***
Johnson said the city would spend about $1 million to relocate those in the camp, expand shelters and provide more permanent housing.
Mayoral spokesman Steve Maviglio said Wednesday there were at least 35 open beds at three city shelters, including one at the state fairgrounds. “We are not at capacity,” he said.
Others, however, disputed whether the city had provided enough beds to accommodate the closing of the tent city.
“They’ve tried to help, just not enough,” said Garren Bratcher, co-director of Loaves & Fishes, the nearby food bank.
Stephanie Hayes, 39, who is eight months pregnant, and her husband Brian, 43, said they were turned away Tuesday from a shelter at the state fairgrounds because there were no beds.
“They want to move us around, but they don’t want to help us with anything. They have a shelter, but those rooms were full,” Stephanie Hayes said.
The camp about a mile northeast of the state Capitol has for years been home to about 150 homeless people, most of them chronically homeless.
It became an embarrassment for the capital city after it was featured on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” earlier this year.
During last year’s mayoral campaign, Mayor Kevin Johnson had pledged to deal with Sacramento’s homeless problem. The tent city held a fraction of the city’s estimated 2,700 homeless.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jDGpsBBYfvc8ZaFGj5_ENXwclj7gD97J3TK80
***
My note -
How do you think the 150 people will fit in 35 beds? I figured the state government in California would be putting people in jail and locking them up into mental hospitals while the news coverage was thin because that is the way city after city across the US has handled the problem while claiming to be throwing a ton of money at the problem.
For a million dollars, they could have bought a home and gotten a job and a car for every one of the 150 people who were homeless and for most of the 2,700 they claim are also homeless. The Republicans running one more set of difficult circumstances into a way for them to make money and basically not help anybody whatsoever. If that same jackass was ordering cases of Cristal for him and his friends, he wouldn’t accept 35 cases when he needed 150.l
***
And, of course, the VA has been calling people back to check on them because it turns out that tests like colonoscopies were done with dirty equipment and may have given these Veterans hepatitis, AIDs and no telling what else. Where is this VA hospital – Somalia? Iran? Afghanistan? Well, no – it is business as usual in the US of A, thanks to our fine American medical administrators, doctors, nurses and college educations.
And, they probably charges several thousand dollars for every one of those given colonoscopies with nasty equipment. How does that help them live longer and have healthier lives? But, the biggest concern according to the CNN spot that covered this news is that there is no real way to prove that the hepatitis these veterans have gotten – actually came from this. Isn’t anybody ever going to be outraged by things like this?
- my note
(I found an article about it which I posted part of – on down this post)
***
Video: Police Help Tent City Residents Move Out KCRA.com
***
Sacramento homeless tent city pulls up stakes; advocates set protest for more services
By CYNTHIA HUBERT – McClatchy Newspapers
Saturday, Apr. 18, 2009
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sacramento’s homeless tent city is no more.
Residents of the encampment, which drew international media attention and sparked a $1 million city effort to find alternative shelter for 150 to 200 people, began leaving earlier in the week. Tensions between residents and police were high as some campers balked at leaving and others simply moved further east, down the parkway.
Sacramento Police Sgt. Norm Leong, who along with about a dozen other officers defused minor altercations Friday and helped homeless men and women load their remaining belongings into trucks. “Camping is illegal in Sacramento and we have to clear this area. But we are trying to do it in a compassionate way.”
Construction crews erected fence posts Friday along the site of the original encampment. Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which owns the property, plans to upgrade a substation there. The private land that Leong watched over on Friday the property east of the original camp also is scheduled to be fenced, as early as this week.
Former residents of the encampments are being offered overnight beds at the Cal Expo winter shelter through June 30, and later will be eligible for more permanent housing. But not all of the campers want to live inside.
Advocates argue, meanwhile, that more work needs to be done to accommodate some 1,200 people who are without shelter in Sacramento on any given night.
To that end, they are organizing a protest this week to demand a legal “safe ground” where homeless people can camp and have access to basic services such as portable toilets and garbage pickup.
The protest is scheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday on the south steps of the state Capitol.
http://www.sunherald.com/396/story/1281728.html
***
http://www.endhomelessness.org/
National Alliance To End Homelessness
NEWS
April 22, 2009
HUD will host a webcast on the 2008 CoC Homeless Assistance Programs Competition from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm EDT. Click here for more details.
http://www.endhomelessness.org/section/news/press/2009countsmap
Interactive Map of increase homelessness across the US – January 2009
***
Sanitation Crisis Brewing in U.S. Tent Cities
March 16, 2009
As hundreds of thousands lose their jobs and homes monthly, a new population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) haunts the American landscape. From Sacramento to Seattle, water and sanitation conditions within the resulting camps and shantytowns fall far below par.
Between the river and the railway tracks of Sacramento Depression-era history repeats itself, reports the Times. The so-called tent cities are now home to hundreds of once stable middle class wage earners – such as construction workers, farm laborers, restaurant staff and store clerks. They lack sanitation and running water. Rubbish piles up by the day. Heavy rains help little.
According to the World Health Organization, such conditions as found in the emerging tent communities are conducive to the rampant spread of diseases. Local charity organizations fear that if something is not soon done to address the growing population of IDPs, cities could face sanitation issues as well as security concerns.
Homeless shelters in Sacramento are at full capacity, some turning away hundreds nightly. Unemployment soars past ten percent and home repossessions rank in the hundreds.
***
My note -
Ah, they’ve found another solution for the homelessness in America – they are now counted and named in government and social policy making and policing by the term (IDP) or “internally displaced persons.” Good going – that way we don’t have a homelessness problem in America.
**
Dirty Equipment May Have Infected Veterans With HIV More than 3,200 veterans asked to visit their doctor
By TODD WRIGHT
Updated 7:30 PM EDT, Mon, Mar 23, 2009
Doctors at a Miami Veterans Administration hospital may have operated on over 3,200 patients with dirty equipment that may have infected them with deadly diseases.
Officials said Monday colonoscopy patients should meet with a doctor to get screened for HIV, hepatitis and other diseases. That’s probably not the best way to pay back people who laid their life on the line for this country.
“It is outrageous and unacceptable that our veterans would be subjected to such shocking mistreatment,” Congressman Ron Klein said. “There must be a full investigation – beginning today – into how this could possibly happen, who was responsible and how we can ensure our hospitals are safe going forward.”
Patients from May 2004 through March 12, 2009 should rush to see a doctor and get tested.
Last month, a similar red alert was sounded for 6,400 veterans who had a colonoscopy at a VA hospital.
VA officials also said 1,800 veterans treated at an ear, nose and throat clinic in Augusta, Ga., were alerted they could have been exposed to an infection due to improper disinfection of an instrument.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Dirty-Equipment-May-Have-Infected-Veterans-With-HIV.html
***
“That’s all part of that underground economy,” Mr. Barfield said. “It’s what happens when a person is trying to survive.”
He said the city planned to begin “triage” on the encampments in the next several weeks, to determine how many people needed services and permanent housing. “We’re treating it like any other disaster area,” Mr. Barfield said.
Mr. Barfield took over his newly created position in January, after the county and city adopted a 10-year plan to address homelessness. A class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of homeless people against the city and the California Department of Transportation led to a $2.35 million settlement in 2008, making money available to about 350 residents who had had their belongings discarded in sweeps by the city.
The surging number of homeless people in Fresno, a city of 500,000 people, has been a surprise. City officials say they have three major encampments near downtown and smaller settlements along two highways. All told, as many 2,000 people are homeless here, according to Gregory Barfield, the city’s homeless prevention and policy manager, who said that drug use, prostitution and violence were all too common in the encampments.
(above from:)
FRESNO, Calif. — As the operations manager of an outreach center for the homeless here, Paul Stack is used to seeing people down on their luck. What he had never seen before was people living in tents and lean-tos on the railroad lot across from the center.
“They just popped up about 18 months ago,” Mr. Stack said. “One day it was empty. The next day, there were people living there.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/us/26tents.html
***
Angelo R. Mozilo (born 1938 in New York City) was the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Countrywide Financial until July 1, 2008[1].
He is the son of a Bronx butcher. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Fordham University in 1960 and holds an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Pepperdine University.[citation needed]
In 1978 he and his former mentor David S. Loeb, who had already started a mortgage lending company, founded Countrywide Credit Industries in New York. They later moved the headquarters to Calabasas, California in Los Angeles County. Mozilo and Loeb also cofounded IndyMac Bank, which was founded as Countrywide Mortgage Investment, before being spun off as an independent bank in 1997. IndyMac collapsed and was seized by federal regulators on July 11, 2008.[2]
Since Countrywide was listed on the NYSE in 1984, Mozilo has sold $406 million worth of its stock, mostly obtained through stock option grants. $129 million of this was realized in the 12 months ending August 2007.[3]
Insider Sales
Over many years, Mozilo sold hundreds of millions of dollars in stock personally[4], even while publicly touting the stock and using shareholder funds to buy back stock to support the share price.
References
- ^ Countrywide’s Mozilo exits stage a fallen hero – Los Angeles Times
- ^ LA Biz Observed: *IndyMac taken over
- ^ Gretchen Morgenson (2007-08-29). “Inside the Countrywide Lending Spree”. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/business/yourmoney/26country.html?hp=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved on 2007-08-29.
- ^ “Why is Countrywide possibly going bankrupt?“. HousingPanic. 2007-09-09. http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-is-countrywide-possibly-going.html.
External links
- Businessweek Biography
- Forbes 2006 information
- Forbes 2005 information
- Business Biography, answers.com
- Bloomberg News Video
- Official Countrywide Biography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Mozilo
**
26sacramento2_600.JPG
An encampment of tents under an overpass in Fresno. More Photos >
NY Times Article about Homeless in California and the US
***
CEO Compensation
#4 Angelo R Mozilo
04.30.08, 6:00 PM ET
| < Previous: Aubrey K McClendon | Next: Howard D Schultz > |
| Total Compensation $102.84 5 mil 5-Year Compensation Total Angelo R Mozilo has been CEO of Countrywide Financial ( CFC) for 10 years. Mr. Mozilo has been with the company for 39 years and is its Founder. The 69 year old executive ranks 1 within Diversified Financials Education |
7G33.jpg
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Angelo Mozilo - Countrywide and IndyMac Founder
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/12/lead_bestbosses08_Angelo-R-Mozilo_7G33.html
**
My note -
It seemed like this guy had four homes last year when he had run our economy into a gutter.
***
What else would I expect in a country that worships a brass bull on the streets of New York city? Didn’t that whole Moses thing when he came down from Mt. with the 10 commandments teach people anything?
***
A struggling borrower sends an email to Countrywide Financial Corp. pleading for help.
“My number one goal is to keep my home that I have lived in for sixteen years, remodeled with my own sweat equity and I would really appreciate the opportunity to do that. My home is not large or in an upscale neighborhood, it is a “shotgun” bungalow style of only 900 sq. ft. built in 1921. I moved into this home in May of 1992…this was the same year I got clean and sober from drugs and alcohol, and have been ever since, this home means the world to me.”
The borrower soon gets a response from the very top, the company’s chairman, Angelo Mozilo. But it’s not a very nice response:
“This is unbelievable. Most of these letters now have the same wording. Obviously they are being counseled by some other person or by the Internet. Disgusting.”
Disgusting?
Listen, Angelo Mozilo is a good candidate for “The One Person with The Most Responsibility for The Mortgage Crisis.”
His company became the nation’s largest mortgage lender largely by discarding every traditional reason for denying loan applications, an art that reached its apex with the invention of NINA loans, which stands for No Income No Assets and meant that borrowers didn’t have to present proof they had either income or assets. (Other finalists for this noble prize might include Ameriquest’s Roland Arnall, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Wall Street bankers such as Ralph Cioffi and Christopher Ricciardi.)
Countrywide, which Bank of America has agreed to buy, now is under fire for its anemic efforts to help borrowers who can’t afford its loans. The company also has some recurring problems playing nicely with its customers.
Now, Mozilo’s response wasn’t meant to reach the customer. The LA Times reports this morning that Mozilo apparently meant to forward the message, with his thoughts, to a colleague, but hit reply instead. More details are available here and here.
http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/blogs/renow/2008/05/angelo_mozilo_l.html
***
Mozilo severance: $110 million and change
If he engineers a sale of battered Countrywide Financial to Bank of America, Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo stands to walk away with a severance package worth more than $110 million, the Los Angeles Times’ Kathy Kristof reports tonight.
Such a payout would come on top of huge gains Mozilo has made selling Countrywide stock during the mortgage crisis. As the mortgage industry went into a nose dive in late 2006 and 2007, Mozilo cashed out about $140 million in stock options, becoming one of the highest-paid executives in the country, the L.A. Times reported in November.
The newspaper reports tonight that in his contract agreement, which extended the 69-year-old’s employment contract through 2009, Mozilo was guaranteed three times his base salary, plus a cash payment equal to three times the greater of his average bonus or the incentive bonus paid the previous year. Net value: $87.8 million.
In addition, Mozilo has two pensions that his severance agreement gives him the right to receive as a lump sum upon his departure. Those pensions were worth $24 million as of December 2006, the last time the company was required to report their value.
There is more. The Times reports Mozilo would receive continuing health benefits for life for himself and his spouse, three years of life and financial planning benefits, and “tax-gross-up payments” to compensate him for any penalties he’d have to pay for receiving payments the IRS might consider excessive.
Given the slashing of 10,900 jobs at Countrywide this year, and the 81% decline in Countrywide stock over the last year, it is likely Mozilo’s severage package will prove more controversial than his previous stock sales.
Your thoughts? Comments? Insights? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com
Photo Credit: Bloomberg
Posted by Peter Viles on January 10, 2008 in Countrywide Financial |
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/01/mozilo-severanc.html
***
April 15, 2009
The Future of the FightCPS Website
I’m grateful that I’ve spent twenty years as an activist exposing America’s sick child welfare system to the light of day.
I’m grateful for the emails and comments I received telling me how much this site has helped. Those testimonials mean a lot to me and always will.
Twenty years ago this month, my fourth child was born in Central California. Before I could leave the hospital a social worker visited my room to talk to me about my history of being battered by my child’s father. Later I learned that while I was there I nearly died, and during that time my child’s father threatened the doctor, so he decided to report us to CPS. I had to leave my baby in the hospital because she was premature, and on the day she was released a social worker picked her up and left a slip of paper on my front porch.
Only a few days later I learned what it was like to go into Juvenile Court to be given a social worker’s report filled with lies. That was the day I realized that our justice system was broken, that social workers could lie and nobody cared – and that they could get away with perjury. That was the day I started learning that our Constitution doesn’t apply in Juvenile Court and that I couldn’t have a jury trial. That was the day I started realizing how ineffective public defenders are for child welfare victims.
Okay – it has been twenty years. I am one of the very lucky ones who fought back, found an activist to help me, and who succeeded in getting my child home again (after eight months of separation.) Lucky me. But I was traumatized to an extreme – not only by my shock at the injustice of the child welfare system, but also by my family’s non-support, my need to cope with being a battered woman, and the end of my relationship with the man who battered me.
Trauma takes a long time to wear off, and twenty years later — honestly, I’m still dealing with it!
When this happened to me I was working as a welfare worker in the same Department of Social Services that contained the CPS agency that attacked and lied about me. I was sickened to learn that my employer allowed these vile social workers in the CPS unit to perjure themselves, violate regulations, and be rude to young, traumatized, suffering parents. My thought was that if they were doing this to me (another DSS employee) WHAT WERE THEY DOING TO ALL THE YOUNG PARENTS WITH LESS EDUCATION AND MONEY THAN ME? I was appalled. Shocked. Disgusted. I wanted to do something to help other parents going through this wretched system of injustice, and from the time my case closed in 1990 until now, I’ve been doing what I could when I could.
My main goal at first was to expose, expose, expose. I wanted the public to know what was going on in the social services department. I was fortunately led to a local weekly paper with a similar goal – to expose local government corruption. I wrote some articles. I contacted some child welfare victims and helped a few of them to file for State Administrative Hearings. I burnt out – and needed to turn my attention to raising my two youngest children – both preschoolers at that time.
Next I started a computer bulletin board service (BBS) via the FidoNet network. Anyone here know about FidoNet? I did that for five years and during that time contacted a few child welfare victims including the woman who wrote Don’ts and Do’s When Falsely Accused… she lived nearby and we got together quite a few times. When her case closed she moved out of state.
The internet got my attention next. I was handicapped by my finances – I was unable to afford a worthy computer for quite a few years. I learned to do some webdesign, and in 2000 started the Child Protection Reform Yahoo Group (which I’ve since given away) and next I created Fight CPS And Win – now simply called FightCPS. I’ve been developing this site since October 2000 – almost nine years.
Here’s the bad news (or maybe it is good news) . . . I’m ready to do something else with my life. I feel my most important goal here has been fulfilled. That goal was to expose the system to the American public. I feel that has been done, and that we’ve reached CRITICAL MASS in that now many people are speaking out about the injustice including wonderful state legislators in Georgia and Washington. Also the news media, especially television news, is speaking out to expose the system. That didn’t happen back when I started my activism, twenty years ago. Back then even child murders in the foster system were not carried in the news media, so I’m excited when I see television news commentators exposing CPS injustice. There are also multiple developing websites to cover this issue on the internet now, many more than when I started, and I see the seeds of greatness in some of them. Very exciting stuff! So I know that when I leave, there will be others to take my place and fill in the gaps. My mission here is complete.
I will always feel as I do about the crazy, unjust, and cruel child welfare system. I have not changed but I have other things to do now. I have no more children under age eighteen. I need to focus on other things in my life now.
I don’t know what will become of FightCPS.Com — and am considering all the options at this point. I won’t leave this month or next, but I’m sure by the end of 2009 I’ll no longer be doing this. Therefore I’m ready to hear from other activists or advocates who feel able to own and maintain this website. This will require someone to move the entire site to another server, so I’m looking for someone with confidence and competency in the web skills arena. It also requires someone with outstanding writing skills.
This site has thousands of links pointing to it. It ranks well in the search engines. For that reason, I don’t want to just dump it. I worked hard to make it rank well so that people in need of help could easily find us. I think it is a valuable site for that reason, and that it would be a shame to just close it down. I really want someone else to take it over, love it, develop it, and leave it on the web as a beacon of hope to whoever goes to Google and types in “child protective services”. It is the only anti-CPS site that shows up in the first page of search results.
Anyhow, if you’re someone who could take on this project and make it work, please contact me. I’m interested in hearing from you. My webmaster email link is at the bottom of this page. Please note that if I don’t know who you are, that’s a problem. I don’t want some government-paid disinformation agent to take over this site and subvert its purpose. Getting the right person for site ownership is more important than any other consideration at this point.
Child Protective Services Agents – please come to your senses! Family destruction on false or trivial grounds is wrong, reprehensible, and inhumane.
Fosterers – be aware that for the money you get you are holding much-loved children away from their grieving families while the parents are forced to perform a service plan that is anything but a service to them. I call this hostage holding for the government. This is not kindness – to help misguided government agents destroy family relationships and break loving bonds.
CPS workers and fosterers – I ask that you now let the children of the innocent return to their homes where they are truly valued, adored, and loved by the parents God gave them.
Family rights are God-given rights. And they should not be ignored or postponed. Every moment these loving parents and children spend separated from one another is a torment beyond what anyone should ever have to bear.
It is unworthy of human dignity to allow this terrorism and torture of families to go on without saying something, speaking out, and trying to make a change.
Site mission: To provide information and support for families attacked by Child Protective Services and child welfare agents, especially those families facing false or trivial accusations of child abuse or neglect; and for researchers working to protect natural family rights.
**
Fighting Child Protective Services False Accusations
Here’s one of the reasons why the states are eager to deprive you of your children and grandchildren even though many of you never abused or neglected them.
There’s other funding available to counties when they put children in fosterincarceration. This is not the only federal funding stream they’re after.
Bounty Payments For Adoptions 2003
This information was released by the ACF in October 2004.
|
State
|
Total
|
|---|---|
|
Alabama
|
$376,000
|
|
Alaska
|
$116,000
|
|
Arizona
|
$280,000
|
|
Arkansas
|
$468,000
|
|
Colorado
|
$546,000
|
|
Florida
|
$2,544,000
|
|
Idaho
|
$196,000
|
|
Iowa
|
$1,048,000
|
|
Kansas
|
$440,000
|
|
Kentucky
|
$452,000
|
|
Louisiana
|
$172,000
|
|
Maine
|
$424,000
|
|
Minnesota
|
$74,000
|
|
Mississippi
|
$140,000
|
|
Missouri
|
$494,000
|
|
Nevada
|
$260,000
|
|
New Hampshire
|
$88,000
|
|
New York
|
$3,492,000
|
|
North Carolina
|
$16,000
|
|
North Dakota
|
$84,000
|
|
Ohio
|
$376,000
|
|
Oklahoma
|
$1,062,000
|
|
Rhode Island
|
$40,000
|
|
South Dakota
|
$20,000
|
|
Tennessee
|
$264,000
|
|
Texas
|
$908,000
|
|
Vermont
|
$150,000
|
|
Virginia
|
$386,000
|
|
Washington
|
$1,560,000
|
|
Wisconsin
|
$1,232,000
|
|
Wyoming
|
$48,000
|
|
Puerto Rico
|
$140,000
|
|
Total
|
$17,896,000
|
|
Note:Some states aren’t represented on this list because they received multi-million dollar payments in the program during previous years. California is the biggest adoption money pig of all. This program only pays for an increase in the number of adoptions from the year before. |
|
http://www.fightcps.com/articles/bountypayments.html
* My note -
this doesn’t include the extra 300,000 a year that the county and state get for every child they deem to be “special needs” children – for extra service they are supposed to get and for extra bonuses to those adopting them – it is children for sale and they lock the children up for a year or more in fact, to get even more money through the state mental health system – those matching funds go directly into county coffers. These things have made it big business and most of those places are built the same way and by the same people who build jails. They aren’t much different than jails. It doesn’t matter how young the child or how stable they would have been with their own families – it in this reference – is just a matter of money.
***
More About FightCPS
Videos About Family Rights and CPS Cruelty
***
August 2002 memo from then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee to John Rizzo, who was acting general counsel for the CIA.
The Bybee opinion was sought on 10 interrogation tactics in the case of suspected al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.
The memo authorized keeping Zubaydah in a dark, confined space small enough to restrict the individual’s movement for no more than two hours at a time. In addition, putting a harmless insect into the box with Zubaydah, who “appears to have a fear of insects,” and telling him it is a stinging insect would be allowed, as long as Zubaydah was informed the insect’s sting would not be fatal or cause severe pain.
Other memos allowed the use of such tactics as keeping a detainee naked and in some cases in a diaper, and putting detainees on a liquid diet.
On waterboarding, in which a person gets the sensation of drowning, the memo said, “although the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death, prolonged mental harm must nonetheless result” to violate the law.
Authorities also were allowed to slap a detainee’s face “to induce shock, surprise or humiliation” and strike his abdomen with the back of the hand in order to disabuse a detainee’s notion that he will not be touched, the memos said.
Bybee noted in the memo that the CIA agreed all tactics should be used under expert supervision. Other memos said waterboarding can be used only if the CIA has “credible intelligence that a terrorist attack is imminent” and if a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent, disrupt or delay an attack, and other methods fail to elicit the information.
Another memo to Rizzo, from Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven G. Bradbury on May 10, 2005, noted that nudity could be used as an interrogation technique.
“Detainees subject to sleep deprivation who are also subject to nudity as a separate interrogation technique will at times be nude and wearing a diaper,” it said, noting that the diaper is “for sanitary and health purposes of the detainee; it is not used for the purpose of humiliating the detainee and it is not considered to be an interrogation technique.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/16/us.torture.documents/index.html?iref=newssearch
***
My note -
Cheri jacobs is on CNN running her mouth with every thing the Republicans and conservatives want aired about their opinions on waterboarding being alright. They should all rest in hell forever including that piece of shit woman, that was just spouting off about it for the conservatives. If that is the kind of damned worthless use of air time that we have to put up with – that is not the news. The CIA operatives, investigators, psychiatrists, doctors and other members that engaged in torture should be hauled up in front of the World Court and hung when found guilty for the same war crimes that Dr. Mendela and other Gestapo officers faced, because they are the same.
Well, it looks like I’m going to have to demand good ole angelo come to court to explain why he broke his word to my family……….hmmmmmmm, this is getting very interesting, but what the hell……we want our home back
Won’t do any good – he is probably sitting on a beach somewhere enjoying the lifestyle he earned at our expense . . .
the unfortunate thing about the mortgage system in America is that the ony thing people have been doing is to pay for the bank’s debt for them so they could own the house, use it for leverage and now get money from the government and insurance coverage on it as well. Apparently – its a real money maker. The hard-earned dollars that Americans have been paying on those mortgages are just a means to an end for the banks.
– cricketdiane
It is incredible to see just how out of touch our main stream media is.
I have been researching the Mortgage predatory lending market for some time now, gathering a whole bunch of dirt on Angelo Mozilo, David Sambol, Kurland and others at Countrywide Home Loans. I uncovered more than a little dirt on Bank of America and its CEO Kenneth Lewis. But what moved me the most was coming across this Lone Ranger like character named David Merritt.
This is a guy who got suckered into one of those Countrywide Predatory loans. He and his wife are first time home buyers who wanted to put 5 to 10 % down on their $729,000 home in Silicon Valley California – 2 miles from Yahoo headquarters, 4 from google and 5 from Apple.
With just 2 days to remove their loan contingency, and with at least two other lenders ready to sell them a relatively decent mortgage, Countrywide talked them out of going with the competition by presenting a 1 to 3 percent, FHA Good Faith Estimate and declared: “if you can find someone to beat this loan, then go with them and we’ll pay the closing costs.”
Countrywide staff were trained on how to determine how much knowledge a home buyer had, and they knew that the Merritts were suckers to be taken. Once they fired the other lenders and committed themselves to Countrywide, the Merritts found themselves locked into a 100% financing Pay Option ARM and HELOC which was destined to charged them over 2 million dollars. Countrywide had a policy of talking buyers out of putting down payments, and convincing them that they would give them a loan that was better. In fact, they would always tell home buyers that No One Could beat them and the truth was that they did beat everyone at the application stage in order to remove all the competition, but they left out that by the time the home buyer was closing escrow, most competitors would have done better.
The Merritts signed a loan that was charging twice as much as the average lender. What is more is that they signed a loan which Countrywide assigned Mortgage Electronic Registration System as a lender. As it turns out, MERS was designed to be a front company which allows: 1) Note holders to hide from public scrutiny; 2) the duplication of one loan note that could be sold off to 2 or more investors or mortgage backed security pools: 3) evasion of paying local recorder fees; 4) Overriding state legislatures recording the laws on recording liens, beneficiaries and holders in due course; 5) attacking Public Policy in regards to its goals of protecting consumers and lenders from fraud via recording laws; and last, but not least, 6) being a conduit for billions of dollars to pass right by Uncle Sam and into Cayman or Canadian banks where no federal taxes can touch it.
This is how Countrywide rose to the top. And they intentionally targeted elderly, minorities and unsophisticated first time buyers.
Now in July 2008 Bank of America bought Countrywide out for 2 billion dollars. A company with assets that exceeded 20 billion, and servicing machine that churned out billions more.
Bank of America went to all the states Attorneys Generals and asked them to bring lawsuits on behalf of their state citizens against Countrywide and to already agree to cut a sweet settlement deal with Bank of America. This was a strategy to persuade that Public that BofA was sincere about cleaning up the mess Mozilo and cronies created. But what is left out is that they are also trying to cut off home buyers ability to charge BofA with the predatory loans of Countrywide.
Behind the scenes, BofA has been supporting Countrywide since 1969. It has always been in the predatory loan business, but through other front companies. For the longest, evidence shows, Kenneth Lewis was very close allies with Mozilo and planned with him to defraud Americans out of their home equity.
It is so strange to see so many Americans enslaved to the Banking and Finance gangsters and not even know it, or if they do, just accept it.
David Merritt is literally one of the 21st Century modern epics “David versus Goliath.” And all the has is a little sling and a rock against Goliaths billion dollar war armor. Check out some of his thoughts on many issues at wordpress.com/insightbeyondsight, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has before it Merritt v. Countrywide, BofA, Wells Fargo et al, Docket No 09-17678 where he has charged straight at these Greedsters with RICO and other federal violation. And in Santa Clara Superior Court Merritt v. Mozilo et al No. 109CV159993.
He is actually looking for other victims who have deeds of trust assigned to MERS and he wishes to help in anyway possible to fight these folks offensively , he prefers, but he has enough information to help defensively as well. Lawyers from around the country taps into this Big David. So circulate the word.
Mark Doyle
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