Big Dan's Big Blog: Big Dan's Big News Oct 21, 2008

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Big Dan's Big News Oct 21, 2008

Mrs. Big Dan with Medea Benjamin of CODE PINK at the TroopsOutNow anti-war protest in Washington DC two summers ago; see Medea in the video below...

Special Commentary by Big Dan: "While the corporate controlled media was busy with "Joe the Plumber", the millionaire bailout banksters/Paulson/Goldman-Sachs shit all over mother of dead vet. They foreclosed on her home with no warning. The "evil" CODE PINK (Rush Limbaugh/rightwingers say Code Pink are evil commies, etc...) comes to the rescue and saves her home! You won't see this story on corporate controlled television, which is a mouthpiece of the rich elites, corporations, and the government! You'll only see it on Democracy NOW! TV news with no commercials, no corporate money, and no government money. Just donations from people like you and me. And they cover people like you and me."

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, the corporate media was abuzz with talk of “Joe the Plumber”, the Ohio man invoked by Senator John McCain to criticize Senator Obama’s tax policy. Well, Joe Wurzelbacher was said to embody the plight of millions of average Americans, because he sought to buy his own small business but worried Obama’s tax plan would hold him back. It turns out that probably Obama’s tax plan would have benefited him more than McCain’s.

But here in New York, another story unfolded that went almost entirely ignored despite also touching on problems many Americans face. Jocelyne Voltaire, a resident of Queens Village, New York, saw her home go up for auction—almost—after a mortgage company foreclosed on it. She had made a 50 percent down payment twenty years ago but recently saw her mortgage payments skyrocket under a predatory loan scam. Her mortgage is controlled by a company called Litton Mortgage, an affiliate of the Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs.

Voltaire had fallen behind on her payments in part because she no longer had the support of her son, a former Marine who served in the Iraq war. She was told her of son’s death just weeks after being informed of the foreclosure.

Jocelyne Voltaire’s home was set to go on the auction block on Friday, but a grassroots campaign led by the peace group CODEPINK helped prevent the sale. Within hours of an emergency appeal, CODEPINK raised more than $10,000 to make a payment on Jocelyne Voltaire’s home. The auction has been avoided for now, but Jocelyne still faces a crippling mortgage.

CODE PINK: Heal Main Street

Grassroots Effort Helps New York Mother Avoid Foreclosure

Add Financial Crisis to your page

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Breaking: Death Threats, Hack Attempts 'Barrage' OH Sec. of State's Office (Jennifer Brunner). Threatening Packages, Messages Received Following Brunner's Legal Tussles With State Republicans. Website Set to 'Static Mode' Due to 'Security Breaches'; Investigation Launched by State Police...

Thousands Face Mix-Ups In Voter Registrations. In New Databases, Many Are Wrongly Flagged as Ineligible

Out of MILLIONS and MILLIONS of votes between 2002 & 2005, there were 17 (that's SEVENTEEN!!!) cases of VOTER FRAUD!!!

Summary: The Washington Post quoted McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' claim that reports of investigations into ACORN have suggested "rampant voter fraud as it relates to voter registration." But the Post did not point out that actual instances of illegal votes cast as a result of registration fraud, e.g., using false names, are extremely rare. Federal statistics show that between October 2002 and September 2005, the Justice Department charged 95 people with "election fraud" and convicted 55, of whom only 17 were convicted for casting fraudulent ballots.

Wash. Post reported that McCain campaign manager warned of "rampant voter fraud," but not that illegal votes are almost never cast

2007 study by the New York University School of Law concluded that "it is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

Meet the Bloggers:

When it comes to election protection and voter suppression, there's perhaps no one more knowledgeable than Color of Change's James Rucker. That's why Rucker will be our special guest on Meet the Bloggers this Friday at 1pm Et/10am PT, as we discuss these critical issues.

Joining Rucker will be Jon Pincus (Liminal States) and Brad Friedman (The Brad Blog). Both have written extensively about this topic, and they will chat with show host Cenk Uygur about early reports of voter suppression and fraud, as well as campaigns to combat this problem.

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Read about the lynchmob/NAZI-esque tactics of Republican senator Joe McCarthy.

Minnesota Republican nutcake Michele Bachmann calls for McCarthy-era-like investigations over "un-American" congress members!

Bachmann Calls For McCarthyite Investigation Into Anti-American Activities Of Liberals

Rep. Bachmann (R-MN) Accuses Obama of Being “Anti-American”

Surrogates of John McCain have also intensified their campaign to paint Barack Obama as anti-American. On Friday, Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Rep. Michele Bachmann: “Yeah, absolutely. I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views. That’s what the American people are concerned about. That’s why they want to know what his answers are. That’s why Joe the plumber has figured so highly in the last few days.”

Chris Matthews: “OK. I’m not going to get off this…”

Bachmann: “Because Joe the plumber…”

Matthews: “I want to stay this—what do you mean by…”

Bachmann: “..asked a question that a lot of Americans want to know.”

During the same program, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said the media should launch an investigation to determine who in Congress is pro-American or anti-American. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports Bachmann’s comments may end up hurting her re-election bid. Since Friday, her opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, raised more than $640,000—more than all the donations he received during the entire third quarter.