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The “Me-First” Attitude of American Politicians is Trashing the U.S. Constitution
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
The founding fathers understood the dangers of vacillating public sentiment, so they established the United States Constitution to protect America from the ebb and flow of public opinion. The Constitution was designed to set in place a set of American values from which the nation should never deviate in response to public sentiment.
But the GOP and the Democratic Party are working hand-in-hand to undermine those standards – first, the GOP creates a toxic political environment to circumvent the people’s common sense, then instead of defending the Constitution, the weak-kneed Democratic Party simply goes along in order to protect their political interest. This unholy alliance has been going on for nearly forty years now, and America has been racing downhill every since. The primary victim of this unholy alliance, is the rule of law – the very foundation of the Constitution.
Immediately after President Nixon resigned in response to the Watergate Scandal, instead of bringing Nixon to justice for violating the law, only his subordinates were jailed. On September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford issued a full pardon, “In best interest of the American people,” immunizing Richard Nixon from any further prosecution, and thereby corrupting the Constitution, and setting a precedent establishing a class of people who were above the law.
The American people were caught sleeping, but Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, two young politicians in the Nixon and Ford administrations, respectively, were wide awake, and fully cognizant of the ramifications of this new development.
Then on January 20, 1981, the newly elected Republican president, Ronald Reagan, entered office under a cloud of suspicion. On November 4, 1979, the American embassy was stormed by Iranian militants and they took sixty-six Americans hostage. The hostage crisis went on for 444 days, greatly enhancing Ronald Reagan’s bid for president against President Jimmy Carter. Many believe that Reagan forces negotiated with the Iranians to hold the American hostages until after the election. That has never been proven, but what adds fuel to the allegation is that the hostages were released six (6) minutes after Ronald Reagan was administered the oath of office as the 40th President of the United States.
What has been proven, however, is that even though the Iranians were considered an enemy of the United States and had held sixty-six Americans hostage for 444 days, Reagan entered into a secret agreement with the Iranians to have Israel ship them military arms, then resupply Israel in return for payment under the table (treason). Reagan needed the money to fund the Contras in a war in Nicaragua in which congress outlawed funding under the Boland Amendment. Reagan also drummed up funding for the Contras by flooding the nation’s inner cities with illegal drugs – an act of treachery that thirty years later, the nation is still feeling the negative effects.
While several of Reagan’s high-level subordinates were convicted of conspiracy and obstructing justice (“So many White House documents were shredded that the White House shredder became choked”), the convictions of Col. Oliver North and John Poindexter were overturned on technicalities, and others who were convicted were later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush – “in the best interest of the nation.”
So, again, instead of impeaching Ronald Reagan and sending him to prison for his grossly unthinkable crimes, airports and an aircraft carrier was named after him, many Republicans began to hold him up as one of our greatest presidents – and once again, while America slept, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were watching from the wings.
So this “not looking back in the best interest of the nation” mantra is getting a little overworn and tiresome – not to mention being total nonsense. If Richard Nixon had been sent to jail for his part in Watergate, and Ronald Reagan and his gang had been made to walk the yard with him, chances are Bush and Cheney would never have dared to initiate their illegal war in Iraq that led to the death and displacement of over a million Iraqis, the death, and dismemberment of thousands of American troops, and the near bankruptcy of the nation.
America is on a toboggan hurling down a very slippery slope. Every political generation is taking the assault on the U.S. Constitution to the next level. We’ve gotten to the point where the Supreme Court is taking the election of our presidents out of the hands of the people, war crimes are simply being redefined as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and the freedom of religion is under serious assault.
Where will tomorrow’s young demagogues take us? Yesterday it was a war on terror, today it’s a war on Muslims, tomorrow it could be a war on Black Muslims, and the next day, a war on Black people in general. That doesn’t seem as far fetched as it once did.
Wake up, Mr. President. It’s 3:00 a.m., and reality is on line one.
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Religious bigotry: It’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me – it’s just that God does.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=45354
Posted by Eric L. Wattree on Aug 17 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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[...] Today . He’s also the author of A Message From the Hood. … Originally posted here: The “Me-First” Attitude of American Politicians is Trashing the … Share and [...]
You want to know why the Iranians released the American hostages 6 minutes after Reagan took office? They knew that they were going to get the shit kicked out of them. Carter embarrassed the American people the last 2 years he was in office and Reagan could have done anything and got by with it because the American people were so pissed off. Every time the news came on, I hung my head in shame and I will never forgive President Carter for that. This was after the blanket pardon for the draft dodgers that went to Canada.
the Iranians weren’t afraid of Reagan. the only people who took reagan seriously were American conservatives. I still have to scratch head when I see how much conservatives idolize him. The man was a joke – a bad one.
My theory is, conservatives live in a fantasy world, and since they couldn’t get John Wayne, they embraced Ronnie. That explains why George Bush, who was actually a Northeastern, dope-smokin’, loafer and moma’s boy in college, pretended to be a cowboy when he was in office.
I’m with you, Eric.
No, we have no court-documented proof that Reagan (actually Bush, Casey) paid the Iranians to *KEEP* the hostages, but we got proof of David A. White’s “hero” transferring gobs of weapons to the Iranians.
We also got Ari Ben Menashe, Israeli Exec Intell, who was acquitted in Fed Court when he was able to produce documentation that he was part of that Zionist + Bush + CIA network to shower the Mullahs with weapons while they were terrorizing Iran. Besides Menashe’s book, Robert Parry has much more details on other witness testimony.
That was clear treason, and not some lightweight s4it, direct treason conspiring with an enemy state.
At the same time as I say that, there’s more evidence that not necessarily Jimmy Carter, but high level intell during the Carter administration, worked behind the scenes to force out the Shah and help install “Ayatollah BBC” aka Kohmeini. William Engdahl is a credible historian with the goods on all that in his book on oil and a Century of War (excerpt described is online).
correction “terrorizing Iraq”. Kohmeini was shouting “Death to Saddam” (secular President) at the same time as “Death to America”, but look who fulfilled the Ayatollah’s dream of killing Saddam and expanding the power-base of the Iranian Mullahs to Baghdad — George W. Bush.
[...] The “Me-First” Attitude of American Politicians is Trashing the … [...]
[...] From the Hood. … Originally posted here: The “Me-First” Attitude of … Read more: The “Me-First” Attitude of American Politicians is Trashing the … Share and [...]
I agree with everything written here except the last paragraph. This is 2010 and I get sick to my stomach reading and hearing about racism and bigotry, as if it was still the fifties here in America. Today anyone no matter what religion, race or color of skin can go anywhere he or she wants and blacks have a better opportunity today than most Caucasians. Reagan was a good actor and his role as president was his best acting job. He belonged impeached and doing time with Nixon and Oliver North. Most cowboys are not millionaires or born with a silver spoon in their mouth like George Walker Bush was.
He was a mama’s boy and played a cowboy by wearing the hats and the boots. We use to call them goad-ropers. I’m still mad that they broke Navy tradition by naming a ship after a living person… The Ronald Reagan. We live in America which is now the have and the have-nots. There is no more Middle-Class, only those considered wealthy and those of us who have to deal with all the bullshit they can threw at us. All we can do is place comments on sites like these that does no good at all but it allows us to vent. I believe our Constitution started to be trashed just after John Kennedy was assassinated.
Steve,
for the most part I agree with you. I also agree that always shouting racism is a distraction that keep the people divided and from recognizing that we’re involved in a class war. But I reluctantly broached that issue because Limbaugh, Beck, and the Tea Party brigade don’t seem to recognize that fact.
There are very few blatant racists left in this country, but unfortunately, thanks to FOX, those who remain have a huge megaphone. That’s what made that last paragraph necessary, and valid.
hope everyone enjoyed the fake history they were
“taught” in “school” ,
Jews and Slavery
One of the most pernicious of all historical myths about America’s past, and one which has done possibly more damage than any other, is the historically incorrect idea that prior to 1865, black slavery was a monopoly of White Christians, something inflicted on the po’ lil’ innocent cullud folks by evil white Gentile males.
