Mortgage Lenders and Homeowner Rip-Offs Spark Scores of Lawsuits

Homeowner Rip-Offs Spark Scores of Lawsuits
BOSTON - Many of the biggest mortgage lenders in the U.S. have engaged in widespread, systematic schemes that ripped off hundreds of thousands of families seeking to buy a home, refinance or foreclose, according to lawsuits filed on behalf of consumers.

Hugo Malara, left, and his fiance Maria Sorto watch television at their rental home in Las Vegas, Monday, Feb. 23, 2009. At left is a portrait of young Maria Sorto. No longer able to make his monthly mortgage payment after losing his job at a neon sign company, Malara paid $800 to a former mortgage broker who advertised a 'money back guarantee' promised to help him negotiate to keep him in his home. They later learned that by the time they wrote him the check they thought would save their home, the bank had already sold it at auction. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Scores of class-action lawsuits, from the 1990s and up to today, detail the illegal and questionable practices used by mortgage-lending companies that pushed millions into bad mortgages, then into bad refinancing loans and then into foreclosures with unfair fees.

The lawsuits have been filed by private attorneys and state attorneys general, and on behalf of NGOs.

Ameriquest, Countrywide Financial, H&R Block and Option One, HSBC Finance and Wells Fargo are just a few of the companies that have been sued - some repeatedly - for masterminding or carrying out plans to defraud families.

"Many of the mortgage lenders taking advantage of people today are those who were the biggest perpetrators last time around," Jim Campen, executive director of Americans for Fairness in Lending, told IPS.

HSBC, Britain's largest bank, and its entities Household International and Household Financial and Beneficial, wrote hundreds of thousands of sub-prime loans in the U.S. that have been the subject of multiple class-action lawsuits.

The company has gotten into trouble for its mortgages and consolidation loans aimed at people who are low-income.

Earmarks and Pork Not Always the Same Thing

In Defense of Earmarks
The US Senate spent yesterday freaking out on Capitol Hill about the spending bill. Senators are wrangling about its passage because so many of the proposed spending items fall under the broad category "earmarks." Can we pause for just a minute? I need to point out that earmarks are not necessarily evil.

Let me say it one more time is this totally psychotic political environment: Earmarks are not necessarily bad.

An earmark is just a way of describing a government funded project where the spending is designated for a particular group or location.

In other words, all taxpayers pay into one big federal taxation pot. Then the funds from that pot have to be divided up and spent. Some of the money is spent on things that impact all citizens equally (national defense) and some of the money is spent on things that benefit only a small group of people. For example, if federal tax dollars repair a road between South Carolina and Georgia, then the people who regularly travel along that road will get more benefit than commuters in Wisconsin. Or if federal tax dollars support a middle school on a Navajo reservation then the students who attend that school will get the benefit while their public school peers in center city Boston don't. Get it?

But there is nothing inherently evil or bad about such a system. In fact, it is nearly impossible to imagine any other way of crafting a federal budget. Of course we all pay into the pot. Of course some projects benefit some localities and other projects benefit other localities. This is part of the genius of our Founding Fathers. They created a system with multiple layers of accountability. Members of the House of Representatives are elected from local districts and they are supposed to worry about being responsive to local interests. They are reelected every 2 years to ensure maximum accountability to these local interests. It is their job to make sure that many of the local spending projects end up in their district. If your representative is not doing this then you should fire her! Seriously. Please make sure that federal government money is allocated to your community and if it isn't please run against your member of Congress in 2010.

Now Senators are elected from states and are supposed have somewhat broader interests. They have a longer electoral clock (6 years) so that they can think more long term and because they are accountable to an entire state they are supposed to take a broader view. Good. Senators are not as accountable to localized interests. Each of us is BOTH a citizen of a congressional district and of a state. It is right and proper to have both our local interests and state interests represented in political bargaining. Part of the reason every state has 2 senators is so we can have overlapping understandings of what it means to represent a state.

Then there is the president who has a view of the entire nation and so is meant to guard broad national interests alongside the local concerns. At its best it is a great system where the multiple overlapping constituencies allow all of our interests to have some chance of representation.

The system is not made better by denying the reality of local interests just to claim to be doing everything in the national interest. We are a country of states, we are states of cities, we are cities of neighborhoods. Each of us, each of our communities, makes up the big picture.

