Posted on 06/19/2007 4:43:36 PM PDT by DAVEY CROCKETT
Saudi King Says Middle East Crisis Will Affect The World
DUBAI, June 19 (Bernama) -- The Saudi king has warned of an impending "explosion" in the Middle East, saying that it will not only affect the region but will spread all over the world, the English daily Gulf News reports.
"The Middle East region suffers from the longest conflict in our contemporary history which is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's occupation of Arab lands," King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, said in an interview with the Spanish El Pas newspaper which was published simultaneously in Al Riyadh newspaper yesterday.
"At this point in time we are exerting efforts to solve this conflict, but we are witnessing an expansion of the crisis to include other countries like Iraq and Lebanon," he said.
"This makes the region replete with troubles that pose grave concerns for us. My fears are the fears of all reasonable men that the explosive situation will not be confined to the region but will extend to the whole world," he added.
The Saudi monarch yesterday began a five-nation trip that will take him to Spain, France, Poland, Egypt and Jordan.
King Abdullah also underlined the importance of solving the problem of Iran's nuclear programme peacefully in a way that guarantees all countries in the region to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in accordance with the standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=268361
(Excerpt) Read more at bernama.com ...
Are you trying to test our memory? A few minutes ago you painted a different picture: the boss commands, his footmen execute the order.
Kasparov: That is only superficially a contradiction. Putin was picked out in the late 90s by the Yeltsin clan, groomed and raised all the way to the top. At the time he was not a strong, charismatic figure, but a henchman. I do not say that Putin has no power today. But the social evils will not disappear when he goes. The problem is deeper.
How does your radical criticism stand up to the fact that according to polls Putin is considered a strong leader by the people, and is very popular.
Kasparov: It is naïve to believe the numbers. Many people are simply afraid to speak the truth. Are you surprised? In addition people have a distorted image of the reality around them. The media is under the control of the Kremlin, negative things simply don’t happen. That also makes Putin vulnerable: just two weeks of open, honest reporting, without censorship, would cause the whole system to shake. Especially if the sellout of the country became known. Through the privatisation of the economy a very small group collected billions and took them out of Russia. The strict control of the Government is intended to make sure that nobody seriously investigates if all these transactions were legal.
Espinola you are going to end up in the same straight jackets and concentration camp Granny and I are going to. Maybe they will be co-ed! LOL
in regards to your email I am looking at numbers...
#######this is odd very very very odd...
Claiming Credit
An “exclusive exit poll” of 350 Florida Muslims, apparently conducted by the AMA and reported on its website, found that 91 percent voted for Bush, 1 percent for Gore, and 8 percent for Nader.83 The Tampa Bay Islamic Center estimated that 55,000 Muslims in Florida voted and that 88 percent of them favored Bush.84 If true, this would mean that Bush’s majority among Muslims in Florida was far more than his several-hundred-vote lead over Gore.
http://www.meforum.org/article/13
I would have never believed this....
Conclusion
It can be said with reasonable certainty that the Texas governor did better among Muslims than Dole did four years earlier, when the Muslim vote apparently went more for President Clinton than did the country as a whole.92 Among Arab-American Muslims, there also appears to have been a marked shift to the Republicans between 1996 and 2000.93
Was this tilt a temporary aberration or the harbinger of a long-term political alliance? Did or did not the election of 2000 witness the birth of a permanent national voting bloc?
As a whole, Muslims are socially conservative and this leads some to believe that, in the words of the Islamic Institute, Muslims and Republicans logically form a “natural alliance.”94 Representative Davis says, for example, that “Muslims are basically pro-life and have conservative values, and the Republican Party is their natural home.”95
But Muslims can by no means be counted as natural Republicans. First, they are fiscal liberals on such issues as taxes, health care, and welfare.96 Second, perhaps one-third of Muslims are blacks and they have an overwhelming loyalty to the Democrats. Third, the Islamist organizations are radicals who hardly reflect moderate opinion. Many have not issued categorical denunciations of terrorism against United States, Israeli, and Western targets; others have alarming connections to groups designated by the U.S. State Department as terrorist organizations. Republican leaders who get into bed with Islamists may find themselves constantly having to explain away the latter’s embarrassing public statements. The lesson here for Republican and Democratic recruiters is to focus on the broad mass of mainstream, moderate Muslims and not use radical Islamist groups as middlemen.
Fourth, the Islamists constantly insist that their constituents voted for Bush, not the Republican Party. CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, has said, “Muslims based their vote on the best choice . . . It happened to be George Bush, but in four years it may be different.”97 In other words, as Islamist leaders saw it, Bush—not necessarily his party—was more responsive. According to Salam al-Marayati, MPAC’s national director and a moving force behind the AMPCC endorsement, “At least Bush made a play for us [but] I’m still a registered Democrat and will continue to be one.”98 Fifth, Islamist leaders want to keep their followers independent rather than attach them to any particular party. As Awad explained, “It is clear Muslims will vote for those candidates who address their concerns.”99
It may be inferred that Muslim support for Bush was not as fervent as the Islamists now claim. In the face of the grand total of $218 contributed to Bush by Arab/Muslim PACs, even The Washington Report had to concede that “the Muslim bloc vote did not translate into bloc money.”100
For these reasons, what tilt there was to Bush in 2000 was most likely a temporary aberration caused by the election’s unique nature. Henceforth, a Muslim vote for Republicans is by no means certain.
