Hypocrite. Exclusive: Paul Ryan Quietly Requested Obamacare Cash

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan is barnstorming the country, promising to repeal every provision of the Affordable Care Act if the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected. But a letter he wrote to the Obama administration may undermine this message.

On December 10, 2010, Ryan penned a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend a grant application for the Kenosha Community Health Center, Inc to develop a new facility in Racine, Wisconsin, an area within Ryan’s district. “The proposed new facility, the Belle City Neighborhood Health Center, will serve both the preventative and comprehensive primary healthcare needs of thousands of new patients of all ages who are currently without healthcare,” Ryan wrote.

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SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY: Mortgage aid expanded, now be eligible for a proposal to use eminent domain to save homes

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY: Mortgage aid expanded.

The company behind a proposal to use eminent domain to seize mortgages plans to expand the number of homeowners able to reduce their loan payments through their program.

http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/imran-ghori-

Did Citigroup defraud billions from Abu Dhabi?

Great piece from Salon:

 

Wikileaks, the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi sent a communication to the U.S. Secretary of State and U.S. Treasury on December 22, 2009, alerting them to the fact that the investment arm of a U.S. ally, Abu Dhabi, believed it had been defrauded of $4 billion by Citigroup (Wall Street’s serial miscreant and recent ward of the taxpayer).  The cable relayed that William Brown, legal advisor to the Abu Dhabi investment arm, “unequivocally stated that Citi ‘lied’ and must be held accountable.”

Three years later, Abu Dhabi has likely figured out that in the U.S., gangsters have guns but banksters are far more dangerous – they have ivy league educated lawyers.  One group of lawyers writes the prospectuses that defraud investors; another group writes the contracts that bar these cases from ever seeing sunshine in a public courtroom; and the third group provides skillful white color criminal defense, including a speed dial to their pals in Washington, ensuring that justice will be as elusive as a Wall Street CEO clad in orange.

A three month search of records, that have not yet been sealed or redacted, show that Abu Dhabi landed in the same plundered status as public pension funds and small time investors in Citigroup, while a very special Group of Six reaped a windfall.

It all started with a handshake from a former U.S. Treasury Secretary.  On Monday, November 26, 2007, four days after Thanksgiving, Robert Rubin was standing in one of the most spectacular waterfront buildings in the Middle East – the headquarters of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.  With two finger-like wings, the gleaming building showcases an atrium soaring 40 stories into the sky.

Rubin, a former Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs, whose lavish pay at Citigroup since leaving Treasury in 1999 had reached $120 million for eight years of non-management work, had more than architecture on his mind that day.  He had reluctantly agreed to serve as interim Chairman of Citigroup after the company had earlier that month forced out its Chairman and CEO, Chuck Prince, following spectacular losses and a sinking share price.  Rubin was on a critical mission to secure a $7.5 billion lifeline for Citigroup.

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Capital One Bank accused of allowing forgers to take $354k from disabled vet’s account

BATON ROUGE – Capital One Bank allowed forgers to take $354,100 from a disabled WWII veteran’s account, including two individual withdrawals of $100,000, without notifying him of the unusual activity, the man claims in Federal Court.

Source: Courthouse News

Four Regional Banks Discuss Settlement Over Foreclosures

U.S. state attorneys general are pressing four banks to accept a legal settlement over botched foreclosures similar to a deal reached with larger competitors this year, according to three people briefed on the matter.

U.S. Bancorp (SFBC), PNC Financial Services Group (PNC) Inc., SunTrust Banks Inc. (STI) and HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) have held talks with state and federal officials who investigated claims that loan servicers mishandled foreclosure documents, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.

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Update: Wells Fargo offered the elderly couple who the bank wrongfully foreclosed on $260,000

Here is the story:

The couple and their attorney met with the bank Thursday. The bank offered the couple $260,000. The couple had not yet reached a decision Thursday.

Read the background of this story. Click here.

Here is my opinion to the couple: Don’t take the bank’s settlement. That’s purely chump change which don’t take into account the amount of damage done to the property and stolen items in the house, the amount of loss in dollar amount in possessions stolen, entering the home illegally, pain an suffering, etc. I hope the couple take the bank to court. And halt the company that the bank hired that stole the possessions into court too.  Also, check out the home values in Twentynine Palms. It makes you understand why Wells Fargo came up with the settlement amount. Click here.

Swiss Criminal Investigation into Barclays’ GoldenKey, billion dollar structured investment vehicle, fail Moving Forward

That Barclays criminal complaint I told you about this winter is still alive in Geneva courts. I heard from people involved in the case that after news of Barclays role in the Libor scandal broke, the Swiss judge reviewing evidence brought by high net worth investor Philippe Rebourg took the case a lot more serious. Rebourg lost millions from a Barclays billion dollar structured investment vehicle, called GoldenKey, who failed in spectacular fashion in 2007 through his investment with Avendis Capital. Avendis ran a hedge fund called AEIF fund, which used about 50 percent of their investors assets to buy positions in GoldenKey and then levered up their stake in the SIV. Avendis was also a collateral manager for BarCap, who according to Rebourg’s claim; happen to get some easy money from Barcap to buy their over leveraged position in GoldenKey.

It’s a sordid tangle of relationships involving the America offices of BarCap, with executives like Kelsey Burr and John Parker playing the central role of evil banksters. Burr magically left the bank last year around the time Rebourg showed Barclays a slew of internal emails detailing his alleged role in the fraud. Burr and Parker built products called SIV-lite that would raise capital, borrow money in the short-term commercial paper debt market, and then invest all of this money in higher interest rate bearing products like mortgage-backed securities. The criminal claim tries to show, among other things, Barclays created these SIV’s to off-load their toxic mortgage products at the beginning of the financial crisis and sell them to unsuspecting investors via hedge funds the bankers were friendly with. It’s a tale that highlights how every firm from raters to auditors involved in these high finance products somehow played a role to cheat main street investors.

After I broke news highlighting the case, the judge temporarily gagged people involved from talking with the media. But insiders came forward this week with an update.

“The Swiss judge has done a deep dive into the evidence and charges could be brought within a month,” said a person involved in the Swiss criminal investigation.

The Swiss judge had to sort through multiple offshore entities BarCap set up within the GoldenKey transaction. Finding criminal liability is tough because the complexity of financial products like GoldenKey, which are very difficult to understand even for a specialized judge familiar with financial instruments, have been structured in order to make sure all the potential legal liability was outsourced to some external managers, like Avendis Capital, or domiciled in different bankruptcy remote jurisdictions.

Read on.