This is really important. That $35 million for legal services for foreclosure victims isn’t likely to be appropriated, and the Administration’s efforts are insufficient. I’ve heard multiple stories of legal aid foundations planning to cut back on staff because of budget troubles.

The holidays are coming up. I can’t think of a better gift to give to someone than the opportunity for them to stay in their home. Legal aid foundations need our help. Find one in your area.

Happy Thanksgiving Firepups and FDLers of all stripes and persuasions!

A brief look at what’s happening in the news on Thanksgiving morning, 2010.

Fowl accomplishments just before Thanksgiving.

James McMurtry — Choctaw Bingo.

There is apparently a Controversy involving Sarah Palin and a halibut. Sarah Palin is under fire for clubbing a fish to death on her new reality TV show. The Tea Party darling and her daughter Bristol, 20, were shown on a halibut fishing trip filmed for her new programme, Sarah Palin’s Alaska. After catching a [...]

American foreign policy makers have a few countries that are routinely regarded as evil no matter what the evidence. A few examples include: Iran, North Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Chad, Somalia, Syria, etc.

There’s no limit to what a foreign policy maker will hypothesize on the airwaves, and this has been especially true in the case of North Korea attacking South Korea. In discussions about how the U.S. should respond, neoconservatives have appeared on television to cheerlead the idea of a nuclear response.

One reason why lawyers were so quick to see the patterns in robo-signing and mortgage documentation problems was that the same names kept cropping up on every single mortgage assignment. And the names would be listed as a Vice President and Assistant Secretary of one mortgage company in one note, and another mortgage company in another. And the handwriting on the signatures would vary wildly. And the assignment dates would be wrong.

As we’ve learned from our elites like the Bidens, Janet Napolitano and even the President, it’s very easy to enthusiastically support these new invasions of privacy when you’re not subject to them. This also appears to be true now among those who support the procedures for the simple reason that they do not fly.

Michael Barr, who is leaving the Treasury Department, made a few calls to the financial press in recent days (still waiting by the phone, sigh) to update them on the government regulator’s efforts in combating foreclosure fraud. He spoke with Felix Salmon and focused on an “11-agency, 8-week review of servicer practices, with hundreds of investigators crawling all over the banks.”