Foreclosures or "Why Should I keep paying my Mortgage?"

I don't usually read the New york Times, and for good reason, it generally makes me angry.  Yesterday was absolutely no exception.

From a Maine House, a National Foreclosure Freeze

In this lovely story, The Times Reporter weaves a beautifully eloquent tale a modern David and Goliath story, er sorta.  In the original David and Goliath, David was truly a good guy.  He had done what he was supposed to do and as a result God blessed him.  David not only took responsibility for his own actions but for the rest of his family as well.  This is not really the case with Nicole Bradbury, the heroine of the Times article.  Mrs. Bradbury has not paid her mortgage in 2+ years, she lost a full time in 2006 and has worked part time since.  Her husband is ill and unable to work.

GMAC the "Goliath" of the story, who lent her the money in 2003 to buy property from her brother and to build a home, has tried to evict her multiple times now.  Their fruitless attempts have caused problems for the entire mortgage industry.  There's even discussion of a "foreclosure moratorium" to be imposed by the Feds.

I'm stuck on someone not paying their mortgage for two years, I'm sorry give me a moment to digest that.  I can't even think about what would happen to the housing market if the Feds stopped foreclosures.

So we are supposed to feel sorry for Nicole?  Am I supposed to what?  want to send her money?  Hate GMAC? Is there a goal here?

Then I read this article Lenders abandoning foreclosed properties so clearly I'm supposed to hate the Mortgage Industry.  But again, that's not what sticks out in my mind, this part is:

"I've paid taxes here for 6 1/2 years. It's ridiculous that I have to live next to that," Yancey said, motioning to the boarded-up house that has been home to squatters and scores of animals. "Nobody knows what goes into that building."
Like Lewis, Yancey said she has called City Hall to get the building torn down or to at least find out if Lass is still the owner.
"When you call, it's like there's no answer," she said. "Is it the mortgage company or is it a 'somebody' who owns it?"
The 39-year-old Lass bought the Lincoln Ave. house in June 2006 - about a year and a half after his release from prison, where he had spent about a dozen years for drug dealing. Lass financed the purchase with a $112,500 loan from subprime lending giant Argent Mortgage Co., of California. The mortgage carried an adjustable interest rate between 10.05% and 16.05%. (emphasis added)

I'm sorry, he was in jail for 12 years and 18 months after his release he qualified for a mortgage?  When I got my first mortgage even with 30% down I had to provide tax records for a decade, my grandmother's shoe size, proof of income, and my first born as collateral.  How does an ex-con get a loan 18 months after he was incarcerated?  The above referenced article also had this little gem:

Although a demolition order was issued last year, the building is still standing. It is one of about 80 houses waiting for funding so they could be razed.
Lewis has urged city officials to bulldoze the house and to tell him who owns it.
"They keep telling me some lady," Lewis said. "They say some lady owns it, and they can't get in touch with her."
County records show Latoya Wesley bought the house in 2006 with a subprime mortgage loan. It was one of five properties the Milwaukee woman bought around that time.
Wesley has been hit with repeated foreclosure suits and was on the way to losing title to the Clarke St. property when a foreclosure judgment was issued on Feb. 26, 2007. The property was never sold at a sheriff's sale, however. Just last month, the foreclosure judgment was dismissed.
Wesley said she isn't the owner. "It was foreclosed on," she said. "The bank owns it." (emphasis mine)

And we wonder why our property values are falling faster than the prices at Walmart?

Seriously? I think the "apology" is worse than the slur.

Is this really what an apology equals these days?


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/08/report-recording-captures-brown-camp-calling-whitman-whore/


And the apology is:

"This was a jumbled and often inaudible recording of a private conversation. At times our language was salty. We apologize to Ms. Whitman and anyone who may have been offended,"

Really?  That's the best you got?  Let's take this "apology" apart piece by piece.  Lest we all be confused and believe that a Democrat could actually take personal responsibility for their actions/words.


Demspeak:
This was a jumbled and often inaudible recording


Regular English:
You couldn't have heard what you think you heard, because the recording was so poor.  Maybe the person was saying she's a poor.... yeah that's the ticket....... a poor. (to quote a bad 80's movie)


Demspeak :
of a private conversation.


