower payment?”

“Yes.”

“Here, sign this.”

“But it says I can’t sue you for the violations of the law you’ve already engaged in or might engage in in the future.”

“You want a lower payment?”

“We, well, we, yes."

“Then sign it.”

Neat system, eh Mr. Gramm?

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Re-re-re-re-re-reruns - A Guide to Debt Elimination Schemes

Sometimes along side the aforementioned (below) band of ignorant (or deliberately foolish) tax protesters and dodgers are their less risk-taking, like-minded, self-interested brothers and sisters who choose to go unarmed into battle with various financial entities with what really are nonsense theories. A lot of these share the same fundamental theoretical roots but there are fewer convicted perpetrators.

What they think they’re armed with, the sure-fire “process,” to get out of debts without paying the creditor is rarely anything more than a revamping of old schemes that have never worked before. Apparently they seem to sound impressive in new prose, but attempting to use any of them dooms what might be an actually defrauded borrower from prevailing in a legal setting. And frequently, they steer actual victims away from legitimate legal counsel.

All of these schemes share some commonalities, including several legal mythologies and various forms of allegedly complex conspiracies mixed with secrets the public isn’t supposed to know. Stir in some suspicion for the evil motives of the powers-that-be, add a pinch of questionably interpreted legal lexicon and you have a product for a receptive target market.

Another thing the schemes share is a sort-of family-tree of promoters, some of which are associates or acolytes of convicted criminals and others that just haven’t gotten into the range of the prosecutor’s radar. Their like-minded genealogy can be traced to the disaffected, conspiracy-driven, anti-establishment community which includes the more radical so-called “patriot” movements and some seriously dangerous even further-out-there groups.

Those foolish enough to take on the IRS are the most exposed to prosecution and their names show up in newspaper stories from time to time while few of the debt-elimination scammers warrant anything other than being outed and derided on the Internet, or in the case of the Dorean Group, a handful of articles in trade news outlets.

Few of the participants are doubly-stupid in today’s information-rich environment, thus we probably won’t see another attempt to use a “UCC / strawman /ALL CAPS NAME / redemption” scheme to thwart the IRS unless someone is working from a really outdated hardcopy source they found among someone’s dusty piles of cheaply produced self-published books. But credit card companies, as utterly abusive and out-of-control as they are, probably get dozens of nonsense letters every day from rookies who Googled their way into a trying (or worse, paying someone for) a process for getting out from under their crushing debt without having to actually pay it. Instead of winding up with no debt, the hopeful debtor learns a harder, more costly and disappointing lesson in how the law really works. And if they had the misfortune to have paid one of the scammers, they eventually discover the doctrine of unclean hands prevents them from bringing any kind of viable civil action.

Because of the Internet, there seems to be no end in sight to the reuse of the same root mythologies, half-truths, tortured logic and context-mangling cut and paste quotes and citations. Web sites are so easy to launch and links to others so easy to implement that anyone with average skills can put themselves into the debt elimination business almost overnight. All you really have to do is blend some number of the old theories into a slightly different, seemingly-coherent message as if there’s a new and improved theory to get paid for.

Finding a new angle will help to differentiate you but plowing overly-creative new ground will take inordinate amounts of your time. And keep in mind there are limits to the beneficial effects of being really creative. Some who peddle nonsense like Paul Andrew Mitchell, David Wynn Miller, David Merrill Van Pelt and Shaini Goodwin have wandered so far off into lala land that even the less-than-knowledgeable reader will shake their head and worry about all the people in this country who can’t get proper medical attention. Others like David Icke are clearly selling nothing more than an entertainment product and are compellingly goofy enough to even get overnight radio promotion time. So making new stuff up, while seemingly easy, can backfire in terms of the numbers of prospective paying customers for a debt elimination scheme.

So, here are Judge Bean’s tips for setting up a debt-elimination scheme:

- It’s probably a little too soon to revive some of the scams, so do your research. For example, mimicking the Dorean Group's highly-complex scheme would be problematic; they’ll be sentenced about the time you get your first web pages published. But there are parts of it that sound so mysterious that it will easily fool some people. Also, the Bill Of Exchange (BOE) thing is a little too hot for a while what with Barton Buhtz 's recent conviction. The private arbitration company thing has proven to be a major loser, too. Then again, your customer base probably doesn’t know or believe any of that, but choose carefully or wait until the stories die off into Google’s later pages before you ressurect another one of those.

- As far as content goes, first and foremost, you need to establish a shared evil opponent, so you have to include mysteries about banks, money and the Federal Reserve. If you don’t like the ones that are out there, feel free to embellish or even rewrite history. Adding things about the IMF and the NWO is nice fluff to fill out some space.

- Try to avoid addressing the issue of accepting FRN’s even though you have to say they aren’t real money.

- Remember “international bankers” sounds more devious than just “banks.”

- Spin in plenty of legal-sounding phrases about promissory notes, bank credit, assets, balance sheets, GAAP and the all-important “wet-ink" signature.

- Assert that you have a team. You have experts in, well, whatever suits your fancy just as long as there are initials after their names that imply credibility.

- Dig up the Credit River myth or at least provide a link to a site that does, but make sure you choose a web site that doesn’t include the whole story.

- Sovereignty isn’t really a big attraction for your average, apolitical, non-fringe element borrower in trouble, but it does give you street cred with the protest-minded. If you decide to tap into that market, remember to use the word “jurisdiction” a lot.

- Be sure to include statements throughout your site that comfort the prospective customer/co-conspirator’s conscience, i.e., assure them your process is “moral.” But don’t stoop to the “it’s moral because the bank screwed you” ploy; you’ll scare off some number of viable prospects. If you’re really creative and your customer base is really gullible, you might try some version of Freedom Club USA ’s “everybody wins” theme.

- Save yourself some time and just replicate one of the UCC strawman packages – the stuff about the ALL CAPS name. (Don’t worry about copyright issues; those will be the least of your problems.)

- Toss in something about why attorneys can’t be trusted because they and the Judges are all part of the BAR.

- If you’ve got the time, resources and verbal delivery skills, have weekly one-way conference calls where you can sell by expounding on the wonders of the plan and the progress being made. It’s a long-distance call for them, so keep it short and sweet.

