Senate To Be Replaced With Room Full Of Monkeys Throwing Feces

Senate To Be Replaced With Room Full Of Monkeys Throwing Feces
September 28th, 2018
https://babylonbee.com/news/senate-to-be-replaced-with-room-full-of-monkeys-throwing-feces/

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In an emergency, overnight referendum, the American people voted on Thursday to replace the United States Senate with a room full of monkeys throwing feces. The measure passed with 57% of the vote. 22% of voters thought the Senate should be replaced by barking seals, while 17% voted that the replacement should be the pit of venomous snakes from Indiana Jones. 3.97% voted that Senate members be replaced by screaming goats. “About 100 people” voted for the current Senators to keep their jobs, with this tiny voting bloc centered in Washington, D.C.

Highland Ape Rescue out of West Virginia will be teaming up with Cornwell Primate farms to supply hundreds of monkeys and apes to the Senate. The animals will be fed a nutritious mixture of foods that produce easily throwable feces. Protective glass will be put up around the Senate for camera crews to safely film, but anyone being interviewed by the new senators will have to sit in the middle of the poo-flinging octagon, coming under a heavy barrage of projectile excrement.

“It will be a huge improvement from how things were before,” said ape trainer, Marlena Henwick. “No more 10-12 hour hearings. With these monkeys, all the fecal projectiles will have been flung in under 30 minutes. One and done.”

The recently replaced senators will be placed on display at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. for families to park attendees to observe and zoologists to study.


Alex Jones © Sean P. Anderson / Flickr
HomeUS News
Alex Jones suspended from Twitter after tweet calling to end censorship
Published time: 15 Aug, 2018 05:50
Edited time: 15 Aug, 2018 12:25
https://on.rt.com/9cee
Alex Jones suspended from Twitter after tweet calling to end censorship
InfoWars host Alex Jones

Controversial right-wing commentator Alex Jones has been banned from tweeting after he posted a link to a video of himself calling on President Trump to “take action” against tech companies censoring his content.

Infowars Editor Paul Joseph Watson tweeted a screenshot of the notification sent by Twitter staff to Jones. According to Twitter, a tweet by Jones one day earlier was considered to be “targeted harassment,” and, as a result, the Infowars host would have his access to the social-media platform restricted for one week. Watson described the situation as “truly, monumentally, beyond stupid.”

Alex Jones has been suspended by Twitter for 7 days for a video talking about social media censorship. Truly, monumentally, beyond stupid. 😄

On the same day that the Infowars website was brought down by a cyber attack.

Will this madness ever end? pic.twitter.com/hXDzH2b7rT
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 14, 2018

In the video, Jones ranted about the censorship of conservative voices by Silicon Valley tech companies, directing much of his scorn at Apple CEO Tim Cook. He called his own ban from various tech platforms a “total anti-American attack,” and called on President Trump to “do something about it.” Along the way, he bashed Democrats, criticized the mainstream media, and accused Cook of working with the Chinese government to undermine America.

Jones’ Twitter page will remain visible for the duration of the ban, but he will not be able to tweet, retweet, follow, or like.

READ MORE: Who’ll host Alex Jones? Porn sites enter the infowars

Last week, Infowars found itself banned from the platforms of almost every major Silicon Valley company – including Facebook, YouTube, Apple, and Spotify – for violating their community standards and spreading ‘hate speech.’

Until Tuesday, Twitter was one of Jones’ last safe havens online, and CEO Jack Dorsey said that Jones would not be banned until he broke the site’s rules.

Jones’ excommunication was cheered by many in the US, including Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), who called Infowars “the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies.” He demanded even more censorship in the name of ‘saving democracy.’

Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it.
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) August 6, 2018

Jones’ supporters blasted the companies for censoring the rabble-rousing host, and former UKIP leader Nigel Farage called him a “victim of collusion by the big-tech giants.”

Whether you like @RealAlexJones and Infowars or not, he is undeniably the victim today of collusion by the big tech giants. What price free speech? https://t.co/DWroGYaWvk
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 6, 2018

While effectively banned from much of the internet, Jones still posted content to the Infowars website, and via the Infowars app, which has surged in popularity amid the furore. However, on Tuesday, the Infowars website went offline in what staff called a cyberattack. Upon landing on the site, visitors would simply find an error message, which was later replaced with a low-fi splash page directing them to several other affiliated sites.

They can refer to Alex Jones anyway they want to, Freedom of Speech, but censorship is censorship, are we gonna take it? I say Hell No! Facebook and Twitter can go bobbing for whatever they want, but censorship is censorship, and if we allow them to censor us, they will effectively destroy our First Amendment Rights, and move on the Second Amendment Rights and so forth.

China taking over and censoring the internet? And nobody did shit when Obama let the internet slip away from American control. Pussies!

Trump: Brash, Crude, Vulgar at times; but he FIGHTS for America! Marshall Kamena, Mayor, Livermore, CA


Opinions from the Web
Trump: Brash, Crude, Vulgar at times; but he FIGHTS for America!

Category: Opinions from the Web 
Tuesday, 10 July 2018 21:23 

http://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/opinion-editorial/opinions-from-the-web/2831-trump-brash-crude-vulgar-at-times-but-he-fights-for-america

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.”

Here’s my answer:

We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.

We tried statesmanship. Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatred because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.

I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.

I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.

Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America ’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors.

Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming. Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today.

Lincoln rightly recognized that, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.

Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!”

That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics.

That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis.

It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do.

First, instead of going after “the fake media” — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.

Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”

Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery.

The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church.

Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.

So, to my friends on the Left — and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do.

These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president – I get it – he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!

Marshall Kamena

Mayor, Livermore, CA

Council on Foreign Relations Tells Gov’t They “Have To” Use Propaganda on American


Council on Foreign Relations Tells Gov’t They “Have To” Use Propaganda on American
Published: June 4, 2018
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/66249/council-on-foreign-relations-tells-govt-they-have-to-use-propaganda-on.html
Source: Jay Syrmopoulos

The Council on Foreign Relations delivered an Orwellian presentation recently that unsurprisingly went unnoticed in the mainstream media, in which CFR’s Richard Stengel forwarded the notion that governments “have to” direct “propaganda” at their own domestic populations.

The Council is recognized as one of the United States’ oldest and most establishment think tanks of the American power-elite, and it often sets the agenda on important policy questions—or, as former senior editor at the Washington Post, Richard Harwood, in a column entitled “Ruling Class Journalists,” approvingly described the Council as, “the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States.”

Harwood admiringly wrote: “The membership of these journalists in the Council, however they may think of themselves, is an acknowledgment of their active and important role in public affairs and of their ascension into the American ruling class. They do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy for the United States; they help make it…. They are part of that establishment whether they like it or not, sharing most of its values and worldviews.”

CFR is a key cog in the hub of Washington think-tanks promoting endless war. As former Army Major Todd Pierce described, think-tanks act as “primary provocateurs” using “‘psychological suggestiveness’ to create a false narrative of danger from some foreign entity with the objective being to create paranoia within the U.S. population that it is under imminent threat of attack or takeover.”

In late 2018, WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange publicized the extensive sway the Council on Foreign relations carried over U.S. mass media by Tweeting a graphic created by Swiss Propaganda Research (SPR), a research and information project on geopolitical propaganda in Swiss media, which illustrated the heavy influence CFR exercises over the media narrative delivered to the American public, i.e. domestic propaganda.

Council on Foreign Relations links to major media holdings

Full graphic here: https://t.co/lyMPz4ME2Z pic.twitter.com/mmTNdQa1F9

— #FreeAssange! (tweets by campaign)⌛ (@JulianAssange) January 28, 2018

The illustration of the Council’s deeply entrenched media presence is based on official membership rosters compiled by SPR, revealing the interconnectedness of CFR’s extensive mass media influence network and its main international affiliate groups—the Bilderberg Group (covering mainly the U.S. and Europe) and the Trilateral Commission (covering North America, Europe and East Asia).

According to the report from Swiss Propaganda Research:

Largely unbeknownst to the general public, many media executives and top journalists of almost all major US news outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Established in 1921 as a private, bipartisan organization to “awaken America to its worldwide responsibilities”, the CFR and its close to 5000 elite members have for decades shaped U.S. foreign policy and public discourse about it. As one Council member famously explained, the goal has indeed been to establish a global Empire, albeit a “benevolent” one.

Stengel, a former editor of TIME magazine, told the audience at a CFR event in late April called Political Disruptions: Combating Disinformation and Fake News that governments “have to” direct “propaganda” toward their own populations.

At a Council on Foreign Relations forum about "fake news," former Editor at Time Magazine Richard Stengel directly states that he supports the use of propaganda on American citizens – then shuts the session down when challenged about how propaganda is used against the third world pic.twitter.com/ClAT5POv7G

— William Craddick (@williamcraddick) May 11, 2018

In the full video of the CFR event shown below, Stengel openly argues in favor of propaganda against U.S. citizens starting at the 1:15:26 mark in the footage.

Full video of the forum – efforts to control the flow of information and dictate to the public how to interpret facts should be taken seriouslyhttps://t.co/dKVG6dHBSN

— William Craddick (@williamcraddick) May 11, 2018

Stengel, who is a former high-level U.S. government official, head of the office for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department from 2013 to 2016, and a regular pundit on MSNBC, explained:

Basically, every country creates their own narrative story and, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the ‘chief propagandist’ job. We haven’t talked about propaganda… I’m not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population, and I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.

Zero Hedge reported that Stengel’s personal bio site notes that he “helped create and oversee” the Global Engagement Center at the State Department whose official mission is to “counter propaganda and disinformation from international terrorist organizations and foreign countries” (with a “special focus on Russia”).

Perhaps most ominous of all is the fact that a man who publicly says that he is “not against propaganda” on the U.S. government’s “own population“ was recently named a “distinguished fellow” as part of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).

Yes, the same Atlantic Council that espouses a strongly anti-Russian agenda that is funded by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who also happened to donate at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. Pinchuk just so happens to be the CTO and co-founder of CrowdStrike—the company used by the DNC to inspect their servers allegedly hacked by Russia, after refusing the FBI access to the same servers.

Obviously, it seems to be very peculiar behavior by the DNC to refuse the FBI access to their servers, and instead rely on a private company—unless they had an ulterior motive. Consequently, the assessment by CrowdStrike was used as a basis for what eventually resulted in the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Ironically, just two weeks ago the DFRLab announced that its team has partnered with Facebook to “monitor disinformation“ and protect elections. The DFRLab defined the new initiative as follows:

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab today announced a partnership with Facebook to independently monitor disinformation and other vulnerabilities in elections around the world. The effort is part of an initiative to help provide credible research about the role of social media in elections, as well as democracy more generally.

The Digital Forensic Research Lab is launching a partnership with Facebook to support the world’s largest community in its efforts to strengthen democracy…

As if on cue, and with an utterly Orwellian feel, Facebook announced on June 2, 2018, that the user-generated “trending news” section will be replaced by a “breaking news” section—which will be comprised of 80 publications selected by Facebook—that will feed approved content to users.

Facebook will essentially have complete control of the topics and narratives that are fed to their users in a clear act of social engineering, which will give the social media giant—and their political/ideological allies—the ability to directly manipulate people’s perceptions of any event.

During the 2016 election, leaked internal documents from Facebook revealed that the editors in charge of the company’s “Trending News” section repeatedly discriminated against conservative articles, while promoting progressive content, which resulted in the threat of an investigation from the Senate commerce committee.

The new changes were explained in a Friday announcement:

Breaking News Label: A test we’re running with 80 publishers across North America, South America, Europe, India and Australia lets publishers put a “breaking news” indicator on their posts in News Feed. We’re also testing breaking news notifications.
Today In: We’re testing a dedicated section on Facebook called Today In that connects people to the latest breaking and important news from local publishers in their city, as well as updates from local officials and organizations.
News Video in Watch: We will soon have a dedicated section on Facebook Watch in the US where people can view live coverage, daily news briefings and weekly deep dives that are exclusive to Watch.

So, when CFR is publicly advocating for the societal benefits of domestic propaganda, and Facebook is jettisoning an already meager user-generated “Trending News” section and aligning itself with an anti-Russian, Clinton-connected thinktank, Americans should be keenly aware that they are being actively propagandized, and they should work to intentionally diversify their news sources as an omnipotent mass propaganda regime is being covertly implemented.