Regular English:Nobody should be listening.  The person should have deleted this message on his machine immediately, Clearly Jerry Brown did not know he was being recorded (and it may be illegal we're looking into it) and cannot be expected to stay on message all the time.


Demspeak :At times our language was salty.
Regular English:
Most of the time our language is salty.  We are a highschool locker room.


Demspeak :
We apologize to Ms. Whitman and anyone who may have been offended.
Regular English:
We do not actually apologize, for we have done nothing wrong.  It is you, who thinks you deserve an apology, who is in the wrong.  Rich white people cannot for any reason get offended.


Just watch the news cycle, I can guarantee you the Republicans will come out with their faces flush to the ground over the use of the term "hicky" in the casting call for the West Virgina Political ad.  That will be an actual apology.

Does being a Conservative Woman in politics make you prey?

I've watched in horror over the past 2+ years as one Conservative Woman after another has been villified.  This Open Season was declared when John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate and became fashionable with the midterm election primaries.  I am a Conservative Woman.  I have a daughter, I hope she will grow up to be a Conservative Woman.  I would like to get more involved, either as a talking head or an actual candidate.


And yet I look at what is happening to Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, Meg Whitman, Sarah Palin and even Ann Coulter and I think twice.  I think about the things I've said and done in my life and I think I don't want that to be fodder for the mainstream media.  I can identify with Christine, Sharron and Sarah and wonder what I may have even forgotten that could be drudged up.  Is that really what we want to have happen?  People who feel they could do good, think they could make a contribution are scared because they may have made mistakes when they were young.


This type of life under the microscope isn't going to change.  Let's face it, Headlines yelling "Christine O'Donnell: I dabbled in witchcraft" not only sell papers, but also promote the other guy.  For the most part the reporters want to promote the other guy.  We now know that the journalists on journolist did in fact have a dog in the fight that was the 2008 Presidential Campaign.  Nobody actually believes these reporters suddenly became Conservatives, so why are we as Americans falling for more of their tricks?


Why are Sharron, Christine, Meg, Carly and all other Conservative Women not the runaway winners in their contests?  Because no matter how much money we donate to their campaigns we are constantly fighting the endless free negative advertising against them by the mainstream media. 


I am pretty sure this is not what was originally intended by "Freedom of the Press".

Less than a month away.

The mid term elections that is.

I'm a political junkie.  I love campaigns, I love elections, I love politics.

I'm in New Jersey.  My choices are very limited.  I'm not at all energized.  I wish I lived in virtually any other state.

I want to be in a "battleground state."  I want Connecticut's epic battle between McMahon and Blumenthal.  I want Sestak and Toomey.  I want Odonnell and Coons.  I really want Angle and Reid.  Instead I've got no Senators up for re-election, a quiet incumbent for Congress, with no real competitor.  Our Congressional District is not even in the top 100 Races to watch from CNN.  Not in the top 100?  Cripes.

Our Congressman is slow and steady Conservative.  Just last year I got swept up in the Christie vs. Corzine gubanatorial race and it was exciting.  I love exciting.  I love poll numbers and the excitement of the crisp fall air and political races.

All that being said I HATE the non-stop ads.  They are everywhere.  My TV is from New York.  My talk radio is from Philadephia.  I am constantly hearing ads and I can't vote for/against the candidates.  It just serves to remind me that somewhere, somehow, someone has an exciting election going on.

It's not me.

A Tale of Two Bergen County High School Graduates

This post has weighed on me since last Thursday morning.  Originally I was going to post this on my regular blog, but I decided to do a spin off because I'd like to begin a regular feature weighing in on current events.


On my way to work last week I was listening to a talk radio host out of Philadelphia, Michael Smerconish.  He was talking about Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who took his own life in September by jumping off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River.  Anyone who watches/reads/listens to any type of news show in the past two weeks knows of Tyler Clementi.  They also know of his tormentors, Dharun Ravi and  Molly Wei.  As a matter of fact we know nearly everything there was to know about Tyler. We also know that most people feel Dharun and Molly are responsible for his death and most people feel they will never be punished enough.


