foreclosure auctions

You've without doubt seen these or examine them. Glossy ads or four-color propagates in magazines and papers promising to show you all of the juicy details about successful real estate investing. And all you should do to learn each one of these real estate investing surface encounters chuck russo secrets is to pay a rather high sum for a one-or two-day seminar.




Often these slick real-estate investing seminars claim you could make intelligent, profitable property investments with zero money straight down (with the exception of, of training course, the large fee you buy the class). Now, how attractive is which? Make a profit from real estate investments you made out of no funds. Possible? Not most likely.




Successful owning a home requires cashflow. That's the type of any kind of business or even investment, especially property investing. You put your cash into a thing that you desire and plan can make you more money.




Unfortunately too few newbies to the world of real estate investing believe it's the magical form of business in which standard enterprise rules will not apply. Simply set, if you need to stay in real estate investing for more than, say, a evening or a couple of, then you're going to have to generate money to use and invest.




While it could be true that buying real-estate with absolutely no money down is straightforward, anyone that is even made a basic real estate investment (like buying their very own home) understands there's far more involved in real-estate investing that can cost you money. For example, what concerning any required repairs?




So, the number one rule people new to real property investing ought to remember is to have obtainable cash stores. Before you determine to actually carry out any real-estate investing, save some funds. Having slightly money in the bank when you begin real estate investing surface encounters chuck russo can help you make more profitable real estate investments in rental properties, for example.




When real estate investing inside rental properties, you'll want to be able to select only qualified tenants. If you have no income when real-estate investing within rental attributes, you might be pressured to take in a a smaller amount qualified tenant because you need somebody to pay you money to be able to take care of maintenance or attorney at law fees.




For any type of real property investing, meaning leasing properties or perhaps properties you buy to sell, having funds reserved can allow you to ask for any higher price. You can ask for a higher price out of your investment because a person surface encounters chuck russo won't feel financially strapped as you wait for an offer. You won't be backed into a corner and forced to accept just any offer because you desperately need the money.




Another downfall of numerous new to real-estate investing is actually, well, greed. Make any profit, yes, but will not become therefore greedy that you simply ask regarding ridiculous local rental or second-hand rates on any of your real estate investments.




Those not used to real est investing need to see real estate investing like a business, NOT an interest. Don't believe that real property investing will make you abundant overnight. What business does?




It takes about six months to figure out if real-estate investing in for you. If you might have decided which, hey I love this, then offer yourself a few years to actually start making money. It typically takes at minimum five years to get truly productive in real-estate investing.




Persistence may be the key to success in real-estate investing. If you have decided that real estate investing is perfect for you, surface encounters chuck russo keep plugging away at it and the rewards will be greater than you imagined.











Warren Buffett just announced that he's making a landmark investment, $5 billion, in Bank of America.

Bank of America was facing a free-falling stock price and a number of criticisms, including that it did not have enough capital, and that its assets were not worth what it claimed.

Now thanks to Buffett, that will certainly change.

When similar investments were made in Citi and in Goldman Sachs, by Prince Alwaleed and Warren Buffett, in 1990 and 2008, respectively, the stocks experienced long term gains. 

And get this - he says he dreamt up the idea to invest in Bank of America in the bathtub on Tuesday. He liked it, so he called Moynihan on Wednesday morning. The entire story of how it happened is available in a video embedded below, as told to Becky Quick by Buffett.

The story (and the mental image) is amusing but also important - it suggests that the Obama Administration and/or the Treasury, did not have a hand in the agreement.

And to make it very clear that Treasury or Obama had no hand in the arrangement, which makes the news even better for Bank of America.

So does this - the deal is expensive for Buffett, and a good deal for Bank of America. He says in some ways, it's better than the deal he gave to Goldman Sachs in 2008.

But obviously, it's a great deal for Buffett.

Buffett's investment alone is now worth $700 million more than it was when he bought it.

D I V O R C E the Fed.

Now. Uncontested. Just cut the ties that bind us to the slavery.

