Arizona Homeowners Sue Their State For Diverting Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Funds |
Several states have taken their share of the money they received as part of this year’s $25 billion foreclosure fraud settlement and diverted it away from its intended use — providing foreclosure relief. According to ProPublica, states have taken nearly $1 billion in settlement money away from foreclosure victims. However, in one state, homeowners are fighting back. As Firedoglake’s David Dayen noted, “in Arizona, a group of homeowners have filed a lawsuit against state Attorney General Thomas Horne and State Treasurer Doug Ducey, arguing that the $50 million the state will skim off the settlement payout for the General Fund (out of a total of $97.7 million) violates the settlement agreement.”
Arizona House candidate Jesse Kelly (R) refused to discuss his endorsement from a white supremacist group during an interview with KGUN9 News this week, claiming the question about it was “completely out of bounds.”
When the anchor began to ask Kelly why he accepted the endorsement from political action group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), a controversial organization linked to neo-Nazi groups, Kelly’s campaign spokesman jumped in to cut her off, saying the question was “not unacceptable” because it was “not recent.” When the anchor persisted, Kelly echoed his spokesman’s sentiment:
KELLY: It was in 2010. This election is about jobs, and the economy, and lower gas prices. Frankly it’s completely out of bounds.
Watch it:
However, although both Kelly and his spokesman are referring to the endorsement from AILPAC during the 2010 race that Kelly ran against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the group actually renewed their endorsement of Kelly just last week. Kelly is currently running again to replace Giffords’ spot now that she is stepping down.
It’s unclear whether Kelly actively sought out the group’s endorsement, or whether he received it unsolicited. And, to be clear, Kelly should not be blamed for someone’s unsolicited decision to endorse him. He is accountable, however, for declining to distance himself from the group when given the opportunity to do so during the KGUN9 interview.
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett — the state’s top election official — made an appearance on a local radio show yesterday in which he threatened to keep President Obama’s name off of the state’s November ballot unless the state of Hawaii provides his official birth certificate.
BENNETT: First of all, I’m not playing to the birthers, I’m not a birther. I believe that the president was born in Hawaii, or at least I hope he was…Hawaii has a special provision in their law that allows other government officials from other states to request what’s called a verification in lieu of a certified copy of a birth certificate. So I’m not asking for the certified copy of the birth certificate at all…I was frankly expecting that they would very quickly and very simply say ‘yes.’ Eight weeks later, they haven’t said, I can’t seem to get them to say yes.
In fact, Hawaii said “yes” over a year ago. Last April, Obama released a certified copy of his long form birth certificate to the public. And while that did nothing to quell the furor of birthers like Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it more than meets Bennett’s verification requirement.
And yet Bennett is insisting on still more costly and time-consuming work by the state of Hawaii to verify they have the original document on hand. The reason for his suspicion? Arpaio’s sham investigation into the copy released by President Obama raised sufficient questions:
BENNETT: When Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s posse released a press conference a few week ago, or a month ago or whenever it was, that the birth certificate posted on the White House website might be fraudulent, I started getting, as you might imagine, literally over 1,200 emails from people saying ‘well that’s proof, you should require the president to produce the original of his birth certificate in order to be on the ballot of Arizona.’
Arpaio’s press conference more closely resembled an SNL parody than a serious investigation, and it was widely ridiculed for employing faulty “science” and drawing wild conclusions based on little more than technological anomalies.
Bennett is hardly the first person to propose removing Obama from the general election ballot this fall, but as secretary of state, he is in a position to actually act on those threats. Bennett’s insistence that he is not a birther and is simply doing his due diligence as the state’s top election official is a distinction without difference, as it ignores the fact that he is accepting as possibility that Obama’s publicly available birth certificate is fraudulent.
Update
In addition to his duties as the Secretary of State, Ken Bennett is also serving as the Arizona co-chair for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, even after it was revealed that Bennett subscribes to birtherism. While Mitt Romney has himself stayed far away from questioning the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency, his campaign is now linked directly to a prominent birther. In the days since Bennett appeared on the radio, Hawaiian officials have stepped forward to demand proof from Bennett that he has the legal standing to ask the state for proof of President Obama’s birth in Hawaii.
