Breaking News Events

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Supervised visits here are always in a controlled place so the parent in question cannot have the time or opportunity to set up a dangerous situation. We both know visits are supervised because the parent in question is a potential danger to those kids.

To me, and this is not hindsight, this had potential disaster written all over it.

It just seems to me serious errors in judgement were made all along the way. The worker on the tape admits the department has this parent on a short leash. Yet, someone allowed a visit in his own home - red flag number 1.

The guy is a person of interest in a murder case, he is a bit of a control freak, he just lost custody of his kids, he has just been ordered to undergo psychosexual evaluation, and he starts verbalizing "they are turning my kids against me". Thats about 6 red flags right there.

This worker doesnt know the address where she is in a case of someone on a short leash? This worker asks 911 what she should do? Hello?

If it were me - I would have been concerned enough, given the history, to, at least, call the local police ahead of time and make them aware the visit was occuring and that their presence in the area would be helpful. Being the safety freak I am, I would actually have asked for the police to accompany me.

I would not have let those kids run ahead of me. The father was in control of the situation, I wouldnt have let those kids a foot from my side until I felt it was safe. My job was to protect them from this man, not be a taxi service to their demise.

You arent missing anything Dapper. I am just pissed off that these kids were in the system and the system failed them. The police knew, the courts knew, CPS knew....and still the father was given the opportunity to kill these kids. And that just fucking disgusts me.

I also know, even if other measures were taken, a determined and desperate man would have found the way to do what he did in spite of whatever safety measures were put in place. And, its possible a lot more people could have been killed.

And I feel bad for everyone involved, especially that social worker. We both know her life will never, ever be the same after this.

I expect something good will come out of this tragedy as everyone looks at what they could have, should have done differently. And, maybe, just maybe, that will save some other kid in the future.

Yes, the most insane part was allowing the kids to see him in his home. Unless a trained body guard was sent with the kids, it makes no sense.

[Cin]

Why is the Obama Administration Suddenly Fixated on Stomping Out Medical Pot? Click the link to read the article.

The man who once pledged on the campaign trail that he was “not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” has – since taking the Presidential oaths of office – done virtually everything in his administration’s power to do precisely that. Yet he's taken these steps at the very time that a record number of Americans, including 57 percent of democrats and a whopping 69 percent of self-described liberals, endorse doing just the opposite. Nonetheless, in recent months, the Obama administration – via a virtual alphabet soup of federal agencies – has launched an unprecedented series of attacks against medical cannabis patients, providers, and in some cases even their advocates.

Opinions vary on what is the greatest underlying motivator for the administration’s sudden and severe crackdown on medical marijuana providers and patients. The candidates, in no particular order are:

1.) Pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, to eliminate competition in the marketplace for their own forthcoming, soon-to-be FDA-approved cannabis-based drug.

2.) A Machiavellian attempt on the part of the President and his advisors to appeal to independent, conservative-leaning swing voters during an election year.

3.) Neither President Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder are likely to expend even a shred of political capital to halt the efforts of the administration’s more ardent drug warriors.

4.) A desire to preserve America’s longstanding criminalization of cannabis for everyone else. There is little doubt that the rapid rise of the medical marijuana industry and the legal commerce inherent to it is arguably the single biggest threat to federal cannabis prohibition.

In states like California and Colorado, voters have largely become accustomed to the reality that there can be safe, secure, well-run businesses that deliver consistent, reliable, tested cannabis products. They have come to understand that well-regulated cannabis dispensaries can revitalize sagging economies, provide jobs, and contribute taxes to budget-starved localities. Most importantly, the public in these states and others are finally realizing that all the years of scaremongering by the government about what would happen if marijuana were legal, even for sick people, was nothing but hysterical propaganda. As a result, a majority of American voters are now for the first time asking their federal officials: ‘Why we don’t just legalize marijuana for everyone in a similarly responsible manner?’
************************************************** ****************

You know it’s not about me, personally. I’ve been clean and sober for twenty years. So legalize or criminalize whatever drugs you want, it’s not going to affect my life. That said, to me marijuana laws are ridiculous. As with most drug laws, they just make the drug companies richer and allow the government to put more poor people in jail. If you want to cut down on the amount of money spent locking people up, legalize pot. Hell, legalize a few other things while you're at it. I suppose that’s just naïve thinking on my part. Along the lines of since you have like 750 out of every 100,000 people in jail anyway, why not have them work growing food to feed the poor. Free labor to give the poor free food. Nobody makes a profit, people just work while in jail knowing they are feeding the hungry. That would be cool no? I get that I am too naïve and simplistic a thinker, but still. Anyway, the reasons why we keep things the way they are is because somebody, lots of some bodies are making big bucks off of it. Pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in the status quo, as well as prisons for profit. Now that we have privatized the prison system the more the merrier.


