Labels: Elizabeth Edwards

Labels: Bill Maher, patriotism

Labels: Stephen Colbert

Labels: Alpha Dogs, bloggers, polar bears

I think my favorite thing about the know-nothing wingnut argument is that Al Gore is said to be all hysterical on this silly little problem by the same people who are screeching like howler monkeys that the oceans don't protect us anymore and "they're" comin' to kill us in our beds! The fact that ridding ourselves of our dependence on oil might mitigate both of these problems escapes their notice.

Labels: fearmongering, global warming

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales met with senior aides on Nov. 27 to review a plan to fire a group of U.S. attorneys, according to documents released last night, a disclosure that contradicts Gonzales's previous statement that he was not involved in "any discussions" about the dismissals.

Justice Department officials also announced last night that the department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility have launched a joint investigation into the firings, including an examination of whether any of the removals were improper and whether any Justice officials misled Congress about them.

The hour-long November meeting in the attorney general's conference room included Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and four other senior Justice officials, including the Gonzales aide who coordinated the firings, then-Chief of Staff D. Kyle Sampson, records show.

Documents detailing the previously undisclosed meeting appear to conflict with remarks by Gonzales at a March 13 news conference in which he portrayed himself as a CEO who had delegated to Sampson responsibility for the particulars of firing eight U.S. attorneys.

"I was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on," Gonzales said.

Spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said last night that there is no "inconsistency" between the Nov. 27 meeting and Gonzales's remarks. She argued that Gonzales was simply emphasizing at the news conference that he was not involved in the details of Sampson's plans.

Labels: Alberto Gonzales, media, Prosecutorgate

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are teaming for the first time since "Titanic" to star in DreamWorks' "Revolutionary Road."
Sam Mendes will direct the pic, based on the acclaimed 1961 novel by Richard Yates about post-war disillusionment.

John N. Hart, Scott Rudin, Bobby Cohen and Mendes, who's married to Winslet, will produce in association with BBC Films.

Yates' heart-rending and bleak tome, celebrated for its storytelling style, follows a seemingly happy suburban couple with two children in the mid-1950s who find themselves caught between their true desires and the pressure to conform -- with explosive consequences.

Mendes begins lensing this summer from an adapted screenplay by scribe Justin Haythe, said DreamWorks chair-CEO Stacey Snider.

Paramount Pictures has worldwide rights.

"As one of the most venerated post-war American novels, it is both fitting and thrilling that it's come together with this extraordinary group of artists," Rudin said.

Labels: Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sam Mendes, The Sopranos, The Tudors

Labels: Tony Snow

The US is scrambling to head off a "disastrous" Turkish military intervention in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq that threatens to derail the Baghdad security surge and open up a third front in the battle to save Iraq from disintegration.
Senior Bush administration officials have assured Turkey in recent days that US forces will increase efforts to root out Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) guerrillas enjoying safe haven in the Qandil mountains, on the Iraq-Iran-Turkey border.

But Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, MPs, military chiefs and diplomats say up to 3,800 PKK fighters are preparing for attacks in south-east Turkey - and Turkey is ready to hit back if the Americans fail to act. "We will do what we have to do, we will do what is necessary. Nothing is ruled out," Mr Gul said. "I have said to the Americans many times: suppose there is a terrorist organisation in Mexico attacking America. What would you do?... We are hopeful. We have high expectations. But we cannot just wait forever."
Turkish sources said "hot pursuit" special forces operations in Khaftanin and Qanimasi, northern Iraq, were already under way. Murat Karayilan, a PKK leader, said this week that a "mad war" was in prospect unless Ankara backed off.

Fighting between security forces and Kurdish fighters seeking autonomy or independence for Kurdish-dominated areas of south-east Turkey has claimed 37,000 lives since 1984. The last big Turkish operation occurred 10 years ago, when 40,000 troops pushed deep into Iraq. But intervention in the coming weeks would be the first since the US took control of Iraq in 2003 and would risk direct confrontation between Turkish troops and Iraqi Kurdish forces and their US allies.

[snip]

The US is already fighting Sunni insurgents and Shia militias. Analysts say a surge in violence in northern Iraq, previously the most stable region, could capsize the entire US plan. But pressure on the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is also growing as a result of forthcoming elections. Military intervention was narrowly avoided last summer when he said that "patience was at an end" over US prevarication. Now conservatives and nationalists are again accusing him of not standing up to Washington.