 

but then the idiots in congress, and the "Current Resident" on 1600 Penn Ave, would have full control, in which case, the skids would be greased even more. Well, that might not be entirely true, since most of those bastards are nothing but mere marionettes, with their strings being yanked at every move, by the likes of soros et al, you know the ones ...."new world order" lovers who are aiding in the dismantling of the once Great US, and serving it piece by piece to china, however, the same zealous ideologues and true enemies of the US, fail to notice that that marvel called EU is crapping out, approaching the full blow-out point, at which time most of their 'contents' gleefully ingested as ingredients of the delicious EU, will be excreted, and when the end result will hit the proverbial fan .... duck and cover.

Unfortunately, what Gross has become is a splendid specimen of the 'grownup hippies' who in the 60's and 70s were raising hell, in the name of a better America, while now, a decent number of them, to varying degrees, having become 'fat cats', forgot how they were able to amass their fortunes, and instead of uniting and contributing however possible to returning the country on the path to prosperity, are now, continuing to chase an easy buck, by financing our adversaries, and most likely our enemies, based on their propaganda they already consider us their enemy - all to the detriment of the quality of life during the 'golden years' for some of us, as well as the quality of life (or lack thereof) for our children and future generations.

Once Heli-Ben got rates to 4% yet the economy continued its tanking trajectory, the politicians should have pulled their heads out of their asses, and begin serious work on policy intervention aimed entirely at rebuilding the domestic manufacturing base, which is all but gone, as well as ensuring that any fed provided liquidity remains 100% - or close to it - in the US.

Given the facts revealed by the Bloomberg recently released Fed back-door loans, makes me wonder if Uncle Ben himself is not among the facilitators of the "new world order"?!

So me thinks anyway.

Duck 'n cover everyone.

foreclosure investing

You've without doubt seen these or read them. Glossy advertisements or four-color propagates in magazines and newspapers promising to teach you every one of the juicy information about successful real estate investing. And all you need to do to learn all these real property investing surface encounters chuck russo secrets is to pay a rather high sum for a one-or two-day seminar.




Often these slick real estate investing classes claim that you can make intelligent, profitable real-estate investments with simply no money straight down (except, of training course, the large fee you pay for the workshop). Now, how interesting is which? Make a make money from real est investments you made with no funds. Possible? Not most likely.




Successful real estate investment requires cash flow. That's the nature of almost any business or even investment, especially real estate investing. You put your money into something which you hope and plan is likely to make you more income.




Unfortunately too few newbies towards the world of property investing think that it's any magical form of business exactly where standard enterprise rules don't apply. Simply place, if you need to stay in property investing for greater than, say, a day or two, then you will have to create money to utilize and invest.




While it could be true that buying property with absolutely no money down is easy, anyone who is even made a fundamental investment (like buying their particular home) knows there's far more involved in real estate investing that will set you back money. For illustration, what about any necessary repairs?




So, the primary rule people new to real estate investing should remember would be to have obtainable cash supplies. Before you choose to actually do any real-estate investing, save some cash. Having just a little money inside the bank once you begin real est investing surface encounters chuck russo can help you make more profitable real estate investments in rental properties, for example.




When property investing inside rental properties, you'll want every single child select simply qualified tenants. If you've no income when real estate investing within rental attributes, you might be pressured experience a much less qualified tenant because you need somebody to pay you money so that you can take attention of fixes or lawyer fees.




For any type of real estate investing, meaning local rental properties or even properties you purchase to resell, having money reserved can allow you to ask for a higher price. You can request a higher price out of your owning a home because an individual surface encounters chuck russo won't feel financially strapped as you wait for an offer. You won't be backed into a corner and forced to accept just any offer because you desperately need the money.




Another downfall of many new to property investing is, well, greed. Make the profit, yes, but will not become thus greedy that you ask regarding ridiculous local rental or resell rates on all of your real estate investments.




