There is currently a bill before the house (HR200) that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify terms of abusive mortgages in order to avoid foreclosures. Currently, the mortgage companies are saying, “Fuck you, you signed it, you owe it, we don’t care if the interest rate gets ‘jumped’ to 28%, and we more than happily add tons of surcharges.” The problem is that this makes foreclosure inevitable, and in the end, the mortgage companies actually get less than they would if they modified the more predatory terms. Homeowners lose their homes. Mortgage companies lose their income. Neighborhoods lose as home prices continue to fall. Everybody is a loser under the current system.

Below is a sample letter written by a lawyer I know which was sent to Biden, Carper, Castle, and what’s-his-name who’s seat-warming for Biden…? Oh yeah, Senator Ted. Use it as a guide or riff on your own, but do something today to support HR 200.

I am writing to applaud President Obama for resolving to move with urgency to address this nation’s foreclosure crisis. An astounding 6,600 American families are losing their homes to foreclosure each and every day. As a bankruptcy attorney, I see the real world impact on families, neighborhoods and communities of our failure to date to stem the tide of foreclosures.

Importantly, President Obama called for legislation that would allow for judicial modification of home mortgages. Ever since the mortgage foreclosure crisis erupted into public view in 2007, a broad array of consumer, civil rights, housing, community, labor and other organizations, as well as economists, have advocated for judicial mortgage modification relief as an effective approach to stemming the explosion in foreclosures. This solution, unlike every other solution put forward to date, comes at absolutely NO cost to U.S. taxpayers. This is one solution we know will work. Courts should be empowered to implement economically rational loan modifications where the parties are unwilling or unable to do so on their own.

nemski jr. has been down and out with the flu for six days and it looks like he’ll easily reach the eight-day mark by Friday. As the fever has been wearing off slightly, the wife has been trying to get the boy to do some school reading, however she ran into some problems:

[His] fever is back up to 102. He finished one chapter. It took him an hour or so between the moans and groans. Such a male.

I shot back that he is being such a big baby, because his mother coddles him too much when he is sick. The wife said it is a chromosome thing.

For full disclosure, I’ll admit it: I’m a big baby when I get sick. But a lot of men are. For example, I was texting with libergeek the other day and he said, “Last year I had the flu and I almost died.” I replied, “I had the flu three years ago and actually died.”

So, my question to you: Is it our mother’s fault that men are big babies when we are sick or is it genetic?

And, no, that’s not my boy in the picture above.

This party will self destruct in
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In the latest sharp exchange, Mr. Bunning warned today that he would sue the National Republican Senatorial Committee if it supported a primary challenge against him.

The committee’s chairman, Senator John Cornyn – whose staff recently met with another prominent Kentucky Republican – has indicated that the N.R.S.C. will support Mr. Bunning. But that does not seem to have assuaged Mr. Bunning, who reiterated his plans toseek a third term in 2010 while speaking with reporters via conference call on Tuesday.

“I don’t believe anything John Cornyn says,” said Mr. Bunning, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “I’ve had miscommunications with John Cornyn from, I guess, the first week of this current session of the Senate. He either doesn’t understand English or he doesn’t understand direct: ‘I’m going to run,’ which I said to him in the cloakroom of our chamber.”

Mr. Bunning went on to add that, if the NRSC does recruit a challenger against him, “I would be able to sue them because they’re not following their bylaws.”

for a party that hated lawyers, they sure love to use the court system…Can you imagine not being Wingnutty enough for Kentucky?

“Living our values does not make us weaker, it makes us stronger.”

“And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country”

Does not get that news agencies get an advance copy of Presidential speeches.

http://colossus.mu.nu/

Poor guy.