Local spending projects (earmarks) are just part of that process. The only way to govern without local spending proects is for the federal government to simply give all the money to the states and let the states decide how to spend the cash. Trust me when I tell you that this is not a good idea. If you have any doubt about what happens when states are allowed to set autonomous policy without federal intervention then I suggest you spend some time reading about slavery and the Civil War.

We should not be hoodwinked by partisan alarmists railing about "billions in earmarks bloating the massive spending bill." There certainly are bad and wasteful local spending projects, just as there are good and noble ones. The simple fact that we spend federal tax money in localities does not make these projects bad. We need to think about the value of projects within a larger framework of both responsible fiscal governance at the federal level and responsiveness to constituency needs at a local level.

Balancing responsible and responsive governing is not easy. It requires tough political bargaining, difficult decision making, and sometimes ideologically directed choices. But that is OK, that is part of how a democracy works.

More of the Republican Legacy - Number of homeless children on the rise

Number of homeless children on the rise
In and out of classrooms, sleeping in shelters, shielded by parents, homeless children can seem invisible to society at large.

A national study released Monday finds that one in 50 children in America is homeless. They're sharing housing because of economic hardship, living in motels, cars, abandoned buildings, parks, camping grounds or shelters, or waiting for foster care placement.

"That is something that I don't think most people intuitively believe to be true," said Ellen Bassuk, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and president of the National Center on Family Homelessness.

The national center last did such a report 10 years ago, and numbers of children without a permanent place to sleep are growing.

In Sacramento County, where debates over homeless issues have hit a pinnacle in recent months, school districts counted more than 6,000 children without stable housing during the last school year, a number that has been rising steadily since 2002.

Wealthy Americans have Nothing to Fear from Obama Tax Plan

The bogus GOP claim that Obama is trying to bleed wealthy Americans
Fourth, we also know from recent experience that lower marginal rates on income taxes, and lower rates on capital gains and dividends, aren't necessarily wealth producers. The Bush years, which had lower marginal rates and capital gains taxes, were a fiasco. In fact, if you tally up the vast destruction of wealth in the late Bush years—caused by foolish hedge funds, investment banks, and other financial services companies, it seems like the wealthy have in fact been waging war on one another.

Finally, there has been a near total absence of discussion of what higher rates will mean in the real world. Say you're a CNBC anchor, or a Washington Post columnist with a seat at the Council on Foreign Relations, or a dentist, and you managed to cobble together $350,000 a year in income. You're doing quite well. If you subtract deductions for state and property taxes, mortgage interest and charitable deductions, and other deductions, the amount on which tax rates are calculated might total $300,000. What would happen if the marginal rate on the portion of your income above $250,000 were to rise from 33 percent to 36 percent? Under the old regime, you'd pay $16,500 in federal taxes on that amount. Under the new one, you'd pay $18,000. The difference is $1,500 per year, or $4.10 per day. Obviously, the numbers rise as you make more. But is $4.10 a day bleeding the rich, a war on the wealthy, a killer of innovation and enterprise? That dentist eager to slash her income from $320,000 to $250,000 would avoid the pain of paying an extra $2,100 in federal taxes. But she'd also deprive herself of an additional $70,000 in income!

Can she, or we, really be that stupid?

The Case for Establishing a Truth Commission for Bush's Torture and Spying Crew

The Case for Establishing a Truth Commission for Bush's Torture and Spying Crew
Democracy Now! Co-Host Gonzalez: On Capitol Hill, debate has begun over forming a truth commission to shed light on the Bush administration’s secret polices on detention, interrogation and domestic spying. A hearing on the issue was held Wednesday, two days after the Obama administration released a series of once-secret Bush administration Justice Department memos that authorized President Bush to deploy the military to carry out raids inside the United States. The author of the memos, John Yoo, said Bush could disregard the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, committee chair Patrick Leahy said the newly released memos highlight the need for a truth commission.

Sen. Patrick Leahy Vice President Dick Cheney and others from the Bush administration continue to assert that their tactics, including torture, were appropriate and effective. I don’t think we should let only one side define history on such important questions. It’s important for an independent body to hear these assertions, but also for others, if we’re going to make an objective and independent judgment about what happened and whether it did make our nation safe or less safe.



Just this week, the Department of Justice released more alarming documents from the Office of Legal Counsel demonstrating the last administration’s pinched view of constitutionally protected rights. The memos disregarded the Fourth and First Amendment, justifying warrantless searches, the suppression of free speech, surveillance without warrants, and transferring people to countries known to conduct interrogations that violate human rights. How can anyone suggest such policies do not deserve a thorough, objective review?



