You Should Intentionally Default: President Obama

Well, ok, maybe not quite that explicit, but....

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration may expand efforts to ease the housing crisis by banning all foreclosures on home loans unless they have been screened and rejected by the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program. [emphasis in original]

The proposal, reviewed by lenders last week on a White House conference call, “prohibits referral to foreclosure until borrower is evaluated and found ineligible for HAMP or reasonable contact efforts have failed,” according to a Treasury Department document outlining the plan.

Contract rights don't matter, law doesn't matter, we'll just ignore all of that pesky stuff when we don't like it.

Can Obama even do this? Wouldn't it take an act of Congress? How will you spend your mortgage payments each month? Maybe buy a mobile home or a big comfy tent?

Eventually the axe will fall.

As stated in the original story, be sure to consult an attorney before doing something as fucking drastic as defaulting on your home loan.

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Note: Headline links to source. Clicking on image will enlarge it (usually).

White House Fails Self-Examination

Jack Abramoff
It seems the White House "investigated" itself and, surprise, found nothing irregular.

A glimpse of what "internal review" means to this White House supports the theory that top Bush aides have little interest in self-examination or public disclosure.

After a Sept. 2006 Congressional report based on records from convicted influence peddler Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm revealed 485 contacts between Abramoff and his associates and White House officials, then-press secretary Tony Snow promised White House lawyers would take a "good hard look" at the relationship with Abramoff. "We'll let you know what they found out," Snow said. "That's an important concern, and it's worth looking into."

Four days later, an assistant to political guru Karl Rove was jettisoned from the White House. Susan Ralston, who had worked for Abramoff before Rove, had accepted tickets to nine events from her old boss while providing him information and access.

And with that, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino announced: Our review of the House Government Reform Committee's report is complete. . . . We expect nothing more after our thorough review."

How thorough was that review? A new Abramoff report released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday -- this one based on documents and testimony from White House officials -- finds no evidence of any review at all.

Anytime there is no evidence, ya gotta be fucking suspicious, right? Just asking.

Note: Headline links to source.

WH to Offer Troop Cuts, Sorta

Yes its basically a shell game. They'll remove some troops, but it only means the number will fall back to before the SURGE™ began.

The scoop of the day award goes to The New York Times for breaking the story of what the White House plan will be in September after Gen. David H. Petraeus delivers his report [wink, wink] on progress in Iraq.

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Steven Lee Meyers and Thom Shanker pen the front-page scoop for the Times with the news that the White House will propose gradual troop cuts beginning next year, but they're expected to fall well short of Congress' demands. The goal is not to end the war, but to counter public pressure for a quick and total withdrawal and try to win support for "a sustainable footing" at least through the end of President George W. Bush's term in office. Although it will be billed as a new strategy -- what is that, the seventh now? -- it doesn't much sound like it, as it would probably return troop levels to the 130,000-strong force in Iraq before the surge, which is unsustainable past April 2008 anyway because of deployment requirements, according to the Pentagon. It is a new strategy in order to keep wavering Republicans in Congress on board, however. What's unclear is how the mission for the remaining troops might change.

So basically they are saying, "Hey, Amurcins are too stoopid to unerstan' what we're reely doin'."

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Iran says it has uncovered spy networks of U.S. and its allies 'infiltrating' from Iraq

This should come as no surprise to anyone. And why won't the White House just lie about it like they do everything else?

Iran said Saturday it has uncovered spy rings organized by the United States and its Western allies, claiming on state-run television that the espionage networks were made up of “infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers.”

The Intelligence Ministry has “succeeded in identifying and striking blows at several spy networks comprised of infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers in western, southwestern and central Iran,” said the statement, using shorthand for United States and its allies.

The broadcast did not elaborate, saying further details would be published within days.

Meanwhile, the state IRNA news agency said the uncovered networks “enjoyed guidance from intelligence services of the occupying powers in Iraq” and also that “Iraqi groups” were “involved in the case.”

The White House said Saturday that it does not confirm or deny allegations about intelligence matters.

And ABC News told them about it already. Sheesh.

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

"I can't confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime," said Bruce Riedel, a recently retired CIA senior official who dealt with Iran and other countries in the region.

And what's with all this "confirm or deny" nonsense? Whatever happened to "no comment".

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U.S. intelligence report says Iraq perilous

I have no reason to doubt the new NIE report is correct. Although I believe they should have addressed the issue of civil war in Iraq.

The situation in Iraq is perilous, with Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence surpassing al Qaeda as the most immediate threat to U.S. goals, according to a long-awaited intelligence report, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

The 90-page document came to no conclusion over whether the conflict in Iraq has become a civil war, but the authors expressed uncertainly over whether Iraqi leaders would be able to transcend the sectarian divide to fight extremism and establish functioning national institutions, the Post reported.

Iran, which the White House has accused of fuelling the bloodshed, is mentioned in the document -- the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq -- but it does not focus on Iran, the Post said.

Of course they don't really have a great track record, do they? Just asking.

The 2002 estimate said Iraq had arsenals of chemical and biological weapons -- a claim that proved to be false after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

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Global warming: the 'spin'

Of course we all knew this. I've posted a few times on this suppression of information or outright false statements being fed to US.

Federal scientists have been pressured by the White House to play down global warming, advocacy groups testified Tuesday at the Democrats' first investigative hearing since taking control of Congress.

The hearing focused on allegations that White House officials for years have micromanaged the government's climate programs and has closely controlled what scientists have been allowed to tell the public.

"It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change," said Rep. Henry Waxman D-Calif. Waxman is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a critic of the Bush administration's environmental policies, including its views on climate.

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At the House hearing, two private advocacy groups produced a survey of 279 government climate scientists showing that many of them say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the climate threat. Their complaints ranged from a challenge to using the phrase "global warming" to raising uncertainty on issues on which most scientists basically agree, to keeping scientists from talking to the media.

The survey and separate interviews with scientists "has brought to light numerous ways in which U.S. federal climate science has been filtered, suppressed and manipulated in the last five years," Francesca Grifo, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the committee.

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