Box: The CAIR Population Estimate
According to an April 2001 survey released by four Islamic organizations, 2 million American Muslims “associate with a mosque.”101 It then took this number and multiplied it by 3-3½ to find a total U.S. Muslim population of 6-7 million. But where did the multiple of 3-3½ come from? The principal author of the study, Ihsan Bagby, himself admitted to the Los Angeles Times that taking this step was based on “guesswork.”102
There are other problems with the study. It assumes that percentages for regular mosque participants are the same as percentage of the Muslim population.103 Thus, if 30 percent of the regular mosque-goers are African Americans, it concludes that 30 percent of all U.S. Muslims must be African-American. But mosque attendance and general ethnicity do not necessarily tally. Some ethnicities attend mosque more than the average, others less.
The survey finds that only 0.7 percent of the total number of regular mosque participants are Iranians, or just above the figure given for the tiny numbers of Hispanic converts. If one uncritically accepts the CAIR total of 2 million mosque participants, just 14,000 Iranians go to mosque. Using the survey’s rule-of-thumb— i.e., multiplying mosque participants by roughly three to arrive at a “total” figure—we can extrapolate that the total number of Iranians living in the United States is under 50,000. This is clearly nonsense: according to the 1990 U.S. Census—an age ago, but the latest figures available—there were 54,114 Iranians residing in Los Angeles county alone.
These methodological problems raise questions about the entire study. Unfortunately, one must conclude that the total number of American Muslims remains shrouded in mystery.
http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/2007/08/hizballah-in-venezuela.html
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Hizballah in Venezuela
Sheidy Teodoro Rafael Darnott
“If the United States were to attack Iran, the only country ruled by God, we would counter-attack in Latin America and even inside the United States itself. We have the means and we know how to go about it. We will sabotage the transportation of oil from Latin America to the US. You have been warned”
Reprinted: from Jungle mom
Sounds like Ahmadinejad ! This statement is from Hezbollah Latin America, also known as Hezbollah Venezuela. Signed by Teodoro, called Commander Teodoro. He was a guevarists guerrilla that organized disorder in the Maracaibo region in the past. He was in born Ciudad Bolivar, and was converted to Islam. (Funny how commies convert to Islam!) He is a Chavista.
Teodoro is running a social experiment among the Guajiros of Venezuela. Anyone who has paid attention to the news of Venezuela will realize that the evangelical missionaries were removed by the government of Chavez and no new religious worker’s visas have been granted for over 2 years.
While Chavez accuses the North American missionaries of being “spies” and genocide, coercing conversions to Christianity, Chavez proclaims that Shi’ite Iranian “missionaries” are welcome to live and work among the tribes. What happened to the cries of the need to remove foreigners and protect the autonomy of Venezuela??? ( We had heard of these ‘robed missionaries’ from the Indians as early as 2000)
Teodoro and Iran claim to have converted several thousand Guajiro to Islam, but according to journalists and anthropologists who have visited the area, there are fewer than a thousand. However, the entire Wayuu tribe has converted to Shi’ite Islam.
Strange media releases by the government have shown indian women wearing veils, and hooded men practicing with the new Kalashnikov rifle and even wearing suicide bomb belts. This should not surprise us as Chavez has spoken many times of his admiration of the Venezuelan terrorist, “Carlos” a Marxist who converted to Islam while in prison in France. Chavez often mentioned corresponding with Carlos and expressed his admiration of the “Carlos doctrine”. ( another Marxist converts to Islam? Is there a pattern?)
So while the regime threatens the catholic church, expelled North American missionaries, the same regime receives the ultra- fundamentalists from Iran. Why? Because they speak his language! Death to America!
On the web site of Hezbullah Venezuela they refer to the young man, José Miguel Rojas Espinosa as,“the first mujaheddin to be an example of dignity and strength in the cause of Allah, the first prisoner of war in Venezuela of the Revolutionary Islamic Movement” . He was the one who planted the pipe bombs outside of the US embassy in Caracas last year The Venezuelan police and media played down the attack by referring to it as only a “demonstration”.
The group has joined up with an Argentinian socialist-terrorist, Norberto Rafael Ceresole who is thought to have been connected with the attack on the Jewish community of Buenos Aires in 1994.
The threat of Islam taking a strong hold in South America by conversion is slim, in my opinion. The staunch catholic culture and the phenomenal rise of Evangelicals in the continent would make that very difficult, HOWEVER, Islam does not need a majority, just a strong hold to use as leverage to rule by force.
All it would need are a few pawns to plant bombs and a few terrorists to rule by fear. Are the Shi’ite Indians of Venezuela being prepared by Iranian “missionaries” to be used in such a way?
(Photo from http://catholicgauze.blogspot.com/2006/09/hezbollah-in-venezuela.html)
The above is a photo, taken and distributed by Hezbollah, of Hezbollah recruits in Venezuela.
http://groups.msn.com/autonomiaislamicawayuu/
http://venezuelatoday.pixelriders.net/gustavo-coronel/hizbula-hezbollah-hizbullah+venezuela+hugo-chavez.html
http://muyahidin-hezbollah-venezuelahttp:
http://ww4report.com/node/2516.blogspot.com/
http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200609010
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=772809
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/05/hezbollah-in-venezuela-part-i/
Posted by SERENDIP at 8:10 PM
http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Nassarallah’s interview with the Iranian TV was censored !
photo: https://hamdami.com/MFAFA
Iran press News and Hamdami
The Butcher of Tehran on toruture:”You ain’t seen nothin’ yet”!