Is This Man a Demon, or Just Possessed By One?

 

Yall have to be honest, this man looks just like a demon to me. And what did he say about Americans? Something like the people in Virginia or West Virginia are still nothing more than a bunch of hillbillies? He said something to that effect and I tried to find it on the internet, but you know how the internet is nowadays, can’t find shit on here anymore.

So read below
From: Reclaim Our Republic:
https://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress.com/2018/07/16/video-trump-disgrace-to-our-country-fbi-strzok-fbi-bias-cannot-allow-strzokians-back-into-power-judge-jeanne/

VIDEO Trump: Disgrace to Our Country, FBI – Strzok, FBI, Bias – Cannot Allow Strzokians Back into Power – Judge Jeanne
Posted on July 16, 2018 by ror1774

Strzok, the FBI, and Bias
July 14, 2018 By Henry Scanlon
Peter Strzok asks us to give him a pass based on the contention that everyone has political beliefs, everyone has biases, and he’s no different, except, okay, as an FBI agent his obligation is to be scrupulous, even fanatical, about not acting on those biases, which he did not, he claims. Therefore, he met every obligation to his sworn duty. However implausible that might be, considering the brutal intensity of his anti-Trump feelings as well as the almost obsessive frequency with which he gave vent to them (on FBI computers, no less), let’s take him at his word: Yes, he had biases, but, no, he didn’t act on them, at least not in a way detectable by the Inspector General, apparently, and, hence, where’s the problem?

But there’s another element to this bias-business. It’s not just about having them and acting on them, yes or no — it’s also about forming them, and that’s being lost in the shuffle, it seems.

Take the issue of Trump’s disrespecting of gold-star father, Khizr Khan, an episode which Strzok pointedly hauled out at the hearing. Nothing Strzok said in his testimony was offered without extreme consideration and, no doubt, lawyerly advice, so why bring up Khan, in particular? Clearly, it’s because the rendition of that event as framed by the anti-Trump left and swallowed whole by Strzok paints a picture so egregious, so utterly without justification, and, they believe, so revelatory of Trump’s deficient, repellant character that no one could possible argue otherwise or fail to see it in the same way. Since we all agree on its awfulness, Strzok is convinced, surely we can empathize with his inability to temper his late night missive, exhausted as he was from fighting the good fight for the American people all day, weighed down with the burden of having to diligently maintain his objectivity in the face of this kind of repulsive behavior by one of the candidates. Surely, in light of that, we can forgive him an intemperate outburst, especially because, again, again, again, he didn’t act on it.

But wait — there isanother side to that story that doesn’t have to do with disrespecting Khan, delegitimizing his heartrending grief, or exploiting his son’s tragic death, but which does, instead, endeavor to point out that the locus of who’s really doing the exploiting should perhaps be up for discussion, which was precisely the point of Trump’s remark. Now, you don’t have to agree or disagree with either side of that, but you can choose to do so — unless you’re an FBI agent likely to be in a position to influence the lives of people touched by it, one way or the other. Doesn’t an FBI agent have a greater duty to work hard to “keep an open mind”? Was it really okay for Strzok to immediately embrace the politicized version of that event, fly off the handle and fulminate with righteous indignation — and then set about investigating one of the parties involved? Is Strzok unaware that all kinds of people say all kinds of things in the political rough-and-tumble and that sorting it out not only takes a lot of work — but is a job best left to the American people at large?

With all the power granted to the FBI, all the trust in their fairness, the spirit of objectivity, not just the letter of it, must surely include a requirement that they make a good faith effort to stand back from the punchbowl, truly so and emotionally so, in order to maintain as clear a head and as clear a heart as possible. Grant the benefit of the doubt, reserve judgment, refuse to be enveloped by the noise and the jostling — and only then wield that enormous power to affect peoples’ lives, either positively or, quite possibly, ruinously. If you don’t have the bias, you don’t have to work so hard not to act on it. Why did Strzrok and the rest seem to feel absolutely no obligation to avoid forming the opinions that they now have to tortuously (and, frankly, ridiculously) claim didn’t influence them?

Think about this insightful tweet from Kimberley Strassel (WSJ):

On the question of Strzok’s bias and whether we should believe he didn’t act on it. The question every American should ask is this: How would you feel if he’d expressed such disgust toward you, and was also investigating you?

Here’s how you would feel: You would feel screwed, in major danger and very much in the presence of an enemy out to get you — even if for no other reason than to validate the opinions they went in with (and which, in the case of Strzok, he spent endless emails posturing for his girlfriend about). You would have grave doubts about your chances of being treated fairly. And guess what? Human nature being what it is, you would be right.

The question of whether Strzok, Page, Comey, McCabe and the rest were able to “put their biases aside” is actually secondary, because no one with any common sense at all, or any experience with the way people actually operate, believes they did, including all the Democrats doing everything they can to disrupt the hearing, throw a blockade around Strzok, and prevent the truth from coming out. The real question is: What is the FBI going to do to make sure that in the future, agents understand their obligation to fairness begins way before the point when they have allowed themselves to become so overburdened with opinions, prejudgements, and biases that they have to figure out how to conduct themselves honorably despite the looming influence of entrenched and emotionally significant baggage.

Real fealty to their oath begins with the application of serious, honorable due-diligence to prevent those things from forming in the first place. It’s not that hard. You just have to remember Momma’s admonition that “There are two sides to every story” and avoid the temptation to indulge in the kind of delicious, holier-than-thou finger pointing, grandstanding and virtue-signaling (looking at you, Peter Strzok) — all those things that can lead to bias — that those of us who don’t have other peoples’ lives in our hands are allowed to engage in, but which FBI agents surely should not. Wouldn’t it be nice if FBI Director Christopher Wray made that point to his troops?

Henry Scanlon is a writer and photographer from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. See more at http://www.henryscanlon.com. Twitter: hscanlon33

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/strzok_the_fbi_and_bias.html

We Cannot Allow Strzokians Back into Power
July 14, 2018 By Lloyd Marcus
Peter Strzok’s arrogance displayed at the Congressional Oversight Committee hearing on TV was infuriating. With their superior noses high in the air, Strzok and the Democrats behaviorally said f*** you to the Republicans, the law, and We the People. It was disgraceful watching Strzok and his Democratic posse insult our intelligence by claiming, despite overwhelming evidence, FBI agent Strzok had no bias against Trump.
Strzok and the Democrats’ insistence that Strzok had no bias against Trump reminded me of a comedy skit with the late Don Adams. In the skit, Adams’ wife came home, catching him in bed with a woman. Adams’ wife ranted expressing her shock and outrage. Adams and his lover calmly got out of bed, got dressed and made the bed. The woman left. Adams behaved like nothing happened and left the bedroom. The skit ends with his wife standing there, questioning her sanity – pondering whether or not she saw what she thinks she saw. Strzok and the Democrats are attempting to pull the same trick on America. They are telling us Strzok expressed no bias against Trump while clear evidence of Strzok’s biasis right before our eyes.

The thing that got my blood boiling was Strzok’s snooty attitude. His facial expressions and body language said, “How dare you question me. I don’t have to answer any of your questions. F*** you Republicans and fly-over-country Trump-supportive Americans.” Strzok and his fellow FBI agent Lisa Pageimpugned Trump supporters as smelly hillbilly Walmart shoppers. Strzok epitomizes the American left’s disdain for everyday Americans — We the People.

I’m in Montana with the Conservative Campaign Committee campaigning for conservative Republican Matt Rosendale for U.S. Senate. We produced a video ad in which I explained how crucial it is that we folks who love the direction Trump is taking our country stay politically engaged. We must get out the vote for the swiftly approaching midterm elections. If the Democrats take control of Congress, first on their agenda will be impeaching Trump and blocking and reversing Trump’s progress towards rolling back Obama’s punish-America legacy. The last thing we need is people who share Strzok’s mindset back in power.

The Democrats’ behavior during the oversight committee hearing was off-the-chain rude, crude, and arrogant — emitting a repulsive stench of superiority. It truly was infuriating watching Democrats, in essence, give the law, Republicans, and We the People their middle fingers.

Democrats and the American left truly do believe they are our betters. And when we disagree with their attempts to control every aspect of our lives “for our own good”, they gang assault us in the media, seek to criminalize our opposition, andencourage their minions to physically beat us up. Meanwhile, the leftist media constantly lectures us everyday Americans to be more tolerant of attacks on our traditional values, principles and institutions. Leftists tell us to be more civil, less hateful and mean-spirited.

This week, leftists have recently declared “cowboys” to be racist and sexist.

Michael Landon’s beautiful classic TV series, “Little House on the Prairie” has been declared racist and homophobic. Awhile back, leftists declared the peanut butter and jelly sandwich racist.

Do we really want people with this insidious wacko kind of thinking back in power — calling the shots, mandating how we must live our lives? If the Democrats take back Congress in November, rest assured, they will continue leftists’ transformation of America.

Our Conservative Campaign Committee team figuratively rode into Montana on white horses and wearing white cowboy hats because we are excited to provide boots-on-the-ground support for a true rock-solid conservative — Matt Rosendale.

When Montana voted to give their politicians a pay raise, Rosendale turned it down. Who does that, folks? As state auditor, Rosendale cut his operating budget 23%.

Rosendale is boldly 100% supportive of Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda. Do we need this guy in Washington or what?

Life has taught me to always look for the blessing in every situation. The Congressional Oversight Committee hearing on TV has exposed the Democrats and Strzok as spoiled-brat anti-American obstructionists. We cannot and will not allow these Strzokian villains back into power.

Please help elect Matt Rosendale.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American

Help Lloyd spread the Truth

http://LloydMarcus.com

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/we_cannot_allow_strzokians_back_into_power.html

Researchers released a report this week revealing “ultralow surface temperatures” in East Antarctica that surpass the coldest temperatures ever recorded on the earth’s surface.


(Photo AP/Rod McGuirk)

Scientists Observe Coldest Temperatures Ever on Earth’s Surface
A group of U.S. climate scientists have had to be rescued by helicopter from Antarctica after being trapped by encroaching ice.
AP/Rod McGuirk
30 Jun 2018
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/06/30/scientists-observe-coldest-temperatures-ever-on-earths-surface/

Researchers released a report this week revealing “ultralow surface temperatures” in East Antarctica that surpass the coldest temperatures ever recorded on the earth’s surface.

The lowest measured air temperature on earth is −89.2 °C (−129 F) on 23 July 1983, observed at Vostok Station in Antarctica, but new data published in Geophysical Research Letters this week, has found that some 100 different locations on the East Antarctic Plateau reached temperatures of -98° C (-144° F) during the Antarctic polar night between 2004–2016.

A team from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder have identified the East Antarctic Plateau — a massive, empty expanse the size of Australia that begins near the South Pole — as the coldest place on the planet.

The East Antarctic Plateau sits some 3,500 m (11,500 ft) above sea level and the air over the Plateau is extremely still, dry and thin, providing an ideal environment for extreme cold.

“In this area, we see periods of incredibly dry air, and this allows the heat from the snow surface to radiate into space more easily,” said Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado Boulder, lead author of the study.

East Antarctica is home to extremely low air and surface temperatures brought on by intense radiative cooling of the snow surface during prolonged wintertime periods of clear sky, weak winds, and very dry atmosphere, the report revealed.

The researchers analyzed data from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, as well as the NOAA’s Polar Operational Environmental Satellites, gathered during the Antarctic winters between 2004 and 2016, and found that snow surface temperatures regularly dipped below -90° C (-130° F) across the Plateau, with some 100 spots reaching a lowest temperature of -98° C (-144° F).

“Approximately 100 sites have observed minimum surface temperatures of ~−98 °C during the winters of 2004–2016,” and the researchers believe that this represents close to the absolute coldest the earth’s surface can get.

“This temperature appears to be about as low as it is possible to reach, even under clear skies and very dry conditions, because heat radiating from the cold clear air is nearly equal to the heat radiating from the bitterly cold snow surface,” the report states.

The coldest temperatures were found where pockets of air sat still for several days, allowing it to reach ultra-cold levels.

While Vostok, Antarctica, still holds the world record for the coldest temperature ever measured by a land-based weather station, the scientists hope to deploy ground-based instruments in the coldest locations of the East Antarctic Plateau in the next year or two.

Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome

GLOBAL WARMING SMACKDOWN – Arctic Midsummer Freeze

The Ultimate of Lies fed to Americans and the World!

Summer Sea Ice Is Causing Havoc for Shipping in the Arctic
In this July 21, 2017 file photo, broken sea ice emerges from under the hull of the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it sails through the Victoria Strait while traversing the Arctic’s Northwest Passage. After 24 days at sea and a journey spanning more than 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles), the …
AP/David Goldman
3 Jul 2018554
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/03/climate-experts-confounded-by-thick-summer-arctic-sea-ice/

Summer sea ice is causing havoc for shipping in the Arctic. This is the same Arctic sea ice that climate change experts predicted would have vanished by 2013.

GLOBAL WARMING SMACKDOWN – Arctic Midsummer Freeze

According to the Barents Observer:

It is late June, but the winter has not abandoned the Gulf of Ob. The shallow bay, which houses two of Russia’s biggest Arctic out-shipment terminals for oil and gas, remains packed with fast ice.

It has created a  complicated situation, Rosatomflot says. The state company which manages the Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers, confirms that  independent shipping in the area is «paralysed» and that LNG carriers and tankers are stuck.

Global warming? What global warming?

«The global warming, which there has been so much talk about for such a long time, seems to have receded a little and we are returning to the standards of the 1980s and 1990s,» says company representative Andrey Smirnov.

As the Climatism blog notes, all this summer ice rather contradicts what the “experts” have been telling us for many years.

North Pole could be ice free in 2008 | New Scientist

North Pole could be ice free in 2008 | New Scientist

Ice-free Arctic in two years heralds methane catastroph – scientist | The Guardian

Ice-free Arctic in two years heralds methane catastrophe – scientist | The Guardian

Meanwhile, in the real world, here is what Arctic sea ice is actually doing. As Steven Goddard says, “party’s over for the Arctic melting scam.”

 June has finished with Arctic sea ice volume fourth highest in the DMI record, behind 2004, 2003 and 2014.

But the big story is the slowdown in melt rates since 2012.  The average June ice loss since 2012 is down 17% relative to the years prior to 2012.


Spreadsheet Data

In three weeks, volume melt rates will slow sharply, giving Reggie not much time to make an honest man out of James Hansen.

Big GovernmentBreitbart LondonEnvironmentArcticclimatismGlobal Warmingice capshippingsummer sea iceWeather

CA Assault Weapons Registration…Chalk Up One More for CA!

CA Assault Weapon Registration Website Crashed As Deadline Loomed

Posted at 6:00 pm on July 2, 2018 by Tom Knighton

California wanted all so-called “assault weapons” to be registered by July 1, 2018. The state wanted it so badly that it created a website in hopes that it would make the process easy enough that most would comply with the rule. It was smart, not because registration will do anything, but in that, if you want people to comply with the law, you’d better make it easy.

However, as with so many other things in California, what worked well, in theory, turned into a colossal case of fail.

As the deadline looms for California gun owners to register their firearms that have been re-classified as “assault weapons,” the registration system has been crashing, preventing compliance with the law if the site is not fixed.

California passed a bill expanding its already lengthy definition of “assault weapon.” Under SB 880 and AB 113, which became effective in January 2017, “assault weapon” now includes firearms that are required to be equipped with a bullet button or a similar magazine locking device.

…

All applications must be completed and submitted by Saturday at 11:59 p.m. PDT. With less than a day until the deadline, the California Firearms Application Reporting System (CFARS) has had difficulty processing the high volume of applications, according to the Firearms Policy Coalition. The spike in traffic repeatedly crashed the CFARS website, preventing gun owners from registering properly.

If firearms are not registered before the deadline, gun owners could be charged with a felony and receive up to eight years in prison.

Now, waiting until the last minute is usually not a recipe for success, but as long as there was time on the clock, people are free to procrastinate. It’s up to the state of California to make sure its website works.

And it didn’t.

Constant crashes delay people being able to comply with the law, and it’s not their fault. Like I said, waiting until the last minute might not be ideal, but it’s not illegal, and it’s not their fault the state can’t build a working website.

Now, those who weren’t able to register their guns despite trying to may well be guilty of a felony as you read this. Hopefully not. So far, though, there’s been no mention of an amnesty for those who tried but were turned away by the state’s ineptitude.

To err is human. To really foul stuff up, though, you need the government involved.

This is a prime example.

Meanwhile, the state has made modern sporting rifles an endangered species, and the state’s violent crime rate has increased over the last couple of years despite the full-court press on “assault rifles.” Maybe it’s not the guns that are the problem in the first place? You know, California, I’m just throwing that out there for consideration.

Unfortunately, it’s not like the state is known for listening to reason or doing anything except the most anti-gun thing it can manage to do. California has never met a gun control proposal it didn’t like, and there’s no reason to expect that to change in the near future.

JPMorgan to pay $4.6 mln to settle Ponzi scheme lawsuit

6/22/18 REUTERS LEGAL 21:56:15
REUTERS LEGAL
June 22, 2018
JPMorgan to pay $4.6 mln to settle Ponzi scheme lawsuit
Dena Aubin
(Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay $4.6 million to resolve a proposed class action accusing it of aiding a Ponzi scheme at Caribbean-based Millennium Bank, which authorities say defrauded hundreds of investors with bogus certificates of deposits.

Disclosed in a Thursday filing in Boston federal court, the agreement ends a five-year legal fight by investors who lost money in the scheme, run by convicted Canadian banker William Wise. The investors alleged that Chase and its predecessor Washington Mutual let Wise steal millions of dollars of investors’ money from accounts at the banks despite numerous signs he was running a fraud.

The deal requires the approval of U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith Dein, who is overseeing the case.

Chase spokeswoman Elizabeth Seymour said the bank is “pleased to have resolved this legacy matter.”

Millennium had originally opened the accounts at Washington Mutual Bank, and Chase inherited the accounts when it bought Washington Mutual’s assets during the 2008 financial crisis.

In court filings, Chase said investors failed to show that it knew about the fraud or substantially assisted in it.

The investors are represented by lawyers at Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton and the Law Offices of Keith Miller.

”It’s been years of hard-fought litigation but we are very pleased with this result,” Tal Lifshitz, a lawyer for the investors, said in an email.

The 2012 lawsuit accused Chase of failing to promptly notify authorities or close accounts for Millennium Bank at its California branches after allegedly learning of the illegal scheme.

In Thursday’s filing, lawyers for the investors said the settlement will give significant relief to an estimated 150 to 200 class members who lost money on the Millennium scheme. The investors will not get all their money back, but they faced significant expense if they had continued to litigate, the lawyers said, urging preliminary court approval of the deal.

Wise was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2015 after pleading guilty to conspiracy, fraud and money laundering in connection with the scheme.

The scheme was shut down and Millennium, based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was put into receivership in 2009 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission won a restraining order and a freeze of all assets of the bank, Wise and his co-conspirators, in Texas federal court. The SEC said Wise and several co-conspirators raised at least $68 million, targeting mostly U.S. investors, by misappropriating money that they had promised to invest in high-interest certificates of deposit.

The investors’ lawsuit said Washington Mutual received alerts of suspicious activity in the Millennium accounts and investigated them as early as 2006 but failed to stop the suspicious activity or protect investors.

When Chase took over the accounts, it also took over the Millennium investigative files and reviewed the accounts, but it too failed to promptly notify law enforcement authorities or close the accounts, the lawsuit said.

Dein in 2016 had dismissed part of the lawsuit, finding that Chase was not liable for Washington Mutual’s conduct before Chase acquired its assets. She said investors could pursue claims that Chase allowed Wise to defraud additional investors after it acquired the accounts.

The case is Mansor et al v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, U.S. District Court, Massachusetts District, No. 12-10544.

For the plaintiffs: Harley Tropin and Tal Lifshitz at Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton and Keith Miller at Law Offices of Keith Miller

For the defendant: Beth Boland and Rachel Blise at Foley & Lardner

—- Index References —-
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK NA; FOLEY AND LARDNER; FOLEY AND LARDNER LLP; WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK; WMI HOLDINGS CORP
News Subject: (Business Lawsuits & Settlements (1BU19); Business Litigation (1BU04); Business Management (1BU42); Corporate Events (1CR05); Crime (1CR87); Financial Fraud (1FI18); Fraud (1FR30); Legal (1LE33); Major Corporations (1MA93); Social Issues (1SO05))
Industry: (Banking (1BA20); Financial Services (1FI37))
Region: (Americas (1AM92); Massachusetts (1MA15); North America (1NO39); U.S. New England Region (1NE37); USA (1US73))
Language: EN
Other Indexing: (FOLEY & LARDNER; WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK) (Elizabeth Seymour; Beth Boland; Harley Tropin; Judith Dein; Keith Miller; Tal Lifshitz; William Wise; Rachel Blise)
Keywords: banking; fedlit (OCC:OLRTXT); (N2:US)Keywords:
Word Count: 589
End of Document
© 2018 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.

Must Read: The Coming Deep State Massacre (Part One) TheCommonsenseshow.com


The Coming Deep State Massacre (Part One)
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/the-coming-deep-state-massacre-part-one/

There is a plot that is so intricate, so detailed, so complex and so very brilliant, it is very difficult to explain to others who already don’t know some, or most of the story. The revelation of this plot may cause me, in the near future, to reverse my position on Jeff Sessions and my expressed to desire to have him removed as Attorney General.

Unlike when I stood alone for months on reports of the near coup against the Obama administration over Benghazi, what I am about to reveal is known by others, either in part or in whole. My preference would have been to have waited and several journalists report what is known at the same time. However, I just conducted a telephonic interview with Paul Preston. In addition, one of my best sources, after months of telling me big things are going to become public with regard to Deep State minions, I have concluded that I am a bit ahead of the knowledge curve and it would not be wise for me to hang onto what I have learned.

In a nutshell, this paper will reveal that high profile figures have been involved in treasonous activity against the United States, coupled with illicit criminal behavior at the same time. I have learned that some of these figures are on the verge of being arrested and indicted y the Trump administration. Unlike my Benghazi revelations, I do not stand alone in my discoveries. Without the information I have recently learned, I could have made a strong circumstantial case supporting what is going to be revealed here today. Subsequently, from a credibility standpoint, this is very low risk. However, from a personal safety perspective, it would not be wise to reveal my discoveries and recent conclusions.

Part one of this series consists of contextual background which will provide the factual justification to make the allegations against key Deep State operatives in Part two.

Relevant Contextual Background

The brief summary of what I have already reported in the past is highly relevant to what is coming.

The following events have already been documented and reported on The Common Sense Show will be revealed in this section.
John Cruz-Vice President of HSBC Bank

I first interviewed John Cruz in 2011 and again in 2o12. Most recently, I interviewed Cruz in 2016. This person is an unique position to connect keep members of the Deep State with treason against the United States as well as overt criminal behavior.

Here is a summary of what I reported in 2016 and unfortunately, the nation was ready, at that time, to fully embrace the Cruz revelations.

John Cruz is your ordinary family man. He put himself through college and worked his way up the corporate ladder.  He excelled at working with bank customers. He rose to the position of Sr. Vice-President of HSBC Bank. Everything was fine was until he discovered that his bank was laundering drug money for the cartels and terrorists and some of the money ended up in the hands of the elite.

John Cruz was fired from his job at HSBC Bank in New York for whistle-blowing on the bank’s illegal activity, his family was threatened. and yet,  he still feels that everyone needs to know what goes on behind the scenes of a major bank. Cruz even reported the illegal money laundering to Homeland Security, but to no avail. He should be an American hero, but instead, he was chastised, employment was hard to find and he lives in constant fear of his life. If it were not for the tapes he’s made and held back, for leverage sake, he would already be dead.

John Cruz discovered that massive amounts of drug cartel and terrorist money was being laundered through HSBC. Cruz investigated and found evidence of multiple money-laundering operations. He went to his bosses and reported what he found after he had conducted field operational investigations and found evidence of boiler rooms operations and fake business addresses, etc. His bosses told him to get back to work and to forget what he had told them. The head of HSBC security told him “This is how we make money, forget what you think you have seen”.

One of the by-products of this criminality has impacted millions of Americans. Cruz revealed that the scourge of identity theft is headquartered deep in HSBC bank as fake accounts done so in order to launder illicit drug sales, funding terrorism, gun running and child-sex-trafficking. There are some of you reading these words whose names appear on HSBC bank accounts that are being used tos upport money laundering for one or all of the interest listed above and if you run afoul of the Deep State, this information could be used to falsely set you up.

