Free Republic

Remember in the fall of 2009 when thousands turned out in Michigan try and get free “Obama money?” Well, it’s happened again — but this time it could be a scam. Responding to a local rumor, people are standing in line for hours, turning over valuable personal information and expecting to receive a government handout in New York City. If this sounds familiar, it is. Back in the fall of 2009, thousands of people stood in line in Michigan expecting to be given some Obama money. It never arrived. Glenn Beck reported about it on his Fox News show back...

Wonder how Americans can afford to buy millions of iGadgets, a second LCD TV for the shoe closet, and eat at restaurants more than almost any time in the past despite sliding personal income? Simple - increasingly fewer pay the biggest staple bill in a US household: their mortgage. The following story of Keith And Janet Ritter, who have lived in their Fort Washington, MD $1.29MM, 4,900 square foot McMansion for 5 years (which they purchase with no money down) without ever making a single mortgage payment, and who are not even close to being evicted, may explain much...

Do any freepers know of any reputable online background/trace checks

Young adults are the recession's lost generation. In record numbers, they're struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock, if they're becoming parents at all. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War II, and they risk living in poverty more than others - nearly 1 in 5. New 2010 census data released Thursday show the wrenching impact of a recession that officially ended in mid-2009. There are missed opportunities and dim prospects for a generation of mostly 20-somethings and 30-somethings coming of age...

To avoid further clogging the already sluggish home foreclosure pipeline, some lenders have been offering cash incentives to strapped homeowners at risk of foreclosure to complete short sales and move out of their homes. Chase, for instance, has been quietly offering as much as $35,000 to homeowners who are “upside down” on their loans — meaning, they owe more than the home is currently worth. In a short sale, the lender allows the sale of the home for less than the loan amount and often relieves the borrower of any further obligation. The incentives began late last year and are...

Providing fresh evidence that it is intellectually exhausted, the Obama administration is flirting with revisiting the mortgage-refinancing market. And like the semi-criminal scam that was the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, this new push is not really about helping out innocent bystanders crushed by the housing crash, but about the hundreds of thousands of market-massacring new foreclosures that are coming down the pipe — foreclosures that may be delayed, even if they are not prevented. The Committee to Reinflate the Bubble is in session. Banks are reasonably eager to refinance certain kinds of mortgages — what they lose in interest, they...

This time the wild and crazy bunch attempts to defy an Order to Stay by a Federal Judge. Paragraph 4 - "All mortgage foreclosure cases are hereby STAYED and shall remain so until further order of the court. Any deadlines for filings on any issue are hereby suspended." Seems pretty clear to me. Maybe the good folks at Harmon Law accidently sent their copy of the order to LPS for some repair work. Or could it be that they interpret the STAY order to exclude evictions?

Is it ethical for the American homeowner whose mortgage has been securitized to default, even If they are not financially distressed? First, consider it is unlikely that marketable, fee simple, insurable title can be obtained as a result of fulfilling the obligations of the related promissory note. On the contrary the titles to some 60 million homes in America are badly clouded. Secondly, encouraging investment in an asset class that has been artificially inflated, then deliberately destroying the price of the asset, as part of a separate profit making scheme is unethical, and any agreement based on this type of...

BULLOCH CO., GA (WTOC) - Bulloch County Sheriff's Office and the child support enforcement division conducted round up of major violators who have failed to pay child support. Twenty-six parents with the highest totals of money owed were selected as targets of the sweep, according to the sheriff's office. The total values owed by those arrested is an estimated $500,000 with the highest individual arrearage being $42,000.  On Tuesday morning, warrants and patrol deputies arrested multiple defendants and transported them to the Bulloch County Jail.

When a law passes the Senate saying a foreclosing bank must show proof its the actual owner of the debt (note) what happens when the banks corrupt the head of the banking commission? This is not a Monarchy - unless we allow it. Get this out there. StopForeclosureFraud.com Msfraud.org Livinglies.wordpress.com Don't flame me for posting links to other blogs. -Its bad enough that all 50 state attorney generals are seeking action against all banks. - that the Federal Reserve gave the banks 60 days to get their schtuff straight - that appellate courts across the country are overturning rulings which...

