When the federal and state governmental institutions and agencies fail us, local officials should act to protect local citizens as best they can.
BushCo and its gang of thieves and incompetents have ruined our country's image, reputation, effective governance, and our system of impartial justice. As a result no one can rely upon our courts, our federal food safety agencies, our occupational safety agencies, or even our toy safety agencies.
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In a nation facing 10,000 foreclosures a month, our DOJ is using limited resources to appeal the long-delayed release of innocent Chinese prisoners at Gitmo, fighting porn, or investigating allegations of fraudulent voter registration cards.
To stave off the devastating impacts our partisan and incompetent government and our pirated financial system will have on ordinary citizens, however, local officials are starting to act.
http://www.southtownstar.com/...
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says he's ordered his deputies to stop taking part in evictions of properties that have been foreclosed upon.
Dart says the change goes into effect Thursday. He says the decision comes because many of those being evicted are people who've been faithfully paying rent and didn't even know about the foreclosures.
Dart may be the first local sheriff in a huge metro area to decide to help his constituents instead of blindly following the fat cats' court orders. Expecting a quadrupled foreclosure rate in Cook County, Sheriff Dart acted because so many renters who had paid thir rent were being evicted despite having lived up to their obligations.
http://www.cookcountysheriff.org/...
The move comes as a result of the growing number of evictions that involve renters – most of whom are dutifully paying their rent every month, only to later learn their landlord has fallen behind on mortgage payments and the building has gone into foreclosure. While mortgage companies are supposed to conduct a basic due diligence investigation before requesting an eviction – identifying all occupants – sheriff’s deputies are regularly finding no work done by the mortgage company in advance, leaving the identifying work to deputies working at taxpayer expense.
[snip]
Specifically, he wants mortgage companies to be forced to provide sufficient information to the Sheriff’s Office in order to conduct an eviction. That will provide greater notification to tenants that their building is in foreclosure and will require mortgage companies and their attorneys to do more leg work in advance of an eviction.
Because the banks aren’t doing that now, more than 1/3 of all trips by sheriff’s eviction teams results in finding nobody home to verify who lives there or finding someone other than the mortgage-holder
"These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people, and don't care who's in the building," Dart said in a statement. "They simply want their money and don't care who gets hurt along the way. On top of it all, they want taxpayers to fund their investigative work for them. We're not going to do their jobs for them anymore. We're just not going to evict innocent tenants."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Of course, there's nothing revolutionary in Sheriff Dart's action, but I'll take it. Every little bit (of legal confusion and delay) helps the little people, i.e., us. But until the bankruptcy and foreclosure courts are given greater discretion to work these bad loans out in more equitable ways, I appreciate Sheriff Dart's action.
If you're so inclined, please thank Sheriff Dart via e-mail to sheriff@cookcountysheriff.org. (h/t Catesby)