City Council Candidate Kshama Sawant Arrested Defending Homeowner from Eviction

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So much for running as the 'law and order' candidate.

roddy on July 31, 2013 at 2:30 PM

Corporate Law and Order. Good on her.

danelaw on July 31, 2013 at 2:34 PM

Oh my, well, she ran to draw attention to her issues, so well done Kshama, and well done bringing Dorli with you.

on July 31, 2013 at 2:42 PM

On one hand, Kshama Sawant is a PhD organizer for social justice, living wages, and human rights.

On the other hand, Richard Conlin is for empty houses and more homeless people living in unregulated, illegal tent cities, and for fining them if they panhandle.

How do I choose who to vote for?!?!?!?!?!?!

raku on July 31, 2013 at 2:47 PM

I thought maybe she tried to steal a vowel.

Gern Blanston on July 31, 2013 at 2:48 PM

How come in this special instance the free market of pricing is subverted, whereas meanwhile SLOG yesterday was celebrating house and rent price increases?

Seems psychotic to me.

Supreme Ruler Of The Universe on July 31, 2013 at 2:49 PM

There goes candidate Sawant; putting her money where her mouth is. Good on her.

GodlessLiberal on July 31, 2013 at 2:49 PM

I wonder what McGinn will do to "out do" this? Chain himself to a moving coal train?

hmmmmm on July 31, 2013 at 2:52 PM

@9 You know he isn't running against her, right? Can someone link hmmm to the ballot help page?

Matt the Engineer on July 31, 2013 at 2:56 PM

@10. Doesn't matter.

hmmmmm on July 31, 2013 at 3:02 PM

@12 You know Kshama is a socialist, right? From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. He needs a house, the banks are able to let him keep it if they want. Do you really need an expensive new car?

Matt the Engineer on July 31, 2013 at 3:12 PM

@12 From what I understand in the past coverage of Jeremy Griffin's situation, he suffered a temporary employement setback during the recession, but is now back on his feet and has made every good faith effort to make things right with his lender, who refuses to even consider any alternative to foreclosure. That's fucked up, especially coming from a bank that received a huge government bailout.

Yeah, a lot of people ignored common sense and basic math to buy houses they outright could not afford during the housing bubble, but not everyone falls in that bucket. Some people are just getting flat out screwed by the banks.

Hernandez on July 31, 2013 at 3:13 PM

McGinn will now have to rent a Bobcat excavator from Aurora Rents and start breaking ground on a new NBA arena by himself.

camlux on July 31, 2013 at 3:22 PM

What!?! She's willing to walk the walk? The Times won't like that.

Pope Peabrain on July 31, 2013 at 3:27 PM

" From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Yes, that killed 30 million in China, 3 million in Cambodia, 20 million in the USSR. Tell me again why we shouldn't shoot communists before they shoot us?

on July 31, 2013 at 3:36 PM

@18 Because we would be no better then them.

hmmmmm on July 31, 2013 at 3:41 PM

I call on everyone who feels that working people should not be kicked out of their homes to satisfy the banks' drive for profit

I'm all for supporting Jeremy's cause given the specifics of his situation - i.e., he's made a more than reasonable offer to Wells Fargo, but the bank stands to make more money on his house than on his loan, so they rejected it.

Sawant, however, seems to think that people shouldn't be obligated to pay back home loans in general. Fuck that.

seandr on July 31, 2013 at 3:45 PM

@19 then why did slog endorse her

on July 31, 2013 at 3:46 PM

@14 @20 Mr Griffin screwed his lender by defaulting on his debt. The amount they'll get from the foreclosure won't cover the balance, so they're taking a substantial loss on the loan. He can buy the house back if he likes, but will have a hard time getting a mortgage because of his trashed credit.

Would you lend to him knowing that he doesn't pay his debts? I wouldn't.

hrmmmm on July 31, 2013 at 4:04 PM

@20 seems to me that valuing people over bankers' profits is a good thing, right? The banks seem to be okay with creating more and more homelessness while homes sit empty all over the country.

Jeremy's situation isn't unique either. It wasn't like these activist hand picked one sympathetic story there are thousands of these stories.

I'm just not sure how people can defend the massive profits these banks make on the backs of ordinary people.

ANOPRAX on July 31, 2013 at 4:08 PM

I'm sympathetic with people who have been screwed by the banks simply because I've been screwed by the banks but not badly enough to require assistance. Banks have become a force of evil which see their clients as marks to be fleeced. I now approach every interaction with my bank with the same level of mistrust I levy at car dealers and I am happier for it.

fletc3her on July 31, 2013 at 4:19 PM

@22- If the bank lost more than they can get by selling the house, then they deserve it for making a stupid loan. In fact, they'd be better served by keeping a owner in the home and revising the loan.

