Articles

Three of Florida's largest foreclosure law firms are under investigation by the state attorney general following allegations they illegally rushed thousands of cases through the court system.

The firms, dubbed "foreclosure mills" because of the large volume they handle, are the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson in Fort Lauderdale, Shapiro & Fishman, which has offices in Boca Raton and Tampa, and the Plantation-based firm of David J. Stern. All three handle foreclosures in Palm Beach County.

America's biggest creditor - China - has called our bluff.

As the Financial Times notes, the head of China's biggest credit rating agency has said America is insolvent and that U.S. credit ratings are a joke:

The head of China’s largest credit rating agency has slammed his western counterparts for causing the global financial crisis and said that as the world’s largest creditor nation China should have a bigger say in how governments and their debt are rated.

“The western rating agencies are politicised and highly ideological and they do not adhere to objective standards,” Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating, told the Financial Times in an interview.

Islamabad, Pakistan
The death toll from the worst floods in living memory in Pakistan rose to 1,100 on Monday. With rescue efforts are well under way, concern is now shifting to preventing water-borne diseases from spreading among the 1.5 million displaced.

The hold em poker online supposed free market fundamentalists are once again running to get a helping hand from Big Government. Apparently, the Republicans are outraged over the fact that many homeowners are now "strategically defaulting" on their mortgages. They have stopped paying a mortgage even though they can still afford the payment because they decided that they would be better off just giving the house back to the bank. There have been some press accounts talking about strategic defaulters who have used their savings to buy a new car or even take a trip to Europe.

This has outraged Republicans in Congress. They have now proposed a bill to have the government punish strategic defaulters by denying them the option to receive a loan insured by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA).

It is important to get some perspective on the issue here. Strategic defaulters are following the terms of their contracts to the letter.

Why are we not holding Halliburton responsible for this as well? Where is Dick and why is he so mute right now? His mouth is always all over everyone but now that Dick and his company is partly responsible, he is silent. Hey, how about it Sarah? Why is your Twitter page so dead? What happened to your comments with your big smile of "Drill baby Drill"?

Sarah Palin and America is like a bad romance that can only go wrong. American men are infatuated by Sarah and all her bravados. She is like a political rock star on stage and sure as heck better looking than everybody else including John McCain.

America's love affair with this sex bombshell is dangerous for our country's future, because if she actually ever succeed in obtaining a higher office such as Congress or God forbid, the White House; we as Americans better realize it is time to pack our bags and move to Canada. Sarah might just bomb Russia from her back yard or declare war on the whole world.

The Tea Party Express, headlined by former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin, descended on Boston Wednesday on the eve of tax day.
Palin – making her third high-profile appearance in the last week – rallied anti-tax activists not far from the docks where Bostonians threw heavily taxed British tea into the bay more than 200 years ago.

Economic indicators in these metros have gone from bad to worse, with no sign of recovery. Miami boasts a popular South Beach club scene, Art Deco Architecture, and perhaps the best Cuban food in the country. But residents don't have much else to celebrate.

A society not alert to signs of its own decay, because its ideology is a continuing myth of progress, separates itself from reality and envelops illusion.

One yardstick by which to measure the decay in our country’s political, economic, and cultural life, is the answer to this question: Do the forces of power, which have demonstrably failed, become stronger after their widely perceived damage is common knowledge?

On the eve of the first anniversary of President Obama's inauguration, it's become painfully obvious that elected officials are not going to save us. The 2008 election was all about "Hope." But Hope is simply not cutting it.

What we need is Hope 2.0: the realization that our system is too broken to be fixed by politicians, however well intentioned — that change is going to have to come from outside Washington.

This realization is especially resonant as we celebrate Dr. King, whose life and work demonstrate the vital importance of social movements in bringing about change. Indeed, King showed that no real change can be accomplished without a movement demanding it.