Now, of all people, a Jewish feminist historian named Natalie Zemon Davis has written a book on a subject which has up until now been strictly off limits to historians and scholars–Jews and their role in the slave trade and in slave ownership.
Davis uses as her starting point the life and times of one Jewish physician who also made big bucks (or in his case, big guilders) in the slave trade during the 18th century, David Isaac Cohen Nassy, a resident and merchant prince of the Dutch colony in Surinam in South America, where tens of thousands of black African slaves lived and toiled in the sugar cane fields and the steaming, fever and snake-infested jungles under conditions that made a plantation in Virginia or domestic service in Massachusetts look like paradise.
According to an article in the Jewish Forward, the largest and most prestigious Jewish newspaper in America, “…Nassy was not an anomaly. Of the hundreds of Portuguese and Dutch settlers who traveled to the small plot of land just north of Brazil, almost a third were Jewish. And almost all had slaves. Surinam provided a choice example to exhibit this intermixing — if not for the abundant paper trail that Nassy left behind, then for the sheer exoticism of the place…Sephardic Jews from Portugal had lived on the land and were some of the colony’s first owners of slave-run sugar plantations. By the early 18th century, when Nassy lived…Jews were also granted autonomy and maintained their own legal system and militia, whose largest task involved capturing runaway slaves called maroons.”
In other words, the Dutch colonial authorities contracted the lucrative racket of “slave-catching” to the Jews.
The connection between Jews and slavery was known even prior to the Civil War, and it is interesting to note that the Jews, as always, were on the side that could make them the quickest buck. One of the major advocates of slavery in the South was “Major” Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785-1851.) He was considered the most distinguished Jewish layman in his time. He was such a prolific proponent of slavery, that the first negro periodical, the Freedom Journal, was launched in response to Noah’s activities, including “To emancipate the slaves would be to jeopardize the safety of the whole country.”
The Freedom Journal called Noah the black man’s “bitterest enemy” and William Lloyd Garrison, the leading White abolitionist, called him the “lineal descendant of the monsters who nailed Jesus to the cross.” (From the banned book The Secret History of Blacks and Jews, http://www.blacksandjews.com/books.html )
The annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society for the year 1853 stated: The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society Report of 1853 “The Jews of the United States have never taken any steps whatever with regard to the slavery question. As citizens, they deem it their policy to have every one choose which ever side he may deem best to promote his own interests and the welfare of his country. They have no organization of an ecclesiastical body to represent their general views; no General Assembly, or its equivalent. The American Jews have two newspapers, but they do not interfere in any discussion which is not material to their religion. It cannot be said that the Jews have formed any denominational opinion on the subject of American slavery….The objects of so much mean prejudice and unrighteous oppression as the Jews have been for ages, surely they, it would seem, more than any other denomination, ought to be the enemies of caste, and friends of universal freedom.”
Jewish attorney and historian Seymour B. Liebman has written: “They came with ships carrying African blacks to be sold as slaves. The traffic in slaves was a royal monopoly, and the Jews were often appointed as agents for the Crown in their sale….[They] were the largest ship chandlers in the entire Caribbean region, where the shipping business was mainly a Jewish enterprise….The ships were not only owned by Jews, but were manned by Jewish crews and sailed under the command of Jewish captains.” [New World Jewry 1493-1825: Requiem for the Forgotten (KTAV, New York, 1982), pp. 170, 183.]
Essentially, the infamous “Middle Passage” was largely a Jewish racket. The Jews owned the ships and Liebman notwithstanding, it was assorted Gentiles sailed in them and took all the risks from storms, African tribesmen, slave revolts on board, and the terrible fevers of the disease-ridden West African tropics.
(Come on now. How many Jewish sea captains and sailors were there in the 18th and 19th centuries? Really?)
The Jews handled the sale once the negroes had arrived in the Americas, usually the West Indies or Cuba or Surinam or Brazil. (The actual importation of blacks right off the boat from Africa into the thirteen British colonies was comparatively rare; most American slaves came from Cuba or the West Indies and had already been slaves for several generations when they arrived here. Importation of foreign slaves into the United States was outlawed by Congress in 1808.)