But they're not going to lose money on this deal, that's why they're evicting him. The bank has almost all the power in this situation, and that is bad for America.

dwightmoodyforgetsthings on July 31, 2013 at 4:19 PM

Goldy, you are a whore for whoever the Stranger endorses and whoever feeds you a story.

on July 31, 2013 at 4:24 PM

@25 you submit that every loan that's underwater is a stupid loan? I guess you'd be pleased if 50% downpayments were required. That would do wonders for home ownership in this country.

hrmmmm on July 31, 2013 at 4:40 PM

@13 It looks like he doesn't need a house to himself nor can he afford it. I guarantee I need my work car more than he needs a whole house that he can't afford anyway. Idiot Sawant's platform of "gimme gimme gimme free shit" is an interesting sideshow though. She likely has the SCCC and Occupy Bowel Movement vote locked up.

robot ghost on July 31, 2013 at 5:06 PM

What always seems to be left out of this story is that the guy never owned the house or was on the mortgage. His ex owned the place and had the mortgage, although he helped pay it and put a lot of money and sweat into the place. The bank wants nothing to do with him because they have no contract with him and they have no interest in giving him a loan or selling the place to him below market.

decidedlyodd on July 31, 2013 at 7:03 PM

@30 No shit? What a schmuck.

Rotten666 on July 31, 2013 at 7:11 PM

Listen to all these dick commenters!

"Spare the rod, spoil the child!"

Corporations are not people, fuckers. And corporations sure as fuck are not your daddy. Have a little self respect.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn on July 31, 2013 at 7:38 PM

"His ex owned the place and had the mortgage"

Wait, this was his wife's house, his name wasn't even on the deed or mortgage?

So much for liberals and "facts"

get da fuck outta here!!!!!!

on July 31, 2013 at 8:07 PM

"corporations sure as fuck are not your daddy"

Really? We earned enough points on our cards from our banks last year for four tickets to Hawaii. Daddy hasn't done that since he took us to Corfu when I was 20.

Same deal this year and I pay no bank fees and haven't paid a penny in credit card interest in 25 years. My bank just refi'd me at 3.15% earlier this year (30 yr fixed, no closing costs). You all must be doing life wrong or something.

on July 31, 2013 at 8:36 PM

The lack of empathy in this thread is astonishing. We are an awful, awful species.

Goldy on July 31, 2013 at 9:04 PM

@35 So Goldensteinemberg, he must be sleeping at your place tonight then, since you're so fucking em.....pathetic.

on July 31, 2013 at 9:48 PM

Your fake empathy aside Goldensteinemberg, if the house and mortgage was in his wife's name, what was the bank supposed to do, just give it to him?

on July 31, 2013 at 9:52 PM

#35

Empathy for a guy with an expensive house? Really? A bunch of people sleeping in rented rooms and tiny apodments, riding bikes and buses, who have no hope of property ownerhsip in Seattle, are supposed to rise up to support someone living the life of a king relative to them? That makes sense to you?

Supreme Ruler Of The Universe on July 31, 2013 at 10:11 PM

Wait, is Goldy saying the bank should create a new loan for this obviously high risk person? Maybe a no-doc? He'll need to inflate his earnings and the bank will have to ignore his shitty credit record.

Isn't that what got us in trouble the first time around?

on August 1, 2013 at 7:52 AM

@18 It was authoritarian regimes that caused those deaths, not communism. Economic systems and political systems are completely separate - you can have a market economy and an authoritarian government (hmmm, Nazi Germany comes to mind), or a democratic government and a socialistic economy. If the countries you mentioned had been democratic socialistic systems things would have come out much different.

I prefer a market economy myself, but I give Ms. Sawant props for acting on her principles.

Matt the Engineer on August 1, 2013 at 8:11 AM

@35 The ass-kissing of the banks that shredded our national economy through their fuckups, got bailed out by the government, and still insist on fucking over the little guy is astonishing. Apparently the indoctrination has worked: Big Banks = always virtuous and always right. Distressed homeowners: always stupid, always wrong. War is peace, freedom is slavery, yadda yadda yadda.

@38 It's South Park, not Broadmoor. These aren't million dollar homes.

Hernandez on August 1, 2013 at 11:14 AM

@41 His ex-wife paid $250K for a shit hole in South Park and then took off, and he thinks the banks needs to talk to him even though his name isn't on the mortgage?

Dumb ass.

on August 1, 2013 at 1:21 PM

I lived with Jeremy for over a year.. some of your comments are so incredibly ignorant of the facts. Many of you make judgements based on purely false assumptions. Thank god for Slog, otherwise many of you would have NO life at all. As it is you seem to massage your egos enough to survive.... I pity you, collectively....

pupuguru on August 3, 2013 at 2:48 PM

Ah... the privileged have spoken. I've paid all my bills on time so I can't understand why anyone else would ever have a problem doing so.

The foreclosures going on in this country are more often than not, are not an unwillingness to pay up or even inability. They are being perpetrated by robber institution tricking and debtors out of their property in one of history's biggest asset grabs in peace time ever.

None of you seriously remember that BA, among others, continue to defraud people and purger themselves in court precedings when entering into foreclosure even after they have been caught and fined by the government for using bad faith and lies as a matter of policy. This is how they make their money now days.

Your faith in a system that is designed to mug you on a grand scale at the very first opportunity is pathetic. A bunch of diseased sociopaths in Wall Street cubicals are laughing at you.

Agrippa on August 3, 2013 at 3:47 PM

City Council Candidate Kshama Sawant Arrested Defending Homeowner from Eviction

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