I have created a handout that you can use to invite participants to join Sturbridge For Elizabeth Warren. It can either be emailed or it can be printed and handed out.

Here is the link to the stand-alone version to print or email.

This is what it looks like.

Mortage Lender GMAC Retaliates Against Massachusetts Lawsuit By Ending Most Lending In The State is a brief article on Think Progress.

GMAC Mortgage, the mortgage lender of Ally Financial Inc., is exiting the vast majority of its lending in Massachusetts a day after the state sued it over its foreclosure practices. The nation’s fifth-largest mortgage originator said it “has taken this action because recent developments have led mortgage lending in Massachusetts to no longer be viable,” ratcheting up the high-stakes mortgage fight there.

I guess this is to be expected. What else can GMAC do if it can only make money by cheating its customers? It has to get out because following the laws and paying for its crimes would make the business unprofitable. That should clear the way for honest mortgage lenders to fill the vacuum that GMAC has left. These are the lenders from whom GMAC stole market share by undercutting them through cheating.

It takes strong law enforcement to make it safe for honest business people.

The Truth Out article, Arundhati Roy: “The People Who Created the Crisis Will Not Be the Ones That Come Up With a Solution” brings a perspective from India on our Occupy movement and the conditions it is trying to fight. She also talked about what is going on in India of which I was not fully aware.

The prize-winning author of The God of Small Things talks about why she is drawn to the Occupy movement and the need to reclaim language and meaning.

AG: At the same, occupying public spaces did capture the public imagination. Why do you think that is?

AR: I think you had a whole subcutaneous discontent that these movements suddenly began to epitomise. The Occupy movement found places where people who were feeling that anger could come and share it – and that is, as we all know, extremely important in any political movement. The Occupy sites became a way you could gauge the levels of anger and discontent.

After watching this video, you wonder how blatant the crime has to be before it finally gets prosecuted.

The Raw Story article Stewart: U.S. government is ‘world’s dumbest loan shark’ featured the video selection below from The Daily Show.

This is a new segment for the show and is based on the fact that no one has yet been held accountable for the 2008 financial crisis.

The segment is called How The F#@k Is It That Martha Stewart Went To Jail?

If the above video does not play for you, click on this direct link.

There is a house party for Elizabeth Warren’s Senatorial Campaign that will be held in Southbridge on Saturday, December 3 from 5 to 7 PM.  Sharon and I plan to be there.

If anybody in the area would like to attend, send me an email and I will give you the details.  I have to report to the hosts all the names of people planning to attend.

Use the email address sturbridgeforelizabethwarren@gmail.com. You can send email by clicking the previous link or by pasting this address into your email tool.  I have verified the validity of the email address. Previously, I had trouble with the spelling.

You can sign the petition at DemandProgress.org. Here is a bit of what you will see if you follow the previous link:

An unimaginable violation of due process: The Senate just voted to allow the military to detain American citizens indefinitely — without even charging them with a crime — if they are said to be suspected of terrorism.

As Senator Dianne Feinstein put it, “Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein.”

Thankfully, President Obama has threatened to veto the bill, noting that:

Applying this military custody requirement to individuals inside the United States, as some Members of Congress have suggested is their intention, would raise serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.

Obama only has a few days to make up his mind: Will you urge him to make good on his veto threat?  Just fill out the form at right.

PETITION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: We urge you to stand by your threat to veto the new National Defense Authorization Act as passed by Congress.  Allowing indefinite military detention of American citizens — without even being charged — is an unfathomable violation of due process.

It is just so hard to imagine that we have come to this.  In defense of this ridiculous bill Carl Levin pointed out that the the Supreme Court has already approved this kind of behavior.  What a sad commentary on the Supreme Court.

President Obama and his promised veto are all that stand in the way of this heinous proposal.  If he keeps his promise, this alone will be reason enough to re-elect him in 2012.  If he fails, _________ (fill in the blank).

To get more background on this issue, see my previous posts Senate defeats challenge to indefinite detention provision, Battlefield America: U.S. Citizens Face Indefinite Military Detention in Defense Bill Before Senate, and Block expansion of presidential power to make war and imprison.

It is sad to read the article Senate defeats challenge to indefinite detention provision on Raw Story.

The polarized US Senate on Tuesday beat back an attempt to set aside proposed rules on detention of terrorism suspects, defying a White House veto threat and criticisms from the FBI and the Pentagon.
…
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who voted against Udall’s amendment, accused Obama of overrelying on the FBI and other civilian institutions in fighting suspected terrorists.

That exact dependence which worked pretty well under Clinton and was decried by Bush.  Bush was the one who changed all that so that the 9/11 attack was not prevented.  The FBI had detected it actually, but their warnings went unheeded.  The Air Force stood by and watched it happen.

Why does Lindsay Graham want to use proven defective methods and forgo proven effective methods?  Who, exactly, is Lindsay Graham working for?

Is the preference for methods that are proven failures part of the Republican strategy to demonstrate that government does not work?

It is hard to imagine that Inouye (D-HI) voted against the amendment.  Wasn’t this country’s atrocious internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II enough proof of the dangers of going down this path?

It is easy to believe that Brown (R-MA) voted to defeat the challenge.  It just adds one more reason why Elizabeth Warren must replace Brown in the Senate at the next election.

If all the money goes to the super-rich, who is going to buy the stuff that will create the jobs new need? I don’t know where all this spending comes from for Black Friday, but when the truth comes out, you will know how you have been hood-winked again. It’s like Lucy Van Pelt(the rich) pulling the football away from Charlie Brown(the middle class), never in the entire life of the Peanuts comic strip did she ever let him kick the football.

So let us hear the explanation from the real economy once again. Unlike the comic strip, enough of the real life Republican Charlie Browns will wake-up eventually. We just have to repeat the message often enough.