Yesterday, I mentioned the stupidity of David Axelrod regarding his remarks defending banks' foreclosure fraud.  It was worse, but not by much, that the president's statement that the bill H.R.3808 he refused to sign was legislated by elected officials on Capitol Hill with the best intentions.  Say what????  

That bill, passed at warp speed without public debate, homeowners advocates warned, would have made it more difficult to challenge fraudulent foreclosure attempts by big mortgage processors.   

What does that say about the administration and a Democratic majority Congress coming down on the side of banks who are committing crimes and illegally throwing people out of their houses?   These are supposed to be Democrats?????  Not in my book.  These are DINOs.

As Zach Carter wrote at Our Future:  "If senior White House adviser David Axelrod’s comments this weekend are any indication, the Obama administration is woefully misreading the foreclosure fraud crisis currently gripping the U.S. economy. Axelrod refused to commit the administration to a national moratorium on foreclosures, and mischaracterized a massive, systematic fraud perpetrated by Wall Street banks as a set of unfortunate “mistakes.”

The full transcript of Axelrod’s appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation with Bob Shieffer is here, but here are his key comments, emphasis mine:

“It’s bad for the housing market and it’s bad for these institutions which is why they’re scrambling now to-- to go back through and-- and-- and through their documentation for all of this as they should. The President was concerned enough to veto a bill that came to him last Thursday, that would have unintentionally made it perhaps easier to make mistakes. . . . I’m not sure about a national moratorium because there are, in fact, valid foreclosures that-- that-- that probably should go forward. And where the documentation and paperwork is-- is proper, but we are working closely with these institutions to make sure that they expedite the process of going back and reconstructing these and throwing out those that don’t work . . . . Our hope is that this moves rapidly and that this gets unwound very, very quickly.”

Let’s straighten some facts out first. Lenders aren’t just making “mistakes”—they’re fabricating documents, forging signatures and lying to judges in order to illegally throw people out of their homes and slap them with thousands of dollars in illegal fees. Consumer advocates were not worried that the bill Obama vetoed on Friday would make it easier for lenders to make “mistakes”—they were worried it would make it harder to expose rampant, systematic fraud committed by Wall Street banks against American families.

Nor is this a problem that can be resolved quickly. Banks are resorting to fraud for a reason—they don’t have the documents that prove they have the right to foreclose. It’s not like JPMorgan Chase or GMAC need to dig through a filing cabinet to find the right form—the form doesn’t exist. Banks willfully, knowingly destroyed key documentation in order to cut costs and boost bonuses. Other banks that bundled these mortgages into complex securities didn’t ask for this documentation for the same reasons.

What’s more, Axelrod’s comments put the White House on the same side as Republican Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., a Wall Street crony who voted to bailout the big banks with no strings attached....."

Roger Bybee at Working In These Times weighs in:

"You have to wonder what the Obama Administration is thinking when it argues that banks should not be punished for violations of homeowner rights during foreclosure proceedings, despite proven abuses. As the NY Times reported,

" 'The swelling outcry over fast-and-loose foreclosures has thrust the Obama administration back into the uncomfortable position of sheltering the banking industry from the demands of an angry public.' "

"Given recent history, much of the public perceives that Dems are unwilling to fight tenaciously for their interests."

The public, especially the Democratic base, is disappointed, disgusted, and angry with this administration and the Dem majority in Congress caving to Republicans, and acting like DINOs, not real Democrats fighting for the common good.

The Carter's, the Bybee's, and so many progressive others have offered, ad infinitum, suggestions, ideas, strategies for successful populist governing, a 21st century New Deal, to the lack of governing instincts Obama administration and the failed Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill.  All have been rejected or ignored, and the progressive base scorned and vilified.  

The following sums it up.

Walden Bello at Foreign Policy in Focus (via Common Dreams) includes this in his "Lessons of the Obama Debacle":

"....the sixth reason for the Obama debacle: his failure to mobilize the grassroots base that brought him to power. This base was diverse in terms of class, generation, and ethnicity. But it was united by palpable enthusiasm, which was so evident in Washington, DC, and the rest of the country on Inauguration Day in 2009. With his preference for a technocratic approach and a bipartisan solution to the crisis, Obama allowed this base to wither away instead of exploiting the explosive momentum it possessed in the aftermath of the elections.   

"At the eleventh hour, Obama and the Democrats are talking about firing up and resurrecting this base. But the dispirited and skeptical troops that have long been disbanded and left by the wayside rightfully ask: around what?"