- If you’re really slick and fast on your feet, “open” the above-referenced call up to questions but be sure you’ve authored them and they’re presented by trusted parties. Try to use people who can ask them without sounding like they’re reading.

- You will need to make up a number of anecdotal and impossible to disprove testimonials from allegedly satisfied, debt-free customers. Don’t make them extravagant but don’t worry about misrepresentations; the FTC would have to have thousands of complaints about you to even look at your website.

- If you really want to have credibility with the furthest fringes of the gullible, mention things about Admiralty and the gold fringed flag (no pun intended).

- If you’re going to use it in your process, at least try to be original with the words you put in front of “Administrative Remedy.” Private and international have been overused and putting in the Admiralty after it has lost a lot of allure.

- Use an invisible hit-counter for your own information but put up your own self-set numerical display to show huge and growing numbers of visitors.

- Now, if you’re really trying to tap into the truly zany realms, you’ll have to put in some links to the other-worldly kinds of nonsense.

- If you’re into the MLM thing and can lead others into it, you might be able to put together a network marketing scheme to get other people to sell for you. At least with this angle, you can get some initial revenue for setting up a web site for each of your marketers and their down-lines.

- Don’t get greedy; this is a business that lasts between a few months and maybe three years if you’re really slick and careful. Better to take the money and disappear than to wait too long and lose it all.

- Finally, get ready to do battle on Internet forums to promote your program, trash your competitors and demean web sites like Quatloos.com and Scam.com. You’ll need to be able to pose as completely different posters; some people, including moderators, can smoke out shills and spammers who don’t know how to conceal their writing style. You need to be creative in broaching the subject on a forum for the first time. Most rookies come off looking really lame with the “Has anyone heard anything about the XYZ program?” kind of thing. Having multiple IP addresses is critical for this part of the business. You may want to revive that old dial-up thingy and sign up with a couple of low-cost ISP’s. Anonymizers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be and some sites won’t let you post if you’re using proxy servers.

Which brings me to the Internet playground known as suijuris, more specifically, the forum. This is a two-edged sword but you’re probably going to have to deal with it. “The Law Research Group” maintains the web forum and many of the visitors are among your target demographic, but many are also more than willing to share snippets and advice that will conflict with your sales opportunities or steer prospects away from paying for your program. A few visitors will be people who are in the middle of a financial death spiral who get all kinds of goofy advice and wind up bemoaning the corruption of the courts and attorneys when what they were doing was tossed out of court for perfectly legitimate reasons they will refuse to understand.

But the suijuris forum can be highly instructional in developing your version of the scheme. Some posters will unintentionally reveal flaws in some process and other visitors will chime in and explain what they did wrong.

There you go! Have fun boys and girls! (Can’t wait to see your new-fangled super-duper hottest-thing-since whatever process show up on Google.)

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Wesley and Willie

It’s that time of year again, and the scammers are poised to sell their tax nonsense to another batch of offended and angry taxpayers and non-payers.

Despite the serious risks associated with demonstrating contempt for the tax laws, and the fact that the promoters who sell the alleged “secrets” are routinely convicted and imprisoned, some people will simply refuse to accept reality. Then when confronted with it, they’ll attempt to pose themselves in the light of being a victim of a scam.

But a now-famous cite from a Federal case appellate ruling pretty much says it all:

“Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest. ” Coleman v. CIR, 791 F2d 68, 69 (7CA 1986)

Note the date of the ruling – 1986. Over twenty years ago, Judge Easterbrook, writing for the 7th Circuit court of appeals, tossed Norman Coleman’s appeal of his frivolous tax-protest case, yet more and more disgruntled people seem to find their way to some Internet site and hang on to yet another shop-worn batch of nonsense.

The distribution of a politically-whacko propaganda movie only has served to stir interest among people who may have been nothing more than annoyed or mildly curious. Thus, the “show me the law” movement seems to have gained ground during 2007, and for some of those who want to believe in preposterous things that coincide with their self-interest, they may not look much beyond the façade of the web sites, books and the movie.

I’m guessing the Wesley Snipes case will finally attract the attention of the major media outlets to the ridiculousness of the kind of tax scam Eddie Kahn has apparently gotten him into. Unlike the widely-reported stories of Willie Nelson’s tax sheltering maneuvers that resulted in the auctioning of, among other things, his fishing camp, Snipes fell in with lunatic fringe tax protestors and apparently isn’t willing to deal with reality. Trial is set for this month.

Maybe Hollywood will get the writer’s strike over in time to spin up a plot line that Willie and Wesley can star in - one about the costs of falling for really bad advice.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Turbulence

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the players and robber barons from Wall Street are raising a stink about mortgage backed securities. And the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from people being let go is getting louder and louder.

All this Judge can say is "QUIT WHINING!"

If you think anyone is stupid enough to think hedge fund managers believed what the likes of Fitch, Moody's and S&P were shoveling on behalf of their customers, you need to invest in Nigerian 419 scams.

The power players and raters knew exactly what was going on. So did employees. Some of them just didn't get their exit strategy timed correctly. They knew the reality of dishonesty being portrayed in countless court actions, foreclosures, bankruptcies and news stories would catch up to them, they just didn't know when to pull the plug.

No, instead they buried their collective heads up their collective asses and kept raking in the dough, stashing it away in other less risky gambling endeavours as fast as it kept coming in.

And it did come in. And it did go out. And there won't be any serious accounting of the billions of dollars that were taken from everyday people and ground through the machine into accounts held by the people who knew how to play the system without risk of prosecution.

It's a question of timing. You're at the table. You're ahead 200%, maybe even 300%. You see six months of mortgage payments in your grasp. Do you sit and play? Or do you think your run of luck is over and go find a more honest job?

For the employees of the scam artist companies who continued playing beyond rational expectations, it's not a pleasant scenario. They were in it for a few thousand a year in bonuses. For the executives in on the scam early enough, it's a simple bump in the road and the 7-figure lifestyle isn't really going to take a huge hit, unless of course all those political friends they stroked don't want to be seen with you. That can be painful to the ego. Just ask Ken Lay about what a night in the Lincoln Bedroom turned out to be worth.

But the properties, corporate jets, yachts, vacation destinations, casino nights, fine wines and gourmet meals are still within their grasp. They've got lots of people to blame and unlike Lay, their connections run much deeper than just the White House. None of them risk prosecution. They've paved the way to "no admission of wrongdoing" long ago with their influence on K street.

So to the industry workers who've lost their jobs, quit whining already. You went to work with these crooks. You deserve anything that happens to you. Find honest work.

And contact your local FBI office if you want to be able to sleep better at night.

The Meltdown Continues

Note from the Clerk of the Court: An industry source passed this to us and His Honor simply cannot resist letting others in on the fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljHjZpC7bnc

Amazing what employees who have come to grips with the reality of their jobs can come up with.

Merger-mania will make things worse for borrowers

If you have a sub-prime mortgage loan and aren’t keeping close track of what your mortgage servicer is doing, you better start. As the lenders scramble to buy up failing originators, loans will be moving in and out of the hands of servicers like cards in a game of gin rummy.

Even if you’re not facing foreclosure (like nearly 20% of recent sub-prime loans), get ready for the tsunami of transferred and messed-up mortgage accounts, and keep in mind the servicer who obtains your loan will believe anything and everything on the computer, no matter how screwed up it is. On top of that, the search for profitability will lead to adventures in fee creation as well as opportunistic equity recovery in order to balance out the really upside-down loans in a portfolio.

Contrary to what some industry observers have said, the servicers aren’t exactly in a panic about the 2+ million coming foreclosures of bad loans. In fact, the real predators are positioning themselves to take advantage of the mess, bargaining behind closed doors to divide up the spoils and offer troubled lenders a way out of their servicing-related overhead.

The industry would like Washington to believe that the closing of doors and shrinking profits are evidence of a market that can and will rid itself of bad or weak players. A few of the sub-prime lenders who made bad loans are going out of business and that seems to satisfy the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Chief Economist, Douglas G. Duncan. This is the same person who, in his prepared testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, had the gall to claim: “The primary reason for defaults are family and economic difficulties – not product choices.” To support this half-truth, he points to a Freddie Mac study that looked at reasons for delinquency based on data from their “Workout Prospector® system.” Here’s what his table of reasons looks like:

Unemployment or curtailment of Income 41.5%
Illness or Death in Family 22.8%
Excessive Obligation 10.4%
Marital Difficulties 8.4%
Extreme Hardship 3.3%
Property Problem or Casualty Loss 2.1%
Inability to sell or rent property 1.6%
Employment Transfer or Military Service 0.9%
All Other Reasons 9.0%

Of course the data is from 2002 through 2005 and doesn’t touch the 2006 disaster – but that’s not the disingenuous part. What isn’t going to be one of the options the users of “Workout Prospector®” can enter into the system would be things like “Predatory Loan,” “Borrower Scammed by Lender,” “Illegally constructed loan,” or “Opportunistic Servicer.” And let's not forget, most sub-prime loans aren't touched by either Freddie or Fannie, so the data is even more misleading.

Duncan goes on to promote the “everyone loses in a foreclosure” mythology, conveniently ignoring the fact that the home being foreclosed on is going to be sold to someone, and that someone is probably going to get a new loan to buy it.

He even put this jewel in his prepared testimony: “Servicers do not have an incentive to intentionally cause foreclosures, because profitability rests in keeping loans current and, as such, the interests of borrowers and lenders are mostly aligned.”

His duplicity is glaring; “profitability” for servicers involves far more than keeping loans current and a substantial portion of it comes from fees and charges (legitimate or otherwise). Not to mention the discounted acquisition price some servicers pay for loans the previous servicer doesn’t want to handle.

So at least in Senate Committee testimony, the industry is as fundamentally sly as they are in the loan origination process.

Which brings me back to the original point – the troubles in the sub-prime lending marketplace are going to land in the laps of the borrowers, not the lenders and servicers. Trust me, these predators are not going to slink back under a rock somewhere and not try to minimize their losses.

Washington is going be dancing to the tune of the lobbyists, and the lending industry will spend millions in the coming election year to make sure they don’t have too much interference. And in the mean time, they’re going to grind as many of the garbage loans into mulch as fast as they can.

Anyone with a sub-prime loan best be equipped to prove every stinkin’ payment and stay on top of every little detail in their loan every month. And you’d better at least find an attorney and get him or her ready, because you are a target, especially if you have equity in your home.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Y’all put stupid in the water or somethin’?

Leave it to the news media in the Lone Star State to turn a blind eye to things that affect Texas consumers. Two major legal cases are brewing, one that affects anyone who bought or buys a car in Texas and the other that shows just how ignorant the state is when it comes to identity-theft issues.

First, after years and years of legal wrangling, it looks like a settlement is going to be worked out on a case involving most, if not all of the members of the auto dealers association in Texas. Clever folks they are, they crafted a conspiracy to gouge car buyers by making it appear something called a “vehicle inventory tax” was a tax applied to the buyer at the time the car was sold.

The really crafty part was that the VIT is a tax the dealer pays – in effect, property taxes on their inventory, and there’s nothing that says that expense is to be itemized and specifically paid by the buyer at the time of sale. It’s simply part of the dealer’s business overhead. In a competitive environment, that tax may or may not have any effect on the price someone pays for a car. The ruse effectively made it look like the price was non-negotiable. Therein lies the rub. Gene Fondren, President of the Texas Auto Dealers Association circled the wagons back in 1994 and everyone in the association has been tacking on the VIT and making it look like it was something the state required the buyer to pay on the purchase documentation. It’s a bit like the dealer putting a line item on the sales documentation that shows the salesperson’s Social Security withholding for the deal and telling the buyer that the law required the buyer to pay it on top of the price of the car.

Along comes the suit way back in 1997 charging violations of the Clayton Act and the Sherman Act, and it crawled its way through the courts until a recent proposed settlement with most of the defendants. This Judge’s guess is they’ll wind up giving consumers a refund and stop showing it as a “tax” that the buyer is required to pay.

Over the last thirteen years, car buyers in Texas have been gouged – a little bit at a time, yes, but it adds up. And where’s the news coverage? Try doing a Google News search on “Texas Auto Dealers.” Zip. Nada. If the power of the auto industry ad budget isn’t alarming, it should be.

Much as no one in the Texas news media wants to look into the practices of some of the lending predators based in Texas, none of the news outlets wants to tackle the auto dealers and their millions of advertising dollars.

Wake up Texans - when you sign for a car, cross out the VIT and change the total. If they don't like it, get up and leave.

Then comes some skullduggery by some Texas corporations in obtaining drivers license and motor-vehicle data illegally. Instead of complying fully with the spirit of federal privacy laws, Texas will sell personal information to someone who claims they have a legitimate use for it. The gist of a recently-filed class-action suit is that when the Department of Public Safety or Department of Motor Vehicles sells information, they sell the whole database – without regard as to whether or not a person doesn’t want their private information sold or used.

The suit seeks damages from the companies that bought the data for all 20-million+ Texans in the database, and the statutory amount for each violation is $2,500.00. There are twelve defendants. All told, that could be $600 Billion. This ought to be fun.

Looking at the defendants makes it interesting to think about why they would want the personal information on all Texans who own and operate motor vehicles.

ACS State and Local Solutions is a division of Dallas-based automation outsourcing and services giant ACS. Part of what the company does is child support payment collections.

Fedchex is a payment processing and recovery/collections operation based in Irvine, CA.

Gila Corporation, dba Municipal Services Bureau is essentially a collection agent focusing on handling collections for municipalities. Gila is headquartered in Austin, TX.

Global 360 BGS, based in Dallas, provides technology services to a variety of public entities, including public retirement entities.

Centerpoint Energy, American Electric Power, TXU Business Services, Reliant Energy and Houston Electric Power are utilities or utility-related companies.

Southwestern Bell (SBC is becoming AT&T) is the major local phone company in Texas.

The Texas Motor Transportation Association is the state trucking industry trade group/lobbying organization, based in Austin.

The Industrial Foundation of America calls itself a “trade association” and operates under non-profit status. Based in Boerne, TX (near San Antonio), IFA is a data gathering and reporting entity that few, if any consumers or employees know of and only member companies (mostly energy and exploration related) use. Among the things IFA does: Pre-employment screening, accident history reports, criminal reports, motor vehicle reports, education verifications and credit reports.

There are 23 plaintiff’s listed in the suit and of course everyone in the Texas DMV and DPS databases is said to be a potential member of the class. But despite the case being filed January 10th, is there any word of any of this in the Texas press? Zip. Nada.

Given the amount of money energy companies are spending on advertising in the new "less-regulated" utilities market, it isn't any wonder the media isn't helping spread the word.

So at least in other parts of Texas, it appears to this court that all you have to do to avoid being exposed is make sure you spend a lot of money on advertising.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Mortgage-servicing Squaliforme takes yet another swing

The seemingly-endless legal saga of Robert John Wright passed another milestone on Tuesday, December 12th, more than 10 years since Bank of America and EMC Mortgage began their relentless and apparently illegal pursuit of his home.

Looking at what’s available in the court records, one can discern that Wright has not only done a lot of his own work over the years (including an appeal to the Supreme Court) but he’s also had a number of attorneys from time to time over the years, including Washington DC’s “Pro bono lawyer of the year,” Rawle Andrews. As it turns out, looking at the case histories in the Dallas courthouse, he’s even been represented by one of the area’s most prestigious firms – for a while, that is.

That’s what probably tripped him up in the long run. The more EMC spent the more they couldn’t afford to lose. They have to spend everything it takes, and obviously will; a precedent ruling against EMC in these cases could attract the plaintiff’s bar in very large numbers.

In one facet of the on-going brush war, Michael Swartzendruber of Fulbright and Jaworski’s Dallas office testified EMC brought F&J in because of who was representing Wright at that time, one Bobby Rubbarts of Hughes and Luce. Good lawyerin’ costs big bucks in that part of Texas.

But Wright, of course, was penniless (he more recently has filed an indigency motion to obtain a transcript of his trial, so that status apparently hasn’t changed), and Rubbarts must have thought there was plenty of fire under all the smoke being generated by EMC’s counsel of record at that time.

Rubbarts took on the Wright case pro bono in 2003, EMC added F&J to their team and the trial actually got going in early December of 2004. After the Judge appeared to run out of patience and time during the trial, she ordered them back into a third settlement conference which took place just before Christmas of '04.

They apparently reached an accord but Wright was disputing that in later filings. According to the property tax rolls, EMC obtained the property in January of 2005. According to the msfraud.com forum, Wright has apparently been in the house since then and is now out.

What went wrong with the settlement is the subject of yet another round of motions and hearings that surfaced in late 2005 and have crawled along ever since, with one of the appeals ending in a rather bizarre scenario if one reads the appeals court ruling – he apparently didn’t pay the fee at the time he filed the appeal. The court record of the dismissal says he was notified twice but given the stakes involved it’s hard to imagine he’d have come this far and then simply let it drop by not paying the fee. But stranger things have happened in this case.

Wright also filed a bankruptcy petition (pro se), late in October, apparently in part to stave off the earlier massive legal-expense ruling he lost. EMC won a round that is still destined for appeal and went after Wright for F&J’s legal expenses. We’re talking well into six-figures in legal expenses for just F&J’s team which is led by Swartzendruber.

EMC, through F&J of course, filed and obtained a lift of the automatic stay after a hearing. Turns out, though, Wright isn’t the owner any more and hasn’t been since January of 2005. To make a long story shorter, EMC apparently obtained a Writ of Possession a few weeks ago.

Now, to say EMC was stupid in this case is an understatement. All told, in ten years, this squaliforme has probably poured out nearly a half-million dollars in legal expenses alone, knowing full well it will never recoup them. At a time where lenders are allegedly worried about the growth in foreclosures, they were willing to spend anything to get this house (which is on the tax rolls for $240,340). Even the $6M loss to the Starks hasn't persuaded them to change the way they play the equity-theft game.

From this distance, it seems All EMC would have had to have done is fix some rather simple accounting screw-ups that Bank of America made when EMC bought the loan. But that isn’t what EMC is in the business to do. In most cases, they get the property and equity much faster. As with most cases that actually involve a lawsuit, they decided to try and spend Wright into oblivion, and when they ran up against attorneys willing to put up a fight, they had to keep spending and spending. Which means there is plenty to hide. Stealing people’s homes can be expensive business and is best done out of the light of day.

Something tells me it ain’t over.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

The action actor plays the fool

The recent media coverage of the "plight" of action-star Wesley Snipes has shed a little mainstream-news light on the schemers who lure people into the legal mythology sometimes referred to as the "patriot" or "sovereign" movement.

In this through-the-looking glass legal lalla-land, old conspiracies seem to gain new life every few years. They get ressurected and thrive on gullible people who really want to believe in them, and the operators of schemes have learned how to put the right spin on some very old and very tired (but completely legally debunked) mythology, including not having to pay income taxes.

There are too many of these crazies to list here (but at the left you can find most of them at the Quatloos site), and in the grand scheme of things, they really don't have a statistically-significant army of followers who will do anything other than read and comment as opposed to act on the recommendations. Some of the promoters are in prison or about to be or are under investigation. Others exhibit simple confused ramblings or completely incoherent and bizarre theories. They argue (colorfully sometimes) among themselves about who has the most successes. A few try to make a living off convincing people they can get out of everything from traffic tickets to income taxes.

Somehow, Snipes found himself listening to an acolyte/promoter of one of the anti-IRS "don't have to pay tax" schemes, one Eddie Kahn. Another long-term promoter of legal nonsense, Barton Buhtz, is being roped in with Eddie and their "defense" is studded with the typical legal absurdities so common to these myths.

In order to understand how far out of reality these promoters operate, one has to step into the realm of believing a long string of utterly absurd conspiracy theories that tie non-existent events together into a tangle of legal nonsense. You also have to ignore competent legal advice and assume the entire judicial structure of the US doesn't really have any authority over you if you just do and say the right things.

A combination of ignorance (in part due to lack of educational focus), an innate desire to believe in conspiracies and of course the Internet itself have created a fertile field for scheme promoters. Years ago, they sold a few books and cassette tapes through word-of-mouth and might have even sold seats in seminars. Now they have the Internet and find a new audience every day.

And it's all just "educational material," and protected free speech, right up until some poor fool winds up trying their new, super-duper-secret strategy in a real legal setting. They make themselves appear not only guilty, but in a few cases even mentally unfit to stand trial. As one Judge put it, the defendant might as well have tried to convince the court that the earth was flat. The defendant wasn't happy about that at all; the "attorney in black robes" was supposed to have simply rolled over and played dead and dismissed the charges under the onslaught of legal accumen. After all, that's what all those guys who post their stories on various forums say happened when they used whoever's method.

Some are less dangerous than others. Some admit they haven't actually tried their techniques in court but of course have heard of lots of successes (which for privacy reasons, they really can't list the actual case cite). One David Van Pelt of Colorado Springs goes by the name of David Merrill (in part to disassociate himself with a prior federal conviction in the Montana Freeman fiasco). He wanders in and out of coherent thought on various Internet forums and on sites he maintains. A short review of his writings, methods and strategies is enough to convince the vast majority of readers that he is truly delusional or at most, just a harmless nut. But someone who doesn't have much common sense or hasn't studied some of the more bizarre nonsense may be lured into trying things that result in being prosecuted.

Of course, Van Pelt risks nothing in trying to get people to try and discern what he's talking about long enough to try his methods; few of these kinds of fiction writers ever do face suit or prosecution unless one of their client/followers (like Snipes) raises their theory to the level of doing things like defrauding the government based on what they have advised.

And a fool willing to try these kinds of things in civil matters (like debt collections or foreclosure) will have unclean hands trying to go after the author/promoter when they lose their case.

So all one can hope to do is warn reasonable folks that taking advice from people who promote unsound and irrational conspiracy-driven legal nonsense is the path to more trouble, not less.

Just ask Wesley Snipes - in a few months.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Bank of America’s “Higher Standards”

Before you walk in to your “friendly neighborhood” BofA branch to deposit a check, you better beware that at least in California, if they decide to have you falsely arrested and jailed, you can’t sue them for what they did.

A San Fransisco man found that out the hard way when he went into a BofA with a check made out to him – a check that turned out to be written by an unauthorized party on a company account. Matthew Shinnick thought he had sold his bicycles on Craigslist and didn’t want to deposit the check in his own account just in case it might bounce and hit his account with yet another creative bank fee. So he asked the teller to verify that it would clear and after a few moments, she told him it would.

Shinnick’s primary mistake was deciding to cash it instead of just depositing it. Maybe he thought having the cash in hand was better than risking a stop-payment some days in the future (and yet another bank fee). Maybe he thought that because the bank said the check wouldn’t bounce that it was good.

Either way, what he didn’t know was what the bank knew. Yes, there was money in the account to cover the check, but the check itself was bogus. The account the check was drawn on was actually flagged for potential fraudulent use. He endorsed it and the teller took it to her manager.

Four police officers soon had him in handcuffs and later led him away to jail where he spent twelve hours as a guest of the City of San Francisco crowded into a tiny holding cell with way too many other men.

And of course the charges were eventually dropped and a Judge has taken the steps to expunge all records of the case, but Shinnick and anyone else who raises the eyebrows of BofA branch employees and gets arrested for it can’t sue for false arrest. Turns out the California Supreme Court decided that criminal reports are privileged communication. Basically, institutions aren’t liable for reporting suspected crimes. (Hagberg v. California Federal Bank.)

With all the check-scamming going on, especially the typical Nigerian 419-style tricks, any time you get a check from someone you don’t know very well, don’t take it into a California bank, especially a BofA.

And even if you do just endorse it and deposit it, don’t assume that just because the money shows up as being in your account that they can’t come back and take it if it turns out to be bogus some days down the road. You might find yourself in the hole. That's still a better hole than the one the Police will put you in, though!

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Well, a hopeful message for borrowers – maybe

The Squaliformes' bought-and-paid-for congressional committee chair, Bob Ney has finally seen the light and won’t be running for reelection. Hopefully his pro-Squaliforme agenda will see less influence in the coming legislative sessions.

Amazingly, the blame is being put on the Abramoff scandal instead of the more devious but blatant efforts to undermine consumer protections at the behest of predatory lenders and servicers.

Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to federal corruption charges. Ney received gifts and other benefits in exchange for legislative action to benefit his clients, but unlike Abramoff, the lending industry’s massive campaign contributions and lobbyist's influence (including actually writing his legislative efforts) are seemingly above investigation.

