big oil, financial industry, Forest Service, fracking, George Washington National Forest, intent to defraud, right wing agenda, spreading ignorance

One of the favorite choices of the wingnuts for actual legislation has always been ‘tort reform’. It was their hue and cry to get out of making health care productive for most citizens, even though it is not an area subject to federal legislation.

In Texas where there has been extensive tort reform, conditions have been created that are ideal for incompetence and outright fraud. One area that has seen a true disaster is in emergency room care. Under conditions that may include extreme stress, mistakes can occur but the patient maimed for life cannot count on any compensation for those mistakes.

There is a particularly egregious sheen to the shilling of education that the for-profit institutions exercise.  When it cheats the educational system out of badly-needed funding while taking advantage of potential workers, it is a crime.

When the public trust is lost, the basis for our system as a whole is destroyed. Without trust in a lawful and valid financial system, the public will not take the necessary step of investing.

In the many accounts of the latest wrinkle in our huge mortgage crisis of the day, I have noticed that media always makes room for some one decrying those homeowners who stay in their homes because their mortgages are unenforceable. So color me bleeding heart liberal, but I do not see how anyone can look at those cases where due to fraud the homeowner and family have been contracted to buy a house that now the bank/mortgagor wants more than they do, and decide the case for the other party to the contract on the house. Now, without clear title to the house, that other party can’t even legitimately sell it.