AG Settlement With Big Banks a Miscarriage of Justice

I gave the deranged lefties at the Arkansas Times credit for two things.   One was being an independent news source in a world dominated by a few giant corporate players who tend to district rather than inform.   The other thing was that they were willing to point out the corruption and incompetence of Attorney General Dustin McDaniel.    I guess they heard that Halter is not running for Governor or something.  Maybe they are coming to grips with the probability that McDaniel is going to be the Democratic nominee for Governor next time?  If so their "rally around the guy with the right letter before his name" spirit is kicking in and I can scratch that last one off the list.   They put up a favorable post lauding McDaniel for his actions in the nation-wide foreclosure settlement.

But of course, if McDaniel's actions were truly laudable, I would not have a problem with his "lauding."   The truth is that McDaniel, along with most of the other AG's in the nation, have shafted homeowners, and local governments, and let the big banks off with a comparative wrist slap.    These banks have defrauded individuals and local governments of vast amounts of money, maybe even north of 100 billion dollars worth.   Now they have been "caught" and the powers that be (whose campaigns are often funded by these same banks) have determined that their "penalty" is that they have to give $2.5 billion, not to their victims, but to the state governments to distribute as they see fit!

If I could use an analogy, it would be like a gang of billionaires stealing $10,000 from one million people and local governments ($100 billion dollars).    In some cases, they took homes to which they were not legally entitled from people by the use of fraudulent documents.    In other cases they used shell entities to take title without paying the tax stamp to local governments.    Eventually, they get caught and people and local governments start to take them to court to recover their property and funds.   But the billionaires get the state AGs to sign off on a deal.  Instead of all of those legal cases being decided on the facts of each case, we will settle with YOU for a lump sum provided that you block all the little people we cheated from obtaining access to the legal system in order to sue us.    And the amount of the lump sum we will pay for your help in blocking the little people from getting justice will be about 2.5% of the money that we stole from them.

Locally, it would be like a con man defrauding you of $1,000 and getting the his buddy the DA to agree not to let you prosecute (or sue) him in exchange for giving $25 to his buddy the DA for the DA to split up as he sees fit.   Is the DA a hero if he gives you the whole $25 instead of keeping half of it for himself?   I think not (see list here.)   The "penalty" was a sham with the effect of letting the con man get away with defrauding you of your property.   It gives unrighteousness the cover of law (that's a phrase penned by an old testament prophet).

McDaniel does give more of the money to the victims and less to state government than some of the other AGs, but the whole deal was a travesty.   He is participating in helping the big five banks get away with fraud against Arkansas citizens and communities on a vast scale.   He has no right to sign any such agreement.   We are the ones the banks defrauded, we should each have the right to seek justice for it.   All of the AGs around the country, except for Oklahoma, are committing a terrible travesty.    The AG in Oklahoma could not be induced to be complicit in this outrage.   That there is only one shows the depths of corruption to which our financial and political system has sunk.    That an "independent" media outlet like the Arktimes could laud an AG for participating in this scandal shows how low they have sunk.