Foreclosure1: Channel 17: 11-09: FromRagsToMiddleClass

You've got to get mad. You've got to say, I'm a human being, my life has value. I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I know nothing. Nothing. I know nothing. Nothing.

Hi, welcome to my show again. I think this is my 6th show, and I'm going to revisit a topic today because I've been busy all week helping a friend not lose her home in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a beautiful home with majestic redwood trees all over the property, just absolutely beautiful. And it's, it's a shame because she would lose it actually today. So I haven't had a chance to get a new guest on, but I do expect a guest next week. And again, if you know of people who would like to come on and talk about middle-class issues, that's great. Let me know at my email, fromragstomiddleclass@hotmail.com. So before I begin, I'd like again to encourage everybody to donate towards Channel 17. The fact that someone like myself can get on TV and talk about issues that are important for our day is really a resource for our democracy. So remember from our first show, I want to talk about foreclosures and banks, and this is live call-in, so if anyone has anything they would want to say, questions, comments, please call in at I think 416-2406, and even if we're running a video or whatever, we'll stop it so that we can take your call. So, um, So remember from my first show, I had a first show, of course, and I played the oath from Judge Sotomayor, and I want— I asked the question, what does due equal rights to the poor and to the rich mean? And more importantly, why did our founding fathers think it was important to you have that oath in a judge's oath, part of a judge's oath. So I wanna run that video of Judge Sotomayor, if I can say your name, taking the oath. So let's watch that now and then come back. So let's watch the video now and come back.

On September 8th, in a special session of the court. We're administering the oath this morning simply so that she can begin work as an Associate Justice without delay. And now I'd like to invite Mrs. Sotomayor, the Judge's mother, and her brother, Dr. Sotomayor, to come forward. Judge Sotomayor, are you prepared to take the oath?

I am.

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Sonia Sotomayor, do solemnly swear—

I, Sonia Sotomayor, do solemnly swear—

that I will administer justice without respect to persons—

that I will administer justice without respect to persons—

and do equal right to the poor and to the rich—

and do equal right to the poor and to the rich— and that I will faithfully and impartially and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform—discharge and perform—all of the duties incumbent upon me—as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States—as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States—under the Constitution and laws of the United States—under the Constitution and laws of the United States; So help me God.

So help me God. Congratulations and welcome to the court.

So, do equal, um, right. You'll have to excuse me, I'm pretty, I'm kind of tired today, so if I don't say things correctly, um, I apologize. So, do equal right to the poor to the rich. Wow, what a statement. I unfortunately claim that due process to the rich and to the poor, to corporations and the poor, does not exist and is pretty much absent in our court system. And from my first show, I talked about the reason I decided to do a show is I went through a 2-and-a-half-year lawsuit on a property up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and I was just shocked. I was in law school at the same time, finishing up my third and fourth years, and I was just really surprised by what I consider to be judicial abuse. So I want to go over that court case really briefly today, and then I want to talk about the federal court system and foreclosure California laws that are not being abided by by the banks. And a court system that just doesn't care. So if you could bring up slide 2. Slide 2. So while my technical crew is bringing up the slides, let me first review that lawsuit again. So if someone could bring up slide 4 and bring it forward. So as I discussed this property in the past, I bought a property in the Santa Cruz Mountains, asked about getting it surveyed before I purchased the property, and the realtor said, even though he alleges something different now, told me not to. And I was not told about any easements but one. Santa Cruz Title only presented me with one separate disclosure, and nobody mentioned any roads without deeds or road associations or anything else. Slide 4, please. Slide 5. So, um, so I bought this property and two of the roads didn't have deeds, and there was a huge road going through my property, and it was called McKee Road. And most people would make the same mistake as I, that I thought on the property map, a map I got from the Santa Cruz Building Department correlated with the roads that already existed because the actual easements aren't developed. And in fact, one of my neighbors, Tim Bowden, stated within a deposition where he had a couple lawsuits with his neighbor over their encroachment of land that they made the same mistake as I did. So And the Bowdens claim a half an acre of land. So they also claimed— next slide, please— that there wasn't a significant nuisance on the property. Next slide, please. And that the sellers had an actual road association on one of the roads that did not have a deed. In fact, there's 5 estates are landlocked without crossing this property on a daily basis, and I had no way of knowing this. And it was not disclosed to me. So I've talked about different things. Slide 10, please. Specifically about why I can— I looked at this case and thought there needs to be court reform. Specifically in 2007, a Santa Cruz judge, Judge Burdock— slide 10, please— denied me all discovery and forced me to attend a settlement agreement with no discovery. However, that settlement fell apart after it was discovered that my neighbors Bowden had a 1991 survey of another road they were using without a deed. So also in that case, Miss— in that case, Miss Sexton, the neighbor, had paid to have a survey in 1991. However, that was not shared with me. Because discovery was stopped. Also another experience, even though I showed that