"If they are killing our soldiers ... and if public pressure on the government increases, of course we will have to intervene," said Ali Riza Alaboyun, an MP for Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development party. "It is the legal right of any country to protect its people and its borders."

US support for Iranian Kurds opposed to the Tehran government is adding to the agitation. "The US is trying to undermine the Iran regime, using the Kurds like it is using the MEK [the anti-Tehran People's Mujahideen]," said Dr Logoglu. "Once you begin to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' terrorist organisations, then you lose the war on terror." But he warned that military intervention might be ineffective and could be "disastrous" in destabilising the region. A recent national security council assessment also suggested that senior Turkish commanders were cautious about the prospects of success.

Labels: Iraq

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — In a sign of the spreading economic fallout of mortgage foreclosures, several suburbs of Cleveland, one of the nation’s hardest-hit cities, are spending millions of dollars to maintain vacant houses as they try to contain blight and real-estate panic.

In suburbs like this one, officials are installing alarms, fixing broken windows and mowing lawns at the vacant houses in hopes of preventing a snowball effect, in which surrounding property values suffer and worried neighbors move away. The officials are also working with financially troubled homeowners to renegotiate debts or, when eviction is unavoidable, to find apartments.

“It’s a tragedy and it’s just beginning,” Mayor Judith H. Rawson of Shaker Heights, a mostly affluent suburb, said of the evictions and vacancies, a problem fueled by a rapid increase in high-interest, subprime loans.

“All those shaky loans are out there, and the foreclosures are coming,” Ms. Rawson said. “Managing the damage to our communities will take years.”

Cuyahoga County, including Cleveland and 58 suburbs, has one of the country’s highest foreclosure rates, and officials say the worst is yet to come. In 1995, the county had 2,500 foreclosures; last year there were 15,000. Officials blame the weak economy and housing market and a rash of subprime loans for the high numbers, and the unusual prevalence of vacant houses.

Foreclosures in Cleveland’s inner ring of suburbs, while still low compared with those in Cleveland itself, have climbed sharply, especially in lower-income neighborhoods that border the city. Hundreds of houses are vacant because they are caught in legal limbo, have been abandoned by distant banks or the owners cannot find buyers.

The suburbs here are among the best organized in their counterattack, experts say, but many suburbs elsewhere in the country have had jumps in foreclosures and are also working to stem the damage.

Outside Atlanta, Gwinnett and DeKalb Counties have mounted antiforeclosure campaigns while several towns south of Chicago are forcing titleholders to fix up empty houses, or repay the government for doing it.

Here in Ohio, there are more than 200 vacant houses in Euclid, a suburb of Cleveland north of here. In the last two years more than 600 houses in Euclid have gone through foreclosure or started the process, many of them the homes of elderly people who refinanced with low two-year teaser rates, then saw their payments grow by 50 percent or more.

Euclid has installed alarm systems in some vacant houses to keep out people hoping to steal lights and other fixtures, drug users and squatters. The city has hired three new building inspectors, bringing the total to nine, to deal with troubled properties and is getting a $1 million loan from the county to cover the costs of rehabilitation, demolition and lawn care at the foreclosed houses. (When the properties are sold, such direct maintenance costs will be recovered through tax assessments.)

The Euclid mayor, Bill Cervenik, said the city, with a population of 53,000, was losing $750,000 a year in property taxes from the empty houses.

A brief look back at the evolution of the consumer finance market reveals that the financial services industry has long been competitive, innovative, and resilient. Especially in the past decade, technological advances have resulted in increased efficiency and scale within the financial services industry. Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants.

[snip]

Home mortgage loans, as we know them today, are a fairly recent product born of the failures of the mortgage finance system during the Great Depression. Clearly, radical change was needed. One of the most significant responses to this need was creation of the Federal Housing Administration, which instituted a new type of mortgage loan--the long-term, fixed-rate, self-amortizing mortgage--which became the model that transformed conventional home mortgage lending. A whole industry--thrift institutions--grew up around this one product.

[snip]

As has every segment of our economy, the financial services sector has been dramatically transformed by technology. Technological advancements have significantly altered the delivery and processing of nearly every consumer financial transaction, from the most basic to the most complex. For example, information processing technology has enabled creditors to achieve significant efficiencies in collecting and assimilating the data necessary to evaluate risk and make corresponding decisions about credit pricing.

With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers. The widespread adoption of these models has reduced the costs of evaluating the creditworthiness of borrowers, and in competitive markets cost reductions tend to be passed through to borrowers. Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending; indeed, today subprime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of all mortgages outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s.

[snip]

Improved access to credit for consumers, and especially these more-recent developments, has had significant benefits. Unquestionably, innovation and deregulation have vastly expanded credit availability to virtually all income classes. Access to credit has enabled families to purchase homes, deal with emergencies, and obtain goods and services. Home ownership is at a record high, and the number of home mortgage loans to low- and moderate-income and minority families has risen rapidly over the past five years. Credit cards and installment loans are also available to the vast majority of households.

Labels: economics, mortgage crisis

A Chicago woman sued Menu Foods on Tuesday, alleging the pet food manufacturer delayed announcing a recall of 60 million containers of dog and cat food despite knowing its products were contaminated and potentially deadly.

Dawn Majerczyk, 43, said her orange tabby, Phoenix, fell sick last week just two days after he ate a single package of Special Kitty. It is one of 95 cat and dog food brands recalled by Menu Foods of Canada. Friday's recall came two weeks after nine cats died during routine company taste tests of its products, the Food and Drug Administration said.

Labels: ], corporatism

I don't know anyone who is not a member of that family can speak to the actual wisdom or merits of their choice (is there anything more personal?) but I can say what I felt when I heard the news: It felt right to me. It sounded true to both John's and Elizabeth's beliefs. And I have no doubt at all that continuing the campaign was both Elizabeth's idea and her desire. (As I wrote earlier today, she's nothing if not genuine.)

Labels: Elizabeth Edwards

Labels: Patrick Leahy, Prosecutorgate

Labels: Google searches

Labels: Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, Democrats with balls

Young men and women are leaving college with debt loads that would break the back of a mule. Families in many cases are taking out second mortgages, loading up credit cards and raiding 401(k)s to supplement the students’ first wave of debt, the ubiquitous college loan.

At the same time, many thousands of well-qualified young men and women are being shut out of college, denied the benefits and satisfactions of higher education, because they can’t meet the ever-escalating costs.

You want a recipe for making the U.S. less competitive over the next few decades? This is it.

Traditionally, one of the sweetest periods in the lives of many college graduates has been the time immediately after leaving school, when they could relax and take the measure of the newly emerging adult world. It was a time, perhaps, to travel, or to sample intriguing employment opportunities, even if they didn’t pay particularly well. Debt was not usually the overriding concern of the young graduate.

That has changed. Along with their degree, most graduates leave college now with a loan obligation that will hover over them for years, maybe decades. Student loans have decisively overtaken grants as the primary form of financial aid for undergraduates.

Two-thirds of all graduates now leave college with some form of debt. The average amount is close to $20,000. Some owe many times that.

Tamara Draut, in her book, “Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead,” tells us:

“Back in the 1970s, before college became essential to securing a middle-class lifestyle, our government did a great job of helping students pay for school. Students from modest economic backgrounds received almost free tuition through Pell grants, and middle-class households could still afford to pay for their kids’ college.”

Since then, tuition at public and private universities has soared while government support for higher education, other than student loan programs, has diminished.

This is a wonderful example of extreme stupidity. America will pony up a trillion or two for a president who goes to war on a whim, but can’t find the money to adequately educate its young. History has shown that these kinds of destructive trade-offs are early clues to a society in decline.

[snip]

The kids who graduate with enormous debt burdens — $40,000, $80,000, $100,000 or more — face a range of uncomfortable and even debilitating consequences, the first of which is the persistent anxiety over how their loans are to be repaid.

I’ve spoken recently with a number of law students who have already decided to go into corporate practice because their first choice — public interest law — would not pay enough to cover their loans. Many students have turned their backs on teaching for the same reason.

At that stage of life, you shouldn’t have to choose between a job you would love and one that you would take simply because it would pay the bills. Talk about stepping on a dream.

There are also plenty of cases of students who have postponed marriage or buying a home or having children because of their college loan obligations.

And then there are those who never see a graduation day. There’s no way of telling what talents have been squandered, or what great benefits to society have been lost, because bright students who were unable to afford the costs have been forced to leave college, or never went to college at all.