In a surprise move last night, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) vetoed a bill demanding that the federal government turn over up to 25 million acres of public lands to the state by 2014 or face a lawsuit. In a statement, Brewer said that she was:
“…concerned about the lack of certainty this legislation could create for individuals holding existing leases on federal lands. Given the difficult economic times, I do not believe this is the time to add to that uncertainty.”
The overwhelming legal expert opinion is that this type of bill is unconstitutional — which is how the courts have ruled over many decades. The Salt Lake Tribune called a similar effort in Utah “tilting at windmills.”
This is a blow to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate front group that designs “model” legislation and is funded by the likes of Koch Industries, BP, Exxon Mobil, and Shell. ALEC endorsed this particular legislation, as the Associated Pressreported:
Lawmakers in Utah and Arizona have said the legislation is endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that advocates conservative ideals, and they expect it to eventually be introduced in other Western states.
Turning over public lands could eventually lead to their privatization, opening them up to mining, drilling and other industrial activity.
A similar bill demanding federal lands be turned over to the state was signed into law by Utah Governor Gary Herbert (R) last month. The state has demanded 30 million acres of public lands by 2015 or it will sue. And, the Utah legislature has already authorized the state’s attorney general to spend $3 million on the anticipated legal battle.
Brewer’s veto of this bill is also a major setback to those aiming to start a new “sagebrush rebellion” in the West, and may bring an end to other lawmakers’ dreams of privatizing public lands. As Arizona state senator Al Melvin, the primary sponsor of the bill, said:
What we envision is all of the Western states going before the Supreme Court to force this issue.
Thursday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) announced that her state would become the latest to devote its portion of funds from the $25 billion mortgage fraud settlement to balancing the state budget. The funds were intended to go toward relief for struggling homeowners, but Brewer and the state legislature will use $50 million of its funds elsewhere.
Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) isn’t pleased with Brewer or the legislature and said as much Friday, saying Brewer took away “the once chance” homeowners had “to get some help,” The Nation reports:
“Working families were given the short end of the stick, and now Gov. Brewer and the Legislature won’t even let them have that,” Grijalva said. “This decision takes away the one chance Arizonans had to get some help navigating the banking bureaucracy that greased the skids on millions of foreclosures. It’s a clear statement of principles, that’s for sure.”
Arizona has been torched by the housing crisis — it lead the nation in foreclosures in March, and nearly half of its homeowners are underwater, the second most in the country. According to the Arizona Housing Alliance, the $50 million could help as many as 85,000 homeowners. Instead, it will go toward balancing a state budget that hands out more than a half-billion dollars in corporate tax cuts.
Arizona recently became the latest state to pull such shenanigans, diverting $50 million of its share of the settlement to balance its state budget:
At issue is the decision of the Legislature and Gov. Jan Brewer to tap $50 million from the $97.7 million the state received as part of its settlement with five mortgage-lending firms. They said they needed the money from the national mortgage settlement to balance the state budget. Initially, the intent was to use the money for prison construction. [...]
The money comes from a settlement [Arizona Attorney General Tom] Horne’s office negotiated in February with five lenders, and it is intended to provide relief to people affected by the foreclosure crisis as well as to prevent poor lending practices.
“There’s a lot of pressure on the budget,” said Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin to justify the move. But as Mark Ladov and Meghna Philip of the Brennan Center for Justice noted, that money could do a lot of good in a state that has been pounded by the housing crisis:
The final state budget sweeps $50 million from the foreclosure settlement into the state’s general fund. This is despite the fact that Arizona posted the highest foreclosure rate in the nation in March, with an astonishing one out of every 300 housing units receiving a foreclosure notice…The Arizona Housing Alliance estimates that $50 million could provide 75,000 troubled homeowners with housing counseling and 10,000 homeowners with legal assistance. That investment would more than pay for itself by strengthening communities, boosting property values and helping to restore the state’s economic health.
Instead, Arizona, like several other states, will simply siphon the money elsewhere, leaving homeowners to continue struggling on their own.
With the June 12 special election to fill the Arizona House seat left open by the resignation of Rep. Gabby Giffords (D) fast approaching, the Republican nominee Jesse Kelly has just launched a new attack ad against his Democratic opponent Ron Barber. In the ad and a newly revised section of his campaign website, Kelly highlights his commitment to protecting entitlements for America’s seniors — a commitment that stands in stark contrast to the positions he took in his unsuccessful campaign against Giffords back in 2010 and as recently as last month.
In the ad, Kelly makes a widely-debunkedclaim that ObamaCare will “cut $500 billion from Medicare.” The legislation aims to achieve $500 billion in Medicare savings, which will extend the life of the program and provide better care.
But after his disclaimer, Kelly and his grandfather Hank Allgyer say:
KELLY: I’m committed to protecting Social Security and Medicare for our seniors.”
ALLGYER: Don’t let Ron Barber cut my benefits, Jesse. I’ve earned them.
KELLY: Don’t worry, Grandpa. I won’t.
ALLGYER: I know you’ll protect us.
Watch the video:
On his website, Kelly says he supports “preserving, protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare” and does not support “privatizing, eliminating or phasing out these programs in any way.” He advocates actions to prevent Social Security from “going bankrupt” but lays out five principles that would seemingly prevent any real action to do that:
1. Any solution must be bipartisan
2. I will not vote for any solution that privatizes social security
3. I will not vote for any solution that raises taxes
4. I will not vote for any solution that cuts benefits
5. I will not vote for any solution that raises the retirement age
By ruling out changing the amount of money coming in to the Social Security fund (raising taxes) or the amount going out (cutting benefits or changing the retirement age), he seems to take virtually everything off the table. But he hasn’t always had this view.
The Hill noted that as recently as April 18, his website called for partial privatization of Social Security. His earlier view that “Younger workers should have the choice of allocating a portion of their contribution into a personal retirement account in their name,” is has been completely erased from his positions page.
And, the same article notes, in a 2010 debate, Kelly said the nation must take steps to reform, privatize, and phase out entitlements. “You need to fulfill your promises in the near future while phasing out future generations, taking steps to privatize, vouchers, everything,” he said. “It’s not an option of should it be done. It must be done.”
Kelly, a construction manager and Tea Party favorite, infamously hosted an M16 automatic weapons shooting campaign event to help supporters “get on target” to “help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office,” just months before a gunman went on a shooting spree at a Giffords community event in Tuscon, leaving six dead and a dozen wounded — including both Giffords and Barber. Giffords resigned her seat in January to focus on her recovery.
His issues page has since been changed to remove the phrase “The Second Amendment of the Constitution is not just about hunting. It is about the right of a free people to defend themselves.”
The Kelly website makes no mention of whether the nation has always been at war with Eastasia, but Kelly apparently does not think Arizona voters can remember all the way back to April 2012.
Ready’s beliefs were extreme even among extremists. In 2007, for example, he wrote that illegal immigration occurs because “negroids screw monkeys and rape babies in afreaka [sic]. Then stupid white man who licks kosher jew rear lets negroids in.” Yet Ready traveled surprisingly close to the center of power in his state. Ready claims he was a protégé to former Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R), the author of Arizona’s harsh immigration law who was recently removed from office in a recall election, and there is ample documentation that the two men knew each other and that Pearce once supported Ready politically.
Pearce and Ready’s relationship stretches back at least to 2004, when Pearce ordained Ready as an elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. By 2006, when Ready ran for Mesa City Council — a campaign that sputtered after the public learned that Ready was once court-martialed and kicked out of the Marine Corps — he received Pearce’s endorsement. Ready also claims that he was with Pearce’s son Josh when Josh Pearce got a tattoo of an iron eagle with a swastika on his neck and chest, but that he also talked Josh out of joining a skinhead group.