Torture does not yield reliable information and is actually counterproductive in intelligence interrogations. This was the conclusion released by retired senior military interrogators and research psychologists during a press conference at Georgetown University. (see the report here) . However, Mr. Mortazavi (Canada has called for his arrest), the savage butcher that he is doesn’t think so. Mr. Mortazavi once again is displaying his persistent bloodlust that can only be satisfied by more guresome methods of torture and even death. He seems to be of a family of vampires with a constant need to kill and torture the innocent people. ( Note:Vampires are doubly bloodthirstier than Darculas). How long must innocent Iranian people continue to pay the price so that the vampires can continue their parasitic lives?
Kamangir: Saeed Mortazavi called the parents of the three imprisoned students Mansouri, Ghasaban and Tavakkoli to meet them in his office. The Public Prosecutor of Tehran told the families, “We warned you so many times to not talk to anyone, to not give interviews, to not spread the news about section 209 in Evin Prison, to not meet anyone, and you have done them all. I have transferred your kids to solitary confinement and they will be there while you keep doing what you have been doing. Till then, you will not meet them and there will be no phone call. When the families complained that their sons have confessed under torture, he said “Who says they were tortured? I am the person who says if they were tortured and I say they were not. We have not started the torture yet for you to know what torture is. The confessions have not been made under pressure”. “Your kids have to sign self-condemnation to be released” [Pearsian].
Both articles are continued............
http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/2007/08/us-russia-relations-deteriorating.html
Saturday, August 18, 2007
US-Russia Relations Deteriorating
China Confidential: Relations between the United States and resurgent Russia are steadily deteriorating, as shown by Russia’s resumption of permanent long-range strategic bomber flights.The bungling of the critically important bilateral relationship by the Bush administration boggles the mind.For some Russian officials, it is payback time for covert US support for jihadists in Afghanistan before and during the Soviet occupation—and associated, clandestine, Cold War-era, US-backed, jihadist raids into Soviet territory aimed at bleeding Moscow through its mainly Muslim underbelly.
Related:
Russian navel port in Gaza ???
Update: Russia, China, Iran warn U.S. at (Shanghai Cooperation Organization )
Posted by SERENDIP at 3:38 PM
hummmmmm...I am going to have to think about this for a while. See what your email started. LOL This means nothing I was looking for numbers or % and couldn’t find them....
#####hillary better not count her chicken before they hatch.
How Did Muslims Vote in 2000?
There are over three and half million American Jews in New York, nearly as many as in Israel. No one can hope to win in New York without their money and their votes. There are barely 250,000 Muslim voters in New York. The math suggests that any sympathy Mrs. Clinton may have for Palestine’s children must be killed like they were, if she has to win this senate race. Like her opponent, she is trying his best to appease the Jewish vote. At this moment she cannot afford to take risks by taking principled stances. Muslims, needless to say, are deeply frustrated and saddened by this development. Just as the Palestinians trusted President Clinton for seven years, the Muslims of New York too supported and trusted Hillary Clinton in this campaign, only to be rebuffed, insulted and made to feel as if they do not belong.
But Muslims of New York and the US in general need not despair. The lack of moral spine in American politicians will eventually work for them sooner than later. There are already six million Muslims in America and Islam is by far the fastest growing religion in the US. At the present rate of growth there will be over 25 million Muslims in the US by the year 2025.
Muslims have already overcome their moral inhibitions about bribing politicians (called campaign finance in the US). Soon they will not only be able to out-vote, but also out- bid the Jewish and most other ethnic lobbies
snip
Once Walter Mondale had refused to take money from Arab Americans. Today George Bush welcomes them with open arms and open wallets. On 26th October, Bush had no qualms standing next to “hijab” wearing Muslim women in front of network cameras while addressing a rally in Toledo. In this campaign, Muslim dollars and Muslim votes are working for him. All Muslim political action groups have already endorsed George Bush, including the one headed by Dr. Agha Saeed. They might very well make the decisive difference in this close presidential race. American Muslim must now allow this singular episode to undermine their political fervor.
http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/hilary-mkhan.html
A picture is worth a thousand words...
http://www.muslimsforobama.com/
Muslims 4 Obama
Stand up! Speak up! At no point in history has your vote as a Muslim American meant so much. You cannot afford to be silent as our democratic ideals are being trampled on in the international stage. If you do not want to be marginalized in your own country, act now. Obama has promised to work towards unity and hope. Let’s help him achieve it. This is a public site to discuss issues, organize events and help raise funds for Obama. Please remember to post events and meeting dates on the site so others can join you.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/Muslims4Obama
Strategist Says Blacks Are Obama’s ‘Base’
Top Strategist Says Obama Alone Can Mobilize Democratic Black Voters
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/story?id=3441976&page=1
Clinton Courts Hispanics To Offset Defections By Blacks To Obama ...Clinton Courts Hispanics To Offset Defections By Blacks To Obama - The Huffington Post.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/15/clinton-courts-hispanics-_n_60511.html - 32k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
Strategist Says Blacks Are Obama’s ‘Base’
Top Strategist Says Obama Alone Can Mobilize Democratic Black Voters
By JENNIFER PARKER and LINDSEY ELLERSON,
ABC News
A top campaign strategist to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has identified blacks as the Democratic presidential candidate’s “base,” suggesting that Obama can mobilize unregistered black voters to the polls like no other Democrat in the 2008 race.
“I think he has a strong base in the African-American community that in some states is going to be very, very helpful,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior campaign strategist, told journalist Linda Douglass in the latest issue of the National Journal magazine.
“No one brings the kind of background and history that he does,” he told Douglass. “No one brings, I think the sense of identification with people who are struggling to be heard.”
http://blackvoices.aol.com/black_news/headlines_features/canvas_news_articles/_a/blacks-are-obamas-base/20070806111509990001
GLBT New Mexicans for Obama
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/GLBTNewMexicansforObama
SF gays supporting Obama, records show NEWS
Published 07/26/2007
Senator Barack Obama seems to be the favorite of gay donors in San Francisco, according to recent campaign finance reports. Photo: Bill Wilson
Nationally, gay voters seem to be overwhelmingly supporting Democrats in the 2008 presidential campaign, with Hillary Clinton holding onto a clear lead; but that’s not true for gays in San Francisco, at least not for those with money to give to their favorite candidates. Instead, gays in San Francisco appear to be favoring Barack Obama.
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=2033
All this mess started under the clintoon watch...
The Subprime Bait and Switch
By Alexander Gourse
In These Times
Monday 16 July 2007
Under the guise of extending home ownership to all, predatory lenders undermine community reinvestment.
When the housing market began its rapid ascent in the mid-’90s, many observers waxed rhapsodic about the potential of high-interest, subprime loans to merge the financial interests of investors and low income and minority communities. The hope for subprime boosters was that such loans would allow the mortgage industry to continue business as usual while at the same time meeting government mandates for fair and affordable housing. As recently as April 2005, Alan Greenspan praised the deregulation of the banking and lending industries for having “vastly expanded credit availability to virtually all income classes.”
It’s true that the number of minority homeowners increased at a similar rate to that of all homeowners during the last decade, but the housing market’s recent slump has brought to light serious weaknesses in the subprime model, raising doubts about its viability as a tool for community reinvestment. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Greenspan’s zeal for deregulation may have caused him to turn a blind eye to predatory practices within the subprime lending industry, and consumer advocates are now predicting that nearly 20 percent of subprime mortgage loans made since 2005 will end in foreclosure, at a loss to the consumer of around $164 billion.
The home mortgage industry divides would-be borrowers into two basic types. Prime borrowers are those who have adequate income and good credit histories. Subprime borrowers are those with problematic credit histories and, often, less-than-adequate incomes. The loans are inherently risky for the lender, as such borrowers are more likely to default on payments, requiring higher interest rates to offset this risk.
Before the mid-’90s, subprime lenders operated on a limited scale, but the rapid growth in the housing market brought with it more mortgage companies that specialized in subprime lending. The subprime industry grew from a $35 billion per year industry in 1994 to more than $330 billion in 2003, and from 2004 to 2006 the volume of subprime loans nearly doubled to more than $600 billion.
“These loans keep being made because investors make a profit,” says Geoff Smith, research director at the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based nonprofit that specializes in issues of community economic development. “Investors can tolerate a certain number of losses, because failures are priced into the risk assessment. As long as investors are still profiting, mortgage companies will do whatever they can to make more loans, and to maximize the total sums loaned out.”
While industry representatives have lauded their own success in offering credit to financially underserved populations, recent studies suggest that subprime loans have only a marginal effect on homeownership rates. Original purchase loans comprise only a small portion of subprime mortgages, and an even smaller percentage-about 9 percent-go to first-time homebuyers. A majority of subprime loans are refinances, with homeowners looking to lower their monthly payments or to draw out the equity in their homes to pay off their consumer debt or other personal expenses. If foreclosure rates continue to rise as predicted, the Center for Responsible Lending estimates that though some people will become first time homeowners due to subprime loans, there will be significantly more borrowers that will lose their homes to foreclosure.
Industry representatives typically cite the poor credit histories of most subprime borrowers to explain increasing foreclosure rates. Consumer and community advocates, however, paint a darker picture. “Predatory lending is definitely a systemic problem within the subprime mortgage industry,” says Al Hofeld Jr., a litigation attorney and chair of the South Side Community Federal Credit Union in Chicago (SSCFU). “There are very few subprime lenders who will make a subprime loan where the interest rate actually reflects the risk involved.”
According to Smith, predatory lenders put borrowers into loans that they cannot afford. While blatant fraud, such as the falsification of a borrower’s income to justify a larger loan, is becoming less common, the misrepresentation of a loan’s characteristics, like the concealment of a fixed rate “teaser” period that adjusts upward after two years, is a growing problem.
Hofeld says subprime mortgage companies routinely use bait-and-switch tactics to lure in potential borrowers and maximize the amount of money loaned out. At closing, borrowers are often presented with terms that do not match those previously offered by the company, and then pressured into signing documents which they have not had time to review. Ameriquest Mortgage Company is currently facing hundreds of lawsuits which allege that they routinely baited potential customers by promising fixed interest rates, low or no fees, lower monthly payments, no prepayment penalties, or by representing to borrowers that they qualify for a particular set of terms.
In 2005, Betty and Tyrone Walker, a couple living in the Park Manor neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, took out a refinance loan with Ameriquest. “All we wanted to do was to make our house more livable,” says Walker, who is legally disabled and is raising a 12-year-old adopted daughter on her husband’s salary as a mail clerk at a local medical school. After being solicited by Ameriquest through the mail, the Walkers decided to use some of the equity in their home to refurnish their basement.
The Walkers requested information about the loan numerous times, and were confident that they knew what the terms of the loan would be when they went to sign the closing documents. “We just kept asking them whether we were going to remain on a fixed rate, and they just kept lying to us, telling us we’d get a fixed rate,” Mrs. Walker alleges in a lawsuit against Ameriquest.
As they later discovered, however, the terms of the loan were not as they expected. Not only did the loan have an adjustable rate that can go as high as 13.4 percent, but the Walkers allege that Ameriquest falsely told them that their home had doubled in value since they had bought it a few years earlier, thus qualifying them for a larger loan amount. Ameriquest didn’t give them copies of their loan documents at closing, and as a result the Walkers did not realize that the terms had been changed until well after the three-day period during which they could legally cancel the loan. They have since tried to refinance, but have been unable to find another lender willing to lend them the amount currently owed to Ameriquest; the artificially inflated appraisal value has in effect trapped them in a loan with a rising interest rate.
“I felt so stupid after I realized that I had been taken advantage of,” says Walker. “I made them a lunch! I’m always cooking, so I offered them food. I thought they were doing such a swell job of helping us that I cooked for these people, oh lord.”
The Race Factor
The Walkers’ story is all too familiar. Predatory lending is a particularly widespread problem in low-income and minority communities, where a complex history of housing discrimination, racial segregation and a lack of access to affordable credit have left borrowers with few options. Though redlining, blockbusting and other discriminatory practices were banned in stages between 1968 and 1977, most banks are reluctant to open branches in black neighborhoods, a vacuum that is filled by currency exchanges, payday lenders and now subprime mortgage companies.
“Subprime lenders,” says Smith, “are taking advantage of the fact that they’re the only game in town.” Individual brokers and loan officers make money by taking “points”-that is, charging percentage points of the loan amount, which are added to the borrower’s closing costs-giving them an incentive to maximize the loan amount, regardless of the borrower’s ability to pay for it.
According to “Paying More for the American Dream,” a joint report from six national housing policy organizations, in 2005, black borrowers were 3.8 times more likely than whites to be placed in a high cost loan, while Hispanic borrowers were 3.6 times more likely than whites to receive such a loan. Income disparities between white and minority communities account for some of this difference, but Smith says the disparity is too large to be accounted for by income alone. Low-income black borrowers in the Chicago area were four times as likely to be put in high cost loans than low-income white borrowers.
But the largest disparity was in the highest income bracket, where blacks were five times as likely as whites to be placed in a high cost loan. Foreclosure rates in heavily minority neighborhoods across the nation follow these trends, with black and Latino neighborhoods experiencing significantly higher foreclosure rates than their white counterparts.
Regulation and Alternatives
Consumer fraud laws, including requirements that lenders disclose the terms of a loan and borrowers’ cancellation rights, have been important tools for attorneys fighting predatory lenders. But with thousands of lawsuits filed on behalf of subprime borrowers across the country, many consumer advocates are calling for government regulation of the subprime industry.
“Ideally, what we need is a federal law to make sure lenders are using appropriate qualifying standards so that borrowers can repay the loans,” says Smith. Groups like the Center for Responsible Lending have also supported a ban on prepayment penalties and a reform of the “perverse compensation incentives” for “hazardous” loan products.
Congress however is unlikely to pass comprehensive legislation that deals with predatory lending, says Smith. “Realistically, we should be focusing on the state laws currently under debate.” In 1999, North Carolina was the first state to regulate predatory lending practices and dozens of other states and municipalities have followed suit. This year alone legislation dealing with subprime and predatory lending has been introduced in 26 states.
Hofeld, however, sees regulation as only a partial solution. “Some of the laws regulating predatory lenders could be improved, but some of the problems we see are very difficult to regulate. You can’t control what salespeople tell prospective borrowers.”
What’s more, warnings from the mortgage industry that regulation will cut off credit to low income and minority neighborhoods have created a panic among some community leaders and politicians. In Illinois, a bill mandating credit counseling for borrowers in several Chicago zip codes was suspended due to fears that it was racist and would slow real estate sales in those areas.
The seemingly no-win choice between disinvestment in low-income communities or allowing predatory lenders to operate freely might not be as bleak as it appears. A network of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) has emerged in some cities, providing affordable financial services to low-income individuals who might otherwise be prime targets for predatory lenders. Although their resources are limited, such institutions offer an alternative model for low-income community development.
“Our biggest problem is one of scale,” Hofeld says about the SSCFU. “We want to get to the point where we have a large enough number of deposits so that we’re making enough loans to be self sufficient.”
With around 1,800 members and $3 million in assets, the SSCFU serves 33 neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago with a population of approximately 854,000 people. A self-described “financial institution with a social mission,” the SSCFU is one of approximately 225 members of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, a national organization working to establish a financial infrastructure in poor communities and empower low-income people through asset development.
While much of the capital required to operate the SSCFU has come from foundations and member deposits, federal money has been important as well. Established in 1994, the CDFI Fund within the Treasury Department has made resources available for community development to credit unions, banks and microenterprise funds.
“The CDFI Fund really is the single largest source of funding for these institutions,” says Cliff Rosenthal, the executive director for the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions. “Though they can grow slowly on their own, the Fund is the only source of major investment that allows these institutions to make quantum leaps in their work.”
Since the Bush administration took office, however, the CDFI Fund has decreased by more than 50 percent. As a result, not only is funding harder to come by, but the maximum grants awarded by the Fund have decreased from around $3 million to $585,000.
