Posted by
Bill Crawford on Monday, October 18, 2010 7:51:02 PM
I can think of three comedic legal fights going on right now, and hopefully the system can withstand the lunatics firing at the walls.
First off, there is the great mortgage foreclosure paperwork fiasco. When foreclosure wasn't yet a mainstream sport, some legal smart alecs started to make a living by asking the banks doing the dirty deed to show the original note on the deed- which, after sixty five rounds of refinancing, was probably somewhere in the basement of the Smithsonian. Eventually, this stopped working.
Now, with foreclosures coming up like new reality show scripts at ABC, bank officials are finding themselves with enough paperwork in their inbox to start a bonfire that can be seen from Earth orbit, and they took some short cuts. You know, signing for other bank officials, not always having a notary present, etc. The smart alecs found enough friendly Judges to enact legal challenges. The end result is, right now, quite a few foreclosures are being held up while the banks (most notably Bank of America) are getting their paperwork ducks in a row.
This will all die a proper death soon, because the establishment of payment/ nonpayment is more cut and dried. There is either a money trail or there isn't, and non-payment is universally considered a contract-breaker. The sooner this is cleared up, the better, because the housing market will not bottom out (and the recovery won't get started) until this is done. The worst of this will happen in 2010-11.
Circus #2: California's Proposition 19, the limited legalization of marijuana, is on the ballot in two weeks. The Justice department has already announced that they will not let up on any of their controlled substance ordinances if this happens. A libertarian administration would have less problem with this than a progressive one. Eric Holder knows that, if this becomes a State's rights issue and the feds lose control over the process, it could become precedent for a whole host of other issues following that trail.
Oddly enough, the staunchest opponents of Prop 19 are the growers in the two or thee Northern Ca. counties that would lose their price floor if the market opened up. Starnge bedfellows, indeed.
Finally, there is the one friendly Judge that has decided for all of us that "don't ask, don't tell" is unconstitutional and should be nullified immediately. Obama and Justice had no choice but to file and appeal that ruling, because it is an issue that has to this point, properly been one between the Congress, the White House, the military and the voters.
Those of you out there that are lamenting this appeal, ask yourself this: supposing that an issue came up that a conservative Judge took upon themselves to take off your table. Do you want a member of the Judiciary to hold that power? I don't.