Monday, March 29, 2010

• Economist Dean Baker: Banks Could Be Big Winners of President Obama’s Foreclosure Prevention Program

  
  
  

  The Obama administration has announced changes to its signature foreclosure prevention program, Making Home Affordable. The initial foreclosure relief program unveiled one year ago was supposed to help up to four million struggling homeowners. So far fewer than 200,000 borrowers have been granted permanent loan modifications. Meanwhile, a record 2.8 million properties with mortgages received foreclosure notices last year, according to the real estate data company RealtyTrac. [includes rush transcript]

• As Obama Visits Afghanistan, Tavis Smiley on Rev. Martin Luther King and His Opposition to the Vietnam War

  
  
  

  As the President renews his commitment to expand the American military presence in Afghanistan, we turn to a man he is sometimes compared to: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A new special on PBS from TV host and author Tavis Smiley delves into this comparison and looks at a speech that has a particular resonance today with the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: Dr. King’s famous antiwar speech of April 4, 1967 titled "Beyond Vietnam." [includes rush transcript]

• Dissident Female Catholic Bishop Calls for Pope to Resign over Sex Abuse Scandal

  
  
  

  The Vatican has denied a series of media reports alleging that Pope Benedict, before being elected pontiff, may have looked the other way in cases of abuse in his native Germany and in the United States. Last week, the Vatican strongly defended its decision not to defrock the Wisconsin-based priest Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused some 200 deaf boys in the 1950s and ’60s. The National Catholic Reporter says the Pope must be ready to answer questions and called the scandal "the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history." We speak to Bridget Mary Meehan, spokesperson for Roman Catholic Womenpriests. [includes rush transcript]