I wonder if people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton really know who the ancestors of all their smart Jewish lawyers were?
ready for some real history ??
http://www.gnosticliberationfront.com/Some_Non-Politically_Correct_Facts_on_the_History_of_Slavery.htm
Fix,
Your history lesson is very interesting, but I’ll defer further comment until I do further research on the subject. But even if your position is totally true – which I have no reason to doubt – it simly goes to support my contention that there are only two divisions of humanity that I recognize – good people, and bad people. After all, just like today, there were also Black people involved in the subjugation of Black people as well.
So we must always remember that no one group of people corner the market on either evil or moral integrity, so pointing fingers at instances of malevolence of this group or that only serve as a distraction against ALL people of goodwill coming together to fight injustice.
But again, thank you for the history lesson, because there’s no such thing as bad knowledge.
AGREED
,
“it simly goes to support my contention that there are only two divisions of humanity that I recognize – good people, and bad people”
The idea of Freedom,Liberty & inalienable rights
for the People has been , if not rare , then at least frequently
absent.
It is important we hold onto the ideas of Inalienable rights
& Freedom for the People ,
Things have been going in the wrong direction for a long time ,
The Elite (or whatever they are) want to abolish
and render The Bill of Rights and the Constitution null,
void, and forgotten forever.
THE PEOPLE, THE JURY IS 4TH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT
( JURY NULLIFICATION)
http://fija.org/
http://www.letsgetfreethebook.com/jurorsforjustice/powertothepeople-whatisjurynullification.html
What is Jury Nullification?
Jury nullification is a constitutional doctrine that allows juries to acquit defendants who are technically guilty, but who don’t deserve punishment. When a jury disregards the evidence and acquts an otherwise guilty defendant, it has practiced jury nullification. The jury is saying that the law is unfair, either generally or in this particular case.
Jury Nullification is perfectly legal and has a long history- indeed the framers of the Constitution intended jurors to serve as a check on bad prosecutions and ineffective laws. Northern jurors helped abolish slavery by refusing to convict people “guilty” of helping slaves escape. Nullification was also a factor in ending Prohibition, which locked up people for selling liquor, and created the same violent market and drive-by shootings (remember Al Capone?) that we now see for other illegal drugs.
The Constitutional Background
The Fifth Amendment prohibits defendants from being tried for the same crime twice. This means that when a jury finds someone not guilty, there can never be a re-trial — even if the judge disagrees with the jury’s verdict, or if there is compelling new evidence of guilt. The Supreme Court has ruled that this doctrine gives juries the power to nullify the law. If jurors believe the law is unjust, they don’t have to apply it. There is nothing that anyone can do to prevent jurors from nullifying — under the Constitution, when it comes to acquittals, jurors have the last word.
Nullification works only in one direction — in favor of acquittals. If a jury finds someone guilty, and there is compelling evidence that the person is innocent, judges have the power to overturn the jury’s conviction (that doesn’t happen a lot in the real world). Giving jurors more power to acquit is based on the constitutional principle that it’s better to let guilty people go free than to allow the innocent to be punished.
The idea that jurors should judge the law, as well as the facts, is a proud part of American history. The concept that jurors decide justice became an important part of American jurisprudence.
Perhaps the most shining example of nullification occurred during the shameful time in US history when slavery was legal. People who helped slaves escape committed a federal crime — violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. But when Northern jurors sat in judgment of these “criminals,” they would often acquit, even when the defendants admitted their guilt. Legal historians credit these cases with advancing the cause of abolition of slavery.
This strategic nullification is perfectly legal, and has two great benefits. First, it helps the community by safely reducing the number of incarcerated people. Second, it sends the message that “We the People” want fundamental change in our criminal justice system. This message is intended for both lawmakes and prosecutors.
http://freedomlaw.com/links/
http://fija.org/about/fijas-purpose/
…………….to judge the merit of the law and its application, and to nullify bad law, when necessary for justice, by finding for the defendant…………………………………….
The FIJA mission is to educate Americans regarding their full powers as jurors, including their ability to rely on personal conscience, to judge the merit of the law and its application, and to nullify bad law, when necessary for justice, by finding for the defendant.