At least there is some satisfaction in the public exposure that the Squaliformes knew quite well who they could effectively manipulate in their cultivation of Ney.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

The thing that wouldn't die

As the Dorean Group saga grinds on in seeming perpetuity through the court, the "victims" of the scheme are also facing the music. Consider the judgment against Greg Poppin, of California, who got a trust set up in Johnson & Heineman's swindle for a property in Grass Valley.

After ordering the bogus Dorean documents cancelled, rendered void and expunged from the county records, the judge left it up to the Plaintiff (lender) as to whether they could go ahead and foreclose, or in addition, collect damages jointly and severally against Heineman, Johnson and Poppin in the amount of nearly $390,000 (plus interest) and over $16,000 in attorney's fees and costs. All of which stands there and collects interest until paid. With the perpetrators incarcerated and facing long sentences, Poppin (the client) was left to face the music.

So another one of the faithful falls on the Dorean sword, while Johnson (or at least someone who purports to be him) posts ever-more bizarre religious dogma on his blog. In between pumping up the martyr angle, he languishes in a California jail generating hundreds of pages of legal drivel with his partner on government-supplied notebook computers.

A lot of what Johnson and Heineman rail on about contains little more than plagiarized cut and paste nonsense from die-hard radicals who have tried for decades to convince their merry band of sycophants they really aren't who they are, the law isn't the law and the whole US Government is bogus, including the court system. If one believes Johnson, Christ has sent angels to burn down judge's homes and continues to counsel him.

This kind of nonsense is even a profitable venture for some. For a few, it's not much more than a notably silly hobby, complete with inane ramblings on multiple web sites that typically espouse almost every conspiracy they can allude to and some that are truly delusional and even completely imaginary. Some of it is quite possibly a strange on-line laboratory experiment; a game of wits vs. half-wits where someone is testing to see just how gullible people can be.

A lot of it is so far out even the late-night AM radio bastion of whacky theories (the Art Bell "Coast to Coast" show) won't give them credence - and that is telling. Thus they're relegated to the Internet, CD's, books and DVD's, group meetings and a handful of hysterically funny public demonstrations. And let us not forget the laughable court filings.

In this culture of self-induced paranoia, the arguments don't evolve; they mutate. Context be damned. Definitions of words can be argued for days, weeks, months. The cycle of lunacy repeats itself when a theory dies under its own weight of stupidity but someone new (or under another name) comes along later and dredges up an old post or link and fans the flames once again.

Proponents and authors of such crap sometimes wind up in actual trouble with the law. Then they often find themselves ruled against in the very courts they've been telling people don't have jurisdiction over them. I suppose we're forced to chalk that one up to deeper and more sinister conspiracies among the Judges and the attorneys.

A lot of the courts are just too damn sympathetic with these nut balls. The amount of time invested in reading some of the voluminous BS and writing some of the more detailed rulings is astonishing. And because it's available on the Internet, the garbage proliferates and shows up in other cases.

I, on the other hand, have freed my court of such burdens. There's a setting on the ol' Acme cattle-prod from 1 to 5. The more pages of loony drivel I have to read, the higher the setting gets. (On "5" the spark can go clean through several pages on its way through the fool's buttock.)

I'm thinking of sending my backup unit to the Northern District of California. Judge Alsup may be able to persuade Johnson and Heineman to move things along a bit.

Data Schemers Get Nipped at by FTC

As pointed out some time ago by placing him among those on my Squaliformes “Hall of Shame” list, Jay Patel’s hunger for private information to sell about other people is seemingly endless.

He may have to go on a little bit of a data-diet. Not to worry for Jay and his gang, the toothless FTC won't put him (or them) out of business; that would send a signal to all data whores that the Feds are serious about privacy, and doing that wouldn't sit well with the movers and shakers in Washington.

It looks like the FTC has moved to act against Patel and his firm (AccuSeach / Abika) by charging him and four other Squaliforme enablers with violations of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The FTC says they were using or causing others to use, “false pretenses, fraudulent statements, fraudulent or stolen documentation or other misrepresentations, including posing as a customer of a telecommunications carrier, to induce officers, employees, or agents of telecommunications carriers to disclose confidential customer phone records."

Joining in on the scheme and being outed in the FTC suits are also “77 Investigations,” run by Reg Kimbro (in either Upland, California or Broomfield, Colorado), David Kacala’s Baltimore-based “Information Search,” “Integrity Security and Investigation Services” in Yorktown, VA, and last but not least, Scott Joseph’s “CEO Group”(Check Em Out) out of Ft. Lauderdale.

Half the fun will be the FTC’s effort to get the money they all made from the scheme. In that little dance, maybe the FTC might even find out who was buying the information and keeping these crooks in business.

'Round here, that would be only a good start. But with the FTC playing the sleeping-dog role in so many information privacy issues when financial services firms are at the controls in Congress, it's unlikely the penalty will actually put anyone out of business. So the settlements, like so many other alleged prosecutions, will simply show the rest of them how to navigate the waters.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Wounded Squaliforme Changes Course - Sort Of

Mega-Squaliforme Ameriquest's parent company has cut thousands of Ameriquest employees and closed its retail office storefront lending operations.

That's the good news. Hundreds of thousands of consumers are in slightly less danger for the time being.

The bad news is there are now at least a thousand ex-Ameriquest loan agents who may start showing up at the doorsteps of other, less unscrupulous lenders. It will be interesting to see what companies are willing to jepoardize their own already-dubious reputations by letting some of these people stay in the lending industry.

'Round here, any former Ameriquest employee is not to be trusted, let alone hired. After all, you have to be really flexible in terms of moral turpitude to stay working for a Squaliforme of that magnitude.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Sales 101

Imagine ol’ Bean could offer you a product at very low cost that would instantly generate incremental (that’s over and above existing for the accounting challenged) revenue and profits for your business.

What if this very low-cost product would more than pay for itself in the first month you bought it? And that every month after the first month, the increased revenue is guaranteed to keep coming in? And unlike some products, you won’t have to add staff, rent more space, buy more phones, fax machines or copiers – none of that.

It’s the salesperson’s dream product – the prospect can’t say “no.”

