South Carolina

I’ll be the first to admit the incredible aggravation I feel whenever liberty is trampled upon by the state’s obedient minions.  Everywhere you look, government has its gun cocked back and ready to fire at any deviation from its violently imposed rules of order.  A four year old can’t even open a lemonade stand without first bowing down and receiving a permit from bureaucrats obsessed with micromanaging private life.  The state’s stranglehold on freedom is as horrendous as it is disheartening. The worst part is that the trend shows no signs of slowing down, let alone reversing.  Politicians are always developing some harebrained scheme to mold society in such a way to circumvent the individual in favor of total dictation.  If it isn’t politicians, then it’s an army of unelected bureaucrats acting as mini-dictators.

So the military-industrial complex — the lobbyists, the weapons makers, the media — may accept it if Obama kills 14 women and 21 children to get one suspected terrorist. More terrorism means more weapons spending. For the lucky few it’s a self-perpetuating stairway to riches. Yet for wider society it means spending time, money and effort on war, instead of on domestic prosperity. It means the constant threat of terrorism. And it means the loss of our liberty, as the security state adopts increasingly paranoid anti-terrorism measures. We should do to others as we would have done to ourselves. That means — unless we are comfortable with the idea of ourselves living under military occupation and drone strikes — getting out of the middle east, and letting that region solve its own problems — forget another costly and destructive occupation in Syria. Slash the war and occupation spending, and redirect the money to making America independent of middle eastern energy and resources.

A land grab shrouded in a banking takeover, wrapped in a financial crisis "rescue." As always, insiders get first dibs.  (And, yes, there is an MF Global connection.)

Fed governors regurgitate it time and again to rationalize their policies.

While the naive public has been inundated with stories that the foreclosure pipeline has been finally unclogged following the robo-settlement (see here and here) and as a result the home "price discovery" process is well on its way, reality is just a tad different. Make that totally different. As usual, the only foreclosure report that matters, and that is even remotely close to reality, comes from RealtyTrac, and we are sad to say, it brings no good news. Quite the contrary. According to the real estate specialists, March 2012 foreclosures plunged from 206,900 in February to 198,853 in March, the first time the total number of foreclosures (either Default Notices, Foreclosure Auctions, or REOs) has dropped under 200,000 since July 2007! Which sadly means that the foreclosure dam wall has yet to crack. Of course, when it does, well "The Second Foreclosure Tsunami Is Coming, And Is About To Kill Any Hopes Of A "Housing Bottom."

Minutes ago on CNBC, Jim Cramer announced that Greg Smith will never get a job on Wall Street again as "one never goes to the press. Ever." Naturally, the assumption is that the secrets of Wall Street's dirty clothing are supposed to stay inside the family, or else one may wake up with a horsehead in their bed. There is one small problem with that. Now that compensations on Wall Street have plunged, and terminations are set for the biggest spike since the Lehman collapse, the opportunity cost to defect from the club has also collapsed. And if anything, Greg Smith's NYT OpEd has shown that it is not only ok to go to the press, but is in fact cool. So what happens next? Well, as the following Reuters article reports, 'whistleblowing' over corrupt and criminal practices on Wall Street is suddenly becoming the next growth industry. Yes - people may get 'priced out' of the industry, but since the industry will likely fire you regardless in the "New Normal" where fundamentals don't matter, and where the only thing that does matter is the H.4.1 statement (as Zero Hedge incidentally pointed out back in early 2010), why not expose some of the dirt that has been shovelled deep under the coach, and get paid some serious cash while doing it?

Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Documents Released, Read Them Here

All you need to read.

Three primaries, three different winners. There is little that can be said here except to add what we said before: the US gets just what it deserves. Follow the results live on the CNN webcast and the interactive Google chart.

Something big must be happening behind the scenes because the level of broad popular distraction just hit ludicrous speed. The latest news, from AP: "Offering no explanation, the Iowa Republican Party has declared Rick Santorum as winner of the Iowa caucuses, days after saying incomplete vote results precluded it from doing just that. GOP State Chairman Matt Strawn and the party’s State Central Committee issued a statement late Friday naming the former Pennsylvania senator as the winner, “in order to clarify conflicting reports and to affirm the results” that were released Wednesday." Naturally, jokes about Paul votes being "hanging chad-ed" by Diebold machines are imminent: "Because eight precincts never turned in certified results, Strawn said in the statement Thursday that the party could not declare a winner. He congratulated both Santorum and Romney. Sixteen days earlier, Strawn had announced that Romney had won the caucuses by eight votes." But far more notable, from the PPP website: "Newt Gingrich heads into South Carolina election day as the clear front runner in the state: he's now polling at 37% to 28% for Mitt Romney, 16% for Rick Santorum, and 14% for Ron Paul. Gingrich's lead has actually increased in the wake of his ex-wife's controversial interview with ABC. Although one night poll results should always be interpreted with caution, he led the final night of the field period by a 40-26 margin. One thing that continues to work to his advantage are the debates.  60% of primary voters report having watched the one last night, and Gingrich has a 46-23 lead with those folks. The other reason his ex-wife's interview isn't causing him much trouble is that there's a lot of skepticism about it. Only 31% of voters say they think her accusations are true while 35% think they are false and 34% are unsure. 51% of voters say that they have 'no concerns' about what came out in the interview." In other words: three primaries are about to lead to three different winners. What can we say: America always gets the president it deserves.

Don't get fooled again...

Call Your State Attorney General and "Just Say No"

Corporations are not people...

In under one hour, the New Hampshire GOP Primary polls close. The New Hampshire primary is the second contest in the state-by-state battle for the Republican presidential nomination to face Democratic President Barack Obama on Nov. 6. Romney narrowly won the first contest, the Iowa caucuses, on Jan. 3. According to Reuters, and pretty much all of the mainstream media, Mitt Romney is in charge, and Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman appeared to be in a battle for second place in New Hampshire, the small New England state known for its independent streak and outsized role in presidential campaigns. As for Mitt, "A multimillionaire who says his experience as head of private-equity firm Bain Capital would help him spur America's economy as president, Romney might face a bigger challenge in the next primary in South Carolina on Jan. 21, where the economy is weaker and conservatives make up a larger slice of the electorate." Because apparently people in New Hampshire are big fans of 25% IRRs predicated by 5x Debt/EBITDA LBOs. Or something. Follow the primary via the CNN live webcast below, through the WSJ live blog, or via Politico. Fox News is tracking New Hampshire exit polls here. Finally, the live tally of final results can be tracked using the interactive Google map below.

When it comes to corruption, cronyism and general muppetry in Washington D.C., the only real question is 'where does one start?' Yet one has to start somewhere to conclude with a list of the ten most corrupt and despicable marionettes in D.C. Which is precisely what JudicialWatch has done in its annual compilation of the "Top 10 Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington D.C." for 2011. And confirming what everyone knows, that both the left and right are merely irrelevant names for the same general social affliction, or should we call it by its true name - wealth pillage - the split is even between democrats and republicans. In no particular order, the winners of 2011 are...