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
(CNN) – Health Care for America Now and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who favor President Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system, are switching their focus from potential congressional swing votes to staunch opponents, announcing a half-million dollar ad buy Thursday that targets some key GOP critics of the legislation.
“Republicans intent on killing reform for political gain need to be held accountable for their actions,” said Richard Kirsch, Health Care for America Now’s national campaign director. Source
Nothing like a question from out of left field to elicit some bare-boned truths about policing, race, and stupidity.
President Obama in a televised news conference, billed as an attempt to shore up allied support and win converts for his health care plan, turned to Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet for the final question of the evening. Did Ms. Sweet ask about universal health care? The ups and downs of a single-payer system? The heartburn of quaking Blue Dog Democrats over the cost of the Obama plan? Bill Kristol’s blinkered, ideological suggestion that Obama’s critics on the right sniff the blood and “Go for the Kill?” No. Source
First Posted: 07-22-09 04:16 PM | Updated: 07-22-09 04:31 PM
During an interview on NBC Wednesday morning, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) declined to back down from his earlier statement that health care reform represented President Barack Obama’s “Waterloo.” And now, Democrats are all too happy to continue to make the South Carolina Republican the center of the debate.
The Democratic National Committee is releasing a new television advertisement accusing DeMint of politicizing health care reform and symbolizing the “Party of No” characteristic of the GOP.
President Obama suggested today that, when health care reform is behind him, he may set his sights on Social Security:
“I think we’re in a position to be able to, either at the end of this year or early next year, start laying out a broader picture about how we are going to handle entitlements in a serious way,” Obama said. “It may start with Social Security because that’s, frankly, the easier one.” Source
The top government witness in the 2006 federal conviction of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges is providing new evidence that prosecutors failed to fulfill their legal obligation to provide the defense with all records documenting witness-coaching.
Former Siegelman aide Nick Bailey swears that prosecutors failed to reveal to the defense details of most of his two dozen prep sessions before he became the Bush Justice Department’s key witness that former HealthSouth chief executive Richard Scrushy bribed the former Democratic governor. Scrushy arranged $500,000 in donations to an education non-profit fostered by Siegelman to increase school funding. At trial, Bailey suggested the donations were required by Siegelman to reappoint Scrushy to a state regulatory board. The defendants, bolstered by legal experts and whistleblowers, claim that they were framed to eliminate Siegelman from politics.
Even more explosive than an alleged failure by prosecutors to comply with federal trial procedures is a sworn statement by Bailey’s current employer Luther “Stan” Pate, another Alabama businessman. Source
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) reemerged on the national stage yesterday, penning an op-ed in the Politico to slam efforts to reform health care and declaring the Economic Recovery Act a failure. Jindal declared the Recovery Act “a nearly trillion-dollar stimulus that has not stimulated.” However, less than 24 hours before Jindal published his op-ed, Jindal traveled to Anacoco, Louisiana to present a jumbo-sized check to residents of Vernon Parish. Source
[W]hile he may be a Nobel laureate, in Washington he’s seen as just another economic critic–and not always a welcome one. Few Americans recognize his name, and fewer still would recognize the man, who is short and stocky and bears a faint resemblance to Mel Brooks. Yet Stiglitz’s work is cited by more economists than anyone else’s in the world, according to data compiled by the University of Connecticut. And when he goes abroad–to Europe, Asia, and Latin America–he is received like a superstar, a modern-day oracle. [...]Source
Earlier today on Fox News, RNC Chairman Michael Steele was asked whether Republicans would borrow from President Clinton’s famous catch-phrase during the 1992 campaign, “it’s the economy stupid,” in the run-up to the 2010 election. Steele proceeded to launch into a rambling answer that used fuzzy math to assert that, in only six months, President Obama has added “10 trillion dollars” to the national deficit, while President Bush is to blame for only “a trillion”: Source
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.