AIG CEO: Liberals are deadbeatsThe head of the government-owned insurance company claims "culture" explains why business is better in red states By Andrew Leonard Wednesday, Feb 2, 2011 15:31 ET Could Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner please send someone over to AIG to slap some sense into CEO Robert Benmosche? I am aware that the man is undergoing chemotherapy in a fight against cancer, but that's no excuse for the remarks he made at an insurance conference in Washington on Tuesday. According to Benmosche, cultural reasons explain why AIG's mortgage insurance subsidiary is doing better in red states than blue states...

Bank of America will begin testing a new slate of checking accounts in Massachusetts and two other states later this month in an effort to generate more revenue from customers.......... A second new account, called “Premium,’’ will cost $15 a month unless customers either maintain a $5,000 minimum balance, use a Bank of America credit card at least once a month, or add $2,000 to the account every month. A third new account, labeled “Enhanced,’’ will cost $25 per month unless holders maintain at least $20,000 in deposits and investments in certain accounts or link their accounts to a Bank...

The Obama administration has begun monitoring the high-level board meetings of nearly 20 banks that received emergency taxpayer assistance but repeatedly failed to pay the required dividends, according to Treasury Department officials and documents. And it may soon install new directors on some of their boards. The moves come as the number of banks that failed to make at least one dividend payment to the government rose to 132 in the last quarter. These "deadbeats," as they are sometimes called, are virtually all community lenders and collectively received billions of dollars in taxpayer assistance. In addition to those firms, seven...

The national faulty foreclosure crisis that could extend the real estate turmoil for years, has been traced back to a modest Denmark, Maine home with a $474 monthly mortgage payment. The house was purchased for $75,000 seven years ago by Nicolle Bradbury. But when she lost her job about two years ago she was unable to continue making her payments. But unlike millions of others who just closed their eyes and waited until the lender foreclosed and evicted them, Bradbury contacted a legal assistance center when her foreclosure notification came, the New York Times’s David Streitfeld reported. And at the...

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - A landlord who says she's fed up with some tenants who refuse to pay their rent decided to take matters into her own hands with spray paint. Landlord Vanessa McCants spray painted the words "deadbeat tenants" on a house she owns in the Reedy Creek subdivision of Northeast Charlotte. McCants says the tenants have not paid the $1300 a month rent since June 1st, and have now missed two payments. McCants says the home is being foreclosed on and will be auctioned off next week. She believes the tenants figured out she wouldn't be able to...

I am beginning to think that our tax collecting agencies across the country send out a form letter to everyone that is in arrears with their taxes to immediately apply for a job in Barack "Most Ethical Administration in Decades" Obama's administration. Here we have another Obama lieutenant that didn't pay his taxes until someone began to inquire after them. This time it's Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, who decided that he was far, far important to be expected to pay his property taxes here in Chicago. Emanuel suddenly remembered to pay his taxes -- three months late --...

We keep hearing from the "useful idiots" in the media that the "Tea Partiers" are interested in violence.

When Hope and Matt Hughes stopped for supplies at a pet store last month, they thought the trouble with their debit card was just a glitch. But it turned into a financial crisis. They quickly discovered that their bank, Wachovia-turned-Wells Fargo, had deducted $4,059.82 from their checking account, wiping it out. It was no glitch. It is called the right of setoff or offset, a long-accepted practice dating to early English common law.

TAMPA - The din of Room 168 at the Economy Inn on East Busch Boulevard occasionally drowned out conversation. Twelve children ranging in age from 6 months to 11 years old spent the past week there, scrambling across the floor, bouncing on beds. Their eyes filled with resignation Wednesday morning; they were hungry and dirty - wearing the same clothes as the day before and the day before that. Angel Adams, the mom, was asking for help as the children rambled about the room. She was homeless and hopeless, she said. A relative paid for the motel room for a...

More evidence has arisen that the "strategic default" consumer spending thesis is correct - and that the economic recovery on the whole is based on a rotten sham. The economic "recovery" we are now witnessing is based on theft, greed and deceit. It's a giant rip-off, a rotten sham. In this sleazy imitation of a free market economy, liars, cheats and deadbeats are the ones getting rewarded.

DURHAM, N.C. — Uninsured Triangle residents said Monday that they eagerly await the overhaul of the nation's health care system. "It's just going to be like Christmas," said DeCarlo Flythe, who lost health coverage for his family when he was laid off almost three years ago. "It's going to be great. You know, no worries (about) the bills. We are going to go ahead and pay our co-pay and be alright."

U.S. Reps. Collin Peterson and James Oberstar, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, and the Minnesota Senate Caucus are the only entities paid up through mid-July, according to the spreadsheet attached to Melendez's memo. State officials say the bad economy, changes in the state law reimbursing campaign contributions, and the natural election cycle have forced them to twist arms among contributors -- including their own elected officials. In his memo, Melendez complained to the delinquent officeholders about the need for them to catch up on dues to the UDF, a fund within the party that helps pay for basic party campaigns...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- The Peabody Hotel in Memphis has filed a lawsuit against the Rev. Al Sharpton's civil rights group claiming some bills from a convention last year haven't been paid. The Memphis Daily News reported that the lawsuit in Shelby County Circuit Court against Sharpton's New York City-based National Action Network seeks nearly $70,000. The lawsuit doesn't detail what the charges are for, and Peabody officials declined to comment. The group's 2008 convention was held in Memphis to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King in the city.

The suburban Lantana headquarters for the cash-strapped Palm Beach County Democratic Party has been without phone service this week after the party didn’t pay its latest bill.

Federal authorities say D.C. Council member Marion Barry failed to pay more than $277,000 in back taxes and are continuing to ask that the former mayor's probation be revoked, according to court documents. In a six-page memorandum filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Zeno said Mr. Barry has "continually flouted the standards applicable to all persons who reside in the District of Columbia" and failed to file his 2007 federal tax return until Feb. 17, but still owed unpaid taxes even then. The documents say Mr. Barry had not made a tax payment to the District...

A central piece of President Barack Obama's plan to aid strapped homeowners is running into turbulence in the Senate as Democrats scramble to secure support from both parties' moderates. The bill, which has already passed the House, would allow judges to write down mortgage debt for people in bankruptcy court. Democratic leaders have long sought such a "cramdown" provision for homeowners. But in the Senate, the measure has become a flash point for tensions between lawmakers who seek to aid homeowners -- in particular homeowners who owe more than their house is worth -- and lawmakers who feel such assistance...

While we don't know what her husband does for a living, here is a CNN video of Minta Garcia, a bus driver who as a part of President Obama's most recent bailout plan will get some of your money to help her out of an $800,000 mortgage mess.-

City still owed $1.7M for Obama rally February 20, 2009 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- The cost of President Barack Obama's Election Day celebration in Grant Park totaled more than $1.7 million, and the city has yet to be paid. The Office of Budget and Management says the city is reaching out to the Democratic National Committee to get the money. A DNC spokesperson said the party is still looking at various costs and bills. In October, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said the cash-flush Obama campaign would reimburse the city for the total cost of the rally.

ACORN is on the march! Urging civil disobedience to homeowners facing eviction. This woman spewed lie after lie in response to Cavuto's questions. Lewis wishes to give the impression that these homeowners are merely decent, hardworking, honest people, many living in their homes for over thirty years, and the rapacious capitalist now want their property.Lewis placed no responsibility on the homeowners, despite their signing on the dotted line to get their mortgages. Carter created the Community Reinvestment trough and Clinton later expanded access to it. Now, after society's parasites are having their feeding interrupted they are getting testy. I am...

President Obama, calling the housing meltdown a "crisis unlike we've ever known," rolled out a $75 billion plan Wednesday that his administration hopes will keep as many as 9 million families in their homes. The announcement in Phoenix comes a day after he signed a $787 billion economic rescue package that combines spending and tax cuts aimed at saving and creating millions of jobs. The foreclosure prevention plan is more ambitious than initially expected -- and more expensive. It aims to aid borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth, and borrowers who are on...

An intrepid researcher has discovered more than 200 tax liens totaling more than $3.7 million have been filed by the government against the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now for unpaid taxes since the late eighties. A tax lien is issued when a person or organization fails to pay taxes and that tax debt is considered seriously delinquent. A lien is only issued after the government makes several unsuccessful attempts to collect the debt. The conservative-leaning Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum found a staggering number of liens listed against ACORN’s national headquarters at 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue in New...

In the dark of night over the weekend when most people were snoozing, the Treasury dramatically expanded its bailout plan to include buying student loans, car loans, credit card debt and any other "troubled" assets held by banks. The changes, which were included in draft language that also opened the bailout program to foreign banks with extensive loan operations in the United States, potentially added tens of billions of dollars to the cost of the program. Although it was a major addition to what was already the nation's largest-ever bailout, it did not become part of the debate between Democrats...

