“CIGNA killed my daughter,” Nataline’s mother Hilda told security. “I want an apology.” Sarkisyan was not able to speak to Hanway; a communications specialist talked to her instead. After their conversation, employees heckled the group from a balcony; one man gave them the finger. CIGNA called the police and had the family and their friends escorted from the building. Source
Huffington Post First Posted: 09-22-09 10:10 AM | Updated: 09-22-09 05:14 PM
Modern-day home mortgages have been so sliced and diced by rapacious financiers that some homeowners are successfully delaying — or even blocking — foreclosures through the simple tactic of demanding that banks produce the original mortgage note, which amazingly enough is often not so easy for them to do.
As the foreclosure rate continues to set new highs, a little-noticed legal provision that requires bankers, if challenged, to prove they hold the original mortgage documents before getting possession has spawned a minor homeowner rebellion, alternately called “produce the note” or “show me the note“. For homeowners trying desperately to keep their homes, the tactic is one way to buy some time — and maybe even get the upper hand on the lender. Source
First Posted: 09-14-09 10:30 AM | Updated: 09-14-09 12:14 PM
For years, Ann Minch of Red Bluff, Calif., has carried a balance of several thousand dollars on her Bank of America credit card, making minimum monthly payments of about $130, sometimes paying an extra $50 or $100. She says she’s never missed a payment.
Bank of America rewarded her loyalty this year by repeatedly raising her interest rate, which reached 30 percent in July.
Fed up, the 46-year-old stepmother of two turned to YouTube.
“There comes a time when a person must be willing to sacrifice in order to take a stand for what’s right,” said Minch in a Sept. 8 webcam video. “Now, this is one of those times, and if I’m successful this will be the proverbial first shot fired in an American debtors’ revolution against the usury and plunder perpetrated by the banking elite, the Federal Reserve and the federal government.” Source
At around noon on July 5, EST, a phone call, from a verifiable source, was received by a member of former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney’s camp indicating that the American prisoners in Israel have been moved to a detainment facility closer to the Ben Gurion Airport.
McKinney’s imprisonment has shed additional light upon the plight of Gaza – which is one of two possible results of her trip – the other one being that supplies and a little joy for the children might have actually been delivered.
Either way, it’s a step toward healing Gaza. And the Palestinians, observing the commitment of the humanitarians to delivering aid, see that some of the world cares. Source Article
Yesterday we printed a touching letter from an Iranian woman that began with these ominous lines: “I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed…”
Tonight, she posted a second letter, passed along and translated by two readers. She writes about her “sister” in this cause who was killed today, referring to Neda.
Yesterday I wrote a note, with the subject line “tomorrow is a great day perhaps tomorrow I’ll be killed.” I’m here to let you know I’m alive but my sister was killed…
I’m here to tell you my sister died while in her father’s hands
I’m here to tell you my sister had big dreams…
I’m here to tell you my sister who died was a decent person… and like me yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind… and like me read “Forough” [Forough Farrokhzad]… and longed to live free and equal… and she longed to hold her head up and announce, “I’m Iranian”… and she longed to one day fall in love to a man with a shaggy hair… and she longed for a daughter to braid her hair and sing lullaby by her crib…
my sister died from not having life… my sister died as injustice has no end… my sister died since she loved life too much… and my sister died since she lovingly cared for people…
my loving sister, I wish you had closed your eyes when your time had come… the very end of your last glance burns my soul….
sister have a short sleep. your last dream be sweet.
With Al Franken holding on to a razor-thin lead over incumbent Norm Coleman in the protracted contest for the United States Senate seat from Minnesota, Republicans say they are planning to block any attempt by Democrats to seat Mr. Franken when the new Congress is sworn in next week.
If the recount in Minnesota, which has entered its sixth week, remains undecided, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the incoming chairman of the Republican National Senatorial Committee, said on Friday that G.O.P. senators were ready to filibuster the provisional seating of Mr. Franken.
Mr. Cornyn said that without a certificate of election, which cannot be issued under Minnesota state law if there were legal challenges pending, the Senate should not seat Mr. Franken, the Democrat, or Senator Coleman.
Michigan Messenger broke the story Oct. 1 that at least two Michigan GOP precinct delegates had ties to white supremacists. In the story, Michigan Messenger reported that Randy Gray, of Midland, was a self-avowed member of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, and Midland GOP chair Diane Bristol had this to say about that:
“If, in fact, he’s associated with the KKK, [then] yes, it troubles me.”
An image of Gray has now surfaced in the Midland Daily News (online edition at OurMidland.com). The newspaper said the image shows Gray, 30, protesting the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. And to top it off, Gray is dressed in his KKK robes while standing at a busy intersection in Midland. His protest was held in front of Garber Chevrolet at the corner of Eastman Avenue and Saginaw Road in Midland and lasted 15 or 20 minutes.
Police told the Midland Daily News that Gray was exercising his First Amendment rights. What was Gray’s protest about?
“I feel white people feel more oppressed,” he said. “We’re basically told as white people we can’t have any organizations. We’re ruled by communists.
“It’s not just about Barack Obama. It goes deeper than that.”
According to the Midland Daily News report, Gray then went on to say the election of Obama to the presidency was the impetus for him to make the walk on Wednesday. The report fails to note that Gray is Michigan GOP precinct delegate for Midland.
Gray was one of three candidates who ran unopposed for three open delegate seats in Midland in the Republican Aug. 5 primary. As a precinct delegate, Gray serves a two-year term and is expected to attend all state Republican conventions and to run campaign activities in the Saginaw-area precinct for Republican candidates.
At the time of Gray’s primary victory for the delegate seat, Bristol told Michigan Messenger:
When asked if the local party knew about Gray’s candidacy, she said, “He completed the valid application. Neither I nor any one in the Republican Party can control who runs or who gets voted for.” She added, “He has the right to run. We have no control over the election process.”
When a Jefferson County deputy unleashed pepper spray at unruly protesters on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he did not know that his targets were undercover Denver police officers.
Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is questioning whether that staged confrontation by police pretending to be violent inflamed other protesters or officers during the most intense night of the four-day event.
The protest occurred Aug. 25 at 15th Street and Court Place near Civic Center. Police ultimately arrested 106 people, the highest number of arrests in a single day during the convention.
According to a use-of-force police report obtained by the ACLU, undercover Denver detectives staged a struggle with a police commander to get pulled out of the crowd without blowing their cover. The commander knew they were working undercover, and the plan was to pull them out of the crowd and pretend they were under arrest so protesters would be none the wiser.
A Jefferson County deputy, unaware of the presence of undercover police, thought that the commander was being attacked and used pepper spray on the undercover officers.
The report says that the commander and an undercover detective were sprayed, but it does not indicate how many others were affected. The report also doesn’t say whether the pepper spray used on the undercover police was the first deployment of chemicals that night or whether the riot was already underway.
Denver police have said they were trying to control the crowd moving from Civic Center. The officers testified in court that they had intelligence that anarchists planned to gather in the park, then move toward the 16th Street Mall to wreak havoc at delegate hotels and other businesses. The activists had posted that plan on a publicly available website.
A CIGNA employee gave the finger — literally — to a woman whose daughter died after the insurance giant refused to cover her liver transplant.
