Thursday, February 21, 2008

Tampa Bankruptcy: Rebuilding Credit

Tampa Bankruptcy:
Rebuilding Your Credit Quickly and Efficiently
After Bankruptcy

Those considering bankruptcy should always have a checklist to run through before making such a substantive move.
File a Credit Report
Your credit report has information which affects whether you can get a loan – and how much you will have to pay to borrow money. You want a copy of your credit report to:
make sure the information is accurate, complete, and up-to-date before you apply for a loan for a major purchase like a house or car, buy insurance, or apply for a job.
help you to guard against identity theft.

2. Examine Your Credit after bankruptcy
Those considering bankruptcy frequently worry that they will never get credit after a bankruptcy, or that it will be 10 years before they can get credit. Neither is true.

Can I keep a credit card out of the bankruptcy for use later?
If you owe money on a credit card at the time you file bankruptcy, you must list the card as a debt.
If you don't owe anything on the card, you don't have to give the credit card company notice of your bankruptcy. Note, however, that they may find out through other means and cancel the card as a precaution.

Can I get new credit after bankruptcy?

In today's competitive lending environment, credit is available to the recently bankrupt. It may be more expensive than before, and available with lower limits, but it will be offered. A secured credit card is usually available post bankruptcy at lower rates than unsecured cards.
Can I buy a house after filing bankruptcy?
Absolutely. Studies show that 18-24 months after a bankruptcy discharge, bankruptcy debtors can qualify for a loan on the same terms as if they had not filed bankruptcy
Is my credit record ruined by filing bankruptcy?
Bankruptcy in reality is no more harmful to your credit record than the financial circumstances that lead to the bankruptcy filing. It is much more important for your future financial health to look at your net worth (assets minus debts) than at your ability to borrow in the future.

Credit in Tampa
Tampa has made a name for itself in regards to streamlining the process from credit awareness to credit reconstruction. Here is one website in particular that easily spells out the steps towards securing oneself onto the path of credit stability:

The website spells out in 5 steps how to improve your credit rating. Here are a few:

Examining your reports carefully
Nearly every consumer has an error on at least one credit report from one of the major credit bureaus. Credit bureaus generate your report on information they receive from your creditors; they don't verify.
Keeping your credit report a true reflection of you is your responsibility. Get ready to clean and polish. Carefully look for everything from typing errors, outdated and incomplete information to inaccurate account histories. Make a thorough list of items you dispute and why.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Latest Message from Ron - Please Donate!

February 18, 2008


The DC neocons think their old dream is about to come true. They think they can defeat me in the Republican congressional primary in Texas on March 4th. And you know what? They may be right.

My opponent, who describes himself as a traditional conservative, is a dedicated servitor of all the special interests who have given us the disaster of recent years, from unconstitutional wars to a looming recession, from huge deficits to massive new welfare programs. A Republican operative allied with the worst forces in DC recently said: "Give what you can [to Ron Paul's opponent]. Ron Paul is running scared -- using his Presidential campaign's donors' money to subsidize a desperate last-minute attempt to save his Congressional seat." That is a lie, of course. It is illegal to use presidential campaign donations in my congressional race. The congressional campaign has to stand on its own. But so far, we have raised only about a third of what a well-funded effort would need. In my 10 terms in Congress, I have not only been able to serve my constituents, and help them, for example, negotiate federal red-tape. I have also been able to defend our principles of less spending, lower taxes, no inflation, and strict adherence to the Constitution.

Some people in DC laugh at the idea that I should obey my oath of office, and ask first of any proposed legislation, is it constitutional? But I know that you share my support for the vision of the framers. My friend Congressmen Wayne Gilchrest (R-Maryland) was just defeated in his primary election by a neocon fraud similar to the one I face. My friend Walter Jones (R-North Carolina) is under heavy pressure as well. People like our hand-picked opponents will do anything to gain and keep power. They represent everything that is wrong with DC. If I am defeated in the upcoming congressional primary, our ideas will be held to have been defeated as well. It will be proclaimed from the rooftops in DC that such "ridiculous and outmoded notions" as the free market, sound money, personal liberty, limited government, and a pro-American foreign policy are through. I am determined not to let this happen. All that you and I believe in is far too important to the future of our country, and to everyone and everything we love, to let the neocons dance on its grave. Please, help me stop the lies, the distortions, the pressure groups, the special interests that benefit from DC rip-offs.