I am encouraged that the Obama administration is moving forward. I’m encouraged that a number of the things that—number of the issues we’ve been stonewalled on before are now becoming public. But how did we get to a point where we were holding a legal US resident for more than five years in a military brig without ever bringing charges against him? How did we get to a point where Abu Ghraib happened? How did we get to a point where the United States government tried to make Guantanamo Bay a law-free zone, in order to deny accountability for our actions? How did we get to a point where our premier intelligence agency, the CIA, destroyed nearly a hundred videotapes with evidence of how detainees were being interrogated? How did we get to a point where the White House could say, “If we tell you to do it, even if it breaks the law, it’s alright, because we’re above the law”?



Amy Goodman: Senator Patrick Leahy, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. At Wednesday’s hearing, several Republican senators and witnesses opposed the creation of a truth commission. This is attorney David Rivkin.

David Rivkin: There’s another large problem that looms in my view. It’s important to recognize that the commission’s most deleterious and dangerous impact would be to greatly increase the likelihood of former senior US government officials being tried overseas, whether in courts of foreign nations or through international tribunals. And the reason for it is because the matters to be investigated by the commission implicate not only US criminal statues but also international law and which are arguably subject to claims of universal jurisdiction by foreign states.

I have no doubt that foreign prosecutors would eagerly seize upon the supposedly advisory determination that criminal conduct occurred, especially if it is the only authoritative statement on the subject by an official US body as a pretext to commence investigations and bring charges against former government officials. If they were clever, and most of them are, they would argue that the mere fact that the commission was established vividly demonstrates that grave crimes must have been occurred and interpret UN non-prosecution of individuals concerned through formal prosecutorial channels as a mere technicality to be repaired by their own broad assertions of jurisdiction.



Goodman: Human rights attorney Michael Ratner joins us now in the firehouse studio, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, author of the book The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld, among others.

Welcome to Democracy Now! I want to talk about the secret memos. Let’s start with this hearing that has been called by Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling for an investigation into Bush administration crimes.

Michael Ratner: You know, I won’t say I’m exactly biased here, but I think essentially that the Leahy commission is an excuse for non-prosecution. It’s essentially saying, “Let’s put some stuff on the public record. Let’s immunize people. And then,” as he even said, “let’s turn the page and go forward.” That’s really an excuse for non-prosecution. And in the face of what we’ve seen in this country, which is essentially a coup d’etat, a presidential dictatorship and torture, it’s essentially a mouse-like reaction to what we’ve seen. And it’s being set up really by a liberal establishment that is really, in some ways, in many ways, on the same page as the establishment that actually carried out these laws. And it’s saying, “OK, let’s expose it, and then let’s move on.”

And he even says, he says what we’re going to do with the truth commission is we’re going to look and see what mistakes were made. I mean, just ask the hundred people who were tortured in the secret sites about what mistakes were made, or ask the 750 people at Guantanamo, or ask the people at Abu Ghraib. This is not about mistakes. This is about fundamental lawbreaking, about the disposal of the Constitution, and about the end of treaties. So I think, actually, that Leahy’s current proposal is extremely dangerous. I call it the lame commission or basically an excuse for non-prosecution.

Gonzalez: And you think that there’s no essential difference between him and the Obama—the White House position at this point?

Ratner: You know, I don’t think he would be out there without the Obama administration at least saying this is maybe a way to go. Look at, there’s a lot of pressure in this country right now for prosecutions. I mean, the polls indicate that people want to see a criminal investigation. We’ve had open—open and notorious admissions of waterboarding by people like Cheney. And we know that waterboarding is torture, even according to Obama.

So, how do you diffuse that pressure? And one way you diffuse it is you set up a, quote, “truth commission” that’s going to give immunity to people. And then, as Leahy himself says—the word he used, I think, is that he objects to those “fixated” on prosecution. Well, you know, it’s a legal requirement that you prosecute torturers in your country. And yet, he calls us “fixated” on it and wants to make this excuse. So I think this is, in a way—you don’t know this—but in conjunction with the Obama administration saying, “Let’s do this. It will dispose of, you know, the human rights groups in the world and others. And let’s go forward.”

Gonzalez: And your assessment of these latest memos that the Justice Department has released, in terms of the further proof that they show possible criminal actions?

