Just a bunch of concerned citizens — like always — as long as they come from the Right, no matter what they say.

The Cranberries — Linger, live in London.

Pouting Baby wonders if Mrs. Ginni T turned into Mrs. Gin and T before she made the phone call to Professor Hill.

Simply put, the problem with the housing market right now, not the problem for investors or banks but the problem for the people living in the homes, is that it has become more lucrative for many servicers to foreclose on the property than to work out a modification. That changes all of the incentives around housing, and makes fraud attractive. That the system was swamped with calls for modifications after pushing people into loans that they couldn’t afford when they recast makes fraud all the more attractive. Foreclosure pays in particular for servicers who don’t also own the loan: for them, they’d rather pay a foreclosure mill a flat rate to process the homes rather than pay more staff to do person-to-person modifications and all the things that go with that: verification of income, negotiation, etc. This happens to be, in most cases, the mega-servicers who are owned by the big banks.

In addition to highly contested gubernatorial and senate contests, the voters of California will be deciding several of the most important ballot initiatives in the country.

The fact that Jarret could use a term that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to LGBT people, and still be out there as White House spokesperson on the issue of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, is symptomatic of something deeply wrong. She should have stepped down, because her continued presence in the media on this issue is like pouring gasoline on the fire. They should have replaced her with someone else immediately. It’s a sign of incredibly callousness and insensitivity on the part of the administration that she continues to be their spokesperson on this issue.

Your honor, I’m so incompetent I can’t find my paper. Save me, pretty please. The banks that wrote the law on promissory notes put in Plan B just in case.

Sheriff Tom Dart, explaining exactly why he won’t enforce foreclosure evictions from dicey actions by the banks says “This is not the lotto… this isn’t something where we’re rolling the dice and saying, possibly this has been done legally. Maybe it hasn’t but in the meantime, you and your children go find someplace else to live, plenty of homeless shelters out there. We can’t do that.”

The Democratic base is less engaged, the party is losing the generic ballot by 10 points, and voters have a strong urge to vote against incumbents. Taken together, this is bad news for incumbent Democrats hoping to maintain their seats–and retain control of the House.

Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born cleric thought to be involved in the Foot Hood shooting and the failed Christmas Day bombing, was brought into the Pentagon for a luncheon several months after the 9/11 attacks. Interestingly, this was part of a Defense Department program to convince Muslims that the Afghanistan war was focused on Al Qaeda and not Muslims.