foreclosure

"We need to shine a light on the big banks and all their different tentacles," says Sarah Ludwig of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, noting that all too many of the programs put in place to encourage banks to help homeowners fight foreclosure are voluntary, rendering them toothless. Instead, she calls for citizens to be aware of the banks' practices and to think about where we put our money. Sarah joins us to bring us up to date on the ongoing crisis in foreclosures in the U.S.--one million in 2010--and to discuss the different solutions, as well as WikiLeaks' promised disclosure of documents from a major bank. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Congress is passing tax cuts for the rich as well as everyone else this week, while Don't Ask Don't Tell is headed for a stand-alone vote in the Senate. Is gridlock over, or are these just issues that actually have some bipartisan support? Meanwhile, Julian Assange may be out on bail, but the debate over the charges against him still rages, and Megan Carpentier of TPM reminds us that it's possible for the arrest to be politically motivated and the charges still not be false.Megan joins Laura in studio to talk austerity measures, tax cuts, Don't Ask Don't Tell, rape prosecution, and much more.Wall Street is set to award $143 billion--with a B--in bonuses this year, while foreclosures continue unabated (and often undocumented) around the country. Protests are continuing around the country too, though, and Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter notes that when her family couldn't get a regulator to examine her family's foreclosure, "What we went to was a grassroots organization."Desiree joins us, along with Amanda Devecka-Rinear of National People's Action, to fill us in on yesterday's protest on Wall Street, actions around the country, and the process of building a movement to fight Wall Street corruption and help people remain in their homes.Finally, while Julian Assange sparks debate, gets celebrity bailouts, and heads to a country estate for "manor arrest," WikiLeaker Bradley Manning remains in solitary confinement after seven months, without being convicted of a crime. Laura asks us to remember Manning and other whistleblowers as well.

"You can't just have homeowners pay for the mess that the banks have made; not just of our finance system, it's becoming clear that they've made a mess of our private property system in this country," says Marcy Wheeler, who's been blogging the House and Senate hearings on the foreclosure crisis at her FireDogLake blog, and joins us via Skype to discuss the situation.And while hearings on Capitol Hill look into what the banks have done to everyday people, the discussion of Bush administration torture and unlawful detention goes on--Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was convicted of one of the 285 counts he was tried for, in a civilian court. Marcy points out that the trial might have gone differently if much of the evidence in the case hadn't been obtained through torture.We need to take control of the new computer networking tools all around us, argues author and thinker Douglas Rushkoff, or else we'll wind up at the mercy of those who do take control. That's part of the argument Rushkoff makes in his new book, Program or Be Programmed, out now from our friends at OR Books.With some basic computer and programming literacy, Rushkoff notes, we can take control of our lives, create value for ourselves, and perhaps let the big institutions that think they control us, from banks to media moguls, just wither away.Finally, one of those big institutions went "public" today--GM stock is back on the stock markets, the bankruptcy and bailouts apparently a success. But not so fast, say some, and Laura has some thoughts about who's really paying the price.

Sarah Ludwig notes that the foreclosure fraud accusations rocking the nation's biggest banks are just a new round in the abuses that have been going on for years now. "These practices are rancid and they go from the beginning stage all the way to foreclosure," she says, pointing out that in 27 states, lenders don't even have to go to court to file a foreclosure, making fraud even easier. So what can we do? Ludwig, co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, joins us in studio to break down the crisis for us, and to give some solid advice to those facing foreclosure: don't give up without a fight. Distributed by Tubemogul.