Tag Archives: BP

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Washington Democrats are Counting on YOU

10/09/2010 Nativegrl77

I know you are getting tons of emails. The truth is November’s election is in a little over three weeks and it all comes down to the actions we take right now to get out our message and turn out Democrats to the polls.

The margins of victory have no room for error for any Democrat to sit on the sidelines. If you care about the progress we have made for America, we must act now. Here are the three best ways you can get involved to help retain our Democratic Majority in November:

Sign up to Volunteer — We can put you in touch with a local campaign in your area who needs your help now, on the phones, knocking on doors and passing out literature. We urgently need volunteers on the ground. We know exactly which voters we need to target. We just need folks to make it happen.
Ask your friends to Volunteer — Post a link on Facebook, tweet it out, or simply press forward on this email and send to ten friends. Every committed Democrat needs to get involved and we are counting on you. The Republicans are counting on Obama Democrats to stay home — let’s prove them wrong.
Can’t volunteer? Donate! — Outfitting a grassroots campaign organizer with a kit costs $28 dollars – contribute that today and it could mean that one more campaign has one more volunteer who has the resources it will take for victory on Election Day. $100 could cover production of over a 1000 door hangers. We urgently need your support.

It’s all come down to these final three weeks.

We cannot wake up on November 3rd regretting we didn’t do more. I need you in this game. Stand with Speaker Pelosi and President Obama and let’s prove the Republicans wrong. They have underestimated us before but let’s show them this is their biggest miscalculation of all.

Onward to Victory,

Jon Vogel
DCCC Executive Director

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Washington State: Meet Dino Rossi …updated

10/09/2010 Nativegrl77

Running for U.S. Senate, Washington

Dino Rossi is a Republican candidate in the primary for the U.S. Senate in Washington. He is real estate investor who previously served as a state senator and twice ran for governor of Washington.

In the 1990s, Sen. Rossi developed a relationship with one of Seattle’s biggest real estate developers, Michael Mastro. In 1997, when Sen. Rossi was serving in the state Senate, he purchased a building from Mr. Mastro. Two of Sen. Rossi’s fellow investors were Washington state lobbyists, David Ducharme and his father, Richard Ducharme. Mr. Mastro loaned the threesome $2 million to purchase the $2.5 million property. Separately, Sen. Rossi borrowed $50,000 from Mr. Mastro for the purchase, which he did not report as required on his financial disclosure forms. Mr. Mastro was also a donor to both of Sen. Rossi’s campaigns for governor. In 2008, Mr. Mastro’s multimillion dollar empire crumbled after it became apparent he had been promising untenable returns to investors.

listen as Rossi dodges questions about unemployment 2010

Sen. Rossi’s relationship with the Ducharmes continued long after they sold the building they had purchased from Mr. Mastro. While still a state senator, Sen. Rossi turned to the pair once again and convinced them to invest in a bank that he had started. Sen. Rossi invested at least $75,000 of his own money in the bank and made David Ducharme CEO. In 2009, the bank came under investigation for “engage[ing] in unsafe and unsound banking practices relating to its strategic and capital planning, credit underwriting, credit administration, concentration risk management, and liquidity management.” David Ducharme is currently working to secure enough capital to appease federal regulators.

Following his defeat in the 2004 gubernatorial race, Sen. Rossi started the Forward Washington Foundation. Sen. Rossi used the foundation to pay himself $75,000 a year while traveling the state giving speeches but little else. Sen. Rossi treated the foundation much like his own campaign committee, but he didn’t have to abide by campaign contribution limits or disclosure laws. The Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) opened an investigation into the foundation but Sen. Rossi stepped down as president before the investigation was complete and declared his candidacy for governor. The Commission later ended its investigation because of insufficient evidence.

In his run for governor in 2008, Sen. Rossi was supported by the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW). The BIAW spent $6.9 million largely to promote Sen. Rossi and criticize his opponent throughout the race. A complaint filed with PDC alleged that Sen. Rossi violated state law by coordinating fundraising with the BIAW, failing to register as a candidate in a timely manner, exceeding contribution limits and failing to disclose contributions. After an investigation, the PDC eventually cleared Sen. Rossi of any wrongdoing, but its final report revealed how closely the BIAW skirted the law in promoting his candidacy. Sen. Rossi’s close relationship to the BIAW shouldn’t have come as any surprise, though; Richard Ducharme is a former lobbyist for the BIAW.