There is still time to run radio and tv ads, to set up phone banks, to get out the vote. But unless you help, my reelection to Congress may be in jeopardy. Please help me return to Congress to fight for the people of my district, and for the ideas that can save our country from the path to trouble we are now on. I hesitated to ask you, since you have already done so much. But my wife Carol said, "When you need help, you ask your best friends." So I do ask you, to hold out your hand in support.


Please give today http://www.ronpaulforcongress.com, as generously and as quickly as you can.

Sincerely,
Ron

Sunday, February 17, 2008

movie

Monday, February 11, 2008

Who does the Media Adore?

A Statistical Analysis of Media coverage for the candidates:
Very Revealing. Notice how there is 0% for Ron Paul across the board and McCain gets more coverage than Barack Obama, when Barack is clearly the frontrunner of the entire pack?

http://www.journalism.org/node/9610

PEJ Campaign Coverage Index: Jan. 28 - Feb. 3, 2008McCain Wins the Coverage Battle as Media Move to Anoint Him
Printer-Friendly PDF Version E-mail The media’s coverage of the campaign last week seemed to reflect a growing consensus that the Republican and Democratic nomination fights were moving along two distinctly different trajectories.
With Florida winner John McCain getting about 75% more coverage than Mitt Romney, and with Mike Huckabee almost invisible, the press appeared conspicuously close to turning McCain into the presumptive nominee last week. In that Jan. 28-Feb. 3 period, which ran from the day before the Florida primary to two days before Super Tuesday, McCain generated more coverage than any candidate. And that coverage suggested a media “tiering” of the race, with McCain a heavy favorite over several also-rans. McCain had not necessarily put Mitt Romney away, but the press nearly had.
On the Democratic side—where Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were virtually equal in media attention for the third consecutive week—the tone and level of coverage anticipated a long and intense battle. The message here, which began two days after Obama’s victory in South Carolina, was that there would be no verdict soon. And for the second week in a row a non-candidate (this time, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy) played an important role in the Democratic narrative.
Two candidates called it quits last week, and they also generated quite different coverage. Republican Rudy Giuliani, the early frontrunner whose candidacy expired in Florida, generated twice as much coverage as Democrat John Edwards, who was never able to crack the media’s “two company, three’s a crowd” view of the Democratic contest. But much of Giuliani’s coverage was a schadenfreude-saturated post-mortem attacking his candidacy.
These are some of the findings from Project for Excellence in Journalism’s fourth edition of the Campaign Coverage Index, a measure of which candidate is winning in the all-important race for media exposure. The Project will run the Index until nominees are selected in each party.
Last week was a big one for McCain. He beat Romney in Florida, and won the endorsements of Giuliani and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the first three weeks of the CCI, the gap between McCain and Romney never exceeded five points. Last week, however, McCain was a significant or dominant newsmaker in 37% of the campaign stories compared with only 21% for Romney. Both totals were up from the previous week, but McCain’s more than doubled—from 17% to 37%.
Giuliani, at 14%, matched his coverage from the week before. But Huckabee, who had earned a respectable 14% of coverage as recently as the week of Jan. 19 South Carolina primary, was down to just 2% last week, even though he is still running.
The parties’ overall battle for coverage was close, with the Democrats featured in 46% of the stories compared to 42% for the GOP.
One story line was also answered in the coverage last week: would the press consider the Democratic vote in Florida important? The Clinton campaign hoped they would, and she talked about the significance of the turnout there to make that happen. The answer was the press generally did not, leading MSNBC talk host Dan Abrams—who often accuses the media of anti-Clinton bias—to ask “how can so many ignore the results in Florida?” The Republican Florida primary was much more important to the media than the Democrats’ contest where no delegates were at stake. But if Florida was not a key part of the Democratic coverage last week, Clinton and Obama did attract major attention
For the week, Obama was a significant or dominant newsmaker in 34% of the campaign stories compared to 32% for Clinton. (Both candidates’ coverage dropped from the previous week when Obama nipped Clinton, 41% to 40%.) And Edwards was at 7% in his swan song week.
The wild card was Kennedy, who with his niece Caroline, delivered Obama a symbolically significant endorsement on Jan. 28. As a result, Kennedy was a dominant newsmaker (50% or more of the story) in 7% of the campaign stories last week.
During the week of the Democrats’ Jan. 26 South Carolina primary, the non-candidate newsmaker was Bill Clinton, whose aggressive campaign role made him a significant or dominant figure in 18% of the stories and generated numerous suggestions that he lower his profile. Last week he did, registering at only 6% on the Coverage Index.
