The criminally negligent cancer that has led the Catholic Church to become the number one defender of child rapists and abusers within their priesthood and leadership, has reared its ugly head in the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital. The 160 year-old institution was eerily quiet yesterday when I paid a visit to the place. It shut operations on April 15th and now the fate of what could end up being a community clinic lays in the middle of political theater and takeover bluffery.

I am personally not in favor of a bail out of the Catholic Church anytime soon. Am particularly enraged by the mismanagement and closing of the Elizabeth Seton Childbirthing Center. I gave birth to my second son with the assistance of the ESCbC midwives; albeit at the hospital because he was a VBAC. I will never forgive St. Vincent's for denying thousands of women in Manhattan the best midwifery and doula services we've ever had.
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The biggest bank meltdown in US history and it has to be Washington Mutual, the bank that's holding most of my money. Geezus! This from the Financial Times :

JPMorgan Chase has acquired the banking operations of Washington Mutual which was seized by US regulators on Thursday night in the biggest bank failure in US history.

Under the deal, which was brokered by government, JPMorgan will pay $1.9bn to the banking regulator, and acquire all insured and uninsured deposits, assets and some of the liabilities of WaMu’s banking operations, including its troubled mortgage portfolio.

Holy crap! Where's my money? AUUUUUUUGH!

I was actually going to take all my money out earlier in the week but decided to leave it for today. I should have done what the thousands of other depositors did. Take my money out of WaMu. Of course, the deposits run killed the bank, but now I have to run over there and find out if I have access to my cash.

Oh, wait! Here's the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC) :  read more »

That's Lehman and the whole banking industry there. Say buh-bye to any all of what's left of the US as an economic power. Am afraid though, the Wicked Witch is not dead yet and that we will need to go through way more pain than mere melting away.

This from the Grey Lady :  read more »

If you've read Corinne's liveblog of yesterday's Marketplace of Ideas Event on fighting against predatory mortgage lending then you know there was some really interesting discussion.

Now you can watch video clips from it too.

Senator Schumer announces his new lending bill:

and Councilman James Sander's responds to Mayor Bloomberg's assertion that the government can not address the mortgage loan crisis: