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Rep. Marcy Kaptur cites an example of how bailing out the banks has done little to help struggling home owners in Ohio. Bill Moyers also asks Kaptur about her speech on the House floor where she urged foreclosed homeowners to be squatters in their own homes.

This was a really fantastic segment from Bill Moyers Journal and I encourge everyone to watch the entire interview with Kaptur and Simon Johnson at Moyers' site.

MARCY KAPTUR: Let me give you a reality from ground zero in Toledo, Ohio. Our foreclosures have gone up 94 percent. A few months ago, I met with our realtors. And I said, 'What should I know?' They said, 'Well, first of all, you should know the worst companies that are doing this to us.'

I said, 'Well, give me the top one.' They said, 'J.P. Morgan Chase.' I went back to Washington that night. And one of my colleagues said, 'You want to come to dinner?' I said, 'Well, what is it?' He said, 'Well, it's a meeting with Jamie Dimon, the head of J.P. Morgan Chase.' I said, 'Wow, yes. I really do.' So, I go to this meeting in a fancy hotel, fancy dinner, and everyone is complimenting him. I mean, it was just like a love fest.

They finally got to me, and my point to ask a question. I said, 'Well, I don't want to speak out of turn here, Mr. Dimon.' I said, 'But your company is the largest forecloser in my district. And our Realtors just said to me this morning that your people don't return phone calls.' I said, 'We can't do work outs.' And he looked at me, he said, 'Do you know that I talk to your Governor all the time?' He said, 'Our company employs 10,000 people in Ohio.'

And I'm thinking, 'What is that? A threat?' And he said, 'I speak to the Mayor of Columbus.' I said, 'Why don't you come further north?' I said, 'Toledo, Cleveland, where the foreclosures are just skyrocketing.' He said, 'Well, we'll have someone call you.' And he gave me a card. And they never did. For two weeks, we tried to reach them. And finally, I was on a national news show. And I told this story. They called within ten minutes. And they said, 'Oh, we'll work with you. We'll try to do some workouts in your area.'

We planned the first one after working with them for weeks and weeks and weeks. Their people never showed up. And it was a Friday. Our people had taken off work. They'd driven from all these locations to come. We kept calling J.P. Morgan Chase saying, 'Where's your person? Where's your person?' And they finally sent somebody down from Detroit by 3:00 in the afternoon. But out people had been waiting all morning and a lot of people that's how they treat our people.

BILL MOYERS: You did a remarkable thing on the floor of the House recently. And I want to show my audience a clip of a speech in which you urge people to break the law.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

MARCY KAPTUR: So why should any American citizen be kicked out of their homes in this cold weather? In Ohio it is going to be 10 or 20 below zero. Don't leave your home. Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don't have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can't find the paper up there on Wall Street. So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave. In Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois and all these other places our people are being treated like chattel, and this Congress is stymied.

(END VIDEO)

BILL MOYERS: Wow. You are urging them to resist the law when the Sheriff shows up to throw them out of their home.

MARCY KAPTUR: I'm saying that they deserve justice, too. And that the scales of justice in front of the Supreme Court are supposed to be balanced, and they're not. And that possession is 90 percent of the law. And that you have legal rights, as a home owner. You have a right to legal representation. You have a right before the judge to have the mortgage note produced by whomever in the system has it. Judge Boyko of Cleveland threw out six cases, because when the foreclosures came up, the financial institutions couldn't produce the note. Our people deserve their day in court.

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From Bill Moyers Journal:

There is little question that the mortgage crisis remains dire. U.S. foreclosure rates for March were at record levels — the number of households that received a foreclosure filing was more than 12 percent higher than the next highest month on record. One in every 159 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the quarter. According to many analysts, foreclosure rates are expected to nearly double this year.

Just as his first 100 days passes, President Obama unveiled plans to extend mortgage relief to Americans' second mortgages. At the same time the Senate rejected a measure supported by the President which would have allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages, and thus potentially save thousands of people from foreclosure and eviction. The measure was strongly opposed by the financial services industry.

Community organizer Steve Meacham of City Life/Vida Urbana is fighting on the frontlines of the foreclosure crisis. Meacham and his colleagues at City Life employ a community organizing strategy they call the The "shield" is a strategy of legal defense: teaching City Life members about their rights under the law, plus providing access to volunteer legal assistance. The "sword" is a public relations strategy, where City Life organizes protests in front of banks, and eviction blockades in front of people's homes. For these protests, City Life tries to attract as much media attention as possible, trying to draw public scrutiny towards what they argue are unfair banking and eviction practices in their community. "We find that the two [strategies] work extremely well in combination," says Meacham. He says that a strong legal defense often isn't enough to avoid eviction. "A legal defense is not enough because in Massachusetts the banks can evict you for no reason. And so for many people the strongest legal defense will simply slow the bank down. Slowing the bank down, however, can be very, very important because it gives us a chance to use the public protest to good benefit. If the bank is facing the prospect of a long, drawn-out legal procedure, even one that they might ultimately win.. and at the same time they're going through that, they're being regularly protested by City Life.. that is a public relations battle the bank loses every time. So faced with that combination of long, drawn-out legal defense and public protest, the banks are very often choosing to negotiate and settle with us." According to City Life, they've been able to prevent evictions for 95% of the people who've come to their door by employing the "sword and shield" strategy.

Transcript below the fold.

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Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? Good thing for these Republican voters that the bleeding heart liberals are in charge now, huh.

Today's losers losing their homes are Republican districts. At least according to the Center for Responsible Lending, who has just issued a new report that shows nine of the top ten districts with the most foreclosures are Republican and most likely to receive the bulk of any homeowner bailout, and thus, at least according to one On Air editor of a major cable network, fit the definition of "losers".

Things look a little better further down the list. However, only six of the 22 districts with more than 10,000 foreclosures projected are represented by Democrats, and only two of those have served a full term. So 20 of the 22 have been in Republican hands until very recently.

In other words, "Since the Rick Santelli's of the world have been complaining about how the people who would be helped by this bill are so 'irresponsible' and are really just a bunch of 'losers.' .... Rick Santelli's 'losers' may turn out to be the people who are supposedly his ideological fellow travelers."

Via Brave New Films:

Joan Adams is living out of a Motel 6 in the suburbs of Orange County, California. She lost her home to foreclosure. There's no one out there to help, Joan says: "Billions of dollars to all the banks for bailouts for something they caused, and yet we're the ones that are homeless."

On Tuesday, Congress will vote on whether or not to level the playing field between the banks and struggling homeowners. Representative John Conyers has introduced legislation in the House that authorizes judges in bankruptcy proceedings to require banks to reevaluate mortgages of homeowners in distress.

Sign the petition to let Congress know that you support Conyers bill, H.R. 1106. Then, call your Congressional Representative and ask him or her to vote for it.

Sign petition here.
Find your Congressional Representative here.

As the American economy plunges deeper into crisis, the conservative chattering classes are hoping for a replay of their 2001 blame game. Having successfully perpetuated the myth that President Bush "inherited a recession" from Bill Clinton, right-wing mouthpieces from Rush Limbaugh to Fred Barnes began blaming Barack Obama for the Bush recession literally within hours of his election. But as a quick glance at the data shows, across virtually economic indicator from GDP, unemployment and consumer confidence to home prices, foreclosures and manufacturing output, ownership for this mushrooming economic calamity squarely belongs to George W. Bush.

Gross Domestic Product. U.S. GDP shrank by 0.3% in the third quarter (July through September), a decline which followed the downward revision of the Q2 number from 3.3% to 2.8%. But while "recession" is traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction (which is almost certain to occur), the quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia concluded that the United States entered a recession in April.

Recession at the State and Local Level. While there is debate as to whether or not the United States has technically slipped into a recession, at the state and local level there is no doubt at all. According to Moody's Economy, by the end of September 30 states were in recession, up from just five in March. 19 more states were deemed "at risk." (Only Sarah Palin's petro-state of Alaska was forecast to experience economic growth.) 276 of 380 metropolitan areas measured by Moody's had also sunk into recession. Combined with the downward spiral of home prices, these regional economic contractions are having a devastating impact on state and local tax revenue - and government services.

Unemployment. In October, the American economy shed 240,000 jobs, catapulting the losses for the year to 1.2 million. At 6.5%, the unemployment rate hit a 14-year high. The percentage of the adult population now working dropped to 61.8%, its lowest level in 15 years. The Philadelphia Fed survey forecast 222,000 more lost jobs per month through the end of the year. With some analysts now predicting unemployment will hit 8% by the middle of 2009, President Bush's reversal on extending jobless benefits could not come a moment too soon.

Jobless Claims. Of course, the corollary to skyrocketing unemployment is an explosion of new jobless claims. The Labor Department today released figures showing new unemployment claims jumped to 542,000 last week, a 16-year high. First-time jobless claims have now remained above the 400,000 for 17 straight weeks.

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