After he discussed that matter, he talked about another death of a college student.  This student was a Senior honors student at Villanova University.  His name was Daniel Giletta.  Daniel and his friend and roommate, Frank "Patrick" DiChiara , who remains in the hopsital, were hit by the driver of a stolen car last Tuesday night.  Daniel it was reported was killed almost instantly.


Daniel and Tyler both grew up in Bergen County.  Daniel graduated from Bergen Catholic High School.  Tyler from Ridgewood High School.  According to Google maps, these two high schools are less than 3 miles from one another.  These two boys died within a week of eachother.  Why is Tyler suddenly a cause celebre and most of you have not heard of Daniel Giletta?


Because Daniel cannot push along any agenda.  Daniel was allegedly killed by an African American man from Bryn Mawr, which is where Villanova is located.  Donald "Donnie" Sayers is 28 or 30 years old (depending on the news article), he has been arrested multiple times previously and admits to being high on PCP and drunk at the time of the crash and he has admitted to causing the crash that took the life of Daniel.  He slammed a stolen Range Rover into Giletta's VW Jetta at more than 100 miles per hour. 


Daniel graduated in 2007 from Bergen Catholic High, in Oradell, N.J., where he was a member of the National Honor Society and was named an Edward J. Bloustein Distinguished Scholar in 2006, the highest academic honor given by New Jersey to high-schoolers. He had plans to follow in his father's footsteps and was studying electrical engineering.


All of the families involved in these tragic incidents are greiving.  My prayers go out to the families of Daniel Giletta, Tyler Clementi, Dharun Ravi, Donnie Sayer and Molly Wei.  I do not believe by any stretch of the imagination Dharun and Molly deserve the same punishment that Donnie deserves.  I do believe that Dharun and Molly will live with the guilt for the rest of their lives.  I don't believe they had any idea this would happen and I don't condone or excuse their behavior.  I do believe that Donnie knew that his actions could result in a death.  I also believe he did not care at the time.


I also believe that everyone around Tyler let him down.  Every adult he came into contact with between September 18 and September 22 is responsible for his death, if his roommate is.  I don't believe anyone is responsible for his death except him.  Tyler chose to jump off a bridge.  One talking head said "They [Molly & Dharun] did not push him off the GW Bridge, but they certainly put him there."  I say no, no they did not.  Tyler put himself there.  Instead of reaching out to his family, his counselors, his professors, anyone, he chose to take his own life.


And as a result, he has left everyone in his life to pick up the pieces.  Everyone is left stratching their heads and perhaps two additional young lives are ruined.  Tyler does not have an obituary that I can find.  I feel, as a mother of two boys not much younger than Tyler, if I was in his parents place, I would accept my son or daughter for whoever and whatever he or she was especially if the only other choice was his death.  Most parent do not wish for their children to be gay, not because we are homophobic, but for the same reason we want them to do well in school and go to college.  We want an easy life for them.  However, I do not know of anyone who would wish their child dead rather than being homosexual.


My only point is that we have two young promising lives cut short.  We also have three additional lives altered forver.    Tyler and Daniel both brought promise and potential to the world.  The world is a darker place without the lights their lives brought to it.  Many of the people asking for a harsher sentence for Molly and Dharun are the ones who have asked for leniency in cases like Donnie's previous convictions. 


Donnie was convicted of a car theft and drug charges in the year 2000 he was sentenced to 3 years and 9 months in jail.  He was then convicted of DUI in 2004 and was sentenced to probation.  Finally he was arrested for stealing clothes and sunglasses in May of this year. 


These are the questions bouncing in my head:
Why wasn't he already on probation when convicted of DUI?
Why was he not in jail instead of driving a stolen Range Rover?  
Why didn't he have had a trial less than six months after committing the crime of shoplifting?
Would he have been in jail if PA had a three strikes law?
Why is nobody talking about this?  
Has death by stolen car become so frequent as to be not newsworthy?  


******************************************************************************* My information was compiled from many sources including the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Philly news.com, nj.com and the new york times.com.  In addition I would not have even known about Daniel Giletta except for Michael Smerconish (http://www.smerconish.com/)