Labels: family values

John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat making a second bid for the presidency, called a news conference for Thursday to discuss the future of his campaign, a day after he and his wife, Elizabeth, visited Mrs. Edwards’s doctor to assess her recovery from a bout of breast cancer.

Mrs. Edwards, in a brief interview from her home in Chapel Hill, N.C., said she and Mr. Edwards would discuss her health at the news conference, but she declined to elaborate.

“I’m still here,” she said.

Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for the Edwards campaign, would not comment. The news conference is to be held in Chapel Hill.

Mr. Edwards canceled a campaign appearance in Iowa on Wednesday to join his wife on what he had described as a presumably routine follow-up examination.

Mrs. Edwards, 57, received a cancer diagnosis in 2004 almost on the day that Mr. Edwards, the vice-presidential candidate, and Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, were defeated in their race for the White House.

Mr. Edwards has said he waited to announce a second bid for the presidency until he and Mrs. Edwards’s doctors were confident about her recovery.

Since then, he had established himself as a strong third contender in a race that includes Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. A decision by Mr. Edwards to withdraw, should he decide to do that, could have a profound impact on the dynamics of the Democratic contest.

After the campaign announced its intention to hold the news conference, concern grew quickly among former and current aides to the Edwards family. One close family friend reached Wednesday evening declined to comment on the announcement, but said it would affect, at least temporarily, the future of the campaign.

Labels: family values, John Edwards

Labels: Prosecutorgate

United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.

[snip]

Ms. Wilson asked me about sealed indictments pertaining to a politically charged corruption case widely reported in the news media involving local Democrats. Her question instantly put me on guard. Prosecutors may not legally talk about indictments, so I was evasive. Shortly after speaking to Ms. Wilson, I received a call from Senator Domenici at my home. The senator wanted to know whether I was going to file corruption charges — the cases Ms. Wilson had been asking about — before November. When I told him that I didn’t think so, he said, “I am very sorry to hear that,” and the line went dead.

A few weeks after those phone calls, my name was added to a list of United States attorneys who would be asked to resign — even though I had excellent office evaluations, the biggest political corruption prosecutions in New Mexico history, a record number of overall prosecutions and a 95 percent conviction rate. (In one of the documents released this week, I was deemed a “diverse up and comer” in 2004. Two years later I was asked to resign with no reasons given.)

When some of my fired colleagues — Daniel Bogden of Las Vegas; Paul Charlton of Phoenix; H. E. Cummins III of Little Rock, Ark.; Carol Lam of San Diego; and John McKay of Seattle — and I testified before Congress on March 6, a disturbing pattern began to emerge. Not only had we not been insulated from politics, we had apparently been singled out for political reasons. (Among the Justice Department’s released documents is one describing the office of Senator Domenici as being “happy as a clam” that I was fired.)

As this story has unfolded these last few weeks, much has been made of my decision to not prosecute alleged voter fraud in New Mexico. Without the benefit of reviewing evidence gleaned from F.B.I. investigative reports, party officials in my state have said that I should have begun a prosecution. What the critics, who don’t have any experience as prosecutors, have asserted is reprehensible — namely that I should have proceeded without having proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The public has a right to believe that prosecution decisions are made on legal, not political, grounds.

What’s more, their narrative has largely ignored that I was one of just two United States attorneys in the country to create a voter-fraud task force in 2004. Mine was bipartisan, and it included state and local law enforcement and election officials.

After reviewing more than 100 complaints of voter fraud, I felt there was one possible case that should be prosecuted federally. I worked with the F.B.I. and the Justice Department’s public integrity section. As much as I wanted to prosecute the case, I could not overcome evidentiary problems. The Justice Department and the F.B.I. did not disagree with my decision in the end not to prosecute.

Labels: George W. Bush, Prosecutorgate, Showtime, The Tudors

"After telling a bunch of different stories about why they fired the U.S. Attorneys, the Bush administration is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Congress and the American people deserve a straight answer. If Karl Rove plans to tell the truth, he has nothing to fear from being under oath like any other witness."

“I was glad to meet Mr. Fielding and I welcome the fact that these issues have his full attention.

“I don’t accept his offer. It is not constructive and it is not helpful to be telling the Senate how to do our investigation, or to prejudge its outcome.

“Instead of freely and fully providing relevant documents to the investigating committees, they have only selectively sent documents, after erasing large portions that they do not want to see the light of day.

