You may have heard that Bank of America has decided to halt foreclosures in all 50 states (good news for me if I ever close, because that’s who my new mortgage is with – and now I won’t have to bother repaying it). With the revelations of “robo-signing” mortgage documents without review and outright mortgage fraud allegations against financial giants BOA, GMAC, and JP Morgan Chase (including forged documents, fake Social Security numbers, phantom titles, disappearing paper trails, “robo-signers” and mortgages split, combined, and split so many times that nobody can figure out who really owns them), many people – like Debbie Wasserman Schultz – are backing a moratorium on all foreclosures until this mess can be straightened out. Of course, you have the usual suspects defending banks.

The No. 2 House Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, said a national moratorium would remove the protections that lenders need.

“You’re going to shut down the housing industry” with a national stoppage, Cantor said. “People have to take responsibility for themselves.”

Sadly (but not unexpectedly), the list of those defending the banks also includes the White House, with Obama spokesslut David Axelrod declaring the Administration’s opposition to a foreclosure moratorium.

It is a serious problem,” said David Axelrod…. But he added, “I’m not sure about a national moratorium because there are in fact valid foreclosures that probably should go forward”

Of course, the White House knew what these financial institutions were up to and decided to look the other way, so it comes as no surprise they wanna make sure the banks are protected now.

But, hey, at least they’re not Nazi reenactors. I think that’d make for a good 2012 re-election slogan: “Obama: Not a Nazi Reenactor.” They can put it in the rotation with, “Obama: Not as Bad as Bush.”

Speaking of “not a Nazi,” what would Monday be without an entry from the”teabaggers – they say the darndest things” files? Today, it’s Carl Paladino, though I’m not quite sure if it’s what Carl said, what Carl didn’t say, or what Carl says he didn’t say (which, technically, he didn’t – but what he did say wasn’t all that great, either) in front of a group of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn.

In a version of the speech distributed by a rabbi, the rant went further, charging there is “nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.”

Paladino, who’s running for governor, winced as he got to this section of the text, and he never spoke the line.
[…]
So Paladino was reading from a speech that was prepared for him by his hosts? Not that pols don’t often solicit and accept quite a bit of input from potential supporters about what they want to hear. But this would seem to take things to a new level entirely.

It leaves me wondering: did Paladino just read the speech cold? He and his campaign had never seen this text before? Or did the campaign in fact approve this text but when it came to that line it was just too much even for Paladino?

Like I said, this version of the story seems even weirder than the original.

[ed.note: It is worth noting explicitly that while this one sentence may have been the stand-out, the gist of the rest of Paladino’s remarks were quite similar, if perhaps not quite as bald.]

Paladino’s remarks also came more or less at the same time that 8 NYC men were being arraigned on charges of torturing three gay people.

Eight gang suspects arrested in the torture of two teenage boys and a man in an anti-gay attack in New York City earlier this month have been arraigned on charges including robbery, assault, sexual abuse and unlawful imprisonment as hate crimes.

Police are looking for a ninth suspect.

Police say the nine members of the Latin King Goonies gang went on a rampage Oct. 3 after hearing a rumor one of their teenage recruits was gay.

They say the gang members invited a man to a house by telling him they were having a party. They say the suspects burned, beat and tortured him for hours and sodomized him with a miniature baseball bat.

Not that Carl would condone such a thing, of course. He’d just be happy to pander to people that would (or at least people that would think it’s funny).

Of course, no Autumn Monday would be complete without a recap of the important stuff that happened in the world of sports (and by important, I of course mean what’s important to me). And it was a pretty good sports weekend at that.

We all know that Syracuse beat South Florida for the first time ever (a fact that truly epitomizes the shame that Greg Robinson brought to the SU football program – and has now brought to Michigan as the Wolverines DC) in Big East play. What we’re unable to fathom is how a school in Tampa can call itself “South” Florida. I’m no expert on the geography of Florida, but, by my reckoning, Tampa isn’t even halfway down. If anything, they ought to be Western Florida or something. Oh well, no point in quibbling.

In the NFL, Washington managed to beat Green Bay in OT, which is a good thing. And the Giants won (easily, even), which is always nice. Sadly, Philly also won, which is too bad, since I Was kind of hoping that they’d never win another game, but that was somewhat mitigated by the fact that Dallas lost (and lost in a marvelously stupid fashion), so that’s good. Oh, and speaking of Carl Paladino, Buffalo was looking good for a while yesterday. And then they lost. Like Carl, the Bills suck.

Hopefully the Jets can win tonight.

No “work” work today, but plenty of work to do around the house while I wait for a closing date, which may or may not come some time this week. Then there’ll be much more work to do over there.

So I guess I better get going.