Ratner: I’m glad you said that, Juan, “further proof,” because, you know, we’ve known a lot of this from the beginning. You know, I remember, actually, six weeks after 9/11 writing an article called “Moving Toward a Police State (Or Have We Arrived?)” And we’ve certainly seen the effects of these memos. We’ve seen the military arrest Jose Padilla in the United States. We’ve seen them do that to al-Marri. We’ve seen torture. We’ve seen secret sites. We’ve seen warrantless wiretapping.

But what we see in these memos—and I recommend them to everybody, because you read these, you are seeing essentially the legal underpinnings of a police state or a dictatorship of the president. There’s no doubt about it. That’s what it is, and it’s not theoretical. These were the actual building blocks of what we had in this country for eight years, in which—and the one you mentioned when we opened, Juan, that what happened here was one of these memos said the military could operate in the United States, and operate in the United States despite the Posse Comitatus law, which prohibits the military from operating in the United States. And when it operates—this is really extraordinary—they can arrest and detain—“arrest” is not the right word—kidnap anyone they want and send them to a detention place anywhere in the world without any kind of law.

And then, on top of that, they can disregard the First Amendment. So this conversation we’re having right now, they could say, “Well, this is harmful to the national security of the United States”—that’s what these memos say—“this type of conversation is harmful, and we can ban this conversation.” And then they could put the military at the door to the firehouse and come in and say the Fourth Amendment, the one that protects us against unlawful searches, that the military could walk in here, search all of us and see if we have anything they don’t like on us. So, no First Amendment, no Fourth Amendment, no Fifth Amendment—essentially, the end of the Constitution and 225 years of constitutional history. In the face of this, this kind of memo, we’re seeing Leahy say, “Let’s see what kind of mistakes were made.”

Goodman: Why was Posse Comitatus first put into effect, first passed?

Ratner: You know, that’s a good question. I don’t remember, Amy. It’s unfortunate I don’t remember. But it had to do—it goes back to our constitutional—the original convention, I mean, the original Constitution, that one of the biggest fears is that you don’t want the military operating in a democracy, because the military is not trained in constitutional rights. They’re trained to go in and kill and destroy, and that’s what they do in a country. And so, it was really—it came out of really the amendments that said you can’t quarter soldiers in your houses, all those kind—that kind of push that we don’t want the military enforcing law in this country.

Rush Republicans A Party Rudderless

Why the GOP is Screwing Itself by Bob Cesca
The "leader of the Republican Party" question has been thoroughly analyzed and debated. And after many days and many cable news roundelays, I think we can all agree that, yes, the GOP has been inextricably grasped within the meaty, sweaty mitts of that familiar planetoid of addiction, racism and self-indulgence known as Rush Limbaugh.

And that's just fine and dandy.

But contrary to what Drudge and Politico are reporting today, this isn't some sort of wicked conspiracy cooked up by Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs from within the same underground war room where they keep the president's madrassa diploma and his secret Kenyan birth certificate.

This Limbaugh situation is entirely the fault of the Republican Party. The White House is merely exploiting it -- and rightly so.

Throughout the last several decades, the Republican Party has been careening willingly towards this destiny. Year after year, the Republicans have been magnetically drawn ever closer to the simplistic worldview espoused by far-right talk radio: a segment of American society that's perhaps a little too comfy with laughing at a racial or sexist joke, or repeating nearsighted bumper sticker slogans like, "Your mortgage is not my problem."

The Republican Party has become the purview of The Dittohead: the thoughtless undead automaton who lazily yet proudly announces on the radio that he or she doesn't simply "ditto" but, in fact, "mega-dittos" everything spoken by Rush Limbaugh. "Mega" as in millions of times over.

Michael Steele has proved himself to be a Dittohead. Mike Pence and Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay? All dittoheads. You'd be hard pressed to find a Republican politician who hasn't in some way expressed his or her Dittohead status while also genuflecting at the bloated cankles of their radio warlord.

So it should come as no surprise that the leader of the dittoheads has become the leader of the Republicans.

The Republicans have positioned themselves in such a way that publicly renouncing their Dittohead status will provoke the furious anger of their leader who has so often retaliated against disloyal subjects with a Mr. Creosote caliber geyser of acidic hell, effectively emasculating any attempt at escape. Limbaugh has indeed broken the Republicans and I'm pretty sure they know it. Yet they're powerless to do anything about it.