“Testimony should be on the record, and under oath. That’s the formula for true accountability.

Labels: Prosecutorgate

Local Iraqis are providing more information to coalition forces about possible attacks, which Barbaro said is an indicator of local support for the campaign against insurgents. “In February, since the start of this operation, we’ve had the highest number of tips from the Iraqi population in Baghdad than we’ve ever had,” Barbaro said.

U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces now are operating in every neighborhood in Baghdad, Barbaro said. “We go and ... establish a presence and maintain that presence to get a foothold and live and work in these neighborhoods,” he said.

Barbaro said he has read initial reports saying that hundreds of Iraqi families that previously fled the violence, appeared to be moving back to their Baghdad homes.

Overall violence has declined in Baghdad, but insurgents continue targeting coalition forces and continue high-profile attacks such as car bombs and suicide bombs.

“Violence directed at Iraqi civilians has dropped by about a third of the averages before mid-February,” Barbaro said. “Murders and executions against civilians ... have decreased significantly, somewhere in the area of about a 50 percent decrease.”

He said that insurgents have exploded six truck bombs filled with chlorine. He also described a recent attack that used children inside a car bomb to reduce suspicion. “We saw a vehicle with two small children in the back seat come up to one of our checkpoints,” Barbaro said. “Children in the back seat lower suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle.” The adults then ran out and exploded the vehicle “with the children in the back,” Barbaro said.

Labels: Iraq

Referring to the Bush administration’s purge of former San Diego-based U.S. attorney Carol Lam, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) questioned recently on the Senate floor whether she was let go because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful.”

The media reports this morning that among Lam’s politically powerful targets were former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA). But there is evidence to believe that the White House may also have been on Lam’s target list. Here are the connections:

– Washington D.C. defense contractor Mitchell Wade pled guilty last February to paying then-California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes.

– Wade’s company MZM Inc. received its first federal contract from the White House. The contract, which ran from July 15 to August 15, 2002, stipulated that Wade be paid $140,000 to “provide office furniture and computers for Vice President Dick Cheney.”

– Two weeks later, on August 30, 2002, Wade purchased a yacht for $140,000 for Duke Cunningham. The boat’s name was later changed to the “Duke-Stir.” Said one party to the sale: “I knew then that somebody was going to go to jail for that…Duke looked at the boat, and Wade bought it — all in one day. Then they got on the boat and floated away.”

– According to Cunningham’s sentencing memorandum, the purchase price of the boat had been negotiated through a third-party earlier that summer, around the same time the White House contract was signed.

To recap, the White House awarded a one-month, $140,000 contract to an individual who never held a federal contract. Two weeks after he got paid, that same contractor used a cashier’s check for exactly that amount to buy a boat for a now-imprisoned congressman at a price that the congressman had pre-negotiated.

That should raise questions about the White House’s involvement.

UPDATE: Perhaps this was the “real problem” Sampson was referring to:

Labels: Prosecutorgate, Republic Party

If an 18-year-old American soldier were caught slipping obscure military paperwork to Iranian spies, he would be arrested, pilloried in the news media and tossed into prison for years.

But in fact there’s an American who has provided services of incalculably greater value to Iran in recent years. So you have to wonder: Is Dick Cheney an Iranian mole?

Consider that the Bush administration’s first major military intervention was to overthrow Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, Iran’s bitter foe to the east. Then the administration toppled Iran’s even worse enemy to the west, the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

You really think that’s just a coincidence? That of all 193 nations in the world, we just happen to topple the two neighboring regimes that Iran despises?

Moreover, consider how our invasion of Iraq went down. The U.S. dismantled Iraq’s army, broke the Baath Party and helped install a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad. If Iran’s ayatollahs had written the script, they couldn’t have done better — so maybe they did write the script ...

We fought Iraq, and Iran won. And that’s just another coincidence?

Or think about broader Bush administration policies in the Middle East. For six years, the White House vigorously backed Israeli hard-liners and refused to engage seriously in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, thus nurturing anti-Americanism and religious fundamentalism. Then last summer, the White House backed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, which turned Iran’s proxies in Hezbollah into street heroes in much of the Arab world.

Consider also the way the administration has systematically antagonized our former allies in Europe and Asia, undermining chances of a united front to block Iranian development of nuclear weapons. Mr. Cheney may nominally push for sanctions against Iran, but by alienating our allies he makes strong sanctions harder to achieve.

And by condoning torture and extralegal detentions in Guantánamo, the White House antagonized Muslims around the world and made us look like hypocrites when we criticize Arab or Iranian human rights abuses. Take Mr. Cheney’s endorsement of the torture known as waterboarding, which simulates drowning: “It’s a no-brainer for me,” he said. The torturers in Iran’s Evin prison must have cheered. They got a pass as well.

Even at home, Iran’s leaders have been bolstered by President Bush and Mr. Cheney. Iran’s hard-liners are hugely unpopular and the regime is wobbly, but Bush administration policies have inflamed Iranian nationalism and given cover to the hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Why focus on Dick Cheney rather than his boss? Partly because Mr. Cheney, even more than Mr. Bush, has systematically pushed an extreme agenda that has transparently served Iranian purposes. And domestically, his role in the Scooter Libby scandal — and his disgraceful refusal to explain just what he was doing at the crime scene — ended up paralyzing executive decision-making and humiliating our government.

Is that really just one more coincidence? Or could it be another case of Mr. Cheney’s following instructions from his Iranian bosses to damage America?

Labels: Dick Cheney, Iran

Labels: corporatism

Need some cash?

If you're like a lot of people, you've found that what's in your wallet is nothing like what's in your house.

As wages stagnated and real estate prices doubled in the first half of this decade, homeowners discovered their home was their best credit card.

Refinanced home loans, home equity lines and second mortgages have become the way to pay for Hummers, high-tech kitchens and vacation cruises. The interest rates are usually lower than the rates on credit cards, the interest paid is tax deductible, and there's been a lot more cash available in house equity.

The numbers are staggering. New Jersey homeowners borrowed $183 billion on mortgage refinancings and home equity loans from 2003 through 2005, the peak refinancing years, an Asbury Park Press analysis shows. Some homeowners may have refinanced more than once in that time. Nonetheless, that's enough to pay for all the fast food meals in America this year or to run state government for the next six years -- tax free.

But now bankers and economists worry some homeowners have overspent like families at Disney World. Default rates on mortgage loans are rising, and real estate prices are falling as higher interest rates have made loans less affordable.

[snip]

James F. Brown, a Spring Lake Heights mortgage banker, said demand for loans that effectively provide cash from house equity has been so high that he has, in recent years, tried to persuade people to borrow less money and not put themselves in so much debt.

Brown, 52, a 24-year mortgage industry veteran, said he's failed to dissuade a single borrower.

Brown said he recalls the days when people tried to actually pay off their mortgage and have a party to burn the paperwork. That's not a modern-day attitude, he said.

"People are sitting back and saying: 'Tell me how much equity is in my house, I want to consolidate my debt, and I'm not worried if I ever pay my house off,' " Brown said

You are in trouble if John Bittel calls you.

If Bittel contacts you, it means your mortgage company is ready to throw you out of your house.

Bittel, of Stafford, is a property investor. He buys houses from people who can't pay their mortgage loans, or he buys them at foreclosure. Then he renovates the houses and either rents or sells them.

Bittel admits he and other investors may look like vultures to those who don't understand the business. But they play an important role in the real estate market, he said.

"Even a vulture has a purpose," Bittel said after one sheriff's sale last month. "He cleans up the mess."

[snip]

The man whose job it is to represent lenders at the Monmouth County sheriff's sale auctions, at which foreclosed properties are sold, said he sees a lot more trouble coming.

That's especially true for owners of large, suburban homes who bought during the boom times, have since run into financial trouble, and now are dealing with a declining market, said real estate broker Dennis Kessler, the lenders' agent in Monmouth County.

"We're seeing more foreclosure action at the top of the market than at the bottom," Kessler said. "You see a lot of people who can't sell their homes, and they're really extended out."

[snip]

Many homeowners in trouble during a real estate downturn attempt to rent out their houses in order to cover the mortgage. That won't work for many this time, Kessler said.

"You can't rent a McMansion that's worth $800,000 and has $20,000 a year in property taxes," he said.

[snip]

Dennis DeBernardis, 57, of Freehold, a property investor and retired New York City police officer, sat motionless after a sheriff's sale in Monmouth County last month.

He had researched the loans on the properties and driven by the houses, but never raised his hand once to offer a bid.

"There's no equity in these," he said. "What's coming through is these interest-only, balloon mortgages, no-money-down loans."

The scene has been much the same for investors in Ocean County.

"Look at these judgment amounts — they're huge," said Bittel, the Stafford investor, as he slapped the sale list. "That house has a $254,000 judgment. It's only worth $200,000. Look at this one in Brick: $500,000 to buy it today. Forget it."

After a while, Bittel and other investors predict, the banks will have to start unloading properties for whatever price buyers will pay.

When that happens, real estate prices in general will drop, since those sales will be used as comparisons for homeowners who put their homes on the market, Bittel said.

Labels: debt, economics, homeownership, real estate

crawled out of the car just as the sun set and walked into the hotel. Members of the Tajik national soccer team milled about the small, two-star hotel lobby; a curious mélange of Tajik, Farsi and Russian filled my ears.

"Passport please," the attendant asked. I fumbled through my money belt but quickly complied.

I looked up, behind the desk stood a clean-shaven young man with slightly receding hair and cheerful, pecan-colored eyes.

"You are American, yes?"

"That I am."

"How awesome!" he exclaimed in almost perfect American English.

"I've never met an American before," he said excitedly and then came out from around the lobby desk, arms outstretched, exclaiming all in one breath, "This is the best day of my life. Can I hug you?"

After two weeks of kind salutations, warm welcomes and polite, almost infectious pride, I still wasn't prepared for an outpouring quite like this.

"Sure, why not," I replied, a tad embarrassed.

"So, now that I've hugged a complete stranger, tell me your name?" I joked, a feeble attempt to get through this awkward moment.

"Amir Isazysadr," he said, stretching out his hand.

"Sean-Paul Kelley," I replied.

We shook hands vigorously. Full of contagious enthusiasm, I liked him instantly.

"Why Meshed? It is a big, dusty, ugly city, filled with too many people."

"Gohar Shad," I told him, as if in a whisper. "If I'm lucky I will see the Gohar Shad."

"The mosque surrounding the Shrine of the Imam Reza is splendid," he said.

"Are you Muslim?" he asked.

"No, I am not."

"That is a pity, my friend, because one pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Imam Reza is equal to 17,000 Mecca pilgrimages, or so say the mullahs."

Labels: Iran

Labels: Helen Thomas

The war in Iraq began four years ago today. Fans at sporting events around the U.S. greeted the war and its early “shock and awe” bombing campaign with chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

Jeffrey Lucey, who turned 22 the day before the war began, had a different perspective. He had no illusions about the glory or glamour of warfare. His unit had been activated and he was part of the first wave of troops to head into the combat zone.

A diary entry noted the explosion of a Scud missile near his unit: “The noise was just short of blowing out your eardrums. Everyone’s heart truly skipped a beat. ... Nerves are on edge.”

By the time he came home, Jeffrey Lucey was a mess. He had gruesome stories to tell. They could not all be verified, but there was no doubt that this once-healthy young man had been shattered by his experiences.

He had nightmares. He drank furiously. He withdrew from his friends. He wrecked his parents’ car. He began to hallucinate.

In a moment of deep despair on the Christmas Eve after his return from Iraq, Jeffrey hurled his dogtags at his sister Debra and cried out, “Don’t you know your brother’s a murderer?”

Jeffrey exhibited all the signs of deep depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Wars do that to people. They rip apart the mind and the soul in the same way that bullets and bombs mutilate the body. The war in Iraq is inflicting a much greater emotional toll on U.S. troops than most Americans realize.

The Luceys tried desperately to get help for Jeffrey, but neither the military nor the Veterans Administration is equipped to cope with the war’s mounting emotional and psychological casualties.

On the evening of June 22, 2004, Kevin Lucey came home and called out to Jeffrey. There was no answer. He noticed that the door leading to the basement was open and that the light in the basement was on. He did not see the two notes that Jeffrey had left on the first floor for his parents:

“It’s 4:35 p.m. and I am near completing my death.”

“Dad, please don’t look. Mom, just call the police — Love, Jeff.”

The first thing Mr. Lucey saw as he walked down to the basement was that Jeff had set up an arrangement of photos. There was a picture of his platoon, and photos of his sisters, Debra and Kelly, his parents, the family dog and himself.

“Then I could see, through the corner of my eye, Jeff,” said Mr. Lucey. “And he was, I thought, standing there. Then I noticed the hose around his neck.”

