Remember, HPF's own statement about their counseling above: "Our credit counseling partners are neutral third party resources."  It appears they admit they are a lender front, or they are bragging that the agencies they refer callers to have been compromised (i.e., the counselor is not on the borrower's side).  Thus, the push for the national number -- "call us, and we will send you to a group that we approve of."

In addition to the support of the industry that has a bit of power in Washington and beyond, was it mentioned that Homeownership Preservation Foundation hires outside lobbyists?  They have spent more than $60k doing that so far this year with the law firm of Dykema Gossett.  Source.

It is safe to say the Homeownership Preservation Foundation was started by the mortgage industry, run by the mortgage industry, invested in the mortgage industry, and protects the mortgage industry.  They bought influence with some alleged consumer groups to go along (e.g., Neighborworks).  The mortgage industry already had the local, state and national governments in their pocket who repeat the mantra of their choosing.  The mortgage industry created this shell hotline that does little and then sends the callers to agencies they approve of, while collecting the stats and spinning them as they wish, but more on that tomorrow.

Tucked away in a 1,200-page bill now in Congress is a small paragraph that could lead distance-education institutions to require spy cameras in their students' homes.

I no longer recognize my country.

Who says DC is sleepy in the summertime? With two nuclear energy-related hearings scheduled for 10:00 am, the Hill is a busy place this morning. Click on the links below to view webcasts of the testimony.

Financing for Clean Energy Technology
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Witness List:

    * John Denniston - Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
    * Jeffrey Eckel - President & CEO, Hannon Armstrong
    * Jeanine Hull - Counsel, Dykema Gossett PLLC
    * Alexander Karsner - Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
    * Dan Reicher - Director, Climate Change & Energy Initiatives, Google.Org

But critics say the safeguards don't always work. Some blunders in the use of such protections have become public. NewYorker writer Lawrence Wright wrote in January about one such experience. In 2002, while he was researching The Looming Tower, his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaida, two members of an FBI terrorism task force arrived at his home. Why, they asked, had his daughter been speaking with someone in the United Kingdom who was in touch with suspected al-Qaida operatives?

It wasn't his daughter, he told them flatly. Wright himself had made the calls. And the person he contacted was a British civil rights lawyer who had asked him not to speak with her clients, some of whom are relatives of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant.

"My daughter is no terrorist - she went to high school with the Bush twins," Wright said. "I was taken aback. They were apparently monitoring my phones."

When Ghana had military governments they regulated the price of cocoa. Then the military smuggled cocoa across the border and sold it for higher prices, and officers pocketed the profits. There was no point in most farmers investing much in cocoa, they could not profit on their own. Strengthening the military in the face of the drug trade just provides these same opportunities to make even more money through the same practices that harm the country and enrich corrupt elites. There are passionately patriotic Ghanaians who would oppose this, within the military and without. But there are always plenty of people who are corruptible. It is very difficult to fight corruption when corruption becomes the norm.

In defiance of traditional party labels, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, may ask the defence secretary of President George W Bush to stay on if he wins the White House.

Obama's top foreign policy and national security advisers are pressing the case for keeping Robert Gates at the Pentagon after he won widespread praise for his performance. The move would be in keeping with Obama's desire to appoint a cabinet of all the talents.

Richard Barlow Was Victim of Smear Campaign after Trying to Ensure Congress was Told the Truth about Pakistan's Nuclear Activities

WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) introduced legislation today to compensate Richard Barlow, a former high-level CIA and Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) counter-proliferation intelligence officer.  In the late 1980's Barlow was essentially forced out of his job after informing his superiors that Congress was being lied to about Pakistan's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.  Within days after expressing his concerns inside OSD, Mr. Barlow was issued a notice of termination and his security clearances suspended based on allegations that he "intended" to blow the whistle to Congress.  Despite the fact that Barlow was cleared of any wrongdoing after several investigations, he remains unable to collect a government pension.  Rep. Maloney's private relief bill for Barlow (H.R. 6232) would provide him with financial compensation for the some of the losses he has incurred.

He said he was able to convince those workers, from ITC, to just trim the trees, but has had problems with the company, which took over the lines from Edison, since that time. He said the company has notified him that it will be cutting down all of the trees in his backyard, along with "a bunch on the road right of way, which is a road behind our house."

He said it took repeated phone calls and letters to the president of ITC before he was provided any legal documentation showing the company had rights to his land, and now that has come with a threatening letter from an attorney.

Knight said he's received a letter from Dykema Gossett PLLC, attorneys in Bloomfield Hills that are representing ITC. The letter "said essentially that they have the right to come in here, and if we interfere, we'll be trespassing on our own property," Knight said.

Candi Peterson -  DCPS teachers from our closing and restructured schools showed up to the first in a series of teacher transfer fairs on Saturday, May 10, at Eastern Senior High School. As a Washington Teachers Union Board member, I took the opportunity to attend the afternoon session of the transfer fair. It was a challenge to gain entry, given that my name was not among the list of those teachers and related school personnel from closing and restructured schools. I, like many others, were asked to show my ID. When I indicated that I was a WTU Board of Trustee member and flashed my business card, inquiry was made at the security checkpoint whether I was coming to the transfer fair as an observer. I nodded in agreement that I was. Checkpoint staff advised me that I would need an escort to walk down a flight of stairs to the transfer event, which I readily accepted.

The past seven states to hold primaries registered more than 1 million new Democratic voters; Republican numbers mainly ebbed or stagnated. North Carolina and Indiana, which will hold their presidential primaries on May 6, are reporting a swell of new Democrats that triples the surge in registrations before the 2004 primary.

The contest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama has engaged enough new voters to change the political makeup of the country, experts say. The next several months -- and the general election in November -- will reveal the extent of the shift. Is it a temporary increase in interest resulting from a close election between historic candidates? Or is it a seismic swing in party realignment that foretells the end of the red-blue stalemate?

The White House would likely veto efforts to link Middle East arms sales to oil prices, said Greg Priddy, an analyst with the Eurasia Group.
Though U.S. lawmakers blame OPEC for soaring oil prices, "the cartel has really lost control of the market at this point," he said.
Tying oil prices to arms sales could motivate Middle East producers to seek cozier arms-for-oil agreements with countries such as Russia and China, said Frank Verrastro, an energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Date:              Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Time:             11:30 AM - 6:30 PM

Each year DC residents pay billions of dollars in federal income taxes but are denied a vote in Congress. Our country was founded on the principle that taxation without representation is tyranny - yet for nearly 600,000 citizens of DC, taxation without representation is a fact of daily life.

Next Tuesday, April 15 - "Taxed Without Representation" Day - join DC Vote staff, volunteers and activists to educate citizens about taxation without representation in the nation's capital.

We will circulate postcards and a "wooden nickel" to Senate staffers and visitors to Capitol Hill. See below for our "Taxed Without Representation" day schedule. Please join us!