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Technicality or Fatal Flaw? To foreclose on real property, the plaintiff must be able to produce a promissory note or assignment establishing title. Early cases focused on MERS' inability to produce such a note, but most courts continued to consider the note a mere technicality and ignored it. Landmark newer opinions, however, stress that this defect is not just a procedural. but a substantive failure, one that is fatal to the plaintiff's case. The latest of these decisions came down in California on May 20, 2010, in a bankruptcy case called In re Walker, Case no. 10-21656-E-11. The court held that MERS could not foreclose because it was a mere nominee and that as a result plaintiff Citibank could not collect on its claim. The judge opined: "Since no evidence of MERS' ownership of the underlying note has been offered and other courts have concluded that MERS does not own the underlying notes, this court is convinced that MERS had no interest it could transfer to Citibank. Since MERS did not own the underlying note, it could not transfer the beneficial interest of the Deed of Trust to another. Any attempt to transfer the beneficial interest of a trust deed without ownership of the underlying note is void under California law."

Incredible.  The Banksters were caught perpetrating a massive fraud on mortgage holders in default.  They set up document mills packed with "robo" signers forging legal documents to prove in a foreclosure procedure that they are in fact the mortgage provider for that property.  The fraud itself revelas the essentials of what went wrong with the entire mortgage securities scam that brought down the worlds financial structures in 2008. The MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration systems, Inc.) electronic database was set up in 1995 as a means to enable participating Banksters to side step the quilt of State and County laws governing real estate transactions, non judicial foreclosure rights, and property ownership recording requirements.  MERS was essential to the bundling and trade in mortgage-backed securities.  In essence, MERS replaced public recordation requirements with a private, Bankster owned one. This all sounded good until waves of home owners facing default began to take their banksters to court.  Turns out that MERS mortgages lacked the legal documentation to establish a legal chain of ownership.  Realizing their mistake, and with thousands upon thousands of foreclosures hanging in the balance, the Banksters created the robo document industry, forging millions of foreclosure documents overnight.  Criminal fraud on steroids. The banksters got caught, with State Attorney Generals launching massive consumer protection law suits against the big banksters.  This put a halt to the illegal foreclosures, forcing banksters to turn to short sales on homes in default.  The short sale industry rocketed in 2011, but the to perfect a short sale, the banksters were taking the loss; sometimes as much as $100K to $250K per home.  But the real estate market inventory was effectively being cleared and market pricing corrected. The Banksters were unhappy.  Seeking to get back on the foreclosure track but facing what amounted to across the boards class action la

Thanks to Marbux.  Seems like nothing will stop the Banksters from seizing it all.  I think i've previously posted that when i was with Virtual Realty (VRi), we were forever trying to crack into the MERS electronic database.  Wow did the Banksters screw this one up.  Now only their corrupt sycophants in Congress and the Coursts can save them.  Not even the lap dog media will touch this. excerpt: A coalition of all 50 states' attorneys general has been negotiating settlements with five of the biggest U.S. banks that would include payment of up to $25 billion in penalties and commitments to follow new rules. In exchange, the banks would get immunity from civil lawsuits by the states, as well as similar guarantees by the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development, which have participated in the talks. State and federal officials declined to say if any form of immunity from criminal prosecution also is under discussion. The banks involved in the talks are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial. REUTERS REPORT PROMPTS LETTER Reuters reported Monday that major banks and other loan servicers have continued to file questionable documents in foreclosure cases. These include false mortgage assignments, and promissory notes with suspect or missing "endorsements," which prove ownership. The Reuters report also showed continued "robo-signing," in which lenders' employees or outside contractors churn out reams of documents without fully understanding their content. The report turned up several cases involving individuals who were publicly identified as robo-signers months ago. Reuters found that such activity has continued even after 14 major mortgage lenders signed settlements with federal bank regulators promising to halt such practices and give remediation to some homeowners who were harmed. In response to these disclosures, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Housing, Trans

An act of desperation by the NYT editorial board. They wouldn't be taking this position if they had not learned that the U.S. is preparing a U.N. Security Council Resolution to deal with Israel's intransigience. Of course that would only be a "bureaucratic response," as the NYT puts it, if it is not a resolution under the U.N. Charter's Chapter 7, which authorizes military force to enforce the resolution. By rooting for a resolution that only makes a recommendation, the editorial board is retaining the ability to gripe about a Chapter 7 resolution. But this is also a heads-up from the editorial board directed to the Netanyahu government of Israel that staunch Israel backer NYT has also had it with Israeli colonization of Palestine's West Bank. It's a signal that the era of NYT being Israel's mouthpiece with the loudest voice may come to an end over the colonization issue. The problem for all of the above is that the 2-state solution is dead as a doornail, outpaced by Israeli created facts on the ground. The nation of Israel as we know it is expiring as we watch. A single democratic nation for all of Palestine with equal rights for all citizens, Arab and Jewish, Israel is the only practicable outcome.

While I'd be the first to agree that the degree of fiscal mismanagement of this nation's economy is beyond insane and have to admit that I see very little to admire in Barack Obama's presidency, the meme about Executive Order 13603 authorizing confiscation of any property and enslavement of the American public needs to be put to rest. See http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2012.html#13603 E.O. 13603 is not much more than an updating of similar executive orders issued by prior presidents beginning with Dwight Eisenhower. In fact, in skimming it a few minutes ago, I didn't see anything drastically different from some of the prior related orders. E.g., it reflects that a bunch of agencies that were formerly either independent or under other departments are now under the newish Department of Homeland Security, whose Secretary now gets the authority formerly delegated to other department and agency heads. If blame must be cast, it belongs on the Congress that enacted the Defense Production Act of 1950, 50 U.S.C. 2061, et seq. The executive order does no more than obey that Act's instructions. For example there is a section authorizing pre-emption of manufacturing capacity of critical industries over any existing civilian contracts in the event of a national emergency, but that language is in the statute as well. But that power hasn't had much traction since Harry Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry to break a nationwide strike. The Supreme Court swatted down that effort as an abuse of a power that would be lawful in a true emergency, like another major. But even that semi-radical "survival" power is ameliorated by other provisions of the statute and the order that authorize loan guarantees for companies' construction and maintenance of critical productive capacity. Much of that has been implemented over the years as outright grants. So for example, many chemical manufacturing plants were built with Defense Production Act funds, with