We already know Scott Brown’s vision of taxes and public service. Brown’s on the side of the powerful and the wealthy and the big banks, but he doesn’t mind sticking it to the little guy, to the family struggling to cover their mortgage and save a little for their kids’ college education, the patriot who rushes to people in need.

We already knew Scott Brown was looking out for his fact cat backers. Now, as we learn how he treats his own employees, we see that he’s really just out for himself.

Scott Brown’s campaign wants you to believe they don’t have employees. According to his campaign finance reports, Brown pays his staff as if they were independent contractors. He doesn’t just pay his media and other consultants that way, he pays his lowest-level staff as if they weren’t really his employees.

Campaigns often use the services of people who are accurately classified as independent contractors. But it’s impossible for any major campaign to reach the final weekend of the race and, as the Brown campaign wants people to believe, not have employees. It may be true that the Federal Elections Commission doesn’t designate how campaigns designate their staffers. But the Internal Revenue Service does have specific rules on who can and cannot be classified an independent contractor. If a worker takes direct instructions on tasks, has hours mandated by the employer, uses facilities and tools supplied by the employer, or is working exclusively for that employer, they’re not an independent contractor, they’re an employee. [Look here;(pdf) for the kinds of questions the IRS asks to determine employee status.] By any reasonable standard, at this late point in the campaign, when workers are working exclusively for the campaign, are taking direct orders from the candidate or other staff, and where they are working in campaign headquarters, spending campaign money, using campaign equipment, and representing themselves as Brown’s campaign staff, they’re undoubtedly employees.

By paying his staff as contractors instead of employees, Scott Brown avoids any responsibility to be a good employer and provide them health insurance. That alone should be enough to disqualify him in the minds of many voters. But by paying his staff as contractors, Brown has also managed to avoid his responsibility to pay their payroll taxes. Brown has pushed his tax obligation off on to his employees, which is not only selfish, it’s also probably a violation of federal law.

It’s no surprise that Brown evaded questions about paying his staff as contractors, directing people to speak to his attorneys. And it’s no surprise his attorneys wouldn’t comment on the issue, because Scott Brown is almost certainly in violation of federal tax laws.

Scott Brown: champion of bankers and special interests, and tax cheat who pushes his obligations off on to his employees.

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Here's a feel-good story for your Thanksgiving day. Finally, a victory for the little guy:

A Long Island couple is home free after an outraged judge gave them an amazing Thanksgiving present -- canceling their debt to ruthless bankers trying to toss them out on the street.

Suffolk Judge Jeffrey Spinner wiped out $525,000 in mortgage payments demanded by a California bank, blasting its "harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive" acts.

The bombshell decision leaves Diane Yano-Horoski and her husband, Greg Horoski, owing absolutely no money on their ranch house in East Patchogue.

Spinner pulled no punches as he smacked down the bankers at OneWest -- who took an $814.2 million federal bailout but have a record of coldbloodedly foreclosing on any homeowner owing money.

The Horoski's probably would have been able to make their mortgage payments, had it not been for our current health care system:

Yano-Horoski, a college professor of English and cognitive reason, and Horoski, who sells collectible dolls online, bought their 3,400-square-foot, one-level house 15 years ago for less than $200,000.

It eventually ended up being either owned or serviced by IndyMac, and the bank sued the couple in July 2005 when they began having trouble making payments because of Horoski's health problems. Read on...

This story really encapsulates the sad state of affairs in America and sets an interesting precedent. Of course, OneWest will appeal the decision, but don't be surprised to see lawyers across the country cite this case. It's about time someone spoke loudly and clearly on behalf of the people!

This is really sad. This is going to hit even harder in big cities, where so many of the poor live in multi-unit buildings:

NEW YORK -- A new wave of foreclosures stands to hurt people who may have never taken out a mortgage: renters. In cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, where many investors are carrying upside-down mortgages on large rental buildings, some tenants are watching their homes fall apart along with the financing.

Janeia Sandiford, a 24-year-old GED student in New York, has two young children and a deteriorating apartment. When a leak over Sandiford's bathroom and kitchen caused the ceiling to flake off and then cave in, nobody came to fix it for a year, she said. She lacked heat most of last winter, and she has duct-taped her loose-fitting windows in place to cut down on drafts.

"I'm really worried about the kids," she said.

The real estate investment company Ocelot Capital Group bought the building where Sandiford lives and about two dozen others in the Bronx in 2006 and 2007. As the new owners struggled to keep up with payments, 10 of the buildings appeared on the city's list of most dilapidated rental properties in 2007 and 2008. Last winter, as Ocelot defaulted on its loans amid the deepening financial crisis, the buildings plummeted further into decline. Together, they racked up thousands of Code C violations --the most serious kind -- from housing inspectors.

Fannie Mae, which had bought much of the debt from the original lender, entered foreclosure proceedings for Sandiford's building early this spring. A state court appointed receivers.

In the meantime, the building on Manida Street has been beset by problems, according to tenants and their advocates, whose accounts were confirmed by the crumbling walls and damaged plumbing apparent on a tour of the property and its neighbor, also owned by Ocelot. Vandals stole the lock on the front door, giving squatters access to vacant apartments to sell drugs. Plumbing in the building was disrupted after the squatters broke through the walls and stole pipes to sell as scrap metal.

Similar conditions could crop up across the country this winter as foreclosures climb for large rental-unit buildings. In the first three quarters of 2009, 475 foreclosure proceedings were begun against multifamily rental or cooperative homes in the District, according to NeighborhoodInfo DC, a partnership between the Urban Institute and the D.C. Local Initiatives Support Corp. That figure already eclipses the 458 foreclosures for all of 2008.

I haven't seen Michael Moore's new movie, but Howie Klein has, and while he praises it, he excoriates Moore for dredging up the discredited Chris Dodd Countrywide story, which has been picked over to death, with nobody finding any impropriety.

First, everyone who has seriously looked at the claims of a sweetheart deal has dismissed them: the Senate Ethics Committee; an independent compliance firm; the (not exactly Dodd-loving) Hartford Courant. And not once, but twice.

This is not the definition of the word "is." The man got a mortgage. He was told that he would get enhanced customer service, and assumed it was because of his good credit score. He got the exact same mortgage rate that anyone else buying a mortgage at the time would have gotten. He didn't know the CEO of Countrywide, nor anything about a Friends of the CEO program [...]

Why does this feel like, in the interest of being able to sit on Leno and say, "I went after Democrats too!," Moore passed up the real story here? It would have been really powerful if he made the connection between the bullshit allegations about Dodd and the banking industry desperately wanting to put the breaks on important housing and foreclosure legislation that Dodd was championing in the Senate at that very moment. Well, mission accomplished assholes, excuse me, the Sheriff is here to foreclose on my house (is it possible its the same one from Roger and Me? Oh, the irony) [...]

All in all, still love Moore, still want everyone to see the movie, but kind of wish he hadn't decided to jump ugly with one of the most progressive Senators in the Senate -- the guy responsible for the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Credit CARD Act, who voted for cramdown, worked to make that disaster of a bankruptcy bill better, then voted against it twice, voted for a 15% cap on interest rates, and is co-sponsoring another cap that is likely to come up again, is a leader on direct-student-loan reform, is in favor of a consumer financial protection agency and stripping the fed of some of its regulatory authority, and just last week introduced legislation to reign in the diabolical overdraft fee practice-- all stuff, if you are keeping score, which Moore clearly wasn't, that banks would rather paint a hammer and sickle on their walls than accept! I wish Moore hadn't got played like a three dollar harmonica. He should donate the 10 grand to Dodd's campaign.

It appears that the premise of Moore's film is that banking interests have taken over the government and prevented any meaningful regulation on the industry. Dodd's case can be an example of that, but not in the way Moore thinks. The banking lobby has consistently kneecapped him, with old charges that have a Whitewater quality to them, with all the same innuendo and the same lack of factual detail, right at the moments when Dodd was trying to get things passed to crack down on them. Dodd could have given away the Banking Committee Chair to completely-in-the-pocket Tim Johnson, but he didn't. And in the last few days, Dodd has introduced the aforementioned legislation to end the practice of banks charging overdraft fees on debit cards automatically, with 1000% interest, instead of giving customers the opportunity to have a transaction denied; introduced a plan for a single bank regulator that is at odds with the Obama Adminstration and his House counterpart Barney Frank, as well as being hated by the banking industry; and has taken the lead on weakening the power of the Fed, which is deeply desirable. In other words, despite the many slings and arrows, Dodd is basically doing the job Michael Moore would expect someone in his position to do, and doing it with gusto. He should be commended and not smeared.

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Uh, isn't this what Krugman and Stiglitz have been saying? It's why the two Nobel prize winners have been urging Obama to nationalize the banks:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday said difficulty in setting a value on banks' toxic assets was a continuing hindrance to their ability to lend and borrow.

In prepared testimony for delivery to the Congressional Oversight Panel that monitors Treasury's efforts to bail out troubled banks, Geithner said toxic assets were "congesting" the U.S. financial system and making it hard to get credit flowing normally again.

"Uncertainty about the value of legacy assets is constraining the ability of financial institutions to raise private capital," he said, adding that he hoped a public-private investment program will improve the ability to put a price on troubled mortgage and other assets.

Well, well, Spud fell in the well---Our Gang-Wheezer, 1931

Crooks and Liars, all of them:

Federal authorities announced Thursday that more than 400 real estate industry players have been indicted since March — including dozens over the past two days — in nationwide crackdown on mortgage fraud that has contributed to the country’s housing crisis. The FBI put the losses to homeowners and other borrowers who were victims in the schemes at over $1 billion.

Meanwhile, over at Bear Stearns.

Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi, formerly senior managers of two hedge funds run by Bear Stearns that failed last year, already have been taken into custody.

The charges against two will be announced during a press conference this afternoon in Brooklyn involving the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, the New York division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

I watched it happen with my own eyes. Buying a mortgage is a very complicated thing for everyone, more so for a first timer and as we've learned----many, many people were manipulated and lied to. And to all those free marketers---we need regulations.