Breaking News Thread Version 2.0

[Krandall]

Bank of America goes to trial over U.S. mortgage fraud charges
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/23/us-bankofamerica-hustle-idUSBRE98M11H20130923


In what would be the government's first financial crisis case to go to trial against a major bank over defective mortgages, jury selection is set to begin in federal court in New York on Tuesday, barring a last-minute settlement.

The trial is also a reminder of the billions of dollars in legal liabilities Bank of America has incurred as a result of its 2008 acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp, which became a poster child of the mortgage meltdown.

The U.S. Justice Department filed the civil lawsuit in 2012, blaming the bank for more than $1 billion in losses to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which bought mortgages that later defaulted. Since then, new evidence and pre-trial rulings by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff have pared the case back.

Bank of America has said the lawsuit's claims are "simply false" and that it "can't be expected to compensate every entity that claims losses that actually were caused by the economic downturn."

A spokesman for the bank declined comment ahead of the trial, which is expected to last five weeks.

'HIGH SPEED SWIM LANE'

The government lawsuit stems from a whistleblower case brought by former Countrywide Financial Corp executive Edward O'Donnell.

It centers on a program called the "High Speed Swim Lane" - also called "HSSL" or "Hustle" - that government lawyers say Countrywide initiated in 2007 as mortgage delinquency and default rates began to rise and Fannie and Freddie tightened underwriting guidelines.

Countrywide pushed to streamline its loan origination business through the program, eliminating loan quality checkpoints and paying employees based only on the volume of loans they produced, according to the lawsuit.

The result was "rampant instances of fraud and other serious loan defects," including in the mortgages sold to Fannie and Freddie, despite assurances Countrywide had tightened underwriting guidelines, the Justice Department said.

The process was overseen by Rebecca Mairone, a former chief operating officer of Countrywide' s Full Spectrum Lending Division. The Justice Department added her as a co-defendant in January.

Mairone left Bank of America in mid-2012 and is now a managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Marc Mukasey, a lawyer for Mairone at Bracewell & Giuliani, said in an email it was "a shame the government is wasting time and money on a case that is utterly devoid of merit."

Fannie and Freddie's estimated "gross loss" on loans in the Countrywide program was $848.2 million, according to court papers. The "net loss" - the loss caused by the portion of loans the Justice Department says were materially defective - was $131.2 million.

While the jury will determine if the bank is liable, any penalty would be up to Rakoff, a judge well-known for his rulings in financial crisis cases.

In 2010, Rakoff rejected a $33 million settlement between Bank of America and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over claims it did not properly disclose employee bonuses and financial losses at Merrill Lynch, which it acquired at the end of 2008.

The bank ultimately agreed to a renewed settlement paying $150 million in an accord Rakoff "reluctantly" approved. In November 2011, he rejected a $285 million settlement between the SEC and Citigroup Inc, challenging the long-standing practice of settlements without admissions of wrongdoing.

In the "Hustle" case, Rakoff dismissed claims against the bank under the False Claims Act but allowed the case to instead proceed under a provision of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, a 1989 federal law passed after the savings-and-loan crisis.

The law, which provides a longer statute of limitations of 10 years, has become the basis of several government civil lawsuits over the financial crisis.

The case is U.S. ex rel. O'Donnell v. Bank of America Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-01422.

[Krandall]

I THOUGHT THIS WAS MERIKA.. 

http://www.channel3000.com/news/6-students-cited-for-nerf-gun-wars/25635394

[Colorado700R]

I THOUGHT THIS WAS MERIKA.. 

http://www.channel3000.com/news/6-students-cited-for-nerf-gun-wars/25635394

That's my home town

[Peelz]

ERMAHGERD!

my kids and I would be in prison for life! Our nerf gun wars get brutal 

pansies.

[funyun]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-man-dressed-tolkien-high-elf-attacks-womans-car-sword-1449307

[Mad Dog]

LSD....that's a helluva drug

[Peelz]

thats flippin hilarious..id be loling all over the place if an elf attacked my car. then Id run him over.

[funyun]

" The woman called the police and said that a "pirate" was attacking her."

I'm trying to figure out how she thought he was a pirate

[Krandall]

" The woman called the police and said that a "pirate" was attacking her."

I'm trying to figure out how she thought he was a pirate

[Peelz]

 

good point.

[funyun]

newspaper gets trolled by some kid and actually posts article

Why are news reports all a bunch of idiots


http://nypost.com/2014/05/28/friend-say-ucsb-killer-was-hooked-on-creatine-supplement/

[Krandall]

newspaper gets trolled by some kid and actually posts article

Why are news reports all a bunch of idiots


http://nypost.com/2014/05/28/friend-say-ucsb-killer-was-hooked-on-creatine-supplement/

http://fitmisc.com/forum/showthread.php/63711-ITT-ghettocandyman-gets-questioned-by-reporter-on-facebook-about-elliot-GTFIH

[Peelz]

  troll ftw

[Peelz]

umm lets hike up our skirts a little more ladies... its flippin heavy metal. Im not a hunter myself, but come on. I would think heavy metal and shooting a giant carnivourous mammal would mesh well. Maybe these folks should listen to Sarah Mclachlan and have a good cry.   


http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/04/call-to-axe-metallica-glastonbury-bear-hunt-tv-series-hetfield

More than 10,000 people have joined a campaign calling for Metallica to be dropped from Glastonbury due to their frontman's support for bear hunting. Organisers of the campaign claim the metal group's politics are "incompatible with the spirit of Glastonbury", citing singer/guitarist James Hetfield's reported involvement in the upcoming documentary series The Hunt.

An anti-Metallica Facebook group has grown to 11,245 members in just over a week, with thousands agreeing that Hetfield's views "bring [the festival's] good name into disrepute". "[Glastonbury] is in a position ... to make a stand," organisers wrote, "[making] it known that [big game hunting] is not acceptable in a modern civilised society and that we want no part of it."

In May, the History channel announced that Hetfield will be narrating all eight episodes of The Hunt, which premieres on 8 June. The series follows a group of hunters as they pursue the world's largest brown bears in Alaska. "Honouring the animal is paramount and taught to all hunters who come to [Kodiak island]," producers said in a press release. "Hunters have an ethical and legal responsibility to strive for clean kills that is taken very seriously ... Aside from population control management, bear hunting is also vital to the economic viability of Kodiak."

[Krandall]

merika