We can only assume that they understand the hazards involved with being absorbed into Limbaugh's universe -- and they especially have to know that the Democrats know. And that leads to the big question: Why is it supremely awesome that the Republicans have become the Dittohead Party?

So far, the establishment press and cable news hasn't fully examined this all-important "why" factor. Sure, there's been plenty of talk about Limbaugh's famous "wanting President Obama to fail" remarks and how wishing for failure makes the Republicans seem like they're okay with the American economy failing, just as long as they can start winning elections again.

That's pretty bad. But the problems inherent in becoming trapped inside the Limbaugh tractor beam go much deeper and, as Chairman Steele's gut instinct spilled out, uglier.

It's easy to temporarily forget Limbaugh's record of awfulness because the latest controversy tends to obliterate memories of past controversies -- controversies to which the Republicans have, by proxy, tethered themselves. If Limbaugh is the leader of the Republicans and the Republicans are, indeed, willing to embrace Limbaugh as such a leader, then the Republicans are embracing the whole nasty package.

To fall under the rule of Limbaugh means that the Republicans have sealed their status as the party of race-baiting. In Limbaugh's world, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama simply because Obama is black -- excuse me, Halfrican American. In Limbaugh's world, all blacks say "axe" instead of "ask." In Limbaugh's world, it's hilarious to pronounce Mayor Ray Nagin's name as Mayor Nay-ger. In Limbaugh's world, black contestants on Survivor are at a disadvantage because "blacks can't swim."

To fall under the rule of Limbaugh means that the Republicans have become the party of sexism. In Limbaugh's world, women who seek equal rights are making up for the fact that they're "ugly." In Limbaugh's world, it's hilarious to compare pubescent teenage girls to "the family dog." In Limbaugh's world, women live longer because their lives are somehow "easier." I can't imagine that would apply to Limbaugh's three ex-wives, but okay.

To fall under the rule of Limbaugh means that the Republicans have become the party of comparing torture to fraternity pranks. They've become the party of multiple divorces. The party of Oxycontin addiction. The party of "phony soldiers." The party of mysterious all-male excursions to foreign nations while in possession of erectile dysfunction medication prescribed under a false name. They've become the party of wild conspiracy theories like the one Limbaugh was repeating in October -- maybe you've heard this one. Did you know that Barack Obama traveled to Hawaii, not to visit his then-gravely ill grandmother, but instead to participate in the cover-up of his secret birth certificate?

Rush Limbaugh is the best

This is "a great leader for conservatives"?
* In a January 22 interview on Fox News' Hannity, Limbaugh said of media coverage of Obama: "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president." Limbaugh had previously declared in June 2008 that Obama's "only chance of winning" the presidency "is that he's black." During the 2008 presidential campaign, Limbaugh also called Obama "an affirmative action candidate" and asserted during the May 14, 2008, broadcast of his show, "If Barack Obama were Caucasian, they would have taken this guy out on the basis of pure ignorance long ago."

* Limbaugh has repeatedly invoked right-wing conspiracy theories that the Clintons were involved in the death of then-deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, whose body was found in Northern Virginia's Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993, despite multiple official investigations that determined Foster committed suicide. On July 8, 2008, while discussing reports that a plane carrying then-Sen. Obama had been forced to make an emergency landing in St. Louis, Limbaugh referred to Obama's flight "aboard Fort Marcy Airlines." Limbaugh later commented on a "conspiracy theory" that "Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton, through Mr. [Terry] McAuliffe, is gonna massage things out in Denver so that [Obama] doesn't get the nomination." He added: "You couple this with Obama's plane, Fort Marcy Airlines, having to take a detour to St. Louis for a mechanical problem."

* In September 2007, Limbaugh characterized service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." He later argued he had been taken out of context by Media Matters and claimed he was not talking about "the anti-war movement generally," but rather about "one soldier ... Jesse MacBeth." To support this, Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question from the September 26, 2007, broadcast of his show, but, in fact, the clip he aired had been selectively edited. Limbaugh later included Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA), a Vietnam veteran, in the group of "phony soldiers."

* On the August 21, 2007, broadcast of his show, a caller said to Limbaugh: "I know I'm no expert in foreign affairs, but what really confuses me about the liberals is the hypocrisy when they talk about how we have no reason to be in Iraq and helping those people, but yet everybody wants us to go to Darfur." Limbaugh responded by claiming Democrats "want to get us out of Iraq, but they can't wait to get us into Darfur." He continued: "There are two reasons. What color is the skin of the people in Darfur? It's black. And who do the Democrats really need to keep voting for them? If they lose a significant percentage of this voting bloc, they're in trouble." The caller responded, "The black population," to which Limbaugh said, "Right."

