FedUpUSA

Archive for September, 2010

From the Washington Post this morning:

In Georgia, an employee of a document processing company, Linda Green, for years claimed to be executives of Bank of America, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and dozens of other lenders while signing off on tens of thousands of foreclosure affidavits. In many cases, her signature appeared to be forged by different employees.

Green worked for a foreclosure document company owned by Lender Processing Services. The company is being investigated by a U.S. attorney in Florida for allegedly using improper documentation to speed foreclosures.

From USA Today:

“We’ve taken depositions at other servicing companies that take these documents without reviewing them,” says Christopher Immel, a lawyer at Ice Legal in West Palm Beach, Fla. “They were filing fraudulently. It’s rarely done correctly.”

In one case, Erica Johnson-Seck, a vice president at OneWest, said she signed 750 foreclosure documents a week and didn’t read each document before signing it, according to a 2009 deposition obtained by Ice Legal. She also said they were signed without a notary present.

Well, I can’t complain about this finally getting out into the public domain and being picked up by the mainstream media, but when are we going to see the law applied here?  Why is it that so far millions of homeowners have been the only ones that have had consequences?  Where are the attorney generals of all 50 states in this country?!

This was an immense and pervasive fraud, perpetrated on consumers by all of the big banks.  A simple Google search will turn up literally hundreds of fraudulent legal documents with all of the usual suspects involved:  JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, CitiGroup, Deutche Bank, Harris, Washington Mutual, IndyMac….the list is practically endless.  All of the fraud was facilitated by MERS and the ratings agencies like Moodys and Standard & Poors.   If this was any bigger it would have its own gravitational pull!  Yet we see NOTHING being done to prosecute these entities, while homewners continue to lose their homes and Congress and this administration continues to throw those same homeowners’ money in the form of their taxes to the very entities that defrauded them.

Nice.

Where is the justice?  Where is equal protection under the law?  How long will Americans stand for their government’s refusal to represent them?

Connecticut Attorney General’s Office

Press Release

Attorney General Investigating Defective GMAC/Ally Foreclosure Docs, Demands Halt To Its CT Foreclosures

September 27, 2010

Attorney Richard Blumenthal announced today his office is investigating defective foreclosure documents filed by GMAC/Ally Finance, Inc. in Connecticut and demanding the company freeze all foreclosures in the state.

“I am demanding a freeze in all GMAC/Ally foreclosure actions to forestall horrendous, illegal harm against homeowners,” Blumenthal said. “The GMAC/Ally foreclosure steamroller should be stopped so the company can be held accountable. My office has already confirmed that some defective documents were filed in Connecticut.

“The bank’s apparent failure to follow basic legal procedure — a potential fraud on the court — is appalling and unacceptable. Our investigation will enable strong legal action against GMAC/Ally, if warranted by the facts and the law. I will fight to assure that banks comply with clear legal requirements that protect homeowners from unfair foreclosures of their homes.

“My office will investigate whether other banks engaged in such practices because these failings involve much more than mere technicalities, as GMAC/Ally has claimed. As a consumer advocate and attorney, I am dismayed and shocked that the bank blatantly skirted legal requirements and procedural safeguards to increase the volume and pace of foreclosures.”

Blumenthal acted after a GMAC/Ally Financial employee recently admitted signing thousands of foreclosure affidavits a month without verifying their accuracy or having them properly notarized, as required by law. Blumenthal’s office has confirmed that the employee, Jeffery Stephan, signed foreclosure affidavits filed in Connecticut.

Failure to file proper affidavits can be a fraud on the court, potentially undermining foreclosures and underlying mortgages.

Blumenthal said, “Recent media reports indicate that GMAC/Ally submitted thousands of defective foreclosures to courts in 23 states, including Connecticut. Incredibly, GMAC/Ally allegedly appointed one person to review and sign thousands of foreclosure-related documents each month and provide affidavits to the courts attesting to the legal justification of the foreclosure actions. Although courts routinely rely on such affidavits, GMAC/Ally now admits that its affiant did not actually review the documents to ensure accuracy and did not sign them in the presence of a notary.

“The banking industry clearly learned nothing from the financial crisis. First, it cut corners and ignored the law to give consumers loans they knew could not be repaid. Now, it’s cutting corners and ignoring the law to foreclose and evict people from their homes.”

Blumenthal asked GMAC/Ally to:

· Provide case names and docket numbers of all Connecticut foreclosure cases in which defective affidavits were filed;

· Explain when and how it will inform defendants and the Connecticut Superior Court regarding the defective affidavits and documents, and whether it will withdraw the defective affidavits;

· Identify employees or contractors who reviewed and signed Connecticut foreclosure-related documents and describe their relationship to the bank;

· Outline steps to ensure the integrity of future affidavits and other documents submitted to the Connecticut Superior Court.

The deadline to provide the information is October 15.

Wait until they all figure out this is not just related to GMAC…

4closureFraud

As you read this, there is a bill before the U.S. Senate that has the potential to change the U.S. food industry more than any other law ever passed by the U.S. Congress. In the name of “food safety”, the U.S. government would be given an iron grip over the production, transportation and sale of all food in the United States. Hordes of small food producers and organic farmers could potentially be put out of business.  If this bill becomes law, the freedom to grow what you want, eat what you want and to share food from your gardens with your neighbors could be greatly curtailed.  It would give the FDA unprecedented discretion to regulate U.S. food production.  A version of this bill was already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last summer, and now S. 510, also know as the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, is in front of the U.S. Senate and it is expected to pass easily.

Because of how vaguely it is written and because of how much discretion it gives to the FDA, it is potentially a very, very dangerous law.

So who is actually in favor of it?

Well, big food corporations and big agriculture are actually very much in favor of this bill.

Why?

Is it because they are so concerned about food safety?

No.

In fact, virtually every major case of food contamination in recent U.S. history has come from large-scale industrial agriculture or large-scale industrial food production.

The real reason why they are backing S. 510 is because it will devastate their primary competition – small food producers and organic farmers.

In recent years, the demand for organic food has skyrocketed as the American people have learned the truth about how our food is actually made.  Big agriculture and the giant food producers are losing profits as Americans increasingly vote with their wallets.

So now the food giants are using “food safety” as a way to get market share back.  It is an open secret that many of those involved in drafting this bill and in pushing it through Congress have ties to food industry giants.

Thousands of small food producers and organic farmers will have their very existence threatened by this bill.  It imposes a bureaucratic nightmare on all food producers that the big corporations will be able to handle easily but that will cripple much smaller operations.

Already, many farmers can see the writing on the wall.  One small farmer recently described the mood among her fellow small farmers to the Wall Street Journal….

“I know people who have been small farmers for 25 to 30 years who are looking to get out of the business because food safety is becoming so alarmist.”

But the bureaucratic nightmare is just the tip of the iceberg.  To get an idea of just how dangerous S. 510 could potentially be to the already staggering U.S. economy, just check out the following quote from one opponent of this bill….

“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.”

-Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistle blower

It would be hard to understate how dangerous this bill potentially could be.  This bill gives the FDA the ability to exercise a ton of discretion.  The FDA could end up exercising that discretion in a very reasonable way, or they could use it to shut down small food producers left and right.

When it comes to S. 510, the question that you need to ask yourself is this….

Do you trust the FDA?

If not, then there are some very real reasons for you to be concerned.

The following are 12 reasons why S. 510 could be absolutely disastrous for small food producers and for the U.S. economy…. 

#1 All food production facilities in the United States will be required to register with the U.S. government.   No food will be allowed to be grown, distributed or sold outside this bureaucratic framework unless the FDA allows it.

#2 Any food that is distributed or sold outside of U.S. government control will be considered illegal smuggling.

#3 The FDA will hire an army of new inspectors to enforce all of the new provisions in the bill.

#4 The FDA will be mandated to conduct much more frequent inspections of food processing facilities.   

#5 The fees and paperwork requirements will be ruinously expensive for small food producers and organic farms.

#6 S. 510 would place all U.S. food and all U.S. farms under the Department of Homeland Security in the event of a major “contamination” or an ”emergency”.  What exactly would constitute a “contamination” or an “emergency” is anyone’s guess.

#7 S. 510 mandates that the FDA facilitate harmonization of American food laws with Codex Alimentarius.

#8 S. 510 imposes an annual registration fee on any facility that holds, processes, or manufactures food.  It also includes draconian fines for paperwork infractions of up to $500,000 for a single offense.  Just one penalty like that would drive a small food producer out of business.

#9 S. 510 would give the FDA tremendous discretion to regulate how crops are grown and how food is produced in the United States.  Basically, small farmers and organic farmers will now be forced to farm exactly how the federal government tells them to.  It is feared that the U.S. government would soon declare that many organic farming methods are “unsafe” and would outlaw them.  In addition, there is the very real possibility that at some point the U.S. government could decide that the only “safe” seed for a particular crop is genetically modified seed and would require all farmers to use it.

#10 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to impose a quarantine on a specific geographic area.  Basically the FDA would have the power to stop the movement of all food in an area where a “contamination” has been identified.  This would be very close to being able to declare martial law.

#11 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to conduct warrantless searches of the business records of small food producers and organic farmers, even if there has been no evidence at all that a law has been broken. 

#12 Opponents of S. 510 believe that it would eliminate the right to clean and store seed.  Therefore, control of the U.S. seed supply would be further centralized in the hands of Monsanto and other multinational corporations.

As mentioned above, this bill gives the FDA a ton of discretion.  It is written very broadly and very vaguely.  It opens the door for all kinds of abuses, but that doesn’t mean that the FDA will behave unreasonably.

So should we trust the FDA?

Is there a viable future for small food producers and organic farmers in America?

Or is the handwriting already on the wall? 

“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”

-Thomas Jefferson

The Economic Collapse