Forget soccer moms and NASCAR dads. It looks like the swing voter this election year is going to be the “deadbeat borrower.” In Congress, Republicans and Democrats are pushing Barney Frank’s $300 billion boondoggle to underwrite bad loans given to worse customers... And now, activists for the newest civil right - the right to skip your mortgage payments - have taken to the streets of Roxbury. On Tuesday, around 60 local housing activists gathered outside the condo of Paula Taylor. Led by Steve Meacham of the group City Life, they sang the civil rights anthem “‘We Shall Not Be Moved”...

WASHINGTON, June 19 (UPI) -- Dozens of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee members have failed to pay their full dues to the U.S. political group, U.S. House Democratic leaders say. U.S. House of Representatives Democratic leaders say that such lapses in membership payments to the committee have totaled millions of dollars, the Politico, a Washington publication, said Thursday. The absent or incomplete membership payments by some committee officials have prompted talk of sanctions against delinquent Democratic lawmakers, the Politico said. U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., is among those supporting sanctions, suggesting that offending committee members should be banned from congressional delegation...

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys, but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small business circles. A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails...

PORTSMOUTH — Rochester doctor Terry Bennett has finally been paid by the Clinton campaign for rental of a Portsmouth building he owns. Now, he says he will donate the $500 check to Barack Obama’s campaign. He said he’s doing it because he likes Obama, but also as a statement on the way he feels he was treated by the staff of the Clinton campaign. ‘It was the last straw for Hillary Clinton for me,” said Bennett. Bennett said he believes the only reason the Clinton campaign paid for renting his 236 Union St. storefront is because he became the “squeaky...

As the subprime meltdown continues, threatening Wall Street, Main Street and countless residential streets as well, consumer advocates are demanding federal intervention. The scale of the problem is large and growing. Nationwide, foreclosures more than doubled in the past year, and Georgia struggles with one of the country's highest foreclosure rates. Since January, 53,365 foreclosure sales have been scheduled in metro Atlanta. Two bills introduced in Congress would help more of those homeowners keep their homes. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Reps. Linda Sanchez (D-Ca.) and Brad Miller (D-N.C) have offered legislation that, among other things, would allow bankruptcy judges...

They seem to be everywhere. There is the corporate elite compensated far beyond his/her worth, lawsuit leeches seeking to profit from imagined slights or fake injuries, etc. Deadbeats. If you're a hardworking, law-abiding citizen, you probably fume every time you read about them or see them on TV (or in person as the case may be). America is supposed to be the Land of Opportunity, you think. But it's looking more like the Land of Opportunists. Each man, woman and child in the United States pays almost $10,000 per year in higher product costs, higher costs for services, higher insurance...

My new co-authored column, Passport Rules Unfair to Child Support Debtors (San Antonio Express-News, 9/8/07), criticizes the new child support/passport rules which are so overwhelmingly popular among the editorial boards of our nation's newspapers. The column is a response to the Express-News' recent editorial “Federal law catching up with deadbeat parents” (8/23/07). I commend the paper for its willingness to publish such criticism. Passport Rules Unfair to Child Support Debtors By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks San Antonio Express-News (9/8/07) The San Antonio Express-News' recent editorial “Federal law catching up with deadbeat parents” (8/23/07) presents a one-sided view of...

EU investment firms advise Kosovo is best avoided August 19, 2007 9:41 AM SERBIANNA EU-based investment firms say that Kosovo is best avoided, simply because Serbia – the largest ex-Yugoslav market, with 8 million people – is more valuable, reports Financial Times today. Corruption, patronage and a looming economic embargo from Serbia if Kosovo goes independent makes investing in this province a wasted coin, say experts. "They're driving away good FDI," says Etrur Rrustemaj, chief executive at the Post and Telecommunications of Kosovo. Kosovo's last year Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, was 2.6 billion Euros a figure slightly more then...

A man who was fed up with paying massive bank charges decided to give one of the high street giants a taste of its own medicine. When Royal Bank of Scotland refused to refund £3,400 charges that Declan Purcell believed he was owed, he sent in the bailiffs. Stunned customers at his branch of RBS watched as debt collectors seized four computers, two fax machines and a till filled with cash. The branch manager was told that the items would be sold unless RBS came up with the money owed to Mr Purcell. Only when the manager gave an undertaking...

A top Eritrean AIDS activist is among some 150 delegates of last month's international AIDS conference in Toronto who stayed behind and filed refugee claims in a bid to remain in Canada, immigration officials confirm. Amanuel Tesfamichael, 32, had to sprint to a waiting car at Pearson airport to escape Eritrean agents as he arrived for the AIDS 2006 conference. Most of the claimants have the deadly disease and include a large group of women from hardest-hit South Africa and citizens of El Salvador, Eritrea, Uganda and Zimbabwe. "It feels good to be free," said Tesfamichael, who has the disease....

French swoop to evict 1,000 at migrant squat By Colin Randall in Paris (Filed: 18/08/2006) Riot police stood by yesterday as an operation began to clear up to 1,000 migrants from a former student hostel that became one of Europe's biggest squats. A mother and child who were evacuated from the squat Hundreds of officers sealed off access to the rundown block at Cachan, on the outskirts of Paris. An activist assisting the immigrants said children were crying as the eviction began at 7am. Many people had barricaded themselves in their rooms in the block, where the so-called "Cachan Thousand"...

Unfortunately, Tom Reilly was explaining yesterday, there were “some issues.” Marie St. Fleur? Well, “this particular person” is “a wonderful person, an absolutely wonderful person.” As for Chris Gabrieli? “A wonderful, wonderful person.” But when it comes to politics, well, unfortunately, that’s not my strong suit. Then he said it again, that politics wasn’t his strong suit, and seconds later he circled back around it yet again. “Clearly,” he said, “it’s not my strong suit.” Strong suit? He’s got no suit at all. The AG has no clothes. Unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately . . . Most unfortunately of all, at least...

BOSTON - Marie St. Fleur, a little more than 24 hours after entering the lieutenant governor’s race, decided Wednesday to abandon her campaign after revelations of tax and loan delinquency, according to a top aide to her running mate, Attorney General Tom Reilly. St. Fleur’s financial troubles sparked revelations from another politician in the thick of this year’s gubernatorial campaign: Deval Patrick, Reilly’s top rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, released a statement disclosing that he, too, had been a tax delinquent. “More than a decade ago, Diane and I had an installment agreement with the IRS to pay, on...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- America's seniors and disabled cannot escape debts from old student loans, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, freeing the government to pursue Social Security benefits as part of an effort to collect billions in delinquent loans. The Bush administration had argued that the ability to withhold Social Security benefits is an important tool in the pursuit of $5.7 billion in student loan debt that is over 10 years old. Overall, outstanding loans total about $33 billion. Government lawyers said there is a limit on how much can be taken from benefit checks, 15 percent, and that the Education...

'Insane' black leaders prove Einstein right Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. More than $7 trillion has been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson declared his "war on poverty" 40 years ago, with effectively zero impact on overall black poverty. Yet 40 years of failure doesn't seem to be enough to suggest to liberals, black and white, that their approach to poverty might be wrong. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, among others, riding the post-Katrina poverty-in-America theme, are making predictable speeches calling for...

LACONIA — A Meredith woman in a battle with breast and brain cancer is now facing the costly reality of not having medical insurance. A Superior Court judge has ordered her and her husband, sued by Lakes Region General Hospital for non-payment of medical bills, to make payment secured by an attachment on their home. In March, the hospital filed suit against Paul Hough and his wife, Wanda, of 19 Water St., Meredith for $48,081.26 in medical bills, plus accruing interest and legal fees connected to the collection efforts. Judge Larry Smukler granted the hospital's motion for summary judgment on...

Debate intensifies as Senate considers bankruptcy curbs WASHINGTON - For more than two years, special-education teacher Fatemeh Hosseini worked a second job to keep up with the $2,000 in monthly payments she collectively sent to five banks to try to pay $25,000 in credit card debt. Even though she had not used the cards to buy anything more, her debt had nearly doubled to $49,574 by the time the Sunnyvale, Calif., resident filed for bankruptcy last June. That is because Hosseini's payments sometimes were tardy, triggering late fees ranging from $25 to $50 and doubling interest rates to nearly 30...

Study finds most bankruptcy filers had health insurance - Costly illnesses trigger about half of all personal bankruptcies, and most of those who go bankrupt because of medical problems have health insurance, according to findings from a Harvard University study to be released Wednesday. Researchers from Harvard’s law and medical schools said the findings underscore the inadequacy of many private insurance plans that offer worst-case catastrophic coverage, but little financial security for less severe illnesses.