The Fully Informed Jury Association(FIJA)is a nonpartisan public policy research and education organization located in Helena, Montana. FIJA focuses on issues involving the role of the jury in our justice system and the preservation of the full function of the jury as the final arbiter in our courts of law. The FIJA mission is to inform all Americans about their rights, powers and responsibilities when serving as trial jurors. FIJA works to restore the political function of the jury as the final check and balance on our American system of government.
To assist supporters who press for a “fully informed jury,” FIJA has drafted the following model bill language suitable for passage into law or for amending a state constitution:
“An accused or aggrieved party’s right to trial by jury, in all instances where the government or any of its agencies is an opposing party, includes the right to inform the jurors of their power to judge the law as well as the evidence, and to vote on the verdict according to conscience.
This right shall not be infringed by any statute, juror oath, court order, or procedure or practice of the court, including the use of any method of jury selection which could preclude or limit the empanelment of jurors willing to exercise this power.
Nor shall this right be infringed by preventing any party to the trial, once the jurors have been informed of their powers, from presenting arguments to the jury which may pertain to issues of law and conscience, including (1) the merit, intent, constitutionality or applicability of the law in the instant case; (2) the motives, moral perspective, or circumstances of the accused or aggrieved party; (3) the degree and direction of guilt or actual harm done, or (4) the sanctions which may be applied to the losing party.
Failure to allow the accused or aggrieved party or counsel for that party to so inform the jury shall be grounds for mistrial and another trial by jury.
When every American juror is aware of and permitted to exercise all of his and her rights, the final judgment of law will return to where it was always intended to be located…in the hands of the people. Once again our jury system will function as our country’s founders intended it to function as people’s final check against the government’s tendency to encroach upon the rights of its people.
Another very informative post, Fix – and this time I can attest to the truth of your assertion. I just wish the founding fathers had also put something in place that would have assured the average citizen equal justice in response to torts committed against them by powerful corporate interests.
As I sit here writing I’m waiting for the documents of a family who lost their home, and now the LLC who purchased it is attaching their wages to the tune of $4000 even though they moved out prior to the date that they were given to vacate, they were never subpoenaed for a hearing on the matter, and they never received a notice of judgment. Then, when I contacted the court clerk, I was informed that they never receive a subpoena because no hearing was ever held. The LLC simply had a judge enter a judgment based on their contention – a blatant violation of the families right to due process.
I intend to donate my time to raise holy Hell in this matter, because it is clear that this family is being abused by the system because SOMEBODY, or some group within in the system, think that they can do it with impunity.
What’s going on in this country?!!! This sort of thing gives new meaning to American exceptionalism – everyone gets justice “except” those who can’t afford it.
Aren’t Jews white people? When I went to college I heard some of the most anti-Semitic remarks I’ve ever heard. Being black, I couldn’t understand it. How can a black person understand anti-Semitism when they’re looking at a blue-eyed blond Jewish guy. I repeat. Aren’t Jew’s white?
Ah, B.A., you’ve touched on a ver salient point.
Yes, many Jews are White, but they are a subset of the White race. What we’ve all got to understand, especially now, is that injustice is not reserved for only Black people, so we Blacks need to form alliances that fight more than just racism, but injustice of any and every kind. That’s an important lesson for us to learn, because the new war is not simply against racism, but against class.
The powers that be in this country don’t care any more about poor and middle-class White people than they do about Blacks. Racism is just a ploy to keep the poor and middle-class fighting among ourselves while they cut all of our throats. The Tea Baggers are going to find that out the hard way. Let us not allow ourselves to be blindsided along with them.
THE GREASY CREEPS IN CONGRESS NEED TO BE VOTED OUT ,
( NOT INCLUDING THE 15% OF NON- GREASY CREEPS )
THEY SELL OUT EARLY & OFTEN & AS FREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE,
ALSO TIME FOR SERIOUS BUDGET CUTS & RESTRICTION OF AUTHORITY TO
ALL THESE AGENCIES ,
“REGULATORS & BUREAUCRATS & “CONTROL FREAK AGENDA” “JUDGES”
THE 23 DOZEN (OR MORE) AGENCIES ARE RUN SO AS TO DELIVER A PROFIT TO
SOMEONE(S)
LIKE (“PRISONS FOR PROFIT”)
LIKE MAKING “HEMP” ( A GOOD SOURCE OF FOOD/MEDICINE FOR THE
LAST ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS ) ILLEGAL!!