Despite the lack of resources, community development credit unions like the SSFCU are proving that the usurious practices of predatory lenders are not a necessary evil in the fight for fair and affordable housing.
“The problems in the subprime mortgage industry should be framed as an affordable housing issue,” says Hofeld. “We often compartmentalize the way we think about issues, but I really think that predatory lending is something that is decreasing the supply of affordable housing. And the lack of access to mortgage credit on fair terms is something that prevents people from getting into homes.”
To Mr. I. Togaibayev, Akim of the city of Karaganda
On July 18th, 2007, I turned to a representative of the Karaganda city monuments commission with a request that she study the question of placing a memorial plaque in honor of my daughter, 13-year-old Alexandra Letyago, who perished during the terror act in the Moscow theater on October 26th, 2002. The plaque was to be placed on the school building #38 in Karaganda, where she had attended school.
In reply, I received letter G-279, dated August 6th, 2007, from a certain Abenova, who requested that I provide the following documents:
1. A petition and protocol from an organization's general assembly, referencing points 1, 2, and 16 of the law of the Republic of Kazakhstan, titled "Nomenclature of administrative properties in the Republic of Kazakhstan", and in 2 languages.
This law regulates questions on "naming and renaming regions in a cities, squares, boulevards, prospects, parks, bridges, and other constituent parts of a city, and the changing of the transcription of their names", and points 1 and 2 referenced in the document are necessary in order to decide questions on the nomenclature of administrative properties. I am not petitioning for the establishment of a memorial plaque that will affect the nomenclature of administrative properties in the city, nor am I asking for any constituent part of the city to be renamed. In addition, the law does not require documents be provided in two languages. According to the law on languages in the Republic of Kazakhstan: "in government organizations and local administrative agencies, Russian is to be used officially on an equal basis with the Kazakh language." Thus, it follows that the demand for the provision of documents in two languages is without authority, and violates of Article 5 of the indicated law.
2. An autobiography in two languages.
As I indicated in my appeal, my daughter is dead, thus, it follows that she cannot provide her autobiography. The demand for documents in two languages, as I stated above, violates the right to communicate with local administrative agencies in Russian.
3 & 4. Copies of materials concerning a special service to the Republic, and a copy of work papers.
Alexandra lived but 13 years. All that she managed to do in her life, her entire biography, can be stated in but a few words: she was born, she went to school, and she died. And this was clear in my appeal. Employees of the akimat (city hall), however, formally approached the examination of the request without even trying to understand the matter, so their bureaucratic reply has caused me additional suffering by reminding me yet again that Sasha's life was so short that she never even was able to have work papers, or to do accomplice a service to the Republic.
Such an approach to the examination of my appeal bears witness to indifference bordering on cynicism, and is a display of 'bureaucratism'. This violates of Point 2.4 of the "Honor Code for government workers in the Republic of Kazakhstan", which states: "not to allow the display of 'bureaucratism' and red tape when examining appeals".
Does one need to mention how important the role of the public is in the struggle against terrorism? A memorial to what happened, solidarity with the victims of terror acts - this is one of the important questions that will be discussed at a high-level meeting in Vienna this coming September, a meeting that was organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and to which I have been invited to participate. Visitors to the memorial site at www.nord-ost.org understand this - they have left remarks on an article dedicated to Alexandra, calling for such a plaque. As an example, examine the actions of the local government officials in the Ukraine: at one mayor's initiative, a plaque was placed at the school where 21-year-old Vladimir Savinkin studied before immigrating to the US. He died on September 11th, 2001, in one of the Twin Towers. His relatives never had to break through a wall of indifference and bureaucratism.
Mr. Togaibayev, I am hoping very much that you will understand my problem. I beg that you intercede in this bureaucratism and red tape. Otherwise, I will be forced to appeal to higher agencies.
Your decision will decide whether I will have a chance to report to members of a worldwide organization - the leadership of the OSCE, representatives of the UN and EU, members of government delegations from 56 nations, and representatives of non-governmental organizations from various countries - about cooperation or interference by bureaucrats.
Hoping for your understanding and assistance,
Svetlana Gubareva, former hostage.
You have Freep mail................
Never would I have been able to deal with all that Svni has.
Is it that all gov employees must be brainless, to get the job.
I love the ladylike ways she told/threatened them at the end.
These methodological problems raise questions about the entire study. Unfortunately, one must conclude that the total number of American Muslims remains shrouded in mystery<<<
You are right, you are mired in numbers.........all these numbers of how many and how they voted, but they do not know how many are in the U.S.
Interesting reading, can’t say if I believe it or not.
All this mess started under the clintoon watch...
Yes, that was when the internet was selling stock in companies that did not turn a profit.
But clinton was not as bad as Carter was, our interest on homes here, went over 20 per cent under carter.
I think that is why the liberal/commie rants against ‘capitalists’, they are not smart enough to be one.
I have been trying to connect all this stock market stuff to terrorism. ANNNND I can’t.
Looks like the carpetbagger’s of old have sold the global market into disaster.
Somebody who originated these sub-prime loans and then sold them to the global market is living the high life.