LINK
“America certainly has a unique stance on crime and punishment. Some actions that would cause the typical American to go to prison for a significant period of time aren’t even considered crimes in most other countries around the world. As a result, we’ve accumulated some interesting, sometimes alarming statistics showing just how crowded we’ve made our prison system. The ones below describe the state of the system, especially compared to the rest of the world, and the social impact of our policies.”

The U.S. has an incarceration rate of 743 per 100,000 people
The U.S. houses a quarter of the world’s prisoners
The U.S. houses more inmates than the top 35 European countries combined
The federal prison population has more than doubled since 1995
Those who have spent time in prison earn 40 percent less annually

[Greyson]

Originally Posted by Greyson

I was talking to a friend last night about the Prop 8 ruling yesterday....

Earlier this week I had some questions about the recent Prop 8 ruling. Thank you to those who responded and added some clairty. Below is a copy of a piece I read today in Slate. It offers further clarity to the legal strategies employed in the fight for our equality.

__________________________________________________ _____________



Prop 8 vs. DOMA: Which is the better gay-rights case for the Supreme Court?
By Will Oremus
Posted Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012, at 1:03 PM ET
Slate.com

A Losing Proposition

Why gay-rights leaders don’t want their big Prop 8 victory to go to the Supreme Court.

Gay-rights activists celebrated a win in the battle against California's Proposition 8, but many would rather see a different gay-marriage case reach the Supreme Court first
Photograph by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images.

Strange as it may seem in the wake of the street parties celebrating Tuesday’s ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals invalidating California’s Proposition 8, there was a time when gay-rights advocates feared this day would come.

Leaders in the movement had spent years crafting what they felt was the perfect challenge to a different law restricting gay rights: the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which does not recognize same-sex marriages. Anti-DOMA suits working their way through the courts in Massachusetts and other states were carefully constructed to serve as the first major test cases of gay-marriage rights at the Supreme Court level. The theory behind those challenges was always that they are bold enough to make a difference, but modest enough to carry the day, even in a court that leans right. All they ask is that the federal government respect states’ marriage laws rather than imposing its own.

The lawsuit challenging Prop 8, filed in 2009 by Ted Olson and David Boies, upset those well-laid plans. It had a more ambitious aim than the anti-DOMA suits, seeking a ruling that would affirm a constitutional right to gay marriage for all.

The fear among the gay-rights establishment has been that the high-octane Prop 8 challenge would reach the Supreme Court first—and that the court would find it too radical, dealing a blow that would set the movement back years. Or, in the best case, that the court would embrace a constitutional right to gay marriage—but the nation’s conservatives would in turn renew their push for a federal marriage amendment, setting off a nasty, drawn-out political fight nationwide.

More recently, marriage-equality advocates like E.J. Graff, a journalist and fellow at Brandeis University, have learned to stop worrying and love the Prop 8 lawsuit. Why? For one thing, the specter of a public backlash is less intimidating because polls now show a majority of Americans supports gay marriage rights. People who have been fighting for gay marriage from the days when it was a fringe issue now perceive that time is on their side: The question is not whether the country will accept same-sex marriage, but when.

Second, Graff and others rightly anticipated that any ruling on Prop 8 by the 9th Circuit would sidestep the grander ambitions of the Boies/Olson challenge and instead take a sufficiently narrow approach to avoid triggering a Supreme Court rebuke. As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick explained Tuesday, that’s exactly what happened. While there was plenty of high-flown language in Stephen Reinhardt’s majority opinion striking down Prop 8, the decision itself appeared tailor-made to appeal to the Supreme Court’s swing voter, Anthony Kennedy. Much of the reasoning rested on two opinions that Kennedy himself wrote: Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down Texas’ sodomy law, and especially Romer v. Evans, which nullified an anti-gay rights amendment in Colorado on the grounds that the state lacked a rational basis for the law.

All of which leaves gay-rights advocates free to celebrate the Prop 8 decision as a triumph, albeit a limited one. But though movement leaders won’t say it publicly, many are still rooting against Boies and Olson making it to the Supreme Court before the DOMA challenges.

Why? It’s still a risk-reward calculation. The most likely positive outcome, should the 9th Circuit’s Prop 8 decision receive a review from the high court, is that the justices uphold the 9th Circuit’s extremely narrow ruling. While that would be a moral victory for the movement, the practical outcome would be the same as if the Supreme Court declined to hear the case at all: gay Californians would regain the right to marry, with no impact anywhere else in the country, unless states first grant marriage equality rights and then withdraw them.

Yet the Supreme Court is not obliged to follow the 9th Circuit’s logic. It could opt to reopen the larger question of a constitutional right to gay marriage. And if it did, odds are that it would not be in favor of establishing such a right. Not this court, anyway.

The DOMA cases, by contrast, don’t broach the deeper civil rights question. Instead, they frame the question in terms of a different set of rights: states’ rights. The question before the court is whether the federal government overstepped its authority by denying states the right—a right they have always enjoyed—to create their own definitions of marriage. It’s a 10th Amendment argument that Anthony Kennedy could easily get behind, and leaves thorny issues of privacy and fundamental individual rights for another day.

And ironically, given the deliberate modesty of the DOMA challenges, the potential rewards of a DOMA ruling by the Supreme Court now exceed those that could realistically be expected in a Prop 8 ruling. Sure, DOMA has already been weakened by the Obama administration’s announcement last year that its attorneys would no longer defend it in federal court. But it’s still the law and it affects residents of all states with gay marriage laws—not just California—by denying federal recognition of those unions. A DOMA win would be national in scope. And it would keep the federal government on the sidelines as more and more states take their own stands on the issue. Just Wednesday, Washington’s legislature put the state on the verge of becoming the nation’s seventh to recognize same-sex marriages.

Advocates like Evan Wolfson, the father of the same-sex marriage movement, nevertheless insist they’re not losing sleep over the prospect of Prop 8 reaching the high court first. “We can’t control which case, if any, of the current cases is going to get to the Supreme Court, or who might be on the court when it gets there,” Wolfson said. “What we can control is that we do everything in our power to maximize our chances of winning.”

That’s true. Still, he and others who have fought hard to overturn DOMA had to have been at least a little relieved that the 9th Circuit didn’t go out of its way to make a splash with Tuesday’s decision. The most liberal of the country’s federal appeals court, the 9th is also the most frequently overruled by the Supreme Court. (The main DOMA challenges are coming out of the 1st Circuit.) Even David Boies, the more liberal of the two lawyers arguing against Proposition 8, acknowledged in a post-victory conference call that the narrow ruling in California could make the Supreme Court less likely to take the case.

Interestingly, his fellow counselor, Olson—a Republican whom a few conspiracy-minded liberals once suspected of trying to sabotage the gay-marriage cause by fighting Prop 8—wasn’t quite on the same page. The 9th Circuit’s decision, he asserted, “ringingly reaffirmed the right to equality, the fundamental right to marriage and the fact that it cannot be denied to citizens on the basis of their sexual orientation or the basis of their sex."

In theory, anyone in the gay rights movement would endorse those sentiments. It’s just that they’re wary of asking Anthony Kennedy if he does too.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...break_anchor_2

[Kobi]

HOUSTON—A federal judge's ruling against a Houston mother who says she was fired after asking for a place to pump breast milk has highlighted a question left unanswered by higher courts: Is firing a woman because she wants to pump at work sexual discrimination?

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes said it wouldn't be illegal even if Donnicia Venters and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were correct in assuming that Houston Funding, a debt collection agency, fired her because she'd asked to pump breast milk at work. The judge reasoned that lactation was not pregnancy-related and, as a result, "firing someone because of lactation or breast-pumping is not sex discrimination."

Several other district courts have issued similar statements, but no higher-level appeals court has ruled on the issue, leaving many new mothers in legal limbo, said Carrie Hoffman, a labor lawyer in Dallas. She said President Barack Obama's health care law addresses breast feeding and requires employers to give new mothers a break to nurse, but it doesn't specifically protect women from being fired if they ask to do so.

"The intent was to get nursing mothers back to work but allow them to continue to nurse because of the health benefits associated with nursing," Hoffman said. "But even so, that law doesn't have anything to do with terminating the employee ... it just requires break time. There appears to be a hole."

Either way, the rule -- which went into effect in the past year -- would not apply to Venters.

Her story began in December 2008, when she took maternity leave and gave birth to her now 3-year-old daughter, Shiloh. She kept in close contact with Houston Funding during her roughly 10-week leave, according to cellphone records obtained by the EEOC and written statements by her former supervisors, said Tim Bowne, a senior trial attorney with the EEOC in Houston who helped litigate the case.

At least twice during her leave, Venters told her direct supervisor, Robert Fleming, she wanted to pump milk while on her break at work and asked him to get permission from their boss, Vice President Harry Cagle.

"He was completely fine about it," she said of Fleming. "I never got an answer back and I didn't think anything of it."

Venters, 30, had worked at the company for almost three years, earned a promotion and figured that at worst Cagle might feel uncomfortable and deny her request.

"I didn't think I would get the boot for it," Venters told The Associated Press. "It didn't really make sense to me."

In a signed affidavit provided to the judge, Fleming said that when he told Cagle that Venters wanted to bring a breast pump to work, Cagle responded with a strong "No. Maybe she needs to stay home longer."Continued...

Bowne said Venters told the EEOC that when she told Cagle she wanted to use a breast pump in a back room during breaks at work, his "demeanor changed. He paused for a few seconds and said, `I'm sorry. We've laid you off.'"

The company issued a statement Thursday evening saying it welcomed the court's ruling, denied discriminating against Venters and would comply with new laws protecting women's rights to breast feed in the workplace.

In response to the lawsuit, Houston Funding had argued that Venters was terminated because she failed to keep in good contact with the company and didn't return to work as scheduled. But Fleming said he had spoken to Venters at least weekly during her medical leave, which the EEOC argued was evidence that Houston Funding's excuse for firing Venters -- "job abandonment" -- was simply a "pretext for unlawful discrimination."

Hughes sided with the company in his ruling last week, but he also wrote: "Even if the company's claim that she was fired for abandonment is meant to hide the real reason -- she wanted to pump breast milk -- lactation is not pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition.

"She gave birth on Dec. 11, 2009. After that day, she was no longer pregnant and her pregnancy-related conditions ended. Firing someone because of lactation or breast-pumping is not sex discrimination," the judge wrote.

But Hoffman and Bowne said the issue won't be definitively determined unless an appeals court takes up the case. The EEOC has not yet decided whether to appeal Hughes' ruling, Bowne said.

"It's quite likely that we'll seek an appeal, but that decision is made in headquarters," Bowne said, noting that decision would probably be made in April.

Current law clearly protects pregnant women from being fired simply because they are having a child, and many of the arguments made regarding lactation have focused on it being a "pregnancy-related condition." Hoffman believes, however, that attorneys seeking to get stronger protection for new mothers should instead focus on sexual discrimination.

"It's certainly sex-based. Men can't lactate," Hoffman said.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar...nation/?page=1

[Kobi]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A landmark $25 billion settlement with the nation's top mortgage lenders was hailed by government officials Thursday as long-overdue relief for victims of foreclosure abuses. But consumer advocates countered that far too few people will benefit.

The deal will reduce loans for only a fraction of those Americans who owe more than their homes are worth. It will also send checks to others who were improperly foreclosed upon. But the amounts are modest.

It's unclear how much the deal will help struggling homeowners keep their homes or benefit those who have already lost theirs.

About 11 million households are underwater, meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. The settlement would help 1 million of them.

"The total number of dollars is still small compared to the value of the mortgages that are underwater," said Richard Green, director of the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate.

Federal and state officials announced that 49 states joined the settlement with five of the nation's biggest lenders. Oklahoma struck a separate deal with the five banks. Government officials are still negotiating with 14 other lenders to join.

The bulk of the money will go to California and Florida, two of the states hardest hit by the housing crisis and the ones with the most underwater homeowners. The two states stand to receive roughly 75 percent of the settlement funds.

Of the five major lenders, Bank of America will pay the most to borrowers: nearly $8.6 billion. Wells Fargo will pay about $4.3 billion, JPMorgan Chase roughly $4.2 billion, Citigroup about $1.8 billion and Ally Financial $200 million. The banks will also pay state and federal governments about $5.5 billion.

The settlement ends a painful chapter of the financial crisis, when home values sank and millions edged toward foreclosure. Many companies processed foreclosures without verifying documents. Some employees signed papers they hadn't read or used fake signatures to speed foreclosures — an action known as robo-signing.

President Barack Obama praised the settlement, saying it will "speed relief to the hardest-hit homeowners, end some of the most abusive practices of the mortgage industry and begin to turn the page on an era of recklessness that has left so much damage in its wake."

The deal requires the banks to reduce loans for about 1 million households that are at risk of foreclosure. The lenders will also send $2,000 each to about 750,000 Americans who were improperly foreclosed upon from 2008 through 2011. The banks will have three years to fulfill terms of the deal.

The states have agreed not to pursue civil charges over the abuses covered by the settlement. Homeowners can still sue lenders on their own, and federal and state authorities can still pursue criminal charges.

The deal, reached after 16 months of contentious negotiations, is subject to approval by a federal judge. It's the biggest settlement involving a single industry since the $206 billion multistate tobacco deal in 1998.

But for the many people who lost their homes to foreclosure in the past two years, some of them improperly, a check for $2,000 is small consolation.

"Two thousand dollars won't cover my moving costs," said Brian Duncan, who was evicted from his Tempe, Ariz., home last April.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who led the 50-state talks, said the $2,000 checks represent the homeowners' best hope of being reimbursed for any amount. They would have had trouble winning settlements in court because of the time-consuming complexity of litigation, Miller said.

Mike Heid, president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, said the agreement "represents a very important step toward restoring confidence in mortgage servicing and stability in the housing market."

Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities, said the settlement may help the housing market in the long run. That's because it lets banks proceed with millions of foreclosures that have been stalled. Many lenders had refrained from foreclosing on homes as they awaited the settlement.

"We've got a lot of issues to work our way through in the housing market," Vitner said. "What this settlement does is allow that process to get started."

For the banks, the settlement comes mainly as a relief. If each state had sued the lenders and won, the total settlements could have run into the hundreds of billions. And all the lenders have set aside adequate reserves.

"It's really a wash," said Paul Miller, bank analyst at FBR Capital Markets. "A billion dollars is nothing for these large trillion-dollar banks."

The bulk of the settlement will go toward reducing underwater mortgages and refinancing some of them. But the banks had realized they weren't going to collect the loans and had already written down their value, Miller noted.

The deal requires banks to make foreclosure their last resort. And they can't foreclose on a homeowner who is being considered for a loan modification.

Still, the federal government has a dubious track record of enforcing such rules. The Obama administration's signature foreclosure-prevention program has failed to help more than half of those who have applied to have their mortgage payments lowered permanently. Many have complained that the program is a bureaucratic nightmare.

Critics also note that the settlement will apply only to privately held mortgages and not to those owned by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Banks own about half of all U.S. mortgages, or roughly 30 million loans. Fannie and Freddie own the other half.

The deal is "another sad example of Wall Street not being held accountable for fraud, perjury and crimes that created the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression," said Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets, a group that advocates stricter financial regulation. "The math does not add up in a massive 'robo-signing' scandal that is nothing more than systemic criminal conduct."

The settlement also ends a separate investigation into Bank of America and Countrywide for inflating appraisals of loans from 2003 through most of 2009. Bank of America acquired Countrywide in 2008.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/25b-se...50960.html?l=1

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Kobi

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A landmark $25 billion settlement with the nation's top mortgage lenders was hailed by government officials Thursday as long-overdue relief for victims of foreclosure abuses. But consumer advocates countered that far too few people will benefit.

The deal will reduce loans for only a fraction of those Americans who owe more than their homes are worth. It will also send checks to others who were improperly foreclosed upon. But the amounts are modest.

It's unclear how much the deal will help struggling homeowners keep their homes or benefit those who have already lost theirs.

About 11 million households are underwater, meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. The settlement would help 1 million of them.

"The total number of dollars is still small compared to the value of the mortgages that are underwater," said Richard Green, director of the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate.

Federal and state officials announced that 49 states joined the settlement with five of the nation's biggest lenders. Oklahoma struck a separate deal with the five banks. Government officials are still negotiating with 14 other lenders to join.

The bulk of the money will go to California and Florida, two of the states hardest hit by the housing crisis and the ones with the most underwater homeowners. The two states stand to receive roughly 75 percent of the settlement funds.

Of the five major lenders, Bank of America will pay the most to borrowers: nearly $8.6 billion. Wells Fargo will pay about $4.3 billion, JPMorgan Chase roughly $4.2 billion, Citigroup about $1.8 billion and Ally Financial $200 million. The banks will also pay state and federal governments about $5.5 billion.

The settlement ends a painful chapter of the financial crisis, when home values sank and millions edged toward foreclosure. Many companies processed foreclosures without verifying documents. Some employees signed papers they hadn't read or used fake signatures to speed foreclosures — an action known as robo-signing.

President Barack Obama praised the settlement, saying it will "speed relief to the hardest-hit homeowners, end some of the most abusive practices of the mortgage industry and begin to turn the page on an era of recklessness that has left so much damage in its wake."

The deal requires the banks to reduce loans for about 1 million households that are at risk of foreclosure. The lenders will also send $2,000 each to about 750,000 Americans who were improperly foreclosed upon from 2008 through 2011. The banks will have three years to fulfill terms of the deal.

The states have agreed not to pursue civil charges over the abuses covered by the settlement. Homeowners can still sue lenders on their own, and federal and state authorities can still pursue criminal charges.

The deal, reached after 16 months of contentious negotiations, is subject to approval by a federal judge. It's the biggest settlement involving a single industry since the $206 billion multistate tobacco deal in 1998.

But for the many people who lost their homes to foreclosure in the past two years, some of them improperly, a check for $2,000 is small consolation.

"Two thousand dollars won't cover my moving costs," said Brian Duncan, who was evicted from his Tempe, Ariz., home last April.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who led the 50-state talks, said the $2,000 checks represent the homeowners' best hope of being reimbursed for any amount. They would have had trouble winning settlements in court because of the time-consuming complexity of litigation, Miller said.

Mike Heid, president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, said the agreement "represents a very important step toward restoring confidence in mortgage servicing and stability in the housing market."

Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities, said the settlement may help the housing market in the long run. That's because it lets banks proceed with millions of foreclosures that have been stalled. Many lenders had refrained from foreclosing on homes as they awaited the settlement.

"We've got a lot of issues to work our way through in the housing market," Vitner said. "What this settlement does is allow that process to get started."

For the banks, the settlement comes mainly as a relief. If each state had sued the lenders and won, the total settlements could have run into the hundreds of billions. And all the lenders have set aside adequate reserves.

"It's really a wash," said Paul Miller, bank analyst at FBR Capital Markets. "A billion dollars is nothing for these large trillion-dollar banks."

The bulk of the settlement will go toward reducing underwater mortgages and refinancing some of them. But the banks had realized they weren't going to collect the loans and had already written down their value, Miller noted.

The deal requires banks to make foreclosure their last resort. And they can't foreclose on a homeowner who is being considered for a loan modification.

Still, the federal government has a dubious track record of enforcing such rules. The Obama administration's signature foreclosure-prevention program has failed to help more than half of those who have applied to have their mortgage payments lowered permanently. Many have complained that the program is a bureaucratic nightmare.

Critics also note that the settlement will apply only to privately held mortgages and not to those owned by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Banks own about half of all U.S. mortgages, or roughly 30 million loans. Fannie and Freddie own the other half.

The deal is "another sad example of Wall Street not being held accountable for fraud, perjury and crimes that created the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression," said Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets, a group that advocates stricter financial regulation. "The math does not add up in a massive 'robo-signing' scandal that is nothing more than systemic criminal conduct."

The settlement also ends a separate investigation into Bank of America and Countrywide for inflating appraisals of loans from 2003 through most of 2009. Bank of America acquired Countrywide in 2008.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/25b-se...50960.html?l=1

Two things that bother me about this-

1) The banks, themselves will be the only parties contacting mortgage holders that will receive relief from this settlement. It really only covers people that are current with house payments (and had only 2 late payments) plus will only lessen and up-side-down mortgage by $20,000 maximum;

2) It does not include provisions for waiving the decreases in credit ratings that occured during the recession that led to so many people hurt by these lending practices in order to qualify for a re-fi that they can manage,

This will only help a very small number of people after yeras of stress & hardship that have finally been able to secure a new job (or be rehired) and begin getting on their feet.

Yes, it will help some and I am happy for them, but, is far too little far too late. Most of the billions profited by these asshats were turned into bundled securities and held outside of the US. They continue to earn mega bucks on these instruments.

Now with banks that will complete foreclosures of those homesowners that will not benefit by this settlement will sell the distressed properties to investors that will make quite a profit as the housing market does recover. And in the interium, they will be in a very lucretive rental market with these properties..

[Greyson]

This commentary speaks to some of the similarities or not between the struggle for civil rights among the Black Community and the LGBTQ Community.

Wade Henderson is African American and I primarily agree with his commentary. I recommend reading the comments submitted by the readers in response to his commentary.

__________________________________________________ _________


Blacks should stand with gays on marriage equality
Gay is not 'the new black,' but we shouldn't let inappropriate rhetoric get in the way of civil rights goals

By Wade Henderson

January 12, 2012



The 400-year advancement of African-Americans from chattel, to sharecroppers, to second-class citizens under Jim Crow, to our current status as emancipated citizens in today's democracy is one of the most powerful and transformative — although incomplete — stories in world history.

The civil rights struggle is far from over for black people. We still have a long path forward to preserve our precious gains and narrow the stubborn educational, employment, housing and criminal justice disparities that hold us back. In order to advance these causes, we'll need to work — as we always have — in coalition with other historically disadvantaged groups, including Latinos, Asian-Americans, working-class whites, Jews, Muslims, people with disabilities — and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Gay and lesbian advocates often invoke the words, spirit and iconic figures of the civil rights movement when making their case for equality. Some of these advocates, such as Bayard Rustin, were both black and gay.

Civil rights must be measured by a single yardstick. So when the government bestows inheritance rights, tax benefits, adoption rights, child custody, power of attorney and other privileges on married individuals — but denies those same basic privileges to gays and lesbians — it is a blunt and injurious denial of equality and family security.

But when white LGBT advocates take these comparisons too far, it can be offensive.

Terms like "gay is the new black" are inherently disrespectful to the black experience in America. These types of misleading slogans obscure the uniqueness of both groups' struggles in an attempt to make a neat and tidy analogy. After all, gays and lesbians were never enslaved or subject to the harsh Jim Crow tactics of oppression, lynching, and intimidation in the way that blacks were.

And yet while their story of oppression and injustice is not the same as ours, it is equally valid. African-Americans recognize injustice when we see it. Gays and lesbians have been incarcerated, brutalized, lobotomized, raped, castrated, and robbed of their jobs, families and children.

With the 2012 session of the Maryland General Assembly now under way, African-Americans in Maryland will soon play a pivotal role in the effort to advance equality for gays and lesbians as the legislature considers granting marriage rights to thousands of families and couples in the state.

In Maryland, gays and lesbians are engaging in a fight for their civil rights — for marriage equality. And we must not let rhetoric that seeks to appropriate our experience blind us to a simple fact: that while the journeys of our two communities may be different, our ultimate goals are the same.

Marriage equality is not only a matter of civil rights; it's one of human rights and basic dignity. To deny familial and spousal benefits to millions of gay and lesbian Americans — benefits that are taken as a given for straight Americans — is to undermine the basic family unit that we in the black community have worked so hard to preserve and advance.

We would also hope that, by identifying with our story, white LGBT advocates will become much more engaged in our current and future struggles. So when black youth are struggling in under-resourced schools or rotting away in prisons they shouldn't be in, we will look to the LGBT community to stand with us as we continue our long struggle toward equality.

Measuring civil rights by a single yardstick means just that. We must not let rhetoric that may rub us the wrong way allow us to turn our backs on those who have received so much inspiration from our story.

By correcting this injustice against gays and lesbians, we can continue our long march of progress together. It is only through a stronger and broader coalition that we also advance our collective needs. After all, the civil rights movement still has a lot of unfinished business left to address.

Wade Henderson is president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. He may be contacted at media@civilrights.org.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opi..._story_display

[Truly Scrumptious]

On Feb 7, legislators in the Ugandan Parliament reintroduced a controversial bill that would in effect legislate hate against the Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community.

The proposed bill, known as the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB), would compel families, doctors, and counselors to report on all those suspected of being members of the LGBTI community, and would impose criminal sanctions, possibly even the death penalty, for those who fail to turn in their fellow citizens. Combined with other proposed legislation before the Parliament, like portions of the HIV/AIDS Prevention Control Bill, the AHB would also hinder Uganda's HIV-prevention efforts, contributing to the alarming rise in HIV infection rates.

President Yoweri Museveni's government insists that they do not back the bill and that it was reintroduced by a backbencher, but also says "As Uganda is a constitutional democracy, it is appropriate that if a private member's bill is presented to parliament it be debated".


More here:

Ugandan hate bill

[Kobi]

(Reuters) - A Native American Indian tribe sued leading beer makers seeking $500 million in damages and accusing them of knowingly contributing to "crippling" alcoholism rates on one of the nation's largest reservations in South Dakota.

The suit, filed by the Oglala Sioux tribe, alleges the brewers are "engaged in a common enterprise focused on assisting and participating in the illegal importation of alcohol" onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the sale, possession and consumption of alcohol is illegal.

Story

[princessbelle]

Originally Posted by Kobi

(Reuters) - A Native American Indian tribe sued leading beer makers seeking $500 million in damages and accusing them of knowingly contributing to "crippling" alcoholism rates on one of the nation's largest reservations in South Dakota.

The suit, filed by the Oglala Sioux tribe, alleges the brewers are "engaged in a common enterprise focused on assisting and participating in the illegal importation of alcohol" onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where the sale, possession and consumption of alcohol is illegal.

Story

Thank you so much for posting this Kobi. It reminds me of something that has been on my mind for years.

I'm not sure if we comment in this thread, or if it is just for news so forgive me if this should go elsewhere.

About 10 years ago i took a nursing job assignment on a reservation in Farmington, NM. It was a Navaho reservation and 90 percent of the residents were Native American. I have never in my entire life before or since then seen or been in a place that had more alcohol for sale. I mean it was everywhere. In gas stations even. In Wall-greens...every single store had not just a few things for sale, i'm talking about huge rooms that had been added on that sold everything and anything with alcohol in it.

It was no wonder the hospital that i worked at had three entire floors dedicated to cirrhosis and alcohol rehabilitation. Almost every patient that came through there went into DTs and some docs would even order the alcohol on the drug list so they would not go into DTs or ween off.

It has always bothered me. Now, it was not illegal there as it is in this story, but, my gosh, no wonder so many were alcoholics.

Leads me to two thoughts....supply and demand vs. exploitation of minority groups for the almighty dollar. I believe even the liqueur/beer makers have some responsibility and should take the responsibility when they cram things, literally, down someone or some "people's" throat. It really angers me and it really is upsetting to see something like that.

I just wanted to share that and get anyone's take on it. I'm sure it is not a new thing by far but it is the first time i ever witnessed anything like it and it has bothered me for 10 years.

Just wanted to share.

[Gemme]

Christian Hotel Owners to Pay Damages to Gay Couple

[SoNotHer]

Thank you, Greyson, for your post. I'm proud of Governor O'Malley and my home state for moving forward on this.

O'Malley says California ruling could help push for Maryland's same-sex marriage bill

By Yvonne Wenger, The Baltimore Sun

Gov.Martin O'Malley said a federal court's ruling that California's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional could buoy his push to legalize the unions in Maryland. O'Malley, a Democrat, said that the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision Tuesday will impact the debate in Maryland.

"I think there are some who — even given their opposition today — understand that over the long term the principle of equity, of civil rights, will ultimately prevail," O'Malley said. "I think this latest decision out of the 9th Circuit is further evidence of that understanding."

More at -

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/201...riage-equality

[dark_crystal]

Does anyone know why the Tea Party is mad about Obama's establishment of the President's Global Development Council?

(described as to help protect national security and further American economic, humanitarian, and strategic interests in the world, it is the policy of the Federal Government to promote and elevate development as a core pillar of American power and chart a course for development, diplomacy, and defense to reinforce and complement one another. As stated in the 2010 National Security Strategy and the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development, the successful pursuit of development is essential to advancing our national security objectives: security, prosperity, respect for universal values, and a just and sustainable international order)

I only heard of it b/c my (rabidly Tea Party) aunt had the whitehouse.gov page linked on her facebook with the comment "another chip at our freedoms."