I previously documented how FBI director Comey served on the Board of Directors at HSBC during the time of the coverup of the criminal activities. Comey is not the only senior federal government official implicated in the crimes of HSBC either through participation or cover up. I asked Cruz about Comey and he was aware that Comey had been on the board of directors at HSBC bank and was responsible for “moving money” (ie laundering terrorist-based activities as well as organized crime. We now know that moving money meant, in part, included moving money to the Clinton Foundation. And are we surrpised that Comey gave Clinton a free pass for her illegal emails? Comey should be in jail.

When I first printed these documentable allegations against Comey, he was not quite the household public figure that he is now. Now, people are going to pay attention.

Cruz also stated that the Clinton emails undoubtedly deal with her involvement iwth HSBC and the connection to the Clinton Foundation.

Eric Holder’s DoJ did not investigate money-laundering charges in deference to bank clients of his very own Washington-based law firm, where Holder was a senior partner prior to joining the Obama administration. Obama participated in this coverup after the fact. Do you remember the classic movie The Firm, starring Tom Cruise in which the law firm’s purpose was to provide cover for organized criminal activity? This is Eric Holder, pre Attorney General activities. Remember, Holder was also cited for Contempt of Congress, for his role in Fast and Furious in which, under his direction as the AG, he supplied the drug cartels with weapons which resulted in the murder of Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry. Today, Holder is the spokesperson for the unconstitutional and illegal CALEXIT, in which California is trying to exit the United States as a protectorate of the United Nations.

Cruz went far and wide with his allegations. DHS told him to go away. Manhattan’s District Attorney’s told him that this would cost him his job, and that is if he was lucky. The head of the New York Eastern District covered up the crime as well, after Cruz provided her with irrefutable prof of his allegations. And who was the head of the Eastern District of New York? Why, it was none other than Loretta Lynch, the current Attorney General.

Lynch, to cover her legal behind actually found HSBC guilty of violation the “Banking Secrecy Laws”, but ignored the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, the money laundering and the violation of national laws on terrorism. I asked Cruz why Lynch would pursue the one charge and not the other. He told my audience that she could prosecute on a far lesser charge to make the serious charge go away.

This fact actually came up in the confirmation of Lynch’s nomination to the AG position, but it was quickly swept under the rug. However, the Cruz two hour testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee was so damning, that the Senate had to withhold Lynch’s nomination vote for three weeks in order “to let things calm down”.

ON THE COMMON SENSE SHOW (7/31), CRUZ STATED THAT LYNCH “HAD FULL KNOWLEDGE” OF WHAT TRANSPIRED AT HSBC BANK. HOW DOES HE KNOW THAT? BECAUSE HE GAVE HER SECRET TAPE RECORDINGS HE MADE ALONG WITH DOCUMENTS DEMONSTRATING, NOT ONLY THE ABOUT MONEY LAUNDERING, BUT THE SENIOR OFFICIALS AT THE BANK ENGAGED IN A COVERUP. LORETTA LYNCH IS AN ACCOMPLICE TO MONEY LAUNDERING FOR THE DRUG CARTELS AND TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD. 

And according to Cruz, all of thee Deep State minions and notable public figures, former members of the Obama administration, have intimate connections with the Clinton Foundation.

When Lynch and Bill Clinton had their conflict of interest meeting in the Phoenix airport, what do you think they talked about?

Please keep in mind that these are the revelations from an insider of the most corrupt bank on the planet. By the way, I have learned that HSBC is laundering money into the CALEXIT movement.

Here is the last interview I did with John Cruz, who should be getting a lot more attention from the Independent Media than he is.

Scott Bennett-Former Army PSYOP

Dr. Scott Bennett served in the U.S. Army 11th Psychological Operations Battalion, attempted to blow the whistle by contacting the corporate controlled media as well as reaching out to US politicians after being removed from his job as a terrorist finance investigator after he proved to be too good at his job. This was due to the fact that the Obama administration and DHS were too cozy with various terrorist groups.

Dr. Bennett served in U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Central Command, the coordinator for the State Department Counter-terrorism and many other agencies in the US government.

If one wants to understand the close relationship between former high level operatives of the Obama administration and current Deep State interests, this is a can’t miss interview and the interview is listed below this narrative. On The Common Sense Show, Bennett laid out how terrorism was funded by key member of the Obama administration. Like John Cruz, Bennett, was not told this information. As an insider, he lived it. When Bennett began to leak the intelligence related to funding terrorism, he was imprisoned for two years by Obama for FILING A FALSE BUSINESS EXPENSE REPORT. This was to minor to imprison someone, but he served two years on totally false charges in order to cover up these crimes.

Bennett started out his intelligence career in the George W Bush administration. He transitioned into the Obama administration where they funded and supplied terrorist groups such as ISIS. These events, from a logistical and time frame perspective perfectly coincide with the Cruz revelations listed above.

The amount of information regarding the degree of the threat of terrorism which all of us face, is laid out in exquisite detail by Dr. Bennett in this interview.


Hillary Clinton and ISIS

In 2016, WikiLeaks continued to reveal criminal and outright treasonous behavior on the part of Hillary Clinton. WikiLeaks, with their “retrieval” of Clinton emails continued to show ties between Clinton and foreign governments,through the Clinton Foundation, criminally corrupt corporations and serious human rights violations.

At the center of the WikiLeaks revelations of Clinton’s treason and criminal behavior demonstrates undeniable Clinton links to Lafarge. Lafarge paid taxes to ISIS in order that they could protect its cement factory from destruction. The factor is located approximately northeast of Aleppo, Syria.

Another criminal investigation conducted by a Syrian news agency, Zaman al-Wasl, an independent news organization, stated that Lafarge bought oil from ISIS on a consistent basis.

In a 2007, a Washington Post article, at the time, when Clinton provided the bulk of the Clinton family income. in the 1990’s before husband Bill was elected President of the United States. Hillary Clinton, at that time, was “earning more than $100,000 a year from her law firm salary and corporate board fees.” At the time, she also served on Lafarge’s board, making about $31,000 a year from the company. the year 2007, was the year that Lafarge built its cement plant in Syria. By the way, CEMEX was a part of this operation. Who is CEMEX? They own the land in Tucson where a large child-sex-trafficking operation was discovered earlier this month.
John McCain and ISIS

My disdain for McCain is well known. Therefore, I will let ex-CIA clandestine officer, Robert David Steele speak to the terrorist related activities of John McCain, who remains a globalist till the end.

From Mr. Steele:

“We do now know (I did not know this at the time the below video was recorded and I have no link for this, it comes to me from an inside source) that former CIA Director John Brennan plotted this false flag attack, which may have involved some real sarin allegedly destroyed during the Obama Administration, with Senator John McCain and National Security Advisor Herbert McMaster…”

There are a couple of important considerations here. First, I have a deep-inside source that confirms Independent Media reports which places Senator John McCain at the scene of the crime. In other words, he visited Syria only days before the false flag. Further, I have had it confirmed by the same source that McCain has been tabbed to be the public source espousing Deep State propaganda to push to America towards war based on false allegations of election tampering by the Russians.

Previously on The Common Sense Show, I have documented several times, with interviews with people like Scott Bennett, that Hillary Clinton was instrumental in starting ISIS. John McCain has reportedly taken this relationship to a whole different level when he allegedly met with ISIS representatives when he was in Syria in which my source alleges that John McCain helped to coordinate the false flag attack in question. Further, my source claims that there is a Sandy Hook component to this flag attack in which he claims that First Responders were not even wearing gloves when they arrived on the scene and they should have been attired in hazmat suits and of course, crisis actors abound.

Robert David Steele continues:

“Brennan (Editor’s note: Ex-CIA director) got the Saudis to pay half and McCain got Israel to pay half. They blind-sided – this is clearly treason – not only the Director of the CIA, but the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense. In my personal view, both John McCain and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be impeached by their respective legislative bodies. Whether true or not I cannot certify – it is consistent with my evaluation of each of these people, and a good starting point for an international investigation. I have long felt that John Brennan should be standing before the International Court of Justice as a war criminal, not least because of the CIA’s drone assassination program that I recently denounced in a book review article for Intelligence and National Security.”

Conclusion

So, what did we learn? We have learned that prominent members of our government, both past and present haver served to undermine the country’s national security interests. In doing so, they have associated with terrorists and their organized criminal activities.

These summaries simply provide evidence that what is going to be revealed tomorrow has basis in verifiable fact. Based on what I already know and what I have recently learned, Part Two of this article will be revealing that we are sitting on revelations of unparalleled treason and corruption including attempted assassinations of President Trump, and his counter strike which will be described as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of Deep State Operatives.

Wells Fargo Employees Are Said to Improperly Alter Documents By Hannah Levitt


Wells Fargo Employees Are Said to Improperly Alter Documents
By Hannah Levitt
May 17, 2018, 10:06 AM EDT
Updated on May 17, 2018, 2:57 PM EDT

Wells Fargo & Co. found that employees in its wholesale unit added information to internal customer records without the clients’ knowledge, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The bank discovered the improper activity and reported it to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter hadn’t been publicly disclosed. The employees altered the documents in 2017 and earlier this year as they sought to satisfy regulatory demands related to anti-money-laundering controls, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported the issue earlier Thursday.

Wells Fargo has struggled to move past a wave of scandals, which led to a Federal Reserve ban on increasing assets until the lender fixes missteps. The bank’s first-quarter results were marred by a charge of $800 million tied to a settlement with U.S. regulators. Earlier this month, the bank rolled out a new marketing campaign built around its efforts to regain customers’ trust.

Bryan Hubbard, an OCC spokesman, declined to comment. Wells Fargo spokesman Alan Elias said in an emailed statement that the bank can’t comment on regulatory matters, but that it takes “swift action to correct” any behavior that violates the firm’s values.

“This matter involves documents used for internal purposes,” Elias said. “No customers were negatively impacted, no data left the company, and no products or services were sold as a result.”

The bank’s shares dropped 1.6 percent at 2:40 p.m. in New York trading, the biggest decline in the 24-company KBW Bank Index.

— With assistance by Laura J Kelle

Same Old Story: Paper Trail vs, Money Trail (Freddie Mac) Posted on May 15, 2018 by Neil Garfield

Same Old Story: Paper Trail vs, Money Trail (Freddie Mac)
Posted on May 15, 2018 by Neil Garfield
Payment by third parties may not reduce the debt but it does increase the number of obligees (creditors). Hence in every one of these foreclosures, except for a minuscule portion, indispensable parties were left out and third parties were in reality getting the proceeds of liquidation from foreclosure sales.
The explanations of securitization contained on the websites of the government Sponsored Entities (GSE’s) clearly demonstrate what I have been writing for 11 years and reveal a pattern of illusion and deception.

The most important thing about a financial transaction is the money. In every document filed in support of the illusion of securitization, it steadfastly holds firm to discussion of paper instruments and not a word about the actual location of the money or the actual identity of the obligee of that money debt.

Each explanation avoids the issue of where the money goes and how it was “processed” (i.e., stolen, according to me and hundreds of other scholars.)

It underscores the fact that the obligee (“debt owner” or “holder in due course” is never present in any legal proceeding or actual transaction or transfer of of the debt. This leaves us with only one conclusion. The debt never moved, which is to say that the obligee was always the same, albeit unaware of their status.

Knowing this will help you get traction in the courtroom but alleging it creates a burden of proof for you to prove something that you know is true but can only be confirmed with access to the books, records an accounts of the parties claiming such transactions ands transfers occurred.

GET A CONSULT
GO TO LENDINGLIES to order forms and services. Our forensic report is called “TERA“— “Title and Encumbrance Report and Analysis.” I personally review each of them for edits and comments before they are released.
Let us help you plan your answers, affirmative defenses, discovery requests and defense narrative:
954-451-1230 or 202-838-6345. Ask for a Consult. You will make things a lot easier on us and yourself if you fill out the registration form. It’s free without any obligation. No advertisements, no restrictions.
Purchase audio seminar now — Neil Garfield’s Mastering Discovery and Evidence in Foreclosure Defense including 3.5 hours of lecture, questions and answers, plus course materials that include PowerPoint Presentations.

THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.

