Quick Picks: Banks Lobby to Jam Up 'Cram-Down' Bill — ProPublica

Quick Picks: Banks Lobby to Jam Up 'Cram-Down' Bill

by Alexandra Andrews

Feb. 26, 2009, 12:27 p.m. EST

Quick Picks focuses on a select few of the day's stories from "Breaking on the Web."

The House is expected to pass legislation today that would let bankruptcy judges reduce struggling homeowners' mortgage payments, but banks and mortgage companies are lobbying hard to make sure that doesn't happen, reports the AP. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Senate Republican leaders are pushing an alternative that would steer troubled borrowers to low-interest loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."
A lawyer representing several Gitmo detainees told Reuters that "there have been many, many more reported incidents of abuse [there] since the inauguration" of President Obama but stressed that the mistreatment didn't seem to be directed from above. A recent Pentagon report was "ridiculed" for glossing over the problems there.

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