Source: CREW

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Dino Rossi running for US Senate and questions as well

below is a vid from 2008 about abortion

Watch dino Rossi questions on 9/21/10

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ECONOMY: Fighting Back On Foreclosures

10/08/2010 Nativegrl77

Yesterday, with the first significant veto of his administration, President Obama rejected the “Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010” — a bill that would have forced states and federal courts to accept notarizations from any notary public in the country, as opposed to only those by state residents. What’s wrong with making paperwork easier? Usually nothing, except an increasing number of Americans are losing their homes via foreclosure due to paperwork errors by banks rushing to expedite the foreclosure process. Some banks aren’t even reading foreclosure forms, with the result being a large and growing number of wrongful foreclosures being pushed through the judicial system. The bill would have made such wrongful foreclosures even easier to accomplish, adding to the already problematic foreclosure problem Americans face. Since more Americans lost their homes in August than in any other previous month, the widespread problems plaguing the foreclosure business must be addressed. Moreover, systematic problems causing so many Americans to lose their homes needs to be tackled head-on.

PAPERWORK PLUNDER: Earlier this month, Nancy Jacobini called 911 in a panic from her locked bathroom after she heard what sounded like someone breaking the front door to her Florida home. When police arrived, they didn’t find a masked intruder, but rather someone hired by JP Morgan Chase, who said he was changing the locks because Jacobini had been foreclosed upon. There was a larger problem beyond the bank’s intrusive tactics, however: Jacobini was behind in her payments, but the bank had not actually foreclosed on her home. Sadly, paperwork snafus are plaguing the mortgage industry and the millions of Americans facing foreclosure. After several recent news reports about the work of “robo-signers” — bank officials who were routinely signing thousands of foreclosure applications without ever reading them — many banks were forced to stop foreclosures all together and re-evaluate their practices. Bank of America announced today that it is suspending foreclosures in 50 states, and PNC Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Ally Financial have also halted foreclosures. Stories abound about bank officials not even reading the foreclosure forms — Bank of America’s action came after the Associated Press reported that a bank official admitted in a bankruptcy case that she signed 7,000 to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month and “typically” did not read them “because of the volume.” A Chase official, Beth Ann Cottrell, said that she and her co-workers approved 18,000 foreclosures every month without any personal knowledge of the documents. The Washington Post reported the case of Jeffrey Stephan, a Pennsylvania man who signed detailed foreclosure forms for GMAC Mortgage at the rate of one per minute. And a Wells Fargo executive admitted in a deposition that he only checked the dates on the up to 150 foreclosure documents that he signed daily. Unsurprisingly, these tactics have led to a large number of wrongful foreclosures, where households who have not defaulted on their mortgages are foreclosed upon. Considering that the mortgage crisis was caused at least in part by predatory lenders snowing over consumers with excessive, complicated fine print, it’s ironic that the same industry is failing to read it themselves when taking away people’s homes. (Or, as Jon Steward acidly put it last night, “You’re the [expletive] people who came up with fine print in the first place!”)

GOVERNMENT TAKES ACTION: These banks shut down their foreclosures in the face of aggressive and appropriate government inquiry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), joined by many Democratic and Republican members of Congress, are calling for not only an investigation into the banks’ practices but also a wider moratorium on foreclosures. A bipartisan group of attorneys general is also demanding answers — for example, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, is asking 30 lenders to stop foreclosures until they can prove it’s being done legally. Even Congressional Republicans like Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby are demanding investigations. Obama’s veto of the notary public bill was almost surely motivated by concerns that too many people were already losing their homes under paperwork that was proceeding too quickly. The legislation has been languishing in the Senate for months and was likely not designed to help banks speed along foreclosures, but on September 27 it quickly and mysteriously was passed by unanimous consent. Salon notes that perhaps “mortgage lenders pressured their allies in the Senate to pass the notarization bill in the hope that it might provide some ex post facto protection for them from the avalanche of law suits that is about to pound the mortgage industry.” Obama’s veto seemed to consider the danger that speeding along paperwork used in mortgages would be harmful, and the President repeatedly cited the need for “consumer protections” in explaining his move.

MOVING FORWARD: These wrongful “paperwork foreclosures” are unfortunately not surprising, given the enormous scale of the larger foreclosure crisis our country is facing. While the banks must vastly improve the methods by which they foreclose on homes, other banks — notably Wells Fargo — should join in the moratorium. But there are larger issues that also need to be resolved. As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes in his column for the Center for American Progress today, there are serious flaws with the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure prevention effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). For one, as Garofalo and former CAP Associate Director for Housing and Economics Andrew Jakabovics first revealed, some institutions like Bank of Americas siphoned borrowers off HAMP and into its own private modification program. CAP proposes taking the modification programs out of the hands of abusive banks: by allowing housing counselors and other public entities to approve mortgage modifications directly, and if the borrower’s servicer doesn’t challenge the modification in 90 days, it automatically becomes permanent. Mortgage mediation programs — in which a bank must meet with a borrower, in the presence of a judge and housing counselors, before finalizing a foreclosure — should also be expanded in cities and states that already have them, or begun in locations where they don’t currently exist. CAP also proposes modifying the rules for Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits, or REMICs, those investment vehicles used to pool and securitize mortgages, in order to accelerate mortgage modifications.

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After suicides, Mormon leader rants against gays

10/08/2010 Nativegrl77

Add your name:

Elder Packer, I hope you will cease putting young people in real peril and acknowledge the scientific truth: Sexual orientation cannot be changed, nor should it be.

Human Rights Campaign

The recent suicides of several gay teenagers have made national headlines. Yet this is the moment – of all moments – that a top Mormon leader decides to broadcast a verbal rampage against gays to millions of viewers.

I couldn’t believe it either. Boyd K. Packer, the second-highest leader in the Mormon Church, said in a sermon broadcast to millions last Sunday that same-sex attraction is “impure and unnatural” and can be overcome, and that same-sex unions are morally wrong.

Do we need more proof than the suicides of teens as young as 13 that words like these can do unimaginable damage?

We cannot stay silent. By speaking out together, we can show the Mormon Church hierarchy that it has literally risked the lives of children by inciting their tormentors. And we can ensure that the young people who heard this sermon know that it is scientifically wrong and profoundly misguided.

Add your name to our open letter debunking Boyd Packer’s lies.

Speaking before 20,000 people and broadcasting to millions more, Packer said same-sex unions are morally wrong and “against God’s law and nature” – and that the church hierarchy would continue to support marriage bans like Proposition 8 (which was funded largely by Mormons).

It makes me physically sick to think how many young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender kids had to sit in those pews and listen to that venom.

Comments like these are exactly what makes young LGBT kids think there’s no way out but suicide – that their parents will reject them, that their communities will shun them, and that living openly will bring pain or violence – that even God looks on their very identity as a sin to be “overcome.”

And these lies fuel the bullying, harassment, and violence that plague our schools.

Packer’s lies have been disproven over and over again by science and by the spiritual experience of Americans who know their LGBT neighbors and care about them. We know sexual orientation cannot and should not be changed and that two people falling in love is beautiful, not evil.

But unless we refute these lies whenever groups like the anti-LGBT National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the Mormon Church repeat them – whether through letters like this or projects like HRC‘s www.NOMexposed.com – we risk another young person hearing them and believing that LGBT people are “defective.” And that belief contributes to violence and suicide.

Help us speak out so young people understand the truth – and so that Mormon leaders know that spreading this poison puts lives at risk.

Americans are sick of the Mormon hierarchy trying to dictate what they should believe. They know commitment and love when they see it. That’s why they are turning away in droves from limitations on their friends’ and neighbors’ freedom to marry.

Thank you for helping take a stand for the truth.

Sincerely,

Joe Solmonese
President

~ my 2cents ...

TGIF ….&some News

10/08/2010 Nativegrl77

My rant …sorry for the mis info this morn … the 60million dollar issue is addressed in an article on the blog …read it

Today we are not just talking about class war but the Republican Tea party has been able to stir up public dissent and obviously if given the opportunity will: put Corporations ahead of the people ,continue race baiting, using fear and hate to make points to win in November and it is starting to get under my skin. I know that this same crap happened when folks were debating how competent Palin was and if you were watching “the Media” played her as the spoiler ready to go. It was upsetting that so many had that same tingle going up their leg but with all the noise coming from so many places common sense prevailed. The question is will people come to their senses before making their final decision on Nov.2^nd or will we get played and succumb to repeal, replace, and an elimination of what America is. Will someone tell me what happened to our democracy that people would much rather vote for a looney tunes then those who truly have the people, the country in mind before profits and purity ideology….

When will Republican constituents finally get tired of do as we say not as we do mentally?

