Where is the justice in THIS?

You rent an apartment or a house. You pay your rent on time every month. The next thing you know, there is a bailiff or a sheriff's deputy at your door serving you an eviction notice and threatening to toss you out - and toss all your worldly belongings on the street.

What's worse, it's absolutely legal.

That's what's happening all across the United States when a landlord defaults on his loan and the mortgage company moves in to reclaim the property. The unsuspecting renter, who has done absolutely nothing wrong, who has paid his rent to the landlord, is the one who suffers.

In New York state, where Deutsche Bank is the worst offender, a state assemblyman is moving to change the law to give renters who face eviction a 90 day grace period. State Sen. Jeff Klein's bill is a good one, but it doesn't go far enough.

The law must be fundamentally changed to give renters legal rights. After all, they are legally obligated to pay the landlord, not the mortgage company. And if they fulfill that legal obligation, they should be permitted to stay in the property.

From a distance, the struggle between Hamas and Fatah appears commonplace, a typical third world country’s political scuffle over interpretation of democracy that went out of control, or simply a ‘power struggle’ between two political rivals vying for international aid and recognition. In fact, the conflict may appear as if it popped out of nowhere and will continue as long as the seemingly power-hungry Palestinians carry on with their self-defeating fight.

Therefore, it’s typical to read such deceptive news reports as that of Ibrahim Barzak of the Associated Press: “Hundreds of Palestinian patients have been trapped in the Gaza Strip, unable to travel abroad for crucial treatment for cancer and other diseases, because of political infighting between Gaza's militant Hamas rulers and their Palestinian rivals.”

Such sinister terminology as “Gaza’s Hamas rulers” – which happened to refer to a democratically elected government – is now in common use, in most Western news agencies, and those who readily recycle their reports.

If you're paying attention, you know that no more evidence is needed to prosecute and convict our top national torturers, murderers, war mongers, eavesdroppers, and election riggers. If you want to protest our nation's descent into open lawlessness, by no means delay. If you're not planning on going to church on May 31st, for godsake don't. But if you are planning to attend a church that day, and if more torture photos are finally made public on May 28th, I hope you will take some inspiration from the church blogging of Nick Mottern and bring along some new poster-sized images of what torture does to people.

Predictably, recent polling found that white evangelical Christian Americans are more likely to support torture, followed by white Catholics, other white protestants, and trailing far behind: the non-religious. I would predict the same results for supporting aggressive war, unlawful detentions, union busting, defunding education, protecting corporate power, teaching primitive myths to children, and general all-around backwardness. And Mormons, among other groups, would score high in these rankings if included.

Yesterday morning, eight doctors, lawyers and other activists stood up for single payer health care. We stood up during a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. The hearing was only to hear from the insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies, HMO’s and business interests. They did not want to hear about a real national health care plan.

I was one of the eight.

We stood up to the private health insurance industry, to the corporate power in Congress and demanded a single payer national health care plan where everybody is in and nobody is out. We want a plan that ensures the peoples right to choose their own doctor, hospital and health care treatment. We want a plan that will control costs – something that cannot be done unless the insurance industry, HMO’s and pharmaceutical companies are challenged.

The Senate Finance Committee which has taken millions from the insurance industry, HMO’s, pharmaceutical industry – those that profit from health care in America only scheduled their donors to speak. It was pay to play on display in Washington, DC before the corrupt Senate Finance Committee.