"Countless Consumers Are Paying Off Someone Else’s Debt Because Of Default Judgments," announces the Consumerist. How does that work? Debt-buying corporations file lawsuits to collect debts, but don't always (often?) have accurate records of who exactly owes the debt; the person who "owes" the debt doesn't get contacted about needing to show up in court to file the lawsuit; the judge declares the debt in default, the "debtor" never challenges it (because why would you challenge something you don't know about?), and in time, the debt-collector starts garnishing wages. If that sounds to you like someone wanted it all to work that way, you're not alone. The good news? The forces aligned against the "debtor," like the banksters who robosigned numerous documents, are often quite stupid.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in New Orleans, FAIR recounts various "liberal" media punditoids not merely declaring that crisis-was-opportunity but that the "success" of various right-wing policy prescriptions (i.e., charter schools) in the wake of the hurricane was actually "(w)orth the 1,800 people killed and the 100,000 African-Americans permanently ejected from the city." By the time you get through David Brooks's "silver lining" article from 2005, you'll wonder why anyone on Earth doesn't think he's a complete asshole. But the litany of assholes, of course, also includes our current Education Secretary.
Ho hum, FactCheck catches Sen. Marco Rubio spinning a rickety hypothetical story about how bad Obamacare is for small businesses -- because he can't find any real examples of this phenomenon, apparently. The Obama Administration should take some of the blame for not properly communicating to everyone that the ACA doesn't mandate health care coverage for businesses with less than 50 employees -- but not as much blame as Mr. Rubio should take, not only for being unable to cite a real instance of ACA harm to small businesses, not only for rigging a "hypothetical" example to stand in for actual evidence, but for letting that hypothetical collapse like a house of cards. In a sane and moral society, this would end his campaign.
Kentucky county clerk says he'll "die for" his right to deny gay couples marriage licenses. I'm tempted to say, "well, who am I to stop a patriot from fulfilling his duty?" -- except that I also know that Casey Davis "dying for" something also means other people dying for it, too, even if he's too much a coward to say so. And seriously, "we don't have rights anymore"? I must have missed the part where he was pulled over and beaten nearly to death for Driving While Christian. And they say liberals whine!
Finally, Mayo Clinic scientists may have figured out a way to "hit the brakes" on cancer-cell replication, essentially by restoring microRNA function to cancerous lung, breast, and bladder cells. They've only achieved this feat on individual cells in the laboratory (versus cells actually growing in the human body), but it's still an exciting development, one that could ultimately lead to cancer treatments that don't have to use chemotherapy or surgery, both of which present obvious risks.
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