Man Bites Dog, Er Bank

By , June 4, 2011 3:59 pm

Walter Russell Mead writes that

Bankers like [Bank of America founder] A.P. Giannini made the argument that the thirty year mortgage was a weapon against Marx: if the average American family no longer owned a farm, it could still own a house. . . . pioneered the mass marketed thirty year mortgage. Under his leadership the Bank of America perfected the growth engine that drove this whole country for sixty years. The bank lent money through the municipal bond market to build the infrastructure for new subdivisions. It lent money to real estate developers to build housing developments and lent money to consumers for mortgages and to buy cars.

According to Wikipedia,

[His] was a new bank for the hardworking immigrants other banks would not serve. He offered those ignored customers savings accounts and loans, judging them not by how much money they already had, but by their character.

You have to wonder how far he would spew his morning coffee if he were alive to hear this story:

It started five months ago when Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple, who didn’t owe a dime on their home.

The couple said they paid cash for the house.A Collier County Judge agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered, by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners’, Maurenn Nyergers and her husband.

The Judge said the bank wrongfully tried to foreclose on the Nyergers’ house.

So, how did it end with bank being foreclosed on? After more than 5 months of the judge’s ruling, the bank still hadn’t paid the legal fees, and the homeowner’s attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank’s assets.

“They’ve ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated, ” attorney Todd Allen told CBS.

Sheriff’s deputies, movers, and the Nyergers’ attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller’s drawers.

After about an hour of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.

The Midnight Lynching of Sarah Palin

By , June 4, 2011 12:18 pm

They’re at it again. Palin’s critics. They’re beclowning themselves even as they attempt to turn her into one. It began with this video:

Her garbled comment set the Leftosphere afire. That dumb Palin got her history wrong again! How can conservatives be soooo stupid!

Then Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection rode to her defense (many links at this link). Among other things, he posted Paul Revere’s personal account of his adventure. In the relevant part, it reads (spelling in original, bolding mine):

I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back,and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from,& what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms

Jacobson also links to David Hackett Fischer’s book, Paul Revere’s Ride at Google Books. If you’re interested, read pages 140-143, but here’s a snippet to save you the trouble:

[Revere] rode directly to the house of Captain Isaac Hall, commander of Medford’s minutemen, who instantly triggered the town’s alarm system. A townsman remembered that ‘repeated gunshots, the beating of drums and the ringing of bells filled the air’ . . . Along the North Shore of Massachusetts, church bells began to toll and the heavy beat of drums could be heard for many miles in the night air. Some towns responded to these warnings before a courier reached them. North Reading was awakened by alarm guns before sunrise. The first messenger appeared a little later (140). . . . [Another] express rider delivered the alarm to a Whig leader who went to an outcropping called Bell Rick, and rang the town bell. That prearranged signal summoned the men of Malden with their weapons . . . (141) . . . Along Paul Revere’s northern route, the town leaders and company captains instantly triggered the alarm system . . . (142).

So did Paul Revere ring bells, beat drums, and shoot guns to warn his compatriots? Probably not, but who really knows. What we do know is that he and his fellow express riders were certainly the “triggers” that set off the warning system of bells, drums, and gunshots.

Yes, Palin could have been more clear, but what she said was spot on. Revere did warn the British that they were in for a fight, and he “triggered” a pre-arranged warning system.

Meanwhile, her bitter critics on the left cling to their copies of Longfellow’s poem.

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