* Responding to a Reuters report on a University of Chicago study that found that "a majority of young blacks feel alienated form today's government," Limbaugh asserted on February 5, 2007: "Why would that be? The government's been taking care of them their whole lives."

* Discussing Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) speech following her election as the country's first female speaker of the House, Limbaugh stated on January 5, 2007: "[L]ook at Ms. Pelosi. Why, she can multitask. She can breastfeed, she can clip her toenails, she can direct the House, all while the kids are sitting on her lap at the same time."

* Limbaugh has made numerous controversial remarks about women, including frequently referring to feminists as "feminazis." For example, on the November 30, 2006, edition of his radio show, Limbaugh proclaimed: My "cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life" because his pet cat "comes to me when she wants to be fed," and "[s]he's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually [a] very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it."

On January 24, 2008, Limbaugh claimed that then-Sen. Hillary Clinton is "in the Northeast. She is surrounded by her good old, white female -- white female new castrati male base, while her husband [former President] Bill [Clinton] pays penance -- left to deal in South Carolina, while she's up with her people, the whites and the less-than-blacks." Later in the broadcast, referring to Clinton, Limbaugh asked: "How did that woman go from inevitable, to down-and-dirty, to the testicle lockbox, to her red-faced husband showing that even he, too, gets PMS?"

On January 10, 2006, Limbaugh suggested that some women "would love to be hired as eye candy."

On March 1, 2005, Limbaugh claimed that "[w]omen still live longer than men because their lives are easier."

* In October 2006, Rush Limbaugh accused actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, of "exaggerating the effects of the disease" in a campaign advertisement for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who was then a Senate candidate. In the ad, Fox endorsed McCaskill for supporting embryonic stem cell research, which her opponent at the time, then-incumbent Republican Sen. Jim Talent, opposed. Noting that Fox is "moving all around and shaking" in the ad, Limbaugh declared: "And it's purely an act. This is the only time I have ever seen Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has." Limbaugh added that "this is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting, one of the two."

Later in the broadcast, Limbaugh stated, "I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act, especially since people are telling me they have seen him this way on other interviews and in other television appearances." However, Limbaugh then returned to criticizing Fox, stating that "Michael J. Fox is using his illness as a way to mislead voters into thinking that their vote for a single United States senator has a direct impact on stem cell research in Missouri. It doesn't, and it won't."

* On August 23, 2006, discussing the CBS reality TV program, Survivor, in which contestants were originally divided into competing "tribes" by ethnicity, Limbaugh stated that the contest was "not going to be fair if there's a lot of water events" and suggested that "blacks can't swim." Limbaugh stated that "our early money" is on "the Hispanic tribe" -- which he said could include "a Cuban," "a Nicaraguan," or "a Mexican or two" -- provided they don't "start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves."

Limbaugh added that Hispanics have "probably shown the most survival tactics," that they "have shown a remarkable ability to cross borders," and that they can "do it without water for a long time, they don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do." When the Survivor producers decided to dissolve the show's racially segregated "tribes" after only two episodes, Limbaugh declared that "[t]here can only be one reason for this ... that is the white tribe had to be winning."

* On February 14, 2006, Limbaugh invented a racial component to explain Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett's departure from the Ohio Democratic Senate primary race. While reporting on Hackett's decision to withdraw from the race against then-Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Limbaugh asserted: "And don't forget, Sherrod Brown is black. There's a racial component here, too," adding that "the newspaper that I'm reading all this from is The New York Times, and they, of course, don't mention that." In fact, Brown is white -- a point on which Limbaugh was corrected later in the program.

* Following the disclosure of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, Limbaugh claimed in 2004 that the U.S. military personnel involved were just "having a good time," and that their actions served as an "emotional release." Limbaugh called the abuse "hazing," referred to it as "an out-of-control fraternity prank," and agreed with a caller that the abuse "was like a college fraternity prank."

* In 2003, Limbaugh made controversial comments about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, which led to Limbaugh's resignation as a commentator on ESPN. During the September 28, 2003, edition of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown, Limbaugh said that "[t]he media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well" and, therefore, that McNabb "got a lot of credit for the performance of this team [the Eagles] that he didn't deserve."