For one such example see Freddie Mac Securitization Explanation

And the following diagram:

Freddie Mac Diagram of Securitization

What you won’t find anywhere in any diagram supposedly depicting securitization:

Money going to an originator who then lends the money to the borrower.
Money going to a named REMIC “Trust” for the purpose of purchasing loans or anything else.
Money going to the alleged unnamed beneficiaries of a named REMIC “Trust.”
Money going to the alleged unnamed investors who allegedly purchased “certificates” allegedly issued by or on behalf of a named REMIC “Trust.”
Money going to the originator for sale of the debt, note and mortgage package.
Money going to originator for endorsement of note to alleged transferee.
Money going to originator for assignment of mortgage.
Money going to the named foreclosing party upon liquidation of foreclosed property.
Money going to the homeowner as royalty for use of his/her/their identity forming the basis of value in issuance of derivatives, hedge products and contract, insurance products and synthetic derivatives.
Money being credited to the obligee’s loan receivable account reducing the amount of indebtedness (yes, really). This is because the obligee has no idea where the money is coming from or why it is being paid. But one thing is sure — the obligee is receiving money in all circumstances.
Payment by third parties may not reduce the debt but it does increase the number of obligees (creditors). Hence in every one of these foreclosures, except for a minuscule portion, indispensable parties were left out and third parties were in reality getting the proceeds of liquidation from foreclosure sales.
Spread the word

Wells Fargo’s 17-month nightmare, by Jackie Wattles, Ben Geier and Matt Egan

Wells Fargo’s 17-month nightmare
by Jackie Wattles, Ben Geier and Matt Egan @CNNMoney
February 5, 2018: 7:28 AM ET

http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/05/news/companies/wells-fargo-timeline/index.html

Wells Fargo draws bipartisan anger from Congress
Regulators fined Wells Fargo in September 2016 for repeatedly creating fake customer accounts to juice the bank’s books. The fine was big — $185 million — but the allegations were shocking.

On Friday night, Wells Fargo was hit with one of the harshest punishments ever handed down by the Federal Reserve. Wells Fargo, one of the nation’s largest banks, won’t be allowed to expand its business until it convinces the Fed it has cleaned up its act. The bank agreed to replace four members of its board of directors.

The Fed cited Wells Fargo’s “pervasive and persistent misconduct.” The past 17 months have brought one bad headline after another. The bank’s culture of misconduct extended well beyond the original revelations.

Wells Fargo was dragged before Congress, put under the microscope by government officials, and embarrassed before its customers. A new CEO and management team were brought in, and the old regime lost millions of dollars in docked pay.

2016

September 8: Fake account scandal breaks wide open. Federal regulators reveal Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts without their customers knowing it. The bank is hit with a $185 million fine. Wells Fargo says 5,300 employees were fired for related reasons.

September 14: A government official tells CNN the Department of Justice has issued subpoenas in a probe related to the fake account scandal.

September 27: Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf forfeits pay. Stumpf says he will give up much of his 2016 salary, including a bonus and $41 million in stock awards. The first major executive leaves the company over the scandal. Carrie Tolstedt, who headed the division that created the fake accounts, steps down and forfeits some pay.

September 28: Wells Fargo is accused of illegally repossessing service members’ cars. The company agrees to pay $24 million to settle charges. The DOJ claims the bank took 413 cars without a court order, which violates federal law. The company apologizes and commits to refunds.

September 29: Wells Fargo promises to abandon unrealistic sales goals. Wells Fargo employees blamed their bosses for effectively encouraging fake accounts. Before lawmakers on Capitol Hill, CEO John Stumpf is accused of running “a criminal enterprise.”

October 5: California’s attorney general opens an investigation into possible identity fraud related to the fake accounts scandal.

October 12: CEO John Stumpf steps down. The company announces he will retire effective immediately.

November 3: SEC probe revealed. A new public filing from the bank discloses that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the bank for issues related to the creation of as many as 2 million fake accounts.

December 13: Wells Fargo is punished by federal regulators for actions unrelated to the fake accounts. The bank is dinged for failing to comply with certain provisions of Dodd-Frank, the post-2008 law meant to better regulate big banks and protect consumers.

2017

January 23: Wells Fargo acknowledges potential worker retaliation. The bank says there are signs it retaliated against workers who tried to blow the whistle on the fake accounts.

February 20: Four senior bank employees are fired. The employees either worked or used to work in Wells Fargo’s community banking division, which is at the center of the fake account scandal.

March 27: Federal agency accuses Wells Fargo of “egregious,” “discriminatory and illegal” practices. In an unusual move, a top federal banking regulator severely downgrades Wells Fargo’s community lending rating. The decision stems from factors beyond the fake account scandal.

March 27: Wells Fargo settles class action suit. The preliminary deal promises $110 million for wronged consumers.

April 10: Former executives are asked for money back. The bank claws back $75 million from two former executives for their roles in the fake accounts scandal, including another $28 million from former CEO John Stumpf. A new report from independent directors on the Wells Fargo board reveals the bank prepared an internal report in 2004 about practices that may encourage employees to create fake accounts.

April 21: The bank’s cost of a settlement goes up. The settlement in the class action suit is increased to $142 million.

June 14: New allegations about mortgages are leveled. In a new lawsuit, Wells Fargo is accused of modifying mortgages without authorization from the customers. That means some customers could have ended up paying the bank more than they owed. It’s unclear how many customers were affected. Wells Fargo says it “strongly denies” the claims.

July 27: New allegations about auto insurance are revealed. The bank admits it charged at least 570,000 customers for auto insurance they did not need. Wells Fargo says an internal review found about 20,000 customers may have defaulted on their car loans for related reasons.

August 4: Wells Fargo is sued for allegedly ripping off small businesses. A lawsuit accuses Wells Fargo of overcharging small businesses for credit card transactions by using a “deceptive” 63-page contract to confuse them.

August 31: More fake accounts are discovered. Wells Fargo says it has found 1.4 million additional phony accounts. This brings the total number of fake accounts to 3.5 million.

October 3: Wells Fargo says it wrongly fined mortgage clients. Wells Fargo admits that 110,000 mortgage holders were fined for missing a deadline — even though the delays were the company’s fault. The company pledges to refund the customers.

October 16: Regulators say Wells Fargo sold dangerous investments it didn’t understand. Regulators order the bank to pay back $3.4 million to brokerage customers because advisers recommended products that were “highly likely to lose value over time.” Wells Fargo does not admit to nor deny the charges.

November 13: Wells Fargo admits it illegally repossessed more service members’ cars. The company says it found that it had taken vehicles from another 450 service members. Wells Fargo agrees to pay an additional $5.4 million, according to the Justice Department. The company promises refunds.

2018

February 2: The Federal Reserve punishes Wells Fargo. In an unprecedented move, the Fed says the bank won’t be allowed to grow its assets until the bank cleans up its act. The bank also agrees to overhaul its board of directors.

–CNNMoney’s Donna Borak, Danielle Wiener-Bronner and Jill Disis contributed to this report.

CNN Needs to Learn the Difference!

CNN and other fake news media, need to learn what an actual assault rifle is!

This man explains it very well:

From Our Friends at Living Lies Weblog: CitiMortgage Must Face Class Action for False notarization of Documents in Foreclosures


CitiMortgage Must Face Class Action for False notarization of Documents in Foreclosures
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/95852/posts/1614247594
Oct 3, 2017

Where is the prejudice in requiring the foreclosing party to prove its case with facts raather than presumptions?

There are two big takeaways: (1) Courts are getting more curious about what really happened in the mortgage meltdown and (2) this is one more example of how the TBTF banks are not entitled to any legal presumptions regarding their documents.

Research always shows that a fact is presumed in certain cases — but only in the absence of questions about the credibility of the party who proffers a document from which the legal presumption arises.
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THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
—————-
see https://www.reuters.com/article/citimortgage-foreclosures/9th-circuit-revives-lawsuit-over-citimortgage-foreclosure-records-idUSL2N1MD245

What the banks have done is (1) create self-serving documents and then (2) fabricate other documents that rely upon the facts stated or implied in prior fabricated documents. The “greater weight” (piles of false documents) of the evidence falsely leads judges to presume that all that paper must mean something even when it is all trash.

Like other objections or motions in limine practicitioners should strive for a ruling that the foreclosing party must actually prove the facts that they want to be presumed. That includes the funding of the loan, the payment for the loan, and whether any so-called “transfers” were anything more than some words scratched on a piece of paper. They must prove facts not receive the benefit of a legal presumption or factual assumption.

Transfer documents (e.g., assignment of mortgage) and endorsements imply that a purchase took place. Whether such a purchase took place or not, the documents read the same. The error is in assuming the transaction took place when the source of the document has at least questionable credibility. Credibility questions arise whether it is Wells Fargo in creating fake financial accounts and then charging fees for them, Citi fabricating signatures and notarization, BofA or US Bank appearing as the injured party, or Chase claiming to own WAMU loans that not even WAMU had on its books. It’s obvious that the players are

Credibility questions arise whether it is Wells Fargo in creating fake financial accounts and then charging fees for them, Citi fabricating signatures and notarization, BofA or US Bank appearing as the injured party, or Chase claiming to own WAMU loans that not even WAMU had on its books. It’s obvious that the players are allin on the same “game,” to wit: keeping ivnestors and homeowners in the dark while the banks trade “paper.”

That includes the funding of the loan, the payment for the loan, and whether any so-called “transfers” were anything more than some words scratched on a piece of paper. They must prove facts not presume them. Transfer documents and endorsements imply that a purchase took place

Transfer documents and endorsements imply that a purchase took place because it is obvious that nobody goes around giving mortgage loans away. The “presumption” that the foreclosing parties want to use is that there must have been a purchase transaction in real life — facts — as opposed to the presumption that a transaction occurred in which one party purchased a loan from another party.

The presumption to the contrary in the context of hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of cases in which documents were fabricated, forged, robo-signed, and falsely notarized leads the courts to a false conclusion and the denial of the homeowner’s basic defense: this foreclosing party has no right, title or interest in my loan and doesn’t represent anyone who does have a right, title or interest in the debt, note or mortgage.

It is wrong for a court to ignore the 50 state settlement, the consent orders and the many cases in which borrowers were successful in undercutting the claim that the foreclosing party had legal standing.

Consider this: if the foreclosing parties really were acting legally, why wouldn’t they want to prove it? That would certainly discredit borrower defenses and send a message to foreclosure defense lawyers that these loans are real and the transfers were in fact purchases. Where is the prejudice in requiring the foreclosing party to prove its case with facts raather than presumptions?

Ocwen asks judge to throw out securities fraud lawsuit, By Dena Aubin


4/18/17 REUTERS LEGAL 20:51:34
REUTERS LEGAL
Copyright (c) 2017 Thomson Reuters
April 18, 2017
https://1.next.westlaw.com/Document/I7e567ed0247911e785d8d01a01423e7e/View/FullText.html?transitionType=CategoryPageItem&contextData=(sc.Default)

Ocwen asks judge to throw out securities fraud lawsuit
Dena Aubin
(Reuters) – Lawyers for mortgage servicer Ocwen Financial have asked a federal judge to toss a securities fraud lawsuit accusing it of misleading investors by hiding servicing misconduct and potential conflicts of interest in 2013 and 2014.
In a motion on Monday in a West Palm Beach federal court, Ocwen’s lawyers said they have produced over a million pages of documents in the long-running case and plaintiffs have still not been able to find evidence supporting their fraud claims. The lawyers asked for a judgment in Ocwen’s favor before trial.
Filed in 2014, the lawsuit accused Ocwen of artificially inflating the price of its shares by hiding the risk of regulatory action over its servicing practices.
Ocwen’s shares fell 27 percent in December 2014 when the company agreed to pay $150 million to resolve claims by New York’s Department of Financial Services of improper foreclosures and other servicing problems, the lawsuit said.
Based in West Palm Beach, Ocwen is one of the country’s largest mortgage servicers, with more than 1.5 million customers, according to its website.
The lawsuit seeks damages for investors who bought Ocwen’s stock between May 2013 and December 2014.
Plaintiffs’ lawyer David Kessler declined to comment. Lawyers for Ocwen could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to the complaint, Ocwen falsely assured investors that it was complying with the government’s mortgage servicing guidelines and that its compliance set it apart from peers.
Specifically, Ocwen stated at a December 2013 investor presentation that it complied with the 2012 national mortgage settlement, an agreement between the U.S. government and five major banks accused of mortgage servicing abuses. Ocwen was not part of that settlement but had to abide by it after it acquired mortgages from the participating banks.
In reality, Ocwen’s servicing system was not able to accommodate the huge numbers of mortgages it acquired while complying with the settlement’s servicing requirements, the investors’ complaint said.
Ocwen also assured investors it had procedures in place to prevent conflicts of interest involving its then-chairman William Erbey, according to the complaint.
While serving as Ocwen’s chairman, Erbey also was a major shareholder in four mortgage-related businesses that he created and spun off from Ocwen, the lawsuit said. Ocwen failed to assure that Erbey recused himself from any transactions between Ocwen and Erbey’s related companies, the investors alleged.
In Monday’s motion, lawyers for Ocwen said the company’s statements that it complied with the settlement were true when they were made. Plaintiffs had cited potential violations found by the settlement’s monitor in December 2014, but that was one year after Ocwen made the compliance statement, the lawyers said.
Ocwen’s statements that it had practices in place to avoid conflicts of interest with Erbey’s related companies also were true, the lawyers said. Erbey recused himself on numerous occasions from transactions with related parties and those transactions were also reviewed by Ocwen’s board to ensure they were in the company’s best interest, the lawyers said.
The case is In re Ocwen Financial Corporation Securities Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, No. 14-81057.
For the plaintiffs: David Kessler, Lee Rudy and Sharan Nirmul at Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check and Joshua Katz at Sallah Astarita & Cox
For the defendant: Jeffrey Hirsch at Greenberg Traurig and John Coffey at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel
—- Index References —-
Company: GREENBERG TRAURIG LLP; KRAMER LEVIN NAFTALIS AND FRANKEL LLP
News Subject: (Crime (1CR87); Financial Fraud (1FI18); Fraud (1FR30); Funding Instruments (1FU41); Securities Law (1SE59); Social Issues (1SO05))
Industry: (Banking (1BA20); Consumer Finance (1CO55); Financial Services (1FI37); Investment Management (1IN34); Mortgage Banking (1MO85); Retail Banking Services (1RE38); Securities Investment (1SE57))
Region: (Americas (1AM92); Florida (1FL79); North America (1NO39); U.S. Southeast Region (1SO88); USA (1US73))
Language: EN

Why would Goldman Sachs buy Delinquent and Defective Mortgages? Posted on March 18, 2017 by Neil Garfield By the Lending Lies Staff


From Livinglies weblog:
Posted on March 18, 2017 by Neil Garfield
https://livinglies.wordpress.com/

Why would Goldman Sachs buy Delinquent and Defective Mortgages?
Posted on March 18, 2017 by Neil Garfield
By the Lending Lies Staff

Just last year Goldman Sachs entered into settlements with state and federal governments over the sale of toxic mortgage backed securities to investors while subsequently shorting the very same securities they were selling. Goldman would agree to provide $1.8 billion in debt relief to delinquent borrowers. However, since Goldman (and likely no other identifiable party) doesn’t owns the debt, Goldman cuts its losses by repackaging the toxic debt, assigning it an AAA rating and selling it to unsuspecting investors and pension funds for a fee, thus off-loading any liability. Goldman knows the feds won’t do anything to stop its crimes spree- so why not sell mortgage backed securities you know are toxic?
Goldman has once again successfully masterminded a new strategy to satisfy the $1.8 billion settlement without having to fund a dollar of that outstanding obligation, and while also profiting on this RICO scheme.
Goldman’s plan includes buying up billions of dollars of non-performing and defective loans at massive discounts. Goldman just announced they were purchasing 4.5 billion dollars in non-performing loans from Fannie Mae. It would be interesting to research if Fannie Mae discloses that these loans have material defects that cannot be remedied.
Goldman then contacts the homeowners and negotiates loan modifications by incentivizing the homeowner to participate by reducing their principle balance. Most desperate and unsuspecting homeowners have no idea that Goldman is acting as a debt collector and there is no underlying party that owns the debt or has a right to modify the mortgage contract in the first place. Once the modification is signed, in theory, a “new” loan is issued that rectifies all past endorsement, assignment and trust issues, while whitewashing all prior fraud.
The homeowner is now making payments on a new loan that is less than Goldman’s initial discount on the original purchase. Goldman than credits the principle forgiveness against its $1.8 billion dollar mortgage relief obligation while making money! Goldman is able to skirt the punishment and the fine costs them nothing because the debt was acquired at an even larger discount.
Finally, the true ingenuity of this plan emerges. Once the loan is modified and performing, the loans can be repackaged and resold as Triple-A paper once again to unsuspecting buyers.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the debt scavengers at Goldman Sachs are the largest buyer of Fannie Mae’s non-performing loans, having purchased $5.7 billion worth of unpaid loans over the past several months. Goldman Sachs should have been barred from ever participating in mortgage backed securities transactions after its last criminal enterprise.
Over the past year-and-a-half, Goldman Sachs has become the largest buyer of severely delinquent home loans from Fannie Mae. In fact, Goldman has acquired nearly two-thirds of $9.6 billion in loans the agency has auctioned off, representing unpaid loan balances in excess of $5.7 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal’s review of government records.
In all, Goldman has spent roughly $4.5 billion on some 26,000 Fannie-owned loans, according to government records. It has also been buying mortgages, from private sellers and Freddie Mac. Apparently while everyone is unloading zombie mortgage loans, Goldman Sachs is buying as much toxic sludge that is available.
According to the government-sponsored enterprise, the portfolio was split into four pools of loans and auctioned off.
The winning bidder of the smallest of the four pools is Igloo Series II Trust (Balbec Capital). That pool contained 1,465 loans that carry an aggregate unpaid principal balance of $246,748,844.
The pool has an average loan size of $168,429; a weighted average note rate of 4.51%; a weighted average delinquency of 29 months; and a weighted average broker’s price opinion loan-to-value ratio of 78.75%.
The remaining $1.43 billion in unpaid principal balance went to MTGLQ Investors, a “significant subsidiary” of Goldman Sachs.
MTGLQ Investors is now a fixture among the NPL sales from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Last year, MTGLQ Investors bought billion-dollar pools of NPLs from Fannie and Freddie in several different sales.
In this latest sale, MTGLQ Investors bought the remaining three pools of NPLs.
The first pool contained 3,062 loans that carry an aggregate unpaid principal balance of $496,205,215.
Goldman has an excellent business plan. By renegotiating and repackaging worthless mortgage loans it can polish high-risk loans into grade-A paper. The pension funds take on all of the risk if the homeowners default, and Goldman will have kicked the can down the road to the newest suckers in the scheme.
On Tuesday Goldman won the majority of defective loans at Fannie Mae’s latest auction, its largest to date. The bank bought about 8,000 loans with unpaid balances of $1.4 billion.
Goldman has paid between 50 and 90 cents on the dollar for the loans, according to Fannie Mae, however, some (if not all) of these loans are likely not worth a dime until fraudulently modified.
Meanwhile, because Goldman is getting credit toward fulfilling the terms of its settlement, it can afford to pay more for the delinquent loans than other competing bidders, which essentially means they’ve not only created but they have cornered an entire market.

Every day it seems, I read something about Judges in this Country, or someone contacts me about them, or I experience them first hand, or perhaps, one of the attorneys that I have worked with feels their wrath.

The judges hate pro se litigants.  The judges hate foreclosure defense lawsuits.  The judges hate almost everything and/or everyone, except their fellow judges, or people they knew while they were attorneys, or maybe their own families.  It has come to the point, that I told someone the other day, we need to get rid of all govt., and all judges, and start anew.

I’m serious.  Most people don’t encounter the crimes that the judges are committing.  Or so I thought.  I have read some things lately, where more and more people are noticing that unless you are a bank, an attorney on the judge’s good side, or a multi-billion dollar corporation, there is no justice for you in the US.

Read on, and see some of what I am talking about.  I have added in parts of articles supporting what I am claiming.  There will be links to the articles, so that you can see for yourself, where the information came from:

From:

Margaret Besen, 51, says that she was unfairly ruled against on multiple occasions by the judge in her divorce case.

Corrupt justice: what happens when judges’ bias taints a case?

Divorced mother Margaret Besen tells her five-year struggle to get justice, just one story in the hundreds of judicial transgressions across the US revealed in a Guardian and Contently Foundation for Investigative Reporting collaboration

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/18/judge-bias-corrupts-court-cases

Judge William Kent’s preliminary ruling seemed like a first step toward compromise. Margaret and Stuart Besen, who agreed their marriage was beyond repair, would remain in their suburban Suffolk County house, living in separate rooms – and keeping away from each other – while sharing custody until a resolution could be reached.

But within weeks, the situation deteriorated. Stuart Besen, a politically connected attorney for the town of Huntington, had an anger problem, Margaret told authorities. The couple’s screaming matches left Margaret feeling intimidated and their children – a daughter, 11, and son, 7 – terrified, she said. So in August of that year she obtained an order of protection prohibiting Stuart from harassing her. Three weeks later, Stuart entered Margaret’s bedroom and hovered over her as she slept, she told police. They arrested him for violating the order, reporting that Stuart had stared down at Margaret with his arms folded on three consecutive nights. She got temporary possession of the family home.

In the years that followed, Besen’s hopes for an equitable settlement dwindled as she battled a series of harsh and hard-to-explain decisions against her. Though she could never prove anything, she suspected that the scales had tipped for reasons unrelated to the evidence in her case. If true, Besen faced what experts say is one of the most troubling threats to our nation’s system of justice: judges, who, through incompetence, bias or outright corruption, prevent the wronged from getting a fair hearing in our courts.

“The decorum and bias and the perfectly unethical behavior of the judges is really rampant,” said Amanda Lundergan, a defense attorney in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, who confronted a nest of judicial conflicts in her state’s rapid-fire foreclosure rulings – dubbed the “rocket-docket” – following the housing market collapse. “It’s judicial bullying.”

Judges in local, state and federal courts across the country routinely hide their connections to litigants and their lawyers. These links can be social – they may have been law school classmates or share common friends – political, financial or ideological. In some instances the two may have mutual investment interests. They might be in-laws. Occasionally they are literally in bed together. While it’s unavoidable that such relationships will occur, when they do create a perception of bias, a judge is duty-bound to at the very least disclose that information, and if it is creates an actual bias, allow a different judge to take over.

All too often, however, the conflicted jurist says nothing and proceeds to rule in favor of the connected party, while the loser goes off without realizing an undisclosed bias doomed her case.

Hundreds of judicial transgressions have been uncovered during the last decade, with results that cost the defeated litigants their home, business, custody, health or freedom.

But court critics say that one reason judicial violations are common is because they frequently go unpunished. When litigants ask a judge to back away because of a conflict, they risk being told no, then face possible retaliation, so many don’t bother. If a litigant or an attorney files a complaint with an oversight body, there’s only about a 10% chance that state court authorities will properly investigate the allegation, according to a Contently.org analysis of data from 12 states.

Judges state-by-state
Photograph: Contently.org

The analysis shows that a dozen of these commissions collectively dismissed out of hand 90% of the complaints filed during the last five years, tossing 33,613 of 37,216 grievances without conducting any substantive inquiry. When they did take a look – 3,693 times between 2010 and 2014 – investigators found wrongdoing almost half the time, issuing disciplinary actions in 1,751 cases, about 47%.

The actions taken ranged from a letter of warning to censure, a formal sanction that indicates a judge is guilty of misconduct but does not merit suspension or removal.

Actually removing a judge was a rarity. Just 19 jurists in 12 states were ordered off the bench for malfeasance, which is about three per decade for each state. And even that result is becoming less common, with only one removal in 2014 and three in 2013 among all 12 states.

The states examined – California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, Colorado, Washington, Georgia and South Carolina – were chosen because they comprise a representative sample from different populations and areas of the country and because they had matching data for the years 2010 through 2014.

Judicial discipline at the federal level is almost non-existent. A Contently.org examination of the most recent five years of complaint data shows that 5,228 grievances were lodged against federal jurists between 2010 and 2014, including 2,561 that specifically alleged bias or conflict of interest. But only three judges were disciplined during those years and each got the mildest rebuke on the books: censure or reprimand. None was suspended or removed.

Margaret won a court order of protection barring Stuart from contact with her children for a year. But when Kent issued his final decree less than six weeks later, he awarded Stuart full custody, while Margaret was allowed only supervised visits. And he ordered Margaret to pay back half the cost of her nursing degree and to sell her diamond engagement ring and split the proceeds with Stuart. The judge also reversed the support arrangements. While Stuart would pay $1,500 a month in maintenance to Margaret, she now owed Stuart $153.90 a week for the children, even though she was earning about $13,000 a year as a part-time aide in an assisted-living facility.

Margaret began to look into her husband’s dealings and discovered, through searching public records, that he and judge Kent had possible connections. In 2010, Stuart was appointed as the Suffolk County representative on a statewide commission for vetting local judicial candidates. That same year, an organization based at Stuart Besen’s Garden City law office, the Long Island Coalition for Responsible Government, donated $7,500 to candidate Richard Ambro, who got elected and became one of Kent’s fellow Supreme Court judges in Suffolk’s 10th district. In his role as Huntington’s town lawyer, Besen argued cases before these very judges. He’d entered a circle of judicial insiders.

“I’m in the middle of a large group of people who’ve got money and influence and who are all connected,” said Margaret Besen. “I’m not being afforded an opportunity to get a fair shake.”

Margaret Besen stands in front of the former Besen family home, now unoccupied in Commack, Long Island.

Above:  Margaret Besen stands in front of the former Besen family home, now unoccupied in Commack, Long Island. Photograph: Alan Chin

Margaret had no way of knowing whether the connections she uncovered played any role in how Kent ruled in her case. But her concern deepened when she made an additional discovery about her house. Kent had ordered the Besen home, the most valuable marital asset, to be sold and the proceeds divided, putting Margaret in line to receive possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then she found an online listing offering the property for sale – with the judge’s wife, Patricia Kent, as broker. The home, which was listed for $749,999 with Patricia Kent’s photo and contact information on Realty Connect USA, is currently more than $15,000 in arrears on its property taxes and no longer appears to be actively offered. Margaret was evicted from the house in 2013 and lives in a modest apartment a few miles away. She has yet to receive a penny for her interest in the property.

Scott L Cummings, a professor of legal ethics at UCLA law school, said the case raised “significant ethical red flags”, because of the judge’s wife’s alleged involvement in offering the Besen family home for sale. “Not knowing the details of how his spouse might have been assigned as broker, the idea that a judge might benefit financially from the sale of a property in dispute in a pending matter seems to raise a serious question of impartiality.”

Ronald Rotunda, a professor at Chapman University law school in Orange, California, said: “What judge Kent did here seems odd. The husband makes over a half million a year, she makes $13,000 a year, and the judge orders her to pay child support (which is tax free to him and not deductible for her).”

But a culture of judicial impunity extends far beyond Long Island’s county courts. Indeed, even the US supreme court has been tarnished on this issue.

Justice Steven Breyer owned $215,000 in health-care stocks when deciding on the legality of the Affordable Care Act in 2012. Justice Samuel Alito’s portfolio included $2,000 in stock in The Walt Disney Co. in 2008, the year the court heard Disney, FCC v. Fox Television Stations. And perhaps most famously, justice Antonin Scalia has participated in the Bush v. Gore case, even though his son Eugene’s law firm represented one of the parties. In another case, Scalia remained in the panel despite having gone on a duck hunting trip with former Vice-President Dick Cheney while he was being sued to reveal the details of secret meetings he held with oil company executives in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The online vitriol directed at unscrupulous judges, which began in the mid- 2000s, has built to a howling digital crescendo. Websites including The Robe Probe, The Judiciary Report and The Robing Room, which rate judges the way Yelp rates restaurants, are rife with railing as embittered, mostly anonymous plaintiffs rip into judicial decisions they feel were biased or corrupt.

In an appeal of a case in West Virginia court, A.T. Massey Coal Co. CEO Don Blankenship spent $3m to elect Brent Benjamin, who ultimately provided the swing vote that overturned a $50m judgment against his company. Benjamin rebuffed repeated demands that the newly elected justice recuse himself because of his obvious conflict.

The US Supreme Court ruled that Benjamin’s bias was so extreme that his failure to step aside violated Caperton’s right to due process under the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. The case, which spawned Grisham’s 2008 best-seller, “The Appeal,” underscored the kind of underhanded dealing that has stained the judiciary.

A further nudge for reform came last year when the Center for Public Integrity published a report on financial conflicts of interest. Among its findings: on 26 occasions in the preceding three years, federal appellate judges ruled on cases involving companies in which they owned stock or where they had a financial tie to an attorney appearing before them.

A further nudge for reform came last year when the Center for Public Integrity published a report on financial conflicts of interest. Among its findings: on 26 occasions in the preceding three years, federal appellate judges ruled on cases involving companies in which they owned stock or where they had a financial tie to an attorney appearing before them.

It also created a grading system to gauge how diligent each state was in collecting personal financial information from its judges, including stock ownership and outside sources of income, and how accessible that data was to the public. The center said that 42 states, plus the District of Columbia, failed its test. Six others earned a D grade, while two – California and Maryland – got Cs. California’s score, 77, the highest of any state, was seven points below the federal government’s grade of 84.

The report highlighted the type of conflict that can be most readily identified and that doing so requires full disclosure from the judges. Stock ownership, even if minimal, should automatically disqualify a judge from hearing a case, many experts believe. “If a judge owns a single share in a company involved in a case, he should recuse himself instantly,” says Rotunda, a leading law scholar.

It’s been more than two years since Margaret Besen has seen her children, who are now 12 and 16. There’s no money to pay the court supervisor, so they can’t visit. Nor does Besen have the funds to continue fighting. Kent retired shortly after making his decision.

“The hardest thing in my life is that I can’t be with my children and I can’t have an impact on my children’s upbringing,” Besen said over coffee at a Long Island diner. “A lot of people do not have any idea how the judicial system works or doesn’t work until you’re in it. We think we’re in a democratic society. We think we’re run by rules. But they are not being upheld by the court at all.”

This story was produced in collaboration with The Contently Foundation for Investigative Reporting.

 

In recent years, America’s corporations have created a private system for handling disputes that benefits them greatly while denying consumers their day in court.

Worse, according to a recent series in The Times, that system has become vast and more entrenched as companies increasingly require customers, employees, investors, patients and other consumers to agree in advance to arbitrate any disputes that arise in their dealings with a company, rather than sue in a court of law.

Such forced-arbitration clauses, found in the fine print of contracts, also typically bar aggrieved parties from pressing their claims as a group in a class action, often the only practical way for individuals to challenge corporations. In addition, corporations effectively control the arbitration process, including the selection of the arbitrator and the rules of evidence, a stacked deck if ever there was one.

As if that is not troubling enough, it is extremely difficult to avoid or get out of forced-arbitration clauses and class-action bans, particularly since they were upheld by two misguided Supreme Court decisions in 2011 and in 2013.

Photo

Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, center, with colleagues at a hearing in Denver last week.CreditBrennan Linsley/Associated Press

From 2010 to 2014, corporations prevailed in four out of five cases where they asked federal judges to dismiss class-action lawsuits and compel arbitration, according to The Times’s articles. People who were blocked from going to court as a group usually dropped their claims entirely, in part because class actions are often the only affordable way to file lawsuits. If successful, they can deter future corporate wrongdoing because even small payouts, multiplied over all similarly mistreated customers, can be very large.

Indeed, faced with arbitration, it appears that most people do not pursue remedies to their grievances at all. Verizon, with more than 125 million subscribers, faced 65 consumer arbitrations between 2010 and 2014, The Times’s report found. Sprint, with more than 57 million subscribers, faced six. Time Warner Cable, with 15 million subscribers, faced seven.

Even more disturbing, the shift away from the civil justice system has gone beyond disputes about money. Nursing homes, obstetrics practices and private schools increasingly use forced-arbitration clauses to shield themselves from being taken to court over alleged discrimination, elder abuse, fraud, hate crimes, medical malpractice and wrongful death.

For the most part, Congress has looked the other way. Federal regulators, however, are starting to fight back. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to propose a rule soon to forbid arbitration clauses that ban class actions in cases involving financial services and products. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is expected to issue updated nursing home regulations next year, is considering a ban on forced arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts.

Reversing the broader trend of forced arbitration, however, will require public outcry loud and long enough to stir the White House and Congress to action. Many people interviewed in The Times’s series did not realize that their right to sue had been lost until they needed it. A common refrain was the disbelief that this could happen in America. But it is happening, and it needs to stop.

 

From the Health Ranger Clinton Will Win!

Electoral victory for Hillary already LOCKED IN via massive bribery… George Soros admits on video… democracy be damned… THEFT of the presidency already complete
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
http://www.naturalnews.com/055769_electoral_college_bribery_theft_of_power.html

Electoral college
(NaturalNews) The democrats have bribed electoral college representatives to “fix” the election outcome in favor of Hillary Clinton, admits George Soros in a recently unearthed video. Soros, the same globalist terrorist who funded Black Lives Matter executions of police officers in Dallas — and who also funds hundreds of liberal websites and violent activist organizations who staged violence at Trump rallies to blame Republicans — says in the video that Trump will win the popular vote in a “landslide” but that he will lose the electoral vote because it’s already a “done deal” for Hillary Clinton.

Soros-Interview-Clinton-Popular-Vote
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From the video on TopRightNews.com:

SOROS: It’s going to lead to a landslide for Donald Trump in the popular vote, not in the electoral vote, because there, paid political announcements will have a big role… the popular vote will be a landslide because we are a small minority of extremists… I don’t think that Donald Trump has any chance of being elected.

REPORTER: But you think that Hillary Clinton is a done deal?

SOROS: Yes.

This astonishing revelation confirms what Dave Hodges recently told me in an interview: That electoral college representatives (“Electors”) are being approached with bribes to buy their final votes.

Watch the Soros video here:

George Soros literally says Trump will win popular vote but it’s already been decided that Clinton will be the POTUS pic.twitter.com/fz2Tjt70nt

— South Lone Star (@SouthLoneStar) August 31, 2016

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Yes, Electors can be bought off to vote for anyone they want… democracy be damned!
Via Archives.gov:

There is no Constitutional provision or Federal law that requires Electors to vote according to the results of the popular vote in their states. Some states, however, require Electors to cast their votes according to the popular vote.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees… The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.

You might be shocked to learn that only 29 states require Electors to case their electoral votes in accordance with the popular vote of their state. Those 29 states, listed here are:

Alabama (Code of Ala. SS17-19-2)
Alaska (Alaska Stat. SS15.30.090)
California (Election Code SS6906)
Colorado (CRS SS1-4-304)
Connecticut (Conn. Gen. Stat. SS9-176)
Delaware (15 Del C SS4303)
District of Columbia (SS1-1312(g))
Florida (Fla. Stat. SS103.021(1))
Hawaii (HRS SS14-28)
Maine (21-A MRS SS805)
Maryland (Md Ann Code art 33, SS8-505)
Massachusetts (MGL, ch. 53, SS8)
Michigan (MCL SS168.47)
Mississippi (Miss Code Ann SS23-15-785)
Montana (MCA SS13-25-104)
Nebraska (SS32-714)
Nevada (NRS SS298.050)
New Mexico (NM Stat Ann SS1-15-9)
North Carolina (NC Gen Stat SS163-212)
Ohio (ORC Ann SS3505.40)
Oklahoma (26 Okl St SS10-102)
Oregon (ORS SS248.355)
South Carolina (SC Code Ann SS7-19-80)
Tennessee (Tenn Code Ann SS2-15-104(c))
Utah (Utah Code Ann SS20A-13-304)
Vermont (17 VSA SS2732)
Virginia (SS24.2-203)
Washington (RCW SS29.71.020)
Wisconsin (Wis Stat SS7.75)
Wyoming (Wyo Stat SS22-19-108)

As that same page writes:

Over the years, however, despite legal oversight, a number of electors have violated their state’s law binding them to their pledged vote. However, these violators often only face being charged with a misdemeanor or a small fine, usually $1,000. Many constitutional scholars agree that electors remain free agents despite state laws and that, if challenged, such laws would be ruled unconstitutional. Therefore, electors can decline to cast their vote for a specific candidate (the one that wins the popular vote of their state), either voting for an alternative candidate, or abstaining completely.