How could you not buy this product? You’d be crazy not to; your board of directors and the stockholders would toss your dumbass out if you didn’t buy that product. If you found some mid-level manager in your company who decided not to buy this product, you’d have some serious “evaluating” to do with that manager’s department head – right after getting the product ordered.

No doubt about it. No senior decision-level executive is going to let an opportunity like this get by – especially the squaliformes.

The sleeping watchdogs over at the FTC are looking at yet another mortgage-related scam involving how PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) rates are being jacked up by insurers who happen to buy a product from the credit-reporting squaliformes – without telling the consumer, of course.

This handy-dandy product just happens to be information that may or may not be accurate, but it sure does give the insurer’s revenue and profits a nice boost, and since the consumer has no clue as to what was in the product, they are simply stuck with the inflated insurance premium.

Now we can rest assured the squaliformes will attempt to imply that negative credit information means their risk is raised so they should be able to raise premiums. But one only has to ask the question if anyone’s premiums were ever lowered because of looking for improved credit data?

Hmmmm. That’s just not one of the products available – probably because it’s never been asked for. After all, who would buy a product that reduces revenue and profits?

The Weird-scam Capitol of the US

Far be it from this Honorable Court to pick on other, less fortunately endowed territories, but there comes a time when even this Judge’s favorite ski destination must take a hard look in the mirror.

Granted, on a per-square mile basis, there aren’t a lot of people who live in most of Utah, but among those that do, there are some of the oddest of the kooks, and this most recent series of incidents indicates, at least to this court, that the inmates are soon to be in control of the asylum.

Not content to be just the home of the whacky polygamist splinter-faction of the Mormon church (a shared “distinction” with Arizona), Utah is home to some of the fastest-growing financial scams ever devised. Anything to do with “affinity marketing” seems to work in Utah so just by living there you can count on being a neighbor to a serial MLM’er.

And garden-variety silliness in the legal lalla-land seems to have found a home in Utah.

Take for example, something called the “Western Arbitration Council,” who set up shop in Sandy, Utah (which appears on maps as a suburb to the Capitol, Salt Lake City).

Scammers have used the WAC to pull all kinds of stupid pet tricks, including one couple in Kansas who pulled one of these worthless “awards” against the insurance company that bonds the bankruptcy Trustee overseeing their Chapter 7 filing. They got sentenced to 18 months for mail and bankruptcy fraud.

Another whacko in California, one Curtis Richmond, has been dancing a rain dance in multiple Federal courts with alleged arbitration awards from the WAC, including one for over fifteen-million against Citibank. His similar scam against EFS Bank has landed him in a contempt hearing after being ordered to stop filing stupid motions and letters in the case he lost with prejudice. He really gets around – he has an “award” against the Colorado Supreme Court, too and is filing yet another action in an Arizona court to get yet another body to read even more gibberish about the Citibank case.

And what do these all have in common, other than the bogus WAC “awards?”

It only gets “WACkier”. Turns out Richmond fancies himself as a member of something called the “Wampanoag Nation, Tribe of Grayhead, Wolf Band.”* One Dale Stevens of Vernal, Utah, is not only Chief, he’s also a “Supreme Court Judge.” And yet another nutball from that area of the State, one Thomas Smith, is a member of the tribe as well as the Chief Tribal Judge – AND – director of arbitration for the WAC.

Another of Vernal’s band of fools, tribe member James Burbank, doesn’t believe the law about license plates and driver’s licenses applies to him because of his membership in the “tribe.” When the state impounded his vehicle he, too, got an “award” from the WAC against the county officials.

And if that isn’t fun enough, out in Hawaii, one outfit known as “Americorp International LLC,” was before the Hawaii Real Estate Commission trying to get approved, but there was this little hang-up: A little IRS matter involving one Bruce Travis, who seemed to be trying to convince the Commission (unsuccessfully, by the way) that the WAC had issued an judgment against the IRS on his behalf, essentially voiding a $247,000 assessment. But only recently, Travis has changed tactics, and is now suing the IRS (again) on the basis that they never provided him with legitimate assessments for taxes since 1996. His prior, similar suit was dismissed and of interest is the fact that it’s an almost identical copy of about twelve other suits from tax protesters around the country.

This court has to wonder if the source of their “legal expertise” came out of Utah.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

*Not to be confused with the legitimate Wampanoa Tribe of Gay Head http://www.wampanoagtribe.net

Big Squaliformes Must Eat in Volume

You can’t make the numbers (and a career) at Ameriquest without some really heavy origination volume. So much so that when the going gets tough, the typical hyper-motivated (greedy) Ameriquest brokers swing into their creativity act.

A recent Utah case filed in Federal Court is yet another stunning example of how far these Squaliformes will go in luring victims into loans they know are going to result in foreclosure, AND, of course, yet another opportunity for the REO and lending industry as a whole.

Marian Paul fell into the Ameriquest maw in March of 2005, after being lured by mailers into calling to get information about a mortgage loan to repay a $4,000 debt.

Very late one evening, only a few days after receiving several calls from Ameriquest, two of the Squaliformes’ employees showed up unannounced at her Salt Lake City home.

They not only lied to her about the terms of the deal (telling her she was saving a lot of money compared to what she could get at her credit union), when she told them she wanted to wait to let her daughter read over the terms, they told her she had to sign that night because they couldn’t come back.

Paul ended up with a $60,000.00 Ameriquest loan that paid off her lower-interest credit union loan and her auto loan – without her knowledge.

The fact that she is a 73 year old widow with cataracts, has little or no formal education and does not read English well must have been the icing on the cake for the daring team of Ameriquest employees who set this one into action.

Predictably, in November of 2005, another Squaliforme bought the predatory loan, (Deutsche Bank National Trust), and immediately put the loan in default.

Given the giant sub-prime Squaliformes’ well-deserved reputation for sleazy lending practices, this one will probably never make it all the way to a jury trial. But, hopefully the court records will reveal who the individual perpetrators of this one are prior to the settlement and closing of the case.

In this court, there won’t be any privacy for the likes of these scum.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

It’s Taxpayer “Hunting Season” over at H&R Block/HSBC

Hurry, hurry – get those tax filings in – and it’s soooooo easy to get your refund fast with electronic filing through H&R Block.