This morning while on the bus, I picked up on a possible shady move by Republican Governor Christie that should show all of us one of several reasons why we should not trust Republicans and why our economy has yet to improve. The money already spent and jobs lost from possibly killing the Hudson Tunnel project is an act that is reprehensible. The actions from Governor Christie plus major Corporations who seemingly are the ones who create jobs …are clearly holding out, outsourcing and refusing to be apart of the economic solution. They have quickly become an even bigger problem now that we are 2weeks away from the mid-term elections and if there is such a thing as fair and balanced all those who have dumped, solicited and took foreign money will be found out and be subjected to the rule of law. The Supreme Court, specifically Justice Roberts and the law he helped to enact which put Corporations on the same playing field as an individual seriously needs vetting. To continue …Since we only have a couple of weeks left before the mid-term elections the rants probably will be about the crap being said done or the videos being made by the Republican Tea Party that are questionable at best silly though not funny and offensive and racially moved. When i registered to vote it was to be a democrat, there was no question because my parents made it clear exactly which side of the aisle Republicans stand and why. It was clear then and now it has become even more apparent in this year of 2010 it is an American duty to vote for politicians that work for the greater good…People need to ask themselves what qualities are needed to do the peoples business not just a select few but for All Americans. The vote on November 2nd will be a vote for a Congress that will do more research before forcing a pre-emptive strike and going into war. someone open to new science…like stem-cell research, admitting that there are enough gays in congress and other parts of the political arena that the laws need to be changed, someone willing to say that women and men should be paid the same and change it, admit that minorities are not represented on all levels and change it , who have not lost compassion for others and are willing to stand up and speak out for the middle and lower class. The things we are going through are all non-partisan realities… we are living in a different world…one that requires us to come together and decide as a human race, not as democrats or republicans; at least that is what the American public use to think but after losing power to the Democratic Party in 2008 and having the first African-American President the Republican Tea Party has decided to go not just extreme but use discrimination as a threat to all those who are non-white i guess because I personally cannot think of anything else they can use. The mid-term elections were called the year of the woman, Republican Tea Party crazy women that is and got to say as a woman they not only offend me just exactly how Sarah Palin did back in 2008 with strange comments. It is offensive and apparently folks on the right of center would rather have the crazies in power and while the comments are outlandish and those of us with common sense say wow that is crazy but feel, no one could take this stuff too crazy. The fact is something ugly is going on out there and it is stirring up people to vote for a different party right in the middle of a recession just because the corrections have not happened yet. It is sad that folks think for even one moment that years of financial deregulation, Wall Street bets, and outsourcing would only take 2yrs to fix but when people actually start to believe that the Republican Party has more knowledge or trust to get us back on track we all have to wonder if people have lost their minds. I have to say -WTF because the house of Bush took office with a surplus and the end of his 2nd term he gave up his power with America just about ready to fall of the edge of a ditch. It is clear that folks just do not get that it will take time to fix our economy and right now if you are even paying attention the trickle down that Republicans talk about just ain’t happenin it didn’t then and it isn’t now … people need to understand that Corporations are holding back their funds until they get their way and who is suffering because of this -All Americans not just the democratic side of the issues. I cannot tell anyone how upsetting that states continue to lay off Teachers,firefighters, emts and the police …

What information do constituents of the Republican Tea party need …what will happen if they shut down the govt- what will happen to your family if they do repeal everything and more importantly what will your neighborhood look like when the chaos reaches your town.
im just sayin

“It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.” — Noam Chomsky.

Other News …

**A NJ Gov killed the Hudson Tunnel project…after a visit from sec of transportation and has stated he will reconsider

**Gov Charlie Christie axes 60million dollars in projects

**a 6.4 earthquake in AK with several large aftershocks

**Cnn’s ed rollins says the hicky ad was an independent expenditure-the viewer/voter does not know, care or understand how that is suppose to explain away that stupid ad

**Paris decides to permanently ban burqa’s

**Tweetforpeace

**James Jones will step down as Nat’l sec adviser Donilon likely to replace him

**Facts: …95thousand govt jobs were lost -64thousand Private Sector jobs gained …unemployment is 9.6 for most …question is why are stocks doing so well, banks won’t lend, corporations outsourcing not being considered part of the problem

**Extortion …Cali Police have told JerryBrown that they have decided to hold their votes or will give their votes to Meg Whitman unless he changes his policy concerning their pensions

**Tennessee – Titanic Museum

**BankofAmerica and PNC have decided to put a moratorium on home foreclosures

**Tonite NYC Emmy Awards

**Cali…Knottsberry Farm -RollerCoaster accident

**Judge upholds President Obama’s HCR law

**Hurricane Otto forms in the Atlantic

CSPAN …