This is a critical time in our nation’s history.  Will we continue the plunge into Orwellian/Kafkaesque tyranny or will it merely be a slow and creeping decline?

Well, Occupied is causing the entire world to stand up and take notice.  The Occupied activists and consumers from all walks of life are stepping into the line of fire….quite literally in some cases, and feeling the prick of the sharp edge of the sword.

Literally hundreds of thousands of men and women died to earn modern day Americans the right to speak out.  And yet, the vast majority of Americans still just sit on their couches, obsessing over nonsense…..

WASHINGTON — As copycat Occupy Wall Street encampments around the country confront the inevitable legal tangles that come with a nationwide sit-in style protest, a growing army of First Amendment-loving lawyers is shepherding the demonstrators through the legal system at no charge.

Growing numbers of protesters are being arrested for trespassing, failure to disperse and disobeying a lawful order, as city after city confronts the question of whether individual rights to free speech and assembly include the right to camp out on public property.

The resulting legal skirmishes have spurred the largest mobilization of pro bono protest attorneys since the anti-war movement of the 1960s and ’70s.

I’ve been spending a whole lot of time going through the appellate rules…..the detailed review is helping to soothe the wounds I feel from losing (just a few) Motions to Dismiss.

We all need to be acutely aware of the standards on Certiori Review which will bring every single thing back up again. And I mean everything.

Now here’s the deal. We’re either going to throw all the rules of procedure, substantive law and case law out the window and develop an entirely new body of law and exceptions for foreclosure cases or we’re going to stick with the established body of law that has guided and directed civil disputes from the inception of our legal system.

For the last several years, we’ve all become frustrated by a system bogged down and by conflicting and contradictory rulings. (Although truth be told, I’m largely pleased with the vast majority of my decisions….but then my motions and hearing preparation go far and beyond what is typically presented.)

But few of the good foreclosure defense attorneys have lost foreclosure cases at summary judgment or at trial. And here’s the thing to keep in mind.  Every adverse ruling. Every ex-parte Motion to Substitute Party Plaintiff. Every denial of Motion to Dismiss and every denial of rehearing/reconsideration are subject to cert review.

We all need to keep this in mind and document, document, document.  Remember Rehearing/Reconsideration.  File exceptions. A court reporter at every hearing.

Be prepared to take appeals on contingency.  Be prepared to take appeals pro bono.  But whatever you do, take only the correct case. The last thing we need is bad case law out there.

But this should all come as a warning to the parishioners on the other side of the aisle making their case to ignore the law and deny motions…..be careful what you ask for cause it’s coming back years and years down the road.

I suppose some people still subscribe to the naive notions that the world is fair and others buy into the utter delusion that this nation, and our system of government and laws exist to ensure fairness and equal treatment under the law.  Back in the dark recesses of my mind, I remember themes of these delusions that were pounded into me as as schoolboy, forced to stand up and repeat the propaganda every single morning….

“With Liberty and JUSTICE FOR ALL”

My indoctrination was so severe that I devoted my life to the cause, I bought completely into the lies and the delusion.  Four years in undergraduate school, two years of various graduate courses, three years of law school and more than a decade of practice in courts.  And now I sit every single day being forced to realize so much of it is a fraud and a lie.

We cannot touch or feel or see the really big frauds and corruption of our government.  We don’t get to see or hear first hand the backroom deals, the lies the fraud and corruption of George W. Bush, Obama, Rick Scott, Geithner, Bernake, Paulson.  But every single day, consumer attorneys and citizens are forced to labor within a legal system that is fundamentally unfair and which is stacked so overtly against the fundamental goals of truth, justice and equal treatment before the law.

It’s hard to quantify the unfairness because it is so pernicious, so pervasive, so consuming.  But it has seeped in and it now consumes our entire legal process….the process, the procedure, the rules and the execution.  The manifestation of this infection are everywhere, but shown so dramatically and clearly in the Florida Supreme Court’s Verified Complaint Rule. Effective February 2010, it could have been enforced, but it has largely been ignored.  Just yesterday in fact, just after this decision was released, I received another case and motion from a foreclosure mill making the obscene and specious argument that the rule did not apply to them….a very disgusting manifestation of all that is wrong with our legal system and in fact our entire country.

And then there is this Phillips v. Centennial decision from Florida’s 3rd DCA.  It details in black and white and with sickening detail how a supposedly fair and honest court system goes so horribly wrong, basic notions of fairness just trashed. Protections allegedly offered by the Constitution just spat upon.  And what’s most disturbing about this opinion is that even though the facts are made quite clear and even though the violations of basic due process are so dramatic, the outcome of the trial court is still upheld.  The appellate court makes mind-blowing findings of fact and details a shocking breakdown of the very basic elements of our legal system, but the decision still stands….a fact that makes the appellate analysis even more disturbing.  Please read the decision carefully, it is an indictment of an entire system gone horribly wrong:

To affirm what happened here requires that we turn a blind eye
to the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, the Florida Bar Rules of Professional
Conduct, and the Code of Judicial Conduct, to say nothing of the Constitutions of
the United States and the State of Florida.

Phillips v. Centennial

No politician is immune from embellishing the facts to make himself look better, but Florida’s governor is in another category altogether. If he doesn’t like the facts as they are, he simply makes up new ones without acknowledging the contradiction. And he does it without a trace of shame.

THE LEDGER

There are a few good pieces of legislation out there that might provide some framework for this state to begin working out the serious problems that exist…..it damn sure ain’t the absurd (un)Fair Foreclosure Bill…..

HB145 Residential Foreclosure Proceedings

House Bill 65 Foreclosure Debt Relief

The exposure to credit default swaps was one of the primary reasons behind the 2008 collapse.  You would think that we would have learned the lesson, but when our government is controlled by a cabal of banksters (Geithner, Paulson, Bernake), you can certainly see why things have not changed…..and just what are the consequences going to be when the music stops playing again?

The notional value of derivatives held by U.S. commercial banks increased $12.8 trillion, or 5.5%, from the fourth quarter of 2010 to $244 trillion. The notional value of derivatives is 12.7% higher than a year ago.

Read this report…it’s mind-blowing really…..

OCC