So I googled "President's Global Development Council" "tea party" and found (two identical!!! http://askmarion.wordpress.com/ and http://knowledgecreatespower.blogspot.com/) posts that just say "this is frightening!" with another link to the whitehouse.gov page.

But of the three sources there is no commentary at all on their problem with it....is it because "global development" is possibly a euphemism for "American aid to other countries" and any expenditure of tax dollars is a loss of freedom because taxation in general is anti-freedom?

Or is it just that Obama has done something, period, and anything he does is a "chip at our freedoms"??

[UofMfan]

Whitney Houston Dead: Singer Dies At 48 ~ HuffPo

[Luv]

RIP Whitney,,listening to it on CNN

[Leigh]

I'm watching it on CNN too ~ I just cannot believe this!

[MsDemeanor]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

Does anyone know why the Tea Party is mad about Obama's establishment of the President's Global Development Council?

When in doubt, just look for the article on Free Republic or Faux Newz and read the comments section.

freeper madness - http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2845193/posts
faux newz - http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...ategy/#comment

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Luv

RIP Whitney,,listening to it on CNN

So sad. A great loss.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Yes, the most insane part was allowing the kids to see him in his home. Unless a trained body guard was sent with the kids, it makes no sense.

When I worked in foster care supervised visits were never at the home. The parent came to a visitation site and interacted with their kids and there was always a therapist or social worker in the room for the duration of the visit. Also, other people working in the office were present. Sometimes, when the kids were going to be re-united with a parent within a time frame, visits took place at somewhere like a McDonalds or public park. Again, the entire time was supervised.

I was totally taken back by any such visitation with a parent that was a suspect in the murder of the kid's mother and had just been ordered (week before) to take a polygraph and have a psychiatric evaluation! That is just nuts! The police had also just found child porn on the guys computer and these kids had dropped hints to their grandparents about their mother being in the trunk of a car! What the hell was going on with this judge? I don't think that this guy should have had access (supervised or otherwise0 at this point- certainly not until the evaluations were done and reported to the court.

[SoNotHer]

Virginia school district ponders banning cross-gender dress
By Matthew A. Ward | Reuters – 16 hrs ago

SUFFOLK, Va (Reuters) - A Virginia school district is considering banning cross-gender dressing in a move proponents said aims to protect students from harassment, but which civil liberties and gay rights groups said would amount to an assault on free speech. Board members said they wanted to protect the children in the school district in Suffolk, about 20 miles from Norfolk, from the types of tragedies such as killings and suicides tied to bullying in other parts of the country.

The proposed dress code would prohibit students from wearing clothing "not in keeping with a student's gender" and that "causes a disruption and/or distracts others from the education process or poses a health or safety concern." The board opted to pursue the ban after teachers at one of the district's three high schools said some male students were dressing like girls, prompting complaints from other students, district spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw said.

Board Vice Chairwoman Thelma Hinton, in supporting the ban, cited the killing of a 15-year-old California cross-dressing student by another student in 2008 and the suicide of a 14-year-old gay student last year in New York after online bullying. "When a situation is brought up to me, I'm going to speak out if I have to speak out, and take a stand," Hinton said Thursday at a board meeting, adding that she was more concerned about the safety of the district's 14,000 students than civil rights.

"It has nothing to do with a person's gender -- who they are," Hinton said. "Of course I don't want anyone's rights being violated, but I have done some research." A vote on the issue is expected in March, and a ban would take effect on July 1 if approved, Bradshaw said.

ACLU SAYS BAN IS VAGUE AND DISCRIMINATORY

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia had already called the proposed ban unconstitutionally vague and sexually discriminatory even before Thursday's meeting. After hearing board members offer general support for the ban on Thursday, the state ACLU plans to outline possible legal actions that could follow if it is adopted, Virginia ACLU Executive Director Kent Willis told Reuters.

James Parrish, executive director of Equality Virginia, suggested that district administrators needed education on issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. "If a girl comes to school wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, is that considered cross-gender dressing?" he told Reuters, adding that a misunderstanding of the issues could actually make the students more susceptible to bullying.

"They're calling it cross-dressing, but if that individual was wearing clothes that reflect their gender identity, that's not cross-dressing, that's appropriate gender dressing," he said. Several incidents where relentless verbal assaults and online harassment led to the suicides or murders of gay or lesbian teens over the past few years have led to tougher anti-bullying laws in some states.

New Jersey passed tougher anti-bullying laws after a gay college student killed himself after reportedly being bullied, and New York lawmakers were looking at how to stem the kind of harassment that led to the Buffalo teen's suicide. In Suffolk, school board attorney Wendell Waller said opponents who read the proposed ban as a straight prohibition missed its intent. He also said the district would press ahead with what he described as a "very delicate" balancing act.

"It is not a straight prohibition of anything, unless it ... forms a disruption of the education process," Waller said.

(Editing By Colleen Jenkins, David Bailey and Cynthia Johnston)

http://news.yahoo.com/virginia-schoo...231015448.html