By his own admission Douglas Barber, a former army reservist, was struggling. For two years since returning from the chaos and violence of Iraq, the 35-year-old had battled with his memories and his demons, the things he had seen and the fear he had experienced. Recently, it seemed he had turned a corner, securing medical help and counselling.

But last week, at his home in south-eastern Alabama, the National Guardsman e-mailed some friends and then changed the message on his answering machine. His new message told callers: "If you're looking for Doug, I'm checking out of this world. I'll see you on the other side." Mr Barber dialled the police, stepped on to the porch with his shotgun and - after a brief stand-off with officers - shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

It took two years of hell to convince him, but finally Jonathan Schulze was ready.

On the morning of Jan. 11, Jonathan, an Iraq war veteran with two Purple Hearts, neatly packed his US Marine Corps duffel bag with his sharply creased clothes, a framed photo of his new baby girl, and a leather-bound Bible and headed out from the family farm for a 75-mile drive to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minn.

[snip]

And so, with his father and stepmother at his side, he confessed to an intake counselor that he was suicidal. He wanted to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.

But, instead, he was told that the clinician who prescreened cases like his was unavailable. Go home and wait for a phone call tomorrow, the counselor said, as Marianne Schulze, his stepmother, describes it.

When a clinical social worker called the next day, Jonathan, 25, told again of his suicidal thoughts and other symptoms. And then, with his stepmother listening in, he learned that he was 26th on the waiting list for one of the 12 beds in the center's ward for post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers.

Four days later, on Jan. 16, he wrapped a household extension cord around his neck, tied it to a beam in the basement, and hanged himself.

It took several months of pushing, but finally, Chris Dana was ready.

The 23-year-old veteran of the Iraq war, who served with the 163rd Infantry Battalion, Montana National Guard, agreed to see a counselor for post-combat stress.


Members of his family, concerned for months about his change in behavior, believed they were starting to get through to him. Their son and brother promised to seek the help they all knew he so desperately needed.

Then Dana canceled the appointment. He began screening his calls. He stopped showing up at drill with the National Guard. He quit his job at Target, cleaned his car and the trailer he shared with a friend. And then, on March 4, he shut himself into his bedroom, put a blanket over his head, and shot himself.

Labels: Iraq, mental illness, PTSD

Labels: bloggers, Iraq, satire, terrorism

Washington, DC (WUSA) -- A major 9NEWS NOW EXCLUSIVE -- allegations from a former inspector at Walter Reed of widespread and dangerous problems in nearly all the buildings at the Army's premier hospital.

Burst steam pipes near electrical cables, rats, mold, and holes in floors and walls -- all of that extends far beyond the well-publicized problems at the notorious Building 18.

And 9NEWS NOW has learned managers may have been slow to respond.

A worried quality control inspector, Mark Cordell, finally quit last week in frustration, and brought his fears to 9NEWS NOW.

"I won't sit back and watch someone get killed," he says while running through 81 pictures of the problems on a laptop computer.

Cordell says the worst of it may be Building 40. The old research institute has been condemned, but last week, the private contractor now responsible for maintaining Walter Reed sent workers in to fix a leak.

Cordell points to a picture showing the terrible decay inside the building and says, "The water is actually on the ground floor here. There is water halfway across the ground floor. And there's electricity too. There's high voltage that goes to this building. Two thirteen thousand volt transformers. Through the basement filled with water."

Cordell took more pictures in Building 1, the old hospital, that's now the main administration building. Water damage in the walls; holes in the ceilings next to electric cables and computer servers; hazardous waste stored between occupied floors; and leaking pipes that are rotting floor joists.

"The steam pipes below these buildings have burst, and it's making the rafters on the basement floor wet. People work on those floors," says Cordell.

When the Washington Post exposed the black mold in Building 18, where wounded soldiers recover, the contractor sent Cordell in to coordinate repairs. He says he did 250 to 300 work orders in two weeks.

The Army moved many of the injured soldiers to Building 14 -- and Cordell says as soon as they arrived the troops found more problems.

"So the building the soldiers moved to is just as messed up as Building 18?" asked 9NEWS NOW Reporter Bruce Leshan.

"Yes. Every one of the buildings at Walter Reed is the same way, or worse."

Labels: George W. Bush, Walter Reed, war profiteering