Those new to real est investing must see property investing being a business, NOT a spare time activity. Don't believe that real property investing will make you wealthy overnight. What company does?




It takes about six months to figure out if real estate investing in for you. If you have decided that, hey I really like this, then provide yourself a couple of years to really start earning profits. It usually takes at least five years being truly productive in property investing.




Persistence is the key to success in property investing. If you have decided that property investing is perfect for you, surface encounters chuck russo keep plugging away at it and the rewards will be greater than you imagined.












(h/t Heather at VideoCafe)

It is a truism rarely acknowledged in this country: the single most important infrastructure investment we can make for the future is in education. I'm not talking about retrofitting the buildings or constructing more classrooms. No, we provide for the future by educating our young people, preparing them to become productive members of society. Study after study shows that the higher one's education level is, the higher the median income and the less likely one is to suffer unemployment.

But we're not doing that. No, in these austerity times, politicians clamor to cut services and jobs. Teachers are demonized. Vouchers are touted as the answer, when it's simply a way to privatize profits away from public schools. Hell, some GOP would be happy if we eliminate the Department of Education altogether.

A rare and welcome progressive appearance on the Sunday shows, Rep. Maxine Waters bemoans the disconnect between what politicians say we need to focus on and what they're really doing about it:

To tell you the truth, the plight of education in this country is shameful. Just a few days ago I learned that more cities, more states are reducing the number of education days down to four instead of five. And I could not help but stop and think, "Is this America? Is this the country that said and continues to say that education is a top priority?" Why are we not investing more in education? Why do we have dropouts? Why do we have educational systems that are failing? Why is it that we have a situation where many of our young people will not be able to compete in this high technological society because they're not properly educated? And so, no, we do pay lip service to education. We don't really invest in it, and that's got to change. But let me just say this, Americans want to work. This joblessness is not only hitting the middle class, but it is hitting all classes. It is absolutely unconscionable what is happening in the minority communities. When we look at this no jobs haven't been created in August and we find in the African-American community it has increased from 16 percent, 15.9, 16 percent, up now 16.7 percent, and now we're going to talk about cutting government by $1.5 trillion, this new 12 committee membership that we have after the raising the debt ceiling debate? And that means that we're going to lose more jobs, that means more people are going to be unemployed. The African-American rate will probably go up to about 20 percent. I don't know how our country can sustain that kind of...

Of course, David Gregory interrupts her at this point, because Lord know, the plight of the African American community doesn't concern him. But then again, he has the gall to say that we only play lip service to the importance of education. You know, the same guy who only pays lip service to journalism and who spent the better part of the last two years telling his viewers that Americans cared about the deficit when poll after poll proved him a lying hack with a corporate agenda.

The manic depressive market wildly swings up and down on each new news story: The Fed is meeting at Jackson Hole on August 27 possibly to discuss QE3 (or not), and that news may pump up the stock market. But China's banks seem to be using Enron's accounting manual, Europe's banks need liquidity and are loaded with bad debt, and U.S. banks only temporarily TARPed over trouble. Gaddafi's regime in Libya appears over, but Libya's oil output may not fully recover for years. Venezuela wants banks to open their vaults and send back its gold, but Wells Fargo says gold is a bubble. Pundits say gold is a barbarous relic, but exchanges and banks are now using gold as money. The U.S. is headed for hyperinflation with skyrocketing stock prices, but on the other hand, we seem to be deflating like Japan and doomed to a deflating stock market for another decade. Whom do you trust and what should you do?

No one knows where the stock market or U.S. Treasury bonds are headed tomorrow, but in my opinion, here are some fundamentals to consider.



The Bad News Isn't Going Away

Until we have real global financial reform and restrain the banks, we won't have sustained growth. The stock market hasn't hit bottom. There's a crisis of confidence in banks and all currencies. We haven't taken effective steps to tackle the U.S. deficit through productivity. We haven't examined spending to eliminate fraud and waste, and we haven't addressed our need for more tax revenues by eliminating the Bush tax cuts (for starters).

Savers are punished by "stranguflation:" negative real returns on "safe" assets, declining housing prices, and rising costs of food, energy and health care. The Fed touts the falling cost of I-Pads, but how often do you buy one of those, and how often do you eat?

Good News (for Now)

The USD is still the world's reserve currency. Even though we devalued the USD, there has been a global flight to U.S. Treasuries pushing down our borrowing costs (yields). No one in the global financial community feels the U.S. has done its best to correct our problems, but severe problems in Europe, China's inflation, and Middle East unrest has money running to the U.S. Since we've devalued the dollar, we appear to be a bargain for foreign investors, even though they are terrified by our money printing presses and the potential for inflating commodity prices in the long run.

How did I play this? My own portfolio is currently more than 20% gold with some silver, and I bought out-of-the-money call options on the VIX when it was in the teens with maturities of 4-6 months. This is "short" stock market strategy, one could have also done well buying puts on the S&P a few months ago. In the first big stock market downdraft in August, I sold the options when the VIX hit the high 30's, and I'll buy more options again if the VIX falls again. Many investors are not comfortable with options, and this strategy isn't appropriate for everyone. The rest of my portfolio is chiefly in cash or deep value opportunities.



What Happens Next?

No one knows for sure, and anyone who tells you he or she does is selling snake oil. The situation is fluid. We tried to reflate our deflating economy. Our massive dollar devaluation may encourage investment, because it's protectionist. It reduces our cost of labor, among a few other "benefits." The problem is that the Fed has printed money, and we haven't done anything to position the U.S. for greater productivity. We're trying to inflate our way out of a problem without investing in productivity. This is a very dangerous way of attacking this problem. Even more "stimulus" would just be an attempt to inflate our way out of our long-standing deep recession. That's the foolish and unsuccessful strategy we've adopted so far. That could lead to runaway budget deficits (our deficit already looks intractable) and bring us to double-digit inflation. Even the European flight to US Treasuries may not save us from a deeper recession in that scenario.

If we don't overreact -- and we may have already overreacted -- our dollar devaluation results in our foreign trade situation first getting worse (as it has now) before it gets better. Now is the time (actually, we should have started years ago) to spend capital to increase U.S. productivity. The dollar's plunge relative to other currencies will eventually make us more competitive. This will be good for blue chip companies, in particular those that own real assets and manufacture items. The Fed and Washington may do anything, however, so one must watch the news.

What does this mean for the U.S. stock market? In my opinion, it is currently not good value and feels like the 1970s when we experienced a recession followed by inflation. One should consider staying mostly in cash and expect stocks become cheaper. One might miss an interim rally, especially if the Fed announces QE3 (more "stimulus" and money printing) or more bank bailouts, but that is like using Kleenex laced with sneezing powder. We will see stock prices even lower than they are today. The old paradigm dictated that stocks were a buy when P/E ratios were 13 or less (and many are well above that), dividends at 4%, and book values at 1.3 or less. (This excludes oil companies, which tend to trade at lower P/E ratios in general.) I believe we'll see much better deals in coming months. In 1978/79 P/E ratios sank below 7 for blue chip companies.

Should one buy U.S. Treasuries with long maturities? The long end of the bond market doesn't reward investors due to the potential of rising interest rates. If interest rates spike to double digits, then one can reassess the situation.

Long term investors should consider buying commodities or companies that own physical commodities. We're running out of key commodities especially related to agriculture and fertilizer. Washington's brand of the latter isn't the type we need.

foreclosure

The great American Dream of owning a home has never looked so impossible to achieve: roughly 1.65 million homes are in the foreclosure pipeline, housing prices are at an all-time low, and nearly 7% of mortgage holders are more than 60 days late on their payments. Despite the dreary picture, there are an ever-increasing number of lifelines for people trying to avoid foreclosure:

One of the biggest national hotlines for free home counseling is 888-995-HOPE, run by the Congress-funded Home Preservation Foundation. To date, the HOPE hotline has counseled four million homeowners since 2008, and helped 70% avoid foreclosure within a year. HOPE is the number to call before you seek a loan modification or expensive legal representation: a counselor will listen to your housing and financial concerns and, if necessary, facilitate a three-way conversation with a third party for additional help. With 550 employees stationed in 8 centers around the country, Diane Zyats, VP of Communications at the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, says there is rarely a backlog of homeowners waiting to receive advice. This, Zyats stresses, is key to preventing a distressed homeowner from falling for one of the many foreclosure scams out there.

The HOPE website also offers this helpful list of warning signs of a scam. Foremost? "No one should charge," she says. "There are so many sources for not charging that there is no reason to charge." Click here to see more.

NeighborWorks America is another Congressionally-funded program that provides financial and technical support to community-based foreclosure prevention efforts, such as the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program (NFMC), which boasts a 60% success rate. It also manages this exhaustive database of certified, HUD-approved foreclosure counselors by state.

At a local level, many communities are showing an incredible display of humanity and compassion for their neighbors facing foreclosure. For example, the non-profit Brooklyn Volunteer Lawyers Project is a coalition of 80 Brooklyn-based lawyers serving low-income Brooklynites on a pro bono basis. Although volunteers receive credited continuing legal education (CLE) training, taking on a case can take up a huge chunk of time. For example, foreclosure cases take anywhere from three months to years and usually require multiple court appearances and ongoing counsel. But Jamie Lathrop, director of foreclosure intervention, sees it as a simple matter of civic duty, "Why help? These people are our neighbors. They keep our neighborhoods clean, watch our kids on the street, return our mail to us. They let us know when someones scratched our car," he says. "It's part of being in a community."

Currently the BVLP handles over 160 active foreclosure cases, and has successfully prevented 45 from final foreclosure through mediation. Brooklyn is one of an increasing number of areas around the country where mediation has become mandatory before a home can be foreclosed on. Although victims don't need legal representation at these settlements, it can provide an immense amount of reassurance.

Over in Philadelphia, the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program is often touted as the first successful city-sponsored foreclosure prevention plan. Under the compassionate eye of Judge Annette Rizzo, recipient of the 2009 Louis J. Goffman Award, this two-year-old program makes it mandatory for borrower and lender to meet face-to-face, and discuss every possible option before the home can be foreclosed on. These options include forbearance, settlement, stay of sale, loan modification or reinstatement, and as a last resort, a "graceful" exit.

Actually, given the utter failure to replace the destroyed jobs over the last two years in this economy, the bigger surprise may have been that the numbers were dropping — until now.  Bloomberg reports that the percentage of home mortgages with one or more overdue payments rose in the second quarter, the first such increase in more than a year.  It might reflect the decline of the economy in the prelude to “Recovery Summer,” but it’s probably more useful as a signal of another wave of foreclosures:

The percentage of U.S. mortgages with one overdue payment rose in the second quarter, the first gain in early delinquencies in more than a year, as economic growth slowed and jobless claims rose.

Home loans overdue by a month rose to 3.51 percent, from 3.45 percent in the first quarter, according to a report today from the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association.

The gain suggests a slowing economy may increase foreclosures as mortgage holders lose their jobs, said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist of the group. New unemployment claims, measured as a monthly average, rose throughout the second quarter after falling in most of the prior period, according to data from the Labor Department in Washington.

“As we work through the bucket of troubled loans, we’re seeing an increase in a new crop of troubled loans,” Brinkmann said in an interview. “It’s primarily driven by the jobs market. It still takes a paycheck to make a mortgage payment.”

It’s an incremental increase, mainly significant for its direction and not its magnitude.  Absent other indicators, it would probably not mean much at all.  Furthermore, we don’t necessarily have enough context to know where a panic level is; it’s possible that this indicator fell far enough that a small rebound was inevitable, as foreclosures weeded out the failing borrowers and the averages returned to normal.

In fact, the news is a little more mixed — but still not good — when looking at the full summary from MBA:

“These latest delinquency numbers contain a mixture of somewhat good news and somewhat bad news.  The good news is that foreclosure starts are down and the inventory of homes anywhere in the process of foreclosure fell for the first time since 2006 and had the largest drop since 2005.  Loans 90 days or more past due, the largest share of delinquent loans, also fell.  The fact that both the 90+ delinquency rate fell and the foreclosure start rate fell means that a significant number of these seriously delinquent loans have been successfully modified and reclassified as performing, current loans,” said Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s chief economist.

“The disappointing news is that, after declining since the beginning of 2009, the rate of short-term delinquencies is going up and the increase in these short-term delinquencies may ultimately drive the foreclosure measures back up. The percent of loans one payment behind had peaked in the first quarter of 2009 at 3.77 percent and fell to 3.31 percent by the end of 2009.   Unfortunately that rate has now risen to 3.51 percent.  The causes are likely two-fold.  First, 30-day delinquencies are very closely tied to first-time claims for unemployment insurance.  The number of first-time claims fell through most of 2009 but leveled off in 2010 and have started to rise again.  This increase in unemployment directly impacts mortgage delinquencies.  Second, some percentage of the loans modified over the last several years have become delinquent again because those borrowers, by definition, have weak credit.

“Ultimately the housing story, whether it is delinquencies, homes sales or housing starts, is an employment story.  Only when we see a consistent increase in employment will we see an increase in sales and starts, and a sustained improvement in the delinquency numbers.  Until we see the increase in the number of households that comes with an increase in the number of paychecks, all measures of the health of the housing industry will continue to be weak,” Brinkmann said.

In other words, the collection of indicators gives this particular increase a little more weight.  While some of the longer-term delinquencies fade away, we are seeing a new wave of potential trouble if jobs don’t start opening up for the unemployed, and soon.  Note too that Brinkmann points out the failure of existing foreclosure-avoidance government programs because they have been treating the symptom while ignoring or deepening the disease.

We’re stuck in a cycle of futility, where government interventions create debt and uncertainties that dissuade investors from starting and expanding businesses, and the government thinks that more intervention will solve the trouble.  The results of Wreckovery Summer are demonstrating just how badly we have blundered in the wrong direction.

eric seiger

Rory O&#39;Connor: &quot;<b>News</b> Bias&quot; and the Media Battle Over the Meaning <b>...</b>

Like the "Global War on Terror" spawned by the attacks, the ongoing struggle to interpret 9/11 now appears to be a war without end.

Finally! <b>News</b> on When We&#39;ll See Terrence Malick&#39;s &#39;Tree of Life <b>...</b>

What's the best way to get an auteur to finish his long-awaited film? A deadline, of course! Everyone needs 'em, even (or especially) Terrence Malick,

<b>News</b> of the World deserves no praise for John Higgins entrapment <b>...</b>

Paper's sting operation on naive John Higgins was a disgrace.

foreclosure help

From the Associated Press:

One in 10 American households with a mortgage was at risk of foreclosure this summer as the government’s efforts to help have had little impact stemming the housing crisis.

About 9.9 percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment as of June 30, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

That number, which is adjusted for seasonal factors, was down slightly from a record-high of more than 10 percent as of April 30.

In a worrisome sign, the number of homeowners starting to have problems with their mortgages rose after trending downward last year. The number of homes in the foreclosure process fell slightly, the first drop in four years.

More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. Economists expect the number of foreclosures to grow well into next year.

The number of Americans missing payments and falling into foreclosure has followed the upward trend in unemployment, which has been near double digits all year and has shown no sign of dropping soon.

“Ultimately the housing story, whether it is delinquencies, homes sales or housing starts, is an employment story,” Jay Brinkmann, the trade group’s top economist, said in a statement. “Only when we see a consistent increase in employment will we see an increase in sales and starts, and a sustained improvement in the delinquency numbers.”

Read the whole thing here.

There's a lot of despair in these parts lately and it's perfectly understandable. The country is going to hell in a handbasket and the forces of corporatism and know-nothingism are dominating the political culture while the Democrats seem to be in a state of suspended animation. It's very tempting to just tune it all out and watch TV. But we can't. Not as long as there are progressive politicians like David Segal out there on the campaign trail fighting to change things every day. If don't support real progressive leaders with a track record of success, we are basically giving up.

David is running in a primary for the Democratic nomination for Patrick Kennedy's seat against two doctrinaire establishment hacks and an anti-choice zealot and he needs our help in the home stretch. (The election is September 14th.) His most formidable rival, the mayor of Providence is using his money advantage to run a deceptive ad and David needs our help to run this rebuttal to remind people who the real progressive in the race is:

I know it's hard to get excited about politics right now. But it would be foolish for us to fail to support a young, smart progressive with a proven track record in his run for congress. Unless we are prepared to simply surrender to the forces gathering around us we need to nurture future progressive leaders who understand this political environment and have ideas about how to prevail in it. David is one of those future leaders.

Here's what Howie wrote about him when Blue America endorsed him:

David Segal is one of us. He was elected to the Providence City Council in 2002 as a Green, and is now a lefty Democratic state Rep for Providence and East Providence. He has a very clear path to victory and he can win-- and if he does, he'll be among the strongest voices for progressives in the halls of the Capitol.

David's worked on the meat-and-potato issues: Jobs, the environment, housing, progressive taxes, all with success. He's successfully pushed for expanded renewable energy, more affordable housing, against predatory lending, and for foreclosure prevention measures.

But he's never shied away from the really controversial issues: He's been a vocal leader on criminal justice reform, standing up for the rights of immigrants and for gay rights, and has pushed as hard as one can from the state level against war spending. He's an ardent supporter of gay marriage, and was the sponsor of the last year's bill, which was passed over the Governor's veto, to allow gay partners to plan each other's funerals.

He's a co-sponsor of marijuana decriminalization, and just convinced the Governor-- after two years of vetoes-- to allow a bill to become law that ensures due process for people on probation.

He's sponsored the "Bring the Guard Home" legislation, and his first act on the City Council was to pass a resolution against the war in Iraq.

But, most importantly, he's an organizer at heart, who is committed to joining the Progressive Caucus-- and making it function better. Here's an excerpt from an interview with David:

"n Rhode Island I've tried to develop alternative structures for legislators to lean on when the leadership makes such threats. I am the lead organizer for our progressive caucus. I founded a political action committee to support members of our progressive caucus so that if funding from sources dries up at leadership's request because something was done to offend them, that we would have at least some, some degree of money to fall back on to help fund our campaigns nonetheless. We funded ten, twelve races relatively modestly in the last cycle and hopefully we'll be able to do something in the forthcoming cycle."

That's the kind of inside political organizing we desperately need in the US Congress. If you can help with a few dollars today the campaign can keep its ads on the air and compete. If he wins the primary, there's almost no doubt that he will win the seat. It could be one of the few progressive victories in this midterm election.

make money from home without stuffing envelopes

foreclosure search

mike fuljenz mike fuljenz mike fuljenz mike fuljenz mike fuljenz mike fuljenz mike fuljenz

Lichborne: Festering Strike and other beta <b>news</b>

With the latest beta build, death knights have seen yet another series of small adjustments to their talent trees, but the biggest news is the addition of a solution to those hanging frost runes in unholy's rotation: Festering Strike. ...

Fox <b>News</b> Audience Just 1.38% Black

Fox News may be the undisputed ratings champion in cable news, but not among black viewers. The New York Times' Brian Stelter tweeted that, according to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News has averaged just 29000 black viewers in primetime ...

iPhone 4 hitting 17 more countries on Friday | Apple - CNET <b>News</b>

The newest flavor of Apple's smartphone will arrive in additional markets July 30, including Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, and Singapore--but not South Korea. Read this blog post by Lance Whitney on Apple.