Debt crunch puts mega-buyouts in jeopardy
Source: latimes.com
URL Source: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-deals20aug20,0,5348704,full.story? coll=la-home-center
Top Swiss banker attacks US lending standards as ‘unbelievable’
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/
URL Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml? xml=/money/2007/08/20/bcnswiss20.xml
Serivce Problems Mire Wells Fargo(’bank[customers] unable to get cash or use debit cards’)
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/20/ap4037360.html
SAN FRANCISCO -
Service problems disabled ATMs and online accounts at Wells Fargo & Co. for at least 24 hours starting Sunday afternoon, leaving some customers of the nation’s fifth largest bank unable to get cash or use debit cards to pay for goods.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo would not say how many customers or machines were affected but acknowledged that services were down throughout the company - from personal banking and Wells Fargo corporate Web sites and ATMs to the processing of mortgage and student loans.
“Customers may continue to experience transaction difficulties or delays in our stores, at ATMs and at the point-of-sale ... and processing for some mortgage, home equity, student loans and remittances,” Wells Fargo spokeswoman Julia S. Tunis said. “Our systems teams are working to fix those problems and we hope to have all channels fully available soon.”
Although some customers noticed nothing wrong, others complained Monday at several of the bank’s 6,000 branches. Many customers could get cash only if they went into a branch and talked to a teller - but they had no way of getting cash after-hours at ATMs.
Charles Muturi visited a branch in San Francisco’s South of Market district Monday, intending to talk to customer service representatives about getting a home loan. Instead, bank workers told the 41-year-old San Francisco resident they couldn’t process his application because of the service problems, and they asked him to come back Tuesday.
“I can come back tomorrow, but it’s inconvenient,” Muturi grumbled as he left the branch.
Bernanke fears economy will hit brick wall
Source: The Telegraph, London
URL Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml? xml=/money/2007/08/20/ccview120.xml
Countrywide Said to Begin Layoffs
Source: Biz Yahoo
URL Source: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070820/countrywide_mortgages.html? .v=2
Well planes aren’t a problem for terrorist anymore I hadn’t thought about this...I knew security at our airports could stop them.
Al Qaeda’s Travel Agent
Damascus International Airport is a hub for terrorists.
Author: Joseph Lieberman
Source: WSJ Opinion Journal
Date: August 20, 2007
The United States is at last making significant progress against al Qaeda in Iraq—but the road to victory now requires cutting off al Qaeda’s road to Iraq through Damascus.
Thanks to Gen. David Petraeus’s new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, and the strength and skill of the American soldiers fighting there, al Qaeda in Iraq is now being routed from its former strongholds in Anbar and Diyala provinces. Many of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, meanwhile, are uniting with us against al Qaeda, alienated by the barbarism and brutality of their erstwhile allies.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=1259384
Radical Muslims To Descend On New York For September Parade
August 20, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - New York’s 22nd annual Muslim Day parade will take place this year on September 9, just two days before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks.
The event is expected to draw thousands of Muslim extremists from the surrounding tri-state area, since past parades have included accused death squad leader, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Siraj Wahhaj and Dhabah Almontaser the woman that was just last week forced to resign as principal designate of the embattled Khalil Gibran International Academy because she defended the selling of t-shirts calling for an Intifada in New York.
The event has been criticized by numerous national security authorities including Joe Kaufman, the chairman of Americans Against Hate, [http://www.americansagainsthate.org], a civil rights watchdog group.
Mr. Kaufman states that, “the parade is being co-sponsored by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood of Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami.”
Kaufman recently discovered that the group was the top donor to a faux Pakistani charity, the Al-Khidmat Foundation [AKF], which last year had provided Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, with substantial funding to carry out terrorist operations.
About the AKF’s $99,000 donation to Hamas, Kaufman noted that it was made, “for the express purpose of murdering innocent Israeli civilians.”
Americans Against Hate will be conducting a peaceful counter-protest at the parade to call attention to the hatred that will be on display by the organizations and individuals involved, about which Mr. Kaufman said, “we cannot sit idly by, while the memory of the 3000 Americans that died on 9/11 gets trampled on. It is a tragedy that New York City is allowing this event to go on just two days prior to the anniversary of the attacks.”
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=kaufman82007.htm
Sept is going to be busy month...see above post also
*”WE ARE ALL ELVIRA” Campaign Created Following Arrest of Mexican* (TRANSLATION)
Radio Formula, Mexico (Translated to English) ^ | 20 August 2007 | Radio Formula (Translated)
Posted on 08/20/2007 8:40:45 PM EDT by AmericanInTokyo
Lozano declared that “on that day, September 12, which she cannot attend we are going over there to request that they support to us with national work stoppage. On that day in the U.S., that nobody goes to the school, to their place of work, that they do not buy anything and that helps us with their speaking out so that we obtain the legalization of 12 million undocumented people in this country”.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1884085/posts
You got to love Dick Cheney
Leahy: Cheney Told GOP-Led Congress It Was ‘Not Allowed To Issue Subpoenas’
Today in a press briefing, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) revealed that the White House had missed its 2:30 PM deadline to turn over documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding legal justifications for the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program. The Committee had already pushed back the original July 18 deadline twice after the White House requested more time.
Leahy said that the administration’s stonewalling amounted to “contempt of the valid order of the Congress,” and pointed out that these subpoenas were passed by broad bipartisan votes. In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee in the conservative-led 109th Congress, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) also attempted to ask questions about the program’s legal justifications. But Vice President Cheney personally barred him from issuing subpoenas:
In fact, we were about to issue subpoenas then and one of the senators came to our meeting and said that the vice president had met with the Republican senators and told them they were not allowed to issue subpoenas.
