Why Are Bailed-Out Banks Breaking into Struggling Borrowers’ Homes?
On the issue of foreclosures. Last week a Florida woman named Nancy Jacobini revealed an agent hired by her bank broke into her home after she fell behind on her mortgage payments. Nancy Jacobini of Orange County was inside her home when she heard the intruder. Thinking she was being burglarized, she called 911.
That was Nancy Jacobini on MSNBC. Chase has apologized for the incident, but Jacobini has hired an attorney to pursue legal action against the bank. Well, we’re joined now from Tampa, Florida, by Nancy Jacobini’s lawyer Matthew Weidner. He’s a consumer rights and foreclosure defense attorney and a frequent blogger on foreclosure issues at his mattweidnerlaw.com.
....She is not in foreclosure with this bank, and so she would have no reason to suspect that someone other than a burglar would be breaking into her home. And so, she goes running into the bathroom with her cell phone, she’s dialing 911, and she is just absolutely terrified. And it turns out, after the sheriffs are there, that this individual says that he’s hired by the banks.
Now, what’s so terrifying about this episode is this is not at all unique. I have examples from all around the country where these banks, these jackbooted thugs that are hired by the banks, are kicking down the doors of people’s homes all across the country. The thing to keep in mind, you know, the problems that are existing across this country are not isolated to people in foreclosure. And I think why this particular incident has caught the attention of people across the country is because they recognize that, wait a minute, if this happened to Nancy, then this could happen to me.The story as it’s told is that she was behind in her payments, but she wasn’t even in foreclosure. So, when you’re in foreclosure, this is fine?
It’s not at all fine ever. But this happens to people in foreclosure. Look, the problem is, they’re doing this when folks are not even in foreclosure. I’ve got examples all across the country where no foreclosure has even been filed. I think we’re going to find examples of people that are in formal modifications with the banks, where they have agreed, because the borrowers are making payments, that nothing at all will happen, but these jackbooted thugs continue with their work. You know, there are examples where people are living in their homes, where they leave for a week or so, where they go on vacation, and these jackbooted thugs are kicking down the doors. And unfortunately, the jackbooted thugs that are representing the banks are emboldened by this.I confront law enforcement with these issues. Law enforcement, if you can get them to come out to the home, oftentimes won’t take a report of these activities. If they do happen to take a report of the bank’s breaking in and taking property, they will almost always determine that no crime has been committed, and there’s nothing at all that we can do. That really is what’s so disturbing and troubling is that, you know, our law enforcement, that work for us locally, are working now for the banks and saying that what these banks are doing is acceptable. And I’m here to tell you it absolutely is not. I mean, let’s keep in mind that one of the fundamental principles, a core value of this country, has been property ownership. We should have a right to be secure within our castles, within these homes that we own. And unfortunately, this foundation is being shaken by these banks.
( I note he likes that word 'emboldened'...a favourite with the lot writing trope about 'terrorists.' )
What’s the point of foreclosure? If we granted every single foreclosure that’s pending right now across this country, what would happen to those homes? We can’t get people qualified to get in homes as it is.
( It drains families' savings and wrecks process securing equity. Would it be too outrageous to hypothesize that was the point ? i.e. Further sabotage of the current financial system and savaging the 'middle class' .
If that were the case, you'd need further and better particulars on who are the parties and companies engaging in these practices. The drive to establish competitive advantage - dominance - often leads to destructive behaviour...'war' by other means.
Cancer is a runaway growth of particular cells in the body which destroy it. 'Corporate Persons' - the new oxymoron - are simply the current vehicle for robber barons. )
Matt Weidner Blog
Oops, I lost my summons! Oops, I lost my summons! (Repeat 9,000 times)
Our entire foreclosure process, and now a significant portion of the title to real property in this country now rests on the shoulders of largely unregulated, unpoliced and until now, unnoticed subset of the foreclosure mill/foreclosure cockroach community. The Private Process Servers. Who are process servers? In Florida, a Plaintiff must personally hand an original summons issued by the court, along with the lawsuit to every defendant in a foreclosure case. The Sheriff appoints private parties to serve these lawsuits on these people, but any knucklehead can become a process server. The requirements are to become a process server are defined in Florida Statutes, but here’s the bombshell.THERE IS SO MUCH BAD SERVICE OF PROCESS FLOATING ACROSS THIS STATE THAT IT’S GOING TO MAKE THE ROBOSIGNER CONTROVERSY SEEM SMALL
"Smear" Now Means Telling the Truth About Right Wingers
by: Ted Frier
What the conservative movement and its media have been able to accomplish over the past decade or so is to provide a protective and hospitable climate in which views that had been confined to the lunatic fringe have been able to come out of the wilderness and take part in the activities of a major political party.
That is the major attraction among right wing audiences for angry demagogues like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter. These demagogues give their audience permission to come out of the closet and express primitive rages that a more censoring and "politically correct" culture might have told them they need to suppress.
What the far right has been able to do, in other words, is create a separate, alternative universe - a bubble -- in which lunatic and anti-social beliefs are welcomed with open arms. As a consequence, outsiders who do not share this right wing worldview are accused of engaging in "smears" -- not so much for fabricating falsehoods against right wingers, but merely for exposing their toxic and preposterous ideas to the disinfecting sunlight of a larger and more skeptical national audience. The "smear," in other words, lies not in malicious invention but in exposing the racist or the crackpot to his or her true self.
Right wing conservatives are anti-social authoritarians who are out of place in a pluralist, democratic society. And they know it. And this is why the 2010 election may well go down as the first national campaign in American history in which the candidates of a major party are so extreme that they must run for national office while deliberately avoiding both the public and the media through which that public gets most of its information.
And the only way that Tea Party candidates are able to run for political office while shunning the electorate at the same time is because they can avail themselves of Fox News.
"Fox is something new -- something for which we do not yet have a word," says Eric Alterman in his brilliant new column. "It provides almost no actual journalism. Instead it gives ideological guidance to the Republican Party and millions of its supporters, attacking its opponents and keeping its supporters in line."
As Alterman notes, with the single exception of Mitt Romney, every major Republican contender for President is now on contract with Fox.
It's odd to say the least for a "news organization" to have the future subjects of its news reports on its own paid staff, he says. And by employing the entire GOP presidential field, Fox is also able to prevent any other news organization from getting face time with these potential future presidents.
As Alterman reports, when C-SPAN Political Editor Steve Scully tried to get an interview with Sarah Palin, he was actually told he needed Fox's permission. Not surprisingly, he didn't get it. And neither have the producers at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC. "We have tried to book many of them, but they have always refused, saying they are exclusive to Fox," said a network staffer.
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UAE-Canada aviation talks collapse
Reports that the UAE is set to deny Canadian Forces access to a key military base near Dubai. That will affect Canadian troop movement to and from Afghanistan.The UAE is Canada's largest trade partner in the Middle East and North Africa with bilateral trade of over $1.5 billion
Loonie hit parity after coming within hair's breadth Wednesday
( Now that the snowbirds can afford to winter in the U.S. ... will they want to ? )
Let's call Trans-Asia what it really is...Pipelineistan
by: Blue Girl
What we are in the middle of now is a geopolitical struggle between India and Pakistan, and it is only about energy in the sense that pipelines to supply China with hydrocarbons need to run through the area. Mostly it is about water and control over Kashmir - and the strife over Kashmir is just a petticoat to hide the fact that there is a water war going on between Pakistan and India.
China's economy is thirsty, and so it's drinking deeper and planning deeper yet. It craves Iraq's oil and Turkmenistan's natural gas, as well as oil from Kazakhstan. Yet instead of spending more than a trillion dollars on an illegal war in Iraq or setting up military bases all over the Greater Middle East and Central Asia, China used its state oil companies to get some of the energy it needed simply by bidding for it in a perfectly legal Iraqi oil auction.
Meanwhile, in the New Great Game in Eurasia, China had the good sense not to send a soldier anywhere or get bogged down in an infinite quagmire in Afghanistan. Instead, the Chinese simply made a direct commercial deal with Turkmenistan and, profiting from that country's disagreements with Moscow, built itself a pipeline which will provide much of the natural gas it needs.No wonder the Obama administration's Eurasian energy czar Richard Morningstar was forced to admit at a congressional hearing that the US simply cannot compete with China when it comes to Central Asia's energy wealth. If only he had delivered the same message to the Pentagon.
Of carrots and sticks and carrot sticks
by: Blue Girl
We have a looming healthcare crisis heading down the pike, and if we don't do something about it now, obesity and the obesity-related diseases will not only strangle our healthcare system, it will be responsible for a generation that will, for the first time since this country came to be, not only live shorter lives than their parents, but they won't enjoy the same quality of life their parents did.
What I can tell you anecdotally is that every single one of the things that have gotten the blame for the epidemic, from lack of physical activity to fast food and soda pop as dietary staples, I have observed to exist, so this is a 'big picture' problem if ever there was one.
It's a hell of a mess and the fix will be multifaceted and complex, and it will involve more than just offering healthy choices. Kids will have to be enticed to make the choices to eat the healthy food when it is offered.
It's a hell of a mess and the fix will be multifaceted and complex, and it will involve more than just offering healthy choices. Kids will have to be enticed to make the choices to eat the healthy food when it is offered.
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