A Charlie Brown Christmas (the classic).  Not so many premiers.  Larry King’s last show.

• ABC Family– Finding Nemo (again), The Incredibles (not as recently)
• AMC– White Christmas x 2 (again and again, in Technicolor!)
• Animal Planet– The Blue Planet: Seas of Life marathon
• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon (with premier)
• Comedy– Wedding Crashers
• Disney– High School Musical 3: Senior Year
• Discovery– Brew Masters, Oddities (premiers), Sr. v. Jr.
• E!– Honey
• ESPN– High School Hoopies, Lew Wallace (Ind.) v. Simeon (Ill.), Findlay Prep (Nev.) vs. Yates (Texas)
• ESPN2– Women’s College Volleyball, Penn State v. Texas, California vs. USC
• FX– It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia x 3 (1 Hour Holiday Special premier and Instapeats)
• History– Aliens AND Nazis (with premiers)
• Lifetime– A Diva’s Christmas Carol
• National Geographic– Drain the Ocean (actually kind of interesting)
• Sci Fi– Ultraviolet
• TBS– Fred Claus (again)
• Turner Classic– Judge Hardy and Son, Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (Andy Hardy day)
• TNT– Hoopies, Hawks @ Celtics, Spurs @ Nuggets
• USA– Burn Notice x 2 x 2 (premiers and Instapeats)
• VH1– SNL marathon

Later-

• AMC– Ever After: A Cinderella Story
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb
• Turner Classic– The Hardys Ride High, Out West With the Hardys (more Hardys)
• VH1– Back to the Future Part 2

Dave hosts Matt Damon and Florence & the Machine.  Jon has Mike Huckabee, Stephen Amy Sedaris and Paul Simon (next week repeats, pre-empted between ek’s mas and New Year’s).  Stephen used to work with Amy on Strangers with Candy.  Conan hosts Marky Mark Wahlberg, Charles Phoenix, and Jenny and Johnny.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 60 Top Stories.

1 Armed clashes as Ivory Coast stand-off turns bloody

by Evelyne Aka, AFP

1 hr 44 mins ago

Bipartisanship vs. Democracy: The President and the Third Way Fallacy

Richard (RJ) Eskow, Huffington Post

Posted: December 15, 2010 11:49 AM

Today the country’s real center — the commonly-held set of goals and aspirations shared by Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike — has never been farther from the narrow right-leaning viewpoint that’s still being peddled as a “centrism.” If the White House and other Democrats buy into that illusion, as they seem to be doing, they’ll lose the country.

…

I feel safe in predicting that “No Labels” will revolutionize American politics every bit as much as Unity08 did. That is, it’s going to be announced with great fanfare — fanfare that’s generated by the highly-paid efforts of Washington publicists. It will then be received enthusiastically by the David Broder crowd, and nobody else. Within six months it will have been forgotten by the few people who had ever even heard of it in the first place.

“No Labels” is the latest reflection of a deep-seated yearning among Washington insiders: the yearning to fuse the leadership of both parties into a unitary political order, one that can dispense with bothersome chores like justifying your actions to the public. Washington “centrists” are the One Worlders of American politics, dreaming of a Utopia governed by a Council of Elders.

…

There’s a real bipartisan consensus in the nation — to protect Social Security, tax the wealthy, preserve Medicare, improve banking regulations, and ban big bonuses at banks which were rescued by the taxpayers. The ersatz ‘centrism’ being peddled in Washington is on the wrong side of every single issue. It would turn the leadership of the country over to people on the red, rightmost side of the chart, restricting the debate to the best way of implementing these unpopular positions.

No wonder 70% of people surveyed are “somewhat” or “deeply dissatisfied” with the way Washington works. The political consensus doesn’t represent them, and these “solutions” would merely institutionalize that lack of representiation.

…

We saw the electoral fruits of the Third Way fallacy in November’s election. Democrats who embraced it were seen as representing nothing in particular, so they were judged by the status quo — a status quo that was made worse by “centrist” policies. Now we’re seeing an ever-widening gap between the public’s wishes and a Republican/Democratic/media elite that refuses to accept or acknowledge them. That’s a recipe for bad policy, and politically it’s a one way ticket for the Democratic Party to receive the Mother of All Shellackin’s in 2012.

There are a lot of sad things in this piece, but also some fundamental misconceptions one of which is that while this austerity asshole City Manager is allowed to cry poverty in order to break the police and fire unions.

Michigan has offered Hamtramck a variety of loans to keep it solvent, but Cooper has said he doesn’t want the city to take on more debt. It’s already paying $600,000 a year on bonds issued during another financial crisis a decade ago.

But with pressure building, City Hall was awash in speculation this week that Cooper would finally bend and accept a loan from the state. Still, even that would only postpone a day of reckoning, the city manager asserted.

…

For now, the well-meaning citizens of Hamtramck — police officers, firefighters, tree trimmers and trash collectors — are effectively draining the city’s finances, with nothing short of a potential collapse in sight.

You see, you’re just bloodsucking ticks on the tit of capitalism.

Ugh.  Even worse than usual.  A good night to write diaries.

Are they slow-moving, chief?

Yeah, they’re dead. They’re all messed up.

Chief, if I were surrounded by eight or ten of these things, would I stand a chance with them?

Well, there’s no problem. If you have a gun, shoot ’em in the head. That’s a sure way to kill ’em. If you don’t, get yourself a club or a torch. Beat ’em or burn ’em. They go up pretty easy.

• ABC Family– Disney Prep & Landing, Finding Nemo
• AMC– Independence Day
• Bravo– Top Chef (last week’s and new)
• Comedy– Futurama marathon
• Disney– Happy Feet
• Discovery– Mythbusters marathon (with premier)
• ESPN– Hoopies, Celtics @ Knicks, Trail Blazers @ Mavs
• FX– Deck the Halls x 2
• History– More Nazis (premier)
• Lifetime– Kate & Leopold
• Oxygen– Titanic
• Turner Classic– Night of the Living Dead
• TNT– Bones marathon
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (with premier)
• USA– Elf, Psych x 2 (premiers)
• Vs.– Rangers @ Penguins

Later-

• Disney– Phineas and Ferb
• FX– Senseless
• Turner Classic– Bonnie and Clyde, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• USA– Burn Notice (this week’s), Psych x 2 (Instapeats)

Dave hosts Tom Dreesen and Ronnie Spector.  Jon has Paul Rudd, Stephen Laird Hamilton.  Conan hosts Amy Adams, Roger Waters, and Edward Sharpe and Magnetic Zeros.

Boondocks– Smokin’ With Cigarettes

Chief, do you think that we will be able to defeat these things?

Well, we killed nineteen of them today right in this area. The last three, we caught them trying to claw they’re way into an abandoned shed. They must of thought someone was in there, but there wasn’t though. We heard them making all kind of noises so we came over, beat ’em off and blasted them down.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 EU ready to probe Thaci over organ trafficking claims

by Ismet Hajdari, AFP

20 mins ago

Well, it’s been longer coming than I expected but we finally have Part 2 of L. Randall Wray’s ‘Smoking Gun’ on Title Fraud available.  My treatment of the first part is here.

This one discusses the fatal flaws in the Securitization procedures for Mortgage Backed Securities and the multi-Trillion dollar exposure of the To Big To Fail Banks to defrauded holders of those worthless scraps of paper.

Worthless except for the fact that they are legally binding contracts which the Banks have agreed (legally) to buy back if there are flaws or fraud in the Banks’ representations of value.

The 2 things that give me some hope in this process is that the players holding the short end of the stick (the ones defrauded by the Banks) are financial heavy hitters who are just about as large as the Banks- PIMCO, Blackrock, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York; AND that the bulk of the action will take place in New York State Court instead of at the federal level where everyone in Washington seems to have been issued kneepads for Bankster Butt-licking.

Anatomy of Mortgage Fraud, Part II: The Mother of All Frauds

L. Randall Wray, Huffington Post

Posted: December 13, 2010 10:58 AM

By itself, all of this is a horrific scandal, involving up to 65 million mortgages — the number of mortgages registered at MERS, most of which presumably were subjected to MERS’s guidelines and extremely sloppy record-keeping. But like Shrek’s onion, it is much more complicated than that — with layer after layer of fraud piled on fraud. There are many angles to be explored, most of them too complex and arcane to be pursued in a short column. Here, in part two, I will discuss the implications for the securities that bundled the fraudulent mortgages registered at MERS. Not only did MERS defraud the counties out of their recording fees and the homeowners out of their homes, but it also helped to perpetrate securities fraud and federal tax fraud. Fortunately for the investors in these securities, the securitization process was fatally flawed, meaning that they can return to the issuing banks and demand their money back. But that implies, of course, that the banksters are hopelessly insolvent — on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars.

Inevitably, they will turn to Uncle Sam for more handouts. Get ready for more backroom deals made by the Fed and Treasury to rescue firms like Bank of America. If you loved the first three rounds of this financial crisis, you will love the next six rounds as markets pummel Wall Street banks, with Uncle Sam as referee applying the smelling salts to revive it for yet another round (whilst its CEOs skim more billions off the top in compensation). Ultimately, it will not work. Wall Street will go down for the count — but probably not until it drags Main Street through a great depression that your great grandkids will study in the history books. And, by the way, they will laugh at the misguided efforts of the thoroughly compromised one-term Obama administration that focused its efforts at budget-balancing in the face of the worst headwinds America had ever seen.

…

But, as always with the Wall Street onion, things are worse when we dig deeper. Almost all of the residential mortgage backed securitizations were done under New York state law — which is even stricter than the REMIC requirements. That law wanted to make the securities as safe as possible, “bankruptcy remote” so that if the issuing banks failed, bank creditors could not come after the securitized mortgages — to seize the notes and recover losses. This is why it was essential that the notes and mortgages be physically conveyed to the trustees. Remember that the major banks are also owners of the servicers — so if the servicers retain the notes and the bank fails, the bank’s creditors might be able to claim the notes and mortgages. So according to NY state law it is the “Pooling and Servicing Agreement” that governs the securizations. These require that the notes and mortgages are held by the REMIC trustee. Indeed, they require that the trustee check to make sure all notes are conveyed; if there are any mortgages included in the “pool” without proper paperwork, then they must be replaced by mortgages with notes. All of this is supposed to be certified by the trustee as completed — usually within about six months. (For an excellent explanation of the details, see Yves Smith)

We now know beyond question that the notes were not typically transferred — both MERS’s own document as well as court testimony by top management of servicers make it clear that the “customary” practice was for the servicers to retain the notes. We also know that almost all securitizations were done in NY. And we know that the PSAs required transfer of the notes to the trustees — who were required to certify that this was done. From this we can conclude that a) the trustees either did not perform the certification, or they lied, and b) the securities are no good. Probably most of them; maybe all of them. Fraudulent.

…

The servicers are now "misplacing" all the documents, including the notes, associated with the mortgages on which they are foreclosing. The hope is that MERS and the mortgage servicing banks can get the properties, dispose of them in firesales, and pay pennies on the dollar to securities holders before they discover they’ve been scammed from here to Pluto. Hence it would seem the notes were not really lost, but rather are being destroyed to cover the fraud. And if this is true, MERS and the big banks are conspiring to commit foreclosure fraud as they destroy documents and create new counterfeit paper trails.

…

To recap, MERS’s own documents demonstrate beyond question:

1. The notes were never transferred, as required by Federal and NY state law, to the trustees of the REMICs;
2. At best, the notes were retained by the mortgage servicers as directed by MERS (many never left the mortgage brokers, many of whom are now bankrupt);
3. MERS claims to own the notes and therefore the mortgages to speed foreclosure;
4. Actually, MERS does not hold the notes, which are held by servicers, but MERS instead “deputizes” employees of the servicers so that it can claim notes are transferred “in house” to avoid paying recording fees as well as avoiding maintenance of clear chains of title;
5. On foreclosure, the documents are “disappeared” because they demonstrate the notes were never endorsed and transferred as required by law, with MERS and the servicers filing “lost note affidavits” to dupe the judges into allowing illegal foreclosures to proceed and to dupe securities holders so that they do not demand restitution;
6. Servicers ensure homeowners default, as they “lose” mortgage payments, credit them to the wrong accounts, or helpfully recommend to homeowners that they stop making payments–all of this is to speed foreclosure to ensure securities holders do not realize they have been duped as they are paid pennies on the dollar for toxic securities;
7. This also ensures that the investment banks that originated the toxic securities win their credit default swap bets they placed against the homeowners, with favored hedge fund managers like Paulson also winning CDO bets on failures;
8. The faster the foreclosures can be processed through manufacture of fraudulent documents by Robo-signers, the lower the chance that MERS and all of its clients will be brought to justice.

There is a community of interests that can bring together the securities holders (including PIMCO and the NYFed) and the defrauded homeowners to stop the illegal foreclosures. The best thing for the investors is to demonstrate that the securities are fraudulent because the underlying mortgages did not meet the representations and because the notes were not legally transferred.

…

Since the securities investors will be able to force the banksters to take back the securities, the loss minimizing solution for banks is to stop the foreclosures that are depressing real estate prices. That can then buy time to modify the mortgages to ensure homeowners can stay in the homes and service their debt. Instead, the banks are pushing for Congress to retroactively legalize the frauds they perpetrated against counties, borrowers, and investors. As always, Wall Street wants someone else to pay for its crimes — and is willing to destroy the property rights that are fundamental to a system based on private property in order to protect CEO compensation on Wall Street.

Here is the alternative solution President Obama needs to consider.

• An immediate moratorium on foreclosures of any mortgages that are, or ever were, registered at MERS;
• Declare all outstanding fraudulent securities null and void, require securitizing banks to make restitution to investors, and sue the banks for restitution of the back taxes owed by REMICs;
• If this makes the banks insolvent, begin to resolve them, shutting them down;
• Prohibit Fannie and Freddie and any chartered bank from dealing with MERS, which is an organization formed to perpetrate fraud;
• Investigate MERS for fraudulent activity, require restitution of all county recording fees that were evaded, and punish the guilty;
• Formulate a policy to help homeowners who have been victims of lender fraud, with a goal of reducing mortgage payments to something they can afford; and
• Let Congress know he will veto any legislation that legalizes the fraud perpetrated by MERS, by mortgage servicers, and by originating and securitizing banks.

These actions will help to restore the rule of law, while punishing the guilty. And stopping (illegal) foreclosures will reduce the pressure on real estate prices. By itself this will not put the US on the road to recovery, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

Wray promises a Part 3.

Is it Time for Democrats to Fight Obama?

Cenk Uygur, Huffington Post

Posted: December 15, 2010 10:43 AM

You want to hear something really depressing? If John McCain had won the presidency, there is almost no chance he could have gotten the Bush tax cuts extended for the rich. Think about it. How was a Republican president going to get an overwhelmingly Democratic Senate and House to pass those tax cuts that they hated under Bush?

No, only a Democratic president could get a Democratic Congress to agree to tax cuts for the rich. So, in this sense, progressives are worse off for having a Democratic president than a Republican one.

…

Democrats would certainly have fought a surge in Afghanistan if Bush was in charge. They would be complaining about warrantless wiretapping if Bush continued that program instead of Obama. They would have hated the monopoly that drug companies got in the health care legislation (because they went nuts over it when Bush made the same deal). And they would have gone apoplectic over these huge tax cuts for the rich. But under Obama, the defense contractors, the rich and the powerful have gotten almost everything they wanted and nary a peep was heard from the Democrats in Congress.