Pearce later tried to distance himself from Ready, but Ready insisted as recently as last year that Pearce was a seminal figure in his life. In an interview with a local Fox station, Ready called Pearce “a surrogate father” who “enlightened him,” that they spent time together at Pearce’s cabin, and that they were “around each other quite a bit.” In the same local news segment, Pearce admits that he had an association with Ready, but denies that it was as close as Ready suggests. Watch it:
Ready is dead, and Pearce obviously has an interest in downplaying his relationship with Ready if a deep bond did once exist between the men. So it may never be known with certainty whether Pearce was the father figure Ready claims he was. Ready, however, does admit to one divide between him and the former Arizona senator. He claims that Pearce taught him to stay “more covert” for “long term strategy aims,” but Ready ultimately chose to ignore this advice.
Regarding whether I knew JT Ready, I did, as did many of us who have been involved in Mesa politics for a long time. When we first met JT he was fresh out of the Marine Corp and seemed like a decent person. He worked as a telephone fundraiser for Christian and pro-life groups, he dated the daughter of one of our District 18 members, and his attitudes and spoken opinions were good and decent. At some point in time darkness took his life over, his heart changed, and he began to associate with the more despicable groups in society. They were intolerant and hateful and like so many who knew him from before, I was upset and disappointed at the choices he was making. I worked with others to have him removed from his local position within our Republican Party because there has never been and will never be any room in our Party or our lives for those preaching hatred. He was angry with me and stayed angry with me, and it has been several years since I have had reason to speak with JT.
In the past several years the local media has worked hard to try to tie me to the JT Ready that preached hate, and that is nothing more than a lie.
Earlier this year, Texas U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz touted a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that George Soros secretly partnered with the United Nations to eliminate the game of golf. Seriously, we aren’t making this up.
Arizona lawmakers appear close to sending to Gov. Jan Brewer a tea party-backed bill that proponents say would stop a United Nations takeover conspiracy but that critics claim could end state and cities’ pollution-fighting efforts and even dismantle the state unemployment office.
A final legislative vote is expected Monday on a bill that would outlaw government support of any of the 27 principles contained in the 1992 United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, also sometimes referred to as Agenda 21.
Senate Bill 1507 was passed by the state Senate last month and received an initial House affirmation Wednesday. It is sponsored by state Sen. Judy Burges, R-Sun City West, who also sponsored a state birther bill that Brewer vetoed last year.
So the Arizona bill addresses entirely imaginary concerns. Unfortunately, however, it will have very real consequences if enacted. The bill provides that every arm of the Arizona government “shall not adopt or implement the creed, doctrine, principles or any tenet of” Agenda 21. But Agenda 21 expressly lists among its “principles” essential functions such as “combating poverty,” “protecting and promoting human health conditions,” “protection of the atmosphere,” and “safe and environmentally sound management of radioactive wastes.”
In other words, if this bill becomes law, Arizona’s government agencies would instantly be forbidden from doing anything to reduce poverty. Or to combat air pollution. Or to ensure that radioactive waste does not contaminate the environment. Or potentially to do anything at all to promote human health. Under this bill, Medicaid, state unemployment and welfare programs and nearly any environmental programs would need to cease, immediately.
Simply put, this is what happens when you place irresponsible Tea Partiers who lash out at paranoid fantasies in charge of government. The proposed response to Agenda 21 would be comic if it were not so potentially tragic. In response to a non-threat presented by an entirely non-binding resolution, the Arizona legislature is set to dismantle their entire system of government — and they probably don’t even understand that this is what they are about to do.
Nearly 3 In 4 Arizona Voters Favor The DREAM Act |
Arizona’s government, as the first to pass a harsh immigration law, is ground zero for anti-immigrant sentiment among lawmakers. Even this state’s voters, however, overwhelmingly support the DREAM Act, which will provide a path to citizenship for undocumented young people who earn college degrees or who serve in the military. 73 percent of registered voters in Arizona support the DREAM Act, including 70 percent of white Arizonans.
By Jessica Goad
Thursday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) announced that her state would become the latest to devote its portion of funds from the $25 billion mortgage fraud settlement to 
Earlier this year, Texas U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz touted a 