The Campaign Coverage index, which will appear weekly until nominees are selected in each party, is an addition to PEJ’s NCI report, which tracks what stories the media covered in the previous week. The CCI offers a greater level of detail of the campaign coverage. That includes the percentage of stories in which a candidate played a significant role (as a subject of between 25% and 50% of the story) or a main newsmaker role (making up at least 50% of the story). The Index also identifies the key narratives in the reporting and the “Line of the Week,” a statement from a journalist or source that in our researchers’ estimation seems either to capture the story or is particularly colorful. PEJ’s News Coverage Index will not disappear. It will come at the bottom of the CCI.
The campaign also continued to overwhelm all other news in the national press. The story accounted for 51% of all the news measured by PEJ’s News Coverage Index in the week of Jan. 28-Feb. 3. That was the highest level for the campaign since that Index began in January 2007. The race for the White House consumed 49% of the network news airtime, 59% of the radio time, and 76% of the cable newshole. Since the beginning of the year, the campaign has swamped all other news, averaging 46% of the newshole per week. In all of 2007, only one story ever reached that level and that was the Virginia Tech massacre, which accounted for 51% of the coverage for just one week.
For McCain, the media narrative began with him locked in a tight race with Romney in Florida. The Jan. 29 New York Times described both candidates “trading attacks [and] aggressively courting voters across the Florida peninsula in a primary battle that could producer a clear front-runner…” The Florida win then cemented the idea of McCain as a frontrunner, if not a steamroller. A Jan. 30 FoxNews.com report on Google News described the Arizona Senator’s “wave of political momentum” in his race.
The next morning NBC’s Today show codified that momentum. “John McCain is very quickly consolidating Republican support,” correspondent David Gregory noted. “Mitt Romney’s only play left is to appear as the conservative alternative to John McCain, a job more difficult with Mike Huckabee still in the race…” By the time the weekend polls had hit, the press was portraying McCain on the cusp of victory. A Feb. 3 Washington Post story showed him up by 24 points over Romney in a national poll, a lead, the article concluded, that “gives him the opportunity to effectively wrap up the nomination with a strong showing Tuesday.”
In a week, the narrative had taken McCain from the Florida nail biter to the Super Tuesday Promised Land, a considerable journey.
As for Giuliani, his departure finally generated a fair amount of attention, just as his expected departure had a week earlier. (He had a lot more trouble generating attention before that). But the narrative was blunt and pretty universal.
“He was a terrible candidate,” Mark Shields put it on the Jan. 30 edition of PBS’ NewsHour. “The more he campaigned, the worse he did in every state…He didn’t seem very comfortable with people.”
As seems to be the case every week, Clinton and Obama were locked in the same one-on-one story line. The Kennedy endorsements, complete with the fiery rhetoric of the silver-maned Massachusetts Senator, generated plenty of coverage, with ABC’s Kate Snow speculating that “the Kennedy name could help in heavily Hispanic states, like New Mexico and Arizona.” Her ABC colleague David Wright went considerably farther, rhapsodizing that “today, the audacity of hope had its rendezvous with destiny.” But the most eagerly awaited event was the Jan. 31 debate, the first chance for the African-American and female candidate to square off directly. When it was over, the media verdict was summed up by CNN’s Bill Schneider. Writing for CNN.com on Feb. 1, he described it as an encounter that settled little. “In all, it was an unhelpful debate,” Schneider wrote. “They minimized their differences. Last night’s showdown will rally Democrats…but won’t help them make a decision.”
Perhaps, but media polls still showed Obama closing the gap. The new Washington Post-ABC survey found Clinton narrowly leading Obama nationally, 47% to 43%.
“Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) are running roughly even nationally as the battle for the Democratic nomination heads into Tuesday's big round of primaries and caucuses,” the Feb. 3 Post story declared. “The Democratic contest is likely to keep going.”
And now, in the rest of the week’s news:
In other news, for the third week in a row, the troubled U.S. economy was the second-biggest story behind the campaign, as measured by the News Coverage Index for Jan. 28-Feb. 3. But at 7% of the newshole, it was down significantly from 19% the previous week. That was followed by President Bush’s State of the Union address at 6%. (In contrast, last year’s State of the Union was at 13% and tied for top story of the week.)
Rounding out the top-five story list was violence in Kenya (2%) and the conflict in Afghanistan (also at 2%). Once again, with the primary season reaching its peak, there is little oxygen for other news.
Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ

Media Exposure by Candidate
Main Newsmaker
Significant Presence
Total Percent of Campaign Stories
John McCain
25.0%
12.4%
37.4%
Barack Obama (D)
26.6
7.4
34.0
Hillary Clinton (D)
22.1
9.9
32.0
Mitt Romney (R)
11.1
10.2
21.3
Rudy Giulaini (R)
7.9
6.2
14.1
John Edwards (D)
5.5
1.7
7.2
Bill Clinton
2.0
4.0
6.0
Mike Huckabee (R)
1.0
1.0
2.0
Bill Richardson (D)
0
0.2
0.2
Ron Paul (R)
0
0
0
Total Number of Campaign Stories = 597

Top Overall Stories of the Week
Rank
Story
Percent of Newshole
1
2008 Campaign
51%
2
U.S. Economy
7
3
State of the Union
6
4
Kenya Elections and Violence
2
5
Afghanistan
2
6
Events in Iraq
2
7
Super Bowl
2
8
China
1
9
War on Terror
1
10
Pakistan
1
Click here to see the top ten stories for each media sector.
Click here to see the methodology for the Campaign Coverage Index.

Some Bastard Is Trying to Steal Ron Pauls Seat

Let's turn our gaze to him, and bomb his email until it bleeds black. >:(_(

Scumbags think that because we got raped by the MSM that they can come in and clean sweep us. Well think again. Let's go army.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0208/Ron_Paul_pivots_to_his_reelection.html
"February 09, 2008Read More: Ron Paul
Ron Paul pivots to his reelection
Ron Paul appears to have had a Dennis Kucinich moment.Just as the liberal Ohio congressman realized last month that his long-shot presidential campaign was imperiling his prospects for keeping his House seat, Paul appears to be choosing the comfort of incumbency over a continued effort to win a nomination that he has virtually no shot at capturing.Last night, the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman sent a message to his supporters signaling that he was scaling back his presidential bid. The most telling passage:
"I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen."
Same as Kucinich, Paul has seen a real primary threat emerge back home. In both cases -- and see my colleague Josh Kraushaar's piece as a primer -- the challengers have made the case that the local congressman is gallivanting around the country on a quixotic quest, has lost touch with the folks back home and has taken stances out of line with the district.The key difference, of course, is that Paul has millions of dollars socked away and could be a significant threat were he to run a third-party campaign in the fall.But Paul reitereated in his message that that won't happen."Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican Party, so there will be no third-party run," Paul said. "I do not denigrate third parties -- just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican."