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From the passed bailout bill S-1424; TITLE I - Troubled Assets Relief Program SECTION 110 b. HOMEOWNER ASSISTANCE BY AGENCIES. 1. IN GENERAL.To the extent that the Federal property manager holds, owns, or controls mortgages, mortgage backed securities, and other assets secured by residential real estate, including multifamily housing, the Federal property manager shall implement a plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners and use its authority to encourage the servicers of the underlying mortgages, and considering net present value to the taxpayer, to take advantage of the HOPE for Homeowners Program under section 257 of the National Housing...

WASHINGTON - A son of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden was paid an undisclosed amount of money as a consultant by MBNA, the largest employer in Delaware, during the years the senator supported legislation that was promoted by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer groups. ADVERTISEMENT Barack Obama's presidential campaign said Biden helped forge a bipartisan compromise on the measure, which is now law and makes it harder for consumers to obtain bankruptcy protection in the courts. MBNA's consulting payments to Hunter Biden, first reported by The New York Times, followed his departure in 2001 from the...

Could Become a Political Liability Long-standing ties between a member of Senator Obama's new vice presidential search team and a prominent mortgage executive the senator has pilloried could become a political liability that hampers the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's ability to tap into public ire over the subprime mortgage crisis. James Johnson, one of three people tapped by Mr. Obama recently to oversee the search for his running mate, took at least five real estate loans totaling more than $7 million from Countrywide Financial Corp. through an informal program for friends of the company's CEO, Angelo Mozilo, the Wall Street...

Minneapolis Community and Technical College has a policy that “strictly prohibits religious displays.” For example, this past Christmas season a memo from Dianna Cusick, director of legal affairs and President Phil Davis, warned against any public display of holiday cheer: “As we head into the holiday season, all public offices and areas should refrain from displays that may represent to our students, employees or the public that the college is promoting any particular religion.” Nevertheless, the college is planning to use taxpayer funds to install facilities for Muslim ritual foot-washing. School officials are going on a junket to visit a...

THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN MESSAGE IS MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN YOU MIGHT BE AWARE OF http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/ This time of the year is an appropriate one to reflect on the Christian message so regard the comments below as the inside message of your Christmas card: Although I am an atheist, I grew up steeped in the New Testament so reading the Bible is for me like visiting an old friend. I do not however know the Old Testament as well as I should so I recently read right through the Book of Deuteronomy. Its main theme is avoidance of false gods and when I...

June 21, 2006 As governments throughout Latin America swing to the left, the citizens of Mexico will vote on July 2 in a presidential contest offering a clear choice between populism and markets. Following an especially nasty campaign, the top two contenders are Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City who has promised subsidies to the poor lower classes, and Felipe Calderón, who champions free trade and has support from business. Both candidates spoke last week in Mexico City with Newsweek-Washington Post's Lally Weymouth. Felipe Calderón I want Mexico to be a winner in a world that...

Cynthia McKinney’s reaction to the obvious and blatant favoritism enjoyed by Patrick Kennedy is likely to be something to savor. She is already on the record about the indignities she received at the hand of a white cop. But now she sees that for the white boy, supervisors stepped in, relieving the officers at the scene and driving the staggering Kennedy home. She faces potential legal jeopardy, and now a rich white boy walks away without so much as a breathalyzer test from circumstances that would ordinarily demand a drunk driving investigation. At least one cop reportedly says he smelled...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had had no alcohol before the accident. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. "I was involved in a traffic accident last night at First and C Street SE near the U.S. Capitol," Kennedy said in a written statement released by his office. "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident. I will fully cooperate with the Capitol Police in whatever investigation they choose to undertake." Kennedy appeared to be intoxicated when he crashed...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

Sacramento -- State prison officials, as they grappled last year with the largest deficit in the agency's history, allowed a private foundation that provides drug treatment to inmates to spend nearly $500,000 of taxpayer money to create a movie studio. The money was earmarked for substance abuse programs but instead was used to buy everything from two high-tech cameras to two 50-inch plasma-screen televisions. It was spent in the same fiscal year that the state's prison system racked up a $543 million deficit. Prison officials and the head of the group that created the studio, Amity Foundation, said Monday the...

City could get close to half of $1.9 billion Ottawa fund Federal funds to be used for transit, water or sewer systems KERRY GILLESPIE STAFF REPORTERS Toronto will get about $900 million in gas tax money over five years as the federal government opens the taps on funding for Ontario's cities and towns. Ottawa is set to sign a deal on Friday that will see Ontario's municipalities share $1.9 billion in federal money. Under the deal, municipalities, including Toronto, will be required to spend the new funding on "environmentally sustainable" projects such as improving public transit and upgrading sewer and...

California Highway Patrol chief, arrested last year on suspicion of drunken driving and charged with failing to obey a command from a peace officer, is set to assume one of the department's highest-profile jobs. Deputy Chief Gary Dominguez, scheduled to become commander in the CHP's Los Angeles-area division, was not charged with drunken driving, but faced the misdemeanor charge of failing to comply with a peace officer's order after officers had to forcibly remove him from his vehicle. The charge was later dropped when the main witness was unavailable to testify, Pasadena Chief Prosecutor Connie Orozco said in an interview...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

<p>WASHINGTON — A senior Defense official placed under investigation by the FBI (news - web sites) on allegations that he tried to steer Iraqi reconstruction contracts toward friends has been removed from office, Pentagon (news - web sites) officials confirmed Friday.</p>

Why Jews Must Vote for President Bush Joan Swirsky Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004 American Jews are overwhelmingly Democrats and liberals, as their voting record over the past 60-plus years demonstrates. The simple explanation is that upon arriving in the land of the brave and the free after their near annihilation in the Holocaust, the values they held dearest, the values that Moses handed the first monotheists in human history through God – of life, family, education, social responsibility, equality in the eyes of the law, and peace – finally seemed realizable. So it is no wonder that their arrival at...

Senate Adds Sexual Orientation, Gender to 'Hate Crimes' Law- The following post is in response to this article already posted by another Freeper. _________________________________________________________ Any and all "hate crimes bills" are an attempt in thought control. For example, a white on black murder more than likely will be classified as a "hate crime". However a white on white or a black on black murder would not be called a "hate crime". Which murder is worse? Shouldn't all murders be prosecuted to the fullest extent once guilt has been determined by a jury of 12 peers, ending with the murderer being...

Police Investigation into Pierre Case Could Take Months Latest on Pierre Investigation and His Voting Record KATC has learned the Lafayette Police Department Internal investigation into allegations of preferential treatment for State Representative Wilfred Pierre could take a couple of months. Police Chief Ronnie Boudreaux wants to know why Pierre was not booked into the Lafayette Parish Jail after testing .092 on a field sobreity test at a Lafayette police check point early Saturday morning. Meanwhile, a man stopped and arrested at the checkpoint tells KATC's Letitia LaNasa he saw Pierre at the checkpoint, but not at the jail. He...

Media Bias: If Arabs speak Muslim and "deceit" is a five-letter word, then we guess a case can be made that no president has ever made more of a mess of the economy than George W. Bush.We speak of comments by certain candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination — comments that, if they were uttered by Republicans, would be subject to intense media attention, but, since they weren't, have already disappeared from journalists' radar screens.Comments like this from Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry: "The obligation of the United States government is to rapidly internationalize the effort in Iraq, get the target...

The day rarely goes by when the public schools don’t offer another reason to shut them down, and they have kindly obliged again. "1st public gay high school set for NY," the MSNBC Web site reported on Monday. In a bit of dark humor, the headline link ran just below this one: "HIV cases rise among U.S. gay men."You’d think the news about AIDS might give the public schools pause, but alack, when the subject involves perversion, educationist fools rush in where angels fear to tread.Still, the high school is a welcome development. It hastens the day when public education...

A member of one of the world's wealthiest families let her lawyers do the talking Tuesday as the case of the Saudi Arabian princess and her maid played out its final chapter. Princess Buniah al-Saud was at home in the desert kingdom when her plea of no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge was entered, seven months after she was accused of pushing her maid down a flight of stairs. An Orlando judge ordered the princess to pay a $1,000 fine and $133 in court costs and write the court a letter of regret. The plea is neither an admission...