Here is the new memo – fight him, he’s not on your side.

As was shown in 2010 and will be again in 2012.

Anyone who claims to care about Electoral Victory is a LIAR!

Update:

‘Democrat’ Is No Longer A Brand

Howard Fineman, Huffington Post

Updated: 12-15-10 07:23 AM

As the lame duck tax debate slogs towards its inevitable conclusion — nearly $1 trillion worth of extended and new tax cuts over two years — I’m wondering: what does the brand “Democrat” mean?

…

The fact that extension is being touted by the White House as a major “get” is a sad commentary on how far to the right our politics is now moving, no matter how many times Tea Party types call Obama a socialist.

…

Isn’t a nearly $1 trillion bill full of tax cuts and industry giveaways what Republicans do? Isn’t a bill with an absurdly generous inheritance tax break what Republicans write? Aren’t Democrats the “party of the people?” Aren’t they the party that believes government programs and policies have a role to play in leveling the playing field, or at least giving everyone a fair chance? Aren’t the Democrats worried that all of this tax cutting now will starve the social programs they supposedly cherish? Do they know that they won’t be able to push through a change in taxes in 2012 over GOP objections if the economy in fact improves?

…

And if they do vote “yes” for the most part, what does it signify — other than a desperate desire for survival — about the meaning of “Democrat?”

It means “Coward”.

Thanks for nothing Barack.

I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown!.  Some premiers.

As attentive readers know I am firmly of the belief that the time you most need blogs to distract you from the chaos of meat space is during the holidays when you have to deal with the unfortunate realities of your relatives.  It turns out that this year I’ll not have to stray too far from Stars Hollow so I’m prepared to provide my usual public service of creating excuses.

Not everyone is as addicted to mindless entertainment as I am and contributors who consider their time better spent in other pursuits are hereby released from whatever perceived obligations they have.  I’ll try and keep up as best I can, but I expect slowness and disruption of settled routines which always makes me cranky and out of sorts.

And then January 4th we’ll celebrate the Six Month Anniversary of The Stars Hollow Gazette and attempt a return to normalcy (such as it is).

• ABC Family– Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas x 2 (the good news is no 700 Club)
• AMC– Scrooged x 2 (again and again)
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation
• Discovery– Dirty Jobs (Holiday Special premier), Auction Kings (premier)
• ESPN2– Women’s College Hoopies, Tennessee at Baylor
• FX– What Happens in Vegas x 2
• History– Nazis (premier)
• Lifetime– A Different Kind of Christmas
• Oxygen– Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins x 2 (again and again)
• Sci Fi– Cold Creek Manor, Identity
• Speed– Monster Jam, Bubba’s World x 2 (Series Premier)
• TBS– Family Guy marathon
• Turner Classic– Cabaret (Liza night)
• TLC– Light Show marathon
• TNT– The Forbidden Kingdom (again)
• Toon– Nacho Libre, Tower Prep (premier)
• Vs.– Penguins @ Flyers
• VH1– 8 Mile x 2 (again and again)

Later-

• AMC– Superman Returns
• Disney– Phineas and Ferb
• FX– Just Married
• Oxygen– Something New
• Sci Fi– Phantom Racer
• Turner Classic– A Matter of Time, Stepping Out (more Liza)
• USA– Psych, Burn Notice (this week’s)

Dave hosts Paul Rudd, Chris Russo, and Joanna Newsom.  Jon has Ricky Gervais, Stephen Stephen Sondheim.  Conan hosts Seth Green, Tim Meadows, and Broken Bells.

Boondocks– A Date With the Booty Warrior.

Zap2it TV Listings, Yahoo TV Listings

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Assange back in British jail after bail ruling challenged

by Danny Kemp, AFP

1 hr 1 min ago