But before you fall victim to HSBC’s heavily promoted program to basically loan you your tax return early, consider what one poster at the creditinfocenter forums (see link at left) discovered by taking the time to read the fine print:

By clicking I AGREE below I am indicating that I have read, understand and agree to the Application, including but not limited to: (a) [b] Section 9 in which I agree that HSBC may use amounts received from my tax refund to pay delinquent debts I owe HSBC or others.

Clever these Squaliformes are, eh? I particularly like the "or others" end of the scheme. Wonder how "the others" are getting notified that people are filing their taxes and getting refunds? Maybe a little too much cooperation.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean

Dodging Responsibility - How the Game is Played, NY Style.

A news item out of New York, home to none other than alleged consumer-advocate but mostly presidential-wannabe Eliot Spitzer, caught the Court’s attention only briefly, but after a few nights sleep, the Court is hereby convened in the case of the People v. The New York Consumer Protection Board and the New York State Bar Association.

Without elaborating in the case style, the complaint now before this Court is:

Whereas, instead of aggressively enforcing state laws and bar association tenets regarding the actions of debt collectors and their law firms, the Board (with the apparent blessing of the Bar Association) is engaging in an effort to combat abusive debt-collection practices by educating consumers.

According to a quote in the story, agency spokesman John Sorensen said: "People who owe money have to repay debts, but they should also know they have rights under the law."

So to avoid the hard, dirty work of confronting bottom-feeding law firms and the Echeneidae Collectoris they front for, the Board will spend tax dollars to put on a show for various community groups around the state to inform them about their rights.

The court has seen in camera a pre-release version of the training video, and submits a transcript of it into evidence to wit:

New York: “See the man with the gun?”

Consumer/victim: “Uhh, that one?”

New York: “Yes, that one. The one with the loaded gun pointed at
you.”

Consumer/victim: “Yes, I see him.”

New York: “Good. Keep an eye on him. You have rights.”

Consumer/victim: “Why is he pointing the gun at me?”

New York: “He wants something from you.”

Consumer/victim: “What does he want?”

New York: “Probably money.”

Consumer/victim: “But I don’t even know him.”

New York: “That doesn’t matter. He says he knows you. In fact, he knows all about you.”

Consumer/victim: “I didn’t think you could own a handgun in New York.”

New York: “You can’t.”

Consumer/victim: “But he can?”

New York: “Nope. And we’re warning you that it’s illegal to own a handgun.”

Consumer/victim: “But you won’t do anything to him?”

New York: “He’s an attorney. And he hasn’t used it yet, has he?”

Consumer/victim: “Well, sort of. I think he’s threatening me with it.”

New York: “But he hasn’t shot you, has he?”

Consumer/victim: “Not yet. I guess he won’t shoot if I give him what he wants.”

New York: “Probably not. If he does, be sure to dial 911.”

Consumer/victim: “I hope someone will.”

New York: “Consider yourself informed. Our work here is done.”

Not exactly how we'd handle it 'round here. Any member of the aforesaid Board who sets foot on this side of the Pecos is in for a rude and short grand-tour of the jail follwed by a week's hard labor over at the county dump.

And for members of the NY Bar Association, don't expect to appear pro hac vice in my court until you clean up your own house up there.

A special admonishment to Mr. Spitzer's office is in order here. In the same news article, a spokeswoman for the AG indicated that there are two investigations going on into the actions of the Echeneidae Collectoris operating in New York.

The court admonishes the AG's office for abject failure to perform it's role - only two out of the thousands of Echeneidae Collectoris skulking around in New York are being investigated? That's a major blunder on the part of the spokesperson for revealing that absurdly low number, when even the BBB (another toothless watchdog) indicates collection complaints are number three on its list. But of course, in the eyes of the BBB anyone complaining about Echeneidae Collectoris has to be some kind of deadbeat trying to get out of paying what they owe.

Perhaps as the presidential election approaches, Mr. Spitzer's office will find room for a few more announcements about investigations, even if they never turn into actual prosecutions with real penalties.

Hint to the NY AG: Do a Google Search on "Orazio Lembo." The folks over there in NJ have a long list of Echeneidae Collectoris and their NY law firms who willingly participated.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean.

Abramoff – Not the First, Certainly Not the Last

The smell up yonder in Washington finally got strong enough for somebody to kick someone's ass to do something, and what'ya know - they’ve found the perfect deep-pocketed, well-connected fall-guy, Jack Abramoff.

And hopefully, there are going to be some members of Congress and the Senate dragged into the light of day for not only dealing with Abramoff, but with other lobbyists who basically pave the streets with money, dealing in favors and perks for the powerful.

At the top of the list of tainted lawmakers, scurrying now like roaches when the light comes on, is none other than the man identified as “Number 1” in the investigation, Bob Ney, Republican Congressman from Ohio.

What most of the news media is swarming around is the Congressman’s position as Chairman of the House Administration Committee, all the while being led in that direction because of Ney’s handling of election reform issues the committee deals with. That, it seems, will always get the media’s attention because the news media believes it, not the average person, should steer elections and their results.

But under that umbrella, Ney’s far more profound impact on the average consumer will probably be kept out of the rain of publicity it so richly deserves.

As will his other cozy lobbyist pal, Wright Andrews of the Butera Andrews “law” firm, a lobbying powerhouse for many of the financial services firms and their associations. Saying Andrews is a Squaliforme promoter doesn’t do him, or them justice. Suffice it to say, nothing that Andrews and the Squaliformes don’t like will end up in a bill that comes out of Ney’s Financial Services Sub-committee.

In the guise of standardizing the patchwork of laws that have cropped up because of deliberate stalling of real lending reform efforts, Andrews has Ney promoting something called the “Responsible Lending Act,” which is little more than a nation-wide license for Squaliformes to supersede state laws that protect consumers.

Having stepped down (as in, ousted) from the House Administration Chairmanship, it isn’t yet clear whether or not Ney will get to keep his Chairmanship of the Financial Services Committee.

Hopefully, Andrews’ key to the kingdom and shepherd of the Squaliformes’ “Responsible Lending Act” will be forced from office and more appropriate pro-consumer legislation can find its way out of the stranglehold the industry has had on the committee.

The Honorable Judge Roy Bean