LIKE TRYING TO “REGULATE” HOW YOU USE THR RAIN THAT RUNS OFF YOUR ROOF !!!!
THEY WON’T STOP UNTIL WE SAY NO , THEY ARE INSANE CONTROL FREAKS,
IT IS REALLY THAT SIMPLE
DO NOT SUPPORT SOCIOPATHIC LIARS FOR OFFICE !
YOUR COUNTY SHERIFF IS AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT OFFICE,
GIVE DUE DILIGENCE TO THE CANDIDATES FOR THAT POSITION AS
WELL AS THE REST,
RIGGED ELECTIONS OR NOT ,VOTE ANYWAY
PEOPLE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO VOTE BY BEING INFORMED,
You will not be informed by watching Big Beast T.V.
IF A BETTER CANDIDATE FOR THE PEOPLE IS GREEN OR PURPLE OR FROM MARS
THEN VOTE FOR THAT CANDIDATE.
NOT JUST WHOEVER HAS THE BEST T.V. COMMERCIAL OR
JUST SAYS WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SOCIETY/ECONOMY/FAMILIES CAN NOT THRIVE WITH
“INTERESTING” HOW THESE INFINITE REGULATIONS & STATUTES
SEVENTY-NINE TRILLION PAGES OF REGULATION !!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE INFINITE REGULATIONS & STATUTES WITH FASCIST
REGULATORS & BUREAUCRATS IS CRUSHING THE ECONOMY
“AND RESTRAINING TRADE” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DON’T APPLY TO “SPECIAL” CORPORATIONS & “SPECIAL” PEOPLE
THESE GREASY DIRTY FEDERAL AGENCIES NEEDS A BATH!!
Like The Minerals Management Service
PART OF THE STRATEGY OF DEFENDING & EXERCISING YOUR RIGHTS IS
TO DEFEND THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS AS WELL !!
G-D BLESS
Fix,
I agree with just about everything you say here, with the very important exception of restraining governmental regulations. An unrestrained profit motive leads directly to the exploitation of the people. Like you said, the people have a responsibility to remain informed, but until we restore a properly educated populous, in order to maintain a viable society, we have no alternative but to protect the people’s interest against the excesses of power and greed.
My remark was actually to Eric.
Greetings,
Very interesting thread.
As for Ronny Rayguns, (oops I mean Saint Ronald) I would like to point out that when He was a young man He worked for a while as a life guard. That is because He had the amazing ability to walk on water.
Amen,
Infidel
HOMEOWNERS’ REBELLION:
COULD 62 MILLION HOMES BE FORECLOSURE-PROOF?
Ellen Brown, August 18th, 2010
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/homeowners.php
Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system devised by and for the convenience of the mortgage industry. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut makes it impossible for banks to establish their ownership of property titles—and therefore to foreclose on mortgaged properties. The logical result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure-proof.
Mortgages bundled into securities were a favorite investment of speculators at the height of the financial bubble leading up to the crash of 2008. The securities changed hands frequently, and the companies profiting from mortgage payments were often not the same parties that negotiated the loans. At the heart of this disconnect was the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, a company that serves as the mortgagee of record for lenders, allowing properties to change hands without the necessity of recording each transfer.
MERS was convenient for the mortgage industry, but courts are now questioning the impact of all of this financial juggling when it comes to mortgage ownership. To foreclose on real property, the plaintiff must be able to establish the chain of title entitling it to relief. But MERS has acknowledged, and recent cases have held, that MERS is a mere “nominee”—an entity appointed by the true owner simply for the purpose of holding property in order to facilitate transactions. Recent court opinions stress that this defect is not just a procedural but is a substantive failure, one that is fatal to the plaintiff’s legal ability to foreclose.
That means hordes of victims of predatory lending could end up owning their homes free and clear—while the financial industry could end up skewered on its own sword.
California Precedent
The latest of these court 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.