Not quite sure that’s my understanding of the separation of powers, but it seemed to work at that time.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/20/cheney-leahy-subpoena/
As does Obama, who is about to visit Cuba
August 20, 2007 PM Anti-Terrorism News
US-backed campaign against Hamas expands to charities
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20275144.htm
(Afghanistan) Taliban Talks: German Secret Negotiations with the Islamists Proved Fruitless
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,500809,00.html
(Afghanistan) Taliban, US in new round of peace talks
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IH21Df03.html
(Iraq) Mehdi fighters ‘trained by Hizbollah in Lebanon’
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2878769.ece
(Iraq) US military struggles to ‘defeat’ IEDs
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2878769.ece
(Egypt) Eight Muslim Brotherhood members remanded in custody in Egypt
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1835559&Language=en
Iranian clerics goose-step over American flag
http://kamangir.net/2007/08/15/the-picture-you-have-been-dreaming-about-armed-clerics/#comment-16397
(Lebanon) Cluster bomb kills Hezbollah guerrilla in Lebanon
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/20/africa/ME-GEN-Lebanon-Cluster-Bomb.php
Israeli strike kills six Hamas militants in Gaza
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070820/19/148j1.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070820/wl_afp/mideastconflictgaza
(Gaza) Electricity is latest Gaza battleground - EU cut off power donations because Hamas diverting supplies
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070820/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_power_outage;_ylt=AiO8s3INVnPOZpYEpUcdvZis0NUE
(Russia) Two militants detained in Chechnya
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11802560&PageNum=0
(Morocco) The “engineers cell” dismantled in Morocco
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/08/the_engineers_cell_dismantled.php
Other News:
Nazi documents promised to U.S., Israel
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20347868/
(UK) Midland Mosque plans to sue Channel 4 documentary on hold
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/sundaymercury/news/tm_headline=mosque-plans-on-hold%26method=full%26objectid=19663998%26siteid=50002-name_page.html
(UK) BBC drops fictional terror attack to avoid offending Muslims
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=476511&in_page_id=1770
(UK) ITV Documentary ‘The Muslim Jesus’ Draws Fiery Debate
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/itv.documentary.the.muslim.jesus.draws.fiery.debate/12497.htm
Pakistan: Religious Minorities Told To Convert Or Die
http://www.compassdirect.org/en/display.php?page=lead&lang=en&length=long&idelement=4986&backpage=
(Canada) Islamic income fund to launch
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/248000
(Australia) The Australian interview with Wafa Sultan (my title)
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22279722-2702,00.html
Gang Members Using Military Training To Train Kids
Thanks to Mark Taylor and Milford421:
“The numbers are increasing like crazy around the U.S. and adding
this extra fuel is just not going to help matters.” - Hunter Glass
Four U.S. Marines in South Carolina were recruiting local kids, some
as young as 13, into the Crips street gang.
CBS/Richland Co. Sheriff
http://kutv.com/topstories/topstories_story_210231650.html
(CBS News) Like most American cities, Columbia, South Carolina, has
its share of problems, but nothing prepared the Sheriff Leon Lott
for what his department discovered last August.
Four U.S. Marines – who proudly snapped pictures of each other –
were recruiting local kids, some as young as 13, into the Crips
street gang. The leader was a lance corporal.
“We have enough problems with local kids and what they are doing,”
Lott, the Richland County Sheriff, said. “But to have the Marines –
someone who is trained – to come up here and recruit and give them
the training they’ve had in the military, it scares me to death
cause it tells me we’re at war with these gangs.”
It’s a concern also raised by the FBI. In a recent report the agency
warned: “Military training could ultimately result in more
sophisticated and deadly gangs ... as well deadly assaults on law
enforcement officers.”
CBS News has learned that military police have briefed local
authorities in major cities, including New York, about the rising
danger that gang members in the military could share their skills
with gangs on the streets. That could include combat, logistics, and
even emergency medical skills.
“We heard about it in other places,” Lott said. “We didn’t think
Columbia, South Carolina would be a place where the military would
have influence on our gangs, but we had it.”
Army investigators tell CBS News that there is absolutely no
evidence that soldiers are using their combat training in gang
activity, nor proof that gangs are sending members into the military
to learn such skills. They insist the threat is low.
“We’re not seeing this in this particular time – we’re just not,”
said Colonel Gene Smith of the U.S. Army’s Office of the Provost
Marshal. “It’s just a theory.”
But there was an incident in which a disturbed Marine used his
training to kill two policemen. In January, 2005, the Marine, who
police say was associated with the Norteno street gang, shot to
death two policeman outside a convenience store in Ceres, California.
Surveillance video shows him using a technique marines call “cutting
the pie” – instead of cowering, he boldly attacks.
“Gangs are gaining strength across the United States,” said Hunter
Glass, a retired police detective who tracks gangs. “The numbers are
increasing like crazy around the U.S. and adding this extra fuel is
just not going to help matters.”
The House of Representatives has passed legislation prohibiting
service members from associating with street gangs. A Senate could
vote could come next month. But there are also calls to raise
enlistment standards, which have slipped to such an extent that one
in 10 new army recruits has a criminal record.
“We were able in the 80’s and into the 90’s to say, ‘you have to be
special to serve your country because this is difficult work’,” said
Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense. “But now we
are saying, ‘we are so desperate for people, we are going to take
anybody as long as you can walk through the door’.”
A short term solution for the military and a future problem, some
say, for police departments in their war against street gangs.
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