The same corrupt democrats that have rigged the debates, rigged the polls, rigged the news media and rigged the justice system are now about to STEAL the election through bribery of Electors
Now it’s all becoming clear. Having failed to destroy Donald Trump despite the world’s most vicious barrage of lies and defamatory news slander, George Soros and the corrupt democrats have bribed enough Electors to “lock in” a victory for Hillary Clinton no matter what happens on election day.

What you’re going to see the night of Nov. 8th, in other words, is a landslide popular vote victory for Donald Trump, immediately followed by electoral votes handing the official election victory to Hillary Clinton.

The theft of the presidency will be achieved thusly. And as you might expect, the American people are going to REVOLT en masse.
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We the People will not accept the theft of power and the nullification of democracy
We the People will not accept the theft of power by a corrupt, criminal regime run by deceptive leftists who lie, cheat and steal their way to power at every election. The bribery of Electors is, of course, the nullification of democracy in America, since it means wealthy globalists can simply buy off the electoral votes and put anyone they want into the White House… the voters be damned.

When the American people realize their votes have just been nullified through massive bribery and corruption, they are going to revolt like we’ve never seen before. They will take to the streets in protest, and the greater the margin of victory in the popular vote by Donald Trump, the more angry the voters are going to be.

We have quite simply reached the point in American history where the people will no longer tolerate the theft of power and massive election fraud that’s now routinely pursued by democrats (and especially Clinton operatives). If this election is stolen by George Soros via the bribery of Electors, I anticipate a full-on revolt where the military, the police and the citizens storm Washington and depose the corrupt Obama / Clinton regime and install the proper election winner as President. That would be Donald J. Trump, of course.

Frankly, We the People have every right to demand that democracy be restored. It is time to take America back from the thieving, lying commie bastards running the democrat party today.

JPMorgan Chase Bank Fines Do Nothing to Them

I was working on something today, and saw that I needed to add some references (footnotes) to support what I was saying. It had to do with JPMorgan Chase Bank, and the fines for violations concerning robo-signing, lying, cheating, stealing homes, and the like. All related to foreclosures of course.

When I began adding the references for my allegations, I almost fell off my chair. I could not believe the fines and the violations, and yet, they continue on, to this very day. The only thing that Chase has learned from all the fines for violations, is that they make enough money, that the fines don’t matter. If anything else had come of it, as in, it hurt them financially, they would have quit with all the violations.
As it turns out, attorneys for these banks have gotten worse. It is ruining the legal profession. If the courts would stand up and make those that should be held accountable, accountable, the foreclosures would have ended. So, it has also ruined the court system for their failure to the citizens of the states and country.
http://s25.postimg.org/ze1twuhu7/is_CDBx_Oy_Hkyno_GSsgx_Oz_TCmykgo7_D_Dsbu_N6nx_ELu_AK48_h.jpgForeclosure hell has only taught the people that have lost their homes. And what pray tell did those people learn other than they will never be able to purchase another home? That you cannot trust attorneys, you cannot trust the courts, and by God you had better never trust the lender. In other words, the world around you is corrupt as hell, and no one, except you, the borrower is accountable for anything.

Just a sampling of fines levied against JPMorgan Chase Bank:
2008: Unpacking the JPMorgan Chase scandals; $30 billion in fines and counting — and this monster bank still got off lightly!: http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/articles/unpacking-jpmorgan-chase-scandals
June 2011: Misleading CDO Investments: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
July 7, 2011: Conduct in Municipal Bonds $228 Million: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
February 9, 2012: Foreclosure Abuses and “Robo-Signing” $5.29 Billion: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
November 16, 2012: $269.9 Million: More Mortgage Misrepresentations: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
January 2013: $1.8 Billion: Improper Foreclosures: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
October 25, 2013: $5.1 Billion: Fannie and Freddie Fines: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
Nov. 2013: JPMorgan agrees $13 billion settlement with U.S. over bad mortgages; http://www.reuters.com/article/us-jpmorgan-settlement-idUSBRE9AI0OA20131120;
November 15, 2013: $4.5 Billion: Mortgage Securities: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
January 2014: JPMorgan Chase Fines Exceed $2 Billion: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/chase-a-6356;
January 06, 2014: Madoff Scandal: $1.7 Billion: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
November 11, 2014: Currency Manipulation (stock price): $1.34 Billion: http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/a-brief-history-of-jp-morgans-massive-fines-jpm/;
March 2015: Chase has paid $38 Billion in 22 settlements from 2009 through March of 2015: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2015/07/16/fine-despite-fines.html;
July 2015: JPMorgan Chase fined $136M over how it collects debts: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421277881/jpmorgan-chase-fined-136m-over-how-it-collects-debt;
July 8, 2015: Chase fined $216M over debt collection: http://www.bankrate.com/financing/credit-cards/chase-fined-216m-over-debt-collection/;
December 2015: JPMorgan Admits It Didn’t Tell Clients About Conflicts $300M: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-18/jpmorgan-pays-267-million-to-settle-conflict-of-interest-claims;
January 2016: JPMorgan Chase Fined $48Million for Failing to Comply With Robosigning Settlement: https://consumerist.com/2016/01/05/jpmorgan-chase-fined-48-million-for-failing-to-comply-with-robosigning-settlement/;

And it goes on. There are many that I missed, in my hurry to get this done.
And in the end, the buck stops with the Courts, U.S. Attorneys and District Attorneys for not throwing the lot of their asses in the clink!

Judicial Corruption at its Finest

Reprimanded judge says presiding over his own divorce case for several months ‘made no difference’


Reprimanded last month for presiding over his own divorce case for four months after it was randomly assigned to his own court, a Texas judge told a local newspaper that doing so did no harm.

“This was my personal divorce,” said 383rd District Judge Mike Herrera to the El Paso Times on Tuesday, explaining that there was “no rush” to transfer the case to another judge because he and his wife were trying at the time to work things out.

Hence, “the fact that it was in this court made no difference. It stayed there,” Herrera said of the divorce case. “I wasn’t actively doing anything. Me and my former spouse were working on everything. She and I were working on everything carefully.”

The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct noted that Herrera had filed motions in the case while it was in his own court. The commission said that the judge “failed to comply with the law, demonstrated a lack of professional competence in the law, and engaged in willful and persistent conduct that was clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of his judicial duties,” the newspaper reports.

In addition to reprimanding Herrera, the commission ordered him to get six hours of training.

2016 STATE OF THE JUDICIARY ADDRESS THE HONORABLE CHIEF JUSTICE HUGH P. THOMPSON SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA January 27, 2016, 11 a.m. House Chambers, State Capitol

016 STATE OF THE JUDICIARY ADDRESS
THE HONORABLE CHIEF JUSTICE HUGH P. THOMPSON
SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA
January 27, 2016, 11 a.m.
House Chambers, State Capitol

Lt. Governor Cagle, Speaker Ralston, President Pro Tem Shafer, Speaker Pro Tem Jones, members of the General Assembly, my fellow judges and my fellow Georgians:
Good morning. Thank you for this annual tradition of inviting the Chief Justice to report on the State of Georgia’s Judiciary. Thanks in large part to your support and the support of our governor, as we move into 2016, I am pleased to tell you that your judicial branch of government is not only steady and secure, it is dynamic; it has momentum; and it is moving forward into the 21st century with a vitality and a commitment to meeting the inevitable changes before us.
Our mission remains the same: To protect individual rights and liberties, to uphold and interpret the rule of law, and to provide a forum for the peaceful resolution of disputes that is fair, impartial, and accessible to all.
Our judges are committed to these principles. Each day, throughout this state, they put on their black robes; they take their seat on the courtroom bench; and they work tirelessly to ensure that all citizens who come before them get justice.


Our Judicial Council is the policy-making body of the state’s judicial branch. It is made up of competent, committed leaders elected by their fellow judges and representing all classes of court. They are assisted by an Administrative Office of the Courts, which is under a new director – Cynthia Clanton – and has a renewed focus as an agency that serves judges and courts throughout Georgia.
A number of our judges have made the trip to be here today. Our judges are here today because the relationship we have with you is important. We share with you the same goal of serving the citizens of this great state. We could not do our work without your help and that of our governor.
On behalf of all of the judges, let me say we are extremely grateful to you members of the General Assembly for your judicial compensation appropriation last year.


Today I want to talk to you about Georgia’s 21st century courts – our vision for the future, the road we must travel to get there, and the accomplishments we have already achieved.
It has been said that, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
Since a new state Constitution took effect in 1983, our population has nearly doubled to a little over 10 million, making us the 8th most populous state in the country. We are among the fastest growing states in the nation, and in less than four years, our population is projected to exceed 12 million.
Because it is good for our economy, we welcome that growth. Today, Georgia ranks
among states with the highest number of Fortune 500 companies, 20 of which have their global headquarters here; we have 72 four-year colleges and universities; we have the world’s busiest airport and we have two deep-water ports. Georgia is a gateway to the South, and for a growing number of people and businesses from around the world, it is a gateway to this country.
All of this growth produces litigation – increasingly complex litigation – and just as our state must prepare for this growth by ensuring we have enough roads and modes of transportation, enough doctors and hospitals, and enough power to reach people throughout the state, our courts also must be equipped and modernized for the 21st
century.
While our population has nearly doubled since 1983, the number of Georgia judges has
grown only 16 percent. We must work together to ensure that our judicial system has enough judges, staff and resources in the 21st century to fulfill the mission and constitutional duties our forefathers assigned to us.
A healthy, vibrant judiciary is absolutely critical to the economic development of our state. Thanks to many leaders in the judiciary, as well as to our partnership with the governor and to you in the legislature, we are well on our way to building a court system for the 21st century.


This time next year, with your support, we will have put into place an historic shift in the types of cases handled by the Georgia Supreme Court – the highest court in the state – and by the Court of Appeals – our intermediate appellate court. Thanks to Governor Deal’s Georgia Appellate Jurisdiction Review Commission, this realignment will bring the Supreme Court of Georgia in line with other state Supreme Courts, which handle only the most critical cases that potentially change the law. Serving on the Commission are two of my colleagues – Justice David Nahmias and Justice Keith Blackwell – as well as two judges from the Court of Appeals – Chief
Judge Sara Doyle and Judge Stephen Dillard.
I thank you, Justices and Judges, for your leadership.
Under the Georgia Constitution, Supreme Court justices collectively decide every case that comes before us. Currently the state’s highest court hears divorce and alimony cases; we hear cases involving wills; we hear cases involving titles to land; and we hear disputes over boundary lines.
But the Governor’s Commission, and a number of reports by other commissions and
committees issued since 1983, have recommended that such cases should be heard by our intermediate appeals court, not by our highest court.
Both of our courts are among the busiest in the nation. But unlike the Supreme Court, which sits as a full court with all seven justices participating in, and deciding, every case, the Court of Appeals sits in panels of three. With your approval last year of three new Court of Appeals judges, that court will now have five panels, so it will have the capacity to consider five times as many cases as the Supreme Court.
Modernization of the Supreme Court makes sense. In a 19th century court system, when
most of the wealth was tied up in land, maybe title to land cases were the most important. Maybe they had the greatest implications for the public at large. But as we move into the 21st century, that is no longer true.
In answer to questions such as who owns a strip of land, what does a will mean, and who should prevail in a divorce settlement or an alimony dispute, most judicial systems believe that three judges are enough to provide the parties with a full and fair consideration of their appeal. It no longer makes sense to have seven – or nine – justices collectively review these types of cases.
There is no doubt these cases will be in good hands with the Court of Appeals.
Let me emphasize that all these cases the Commission recommended shifting to the Court of Appeals are critically important to the parties involved.
Let me also emphasize that the purpose of this historic change is not to lessen the burden on the Supreme Court. Rather, the intent is to free up the state’s highest court to devote more time and energy to the most complex and the most difficult cases that have the greatest implications for the law and society at large.
We will therefore retain jurisdiction of constitutional challenges to the laws you enact, questions from the federal courts seeking authoritative rulings on Georgia law, election contests, murder and death penalty cases, and cases in which the Court of Appeals judges are equally divided.
Significantly, we want to be able to accept more of what we call “certiorari” cases
which are appeals of decisions by the Court of Appeals. The number of petitions filed in this category during the first quarter of the new docket year is nearly 14 percent higher this year over last. Yet due to the amount of appeals the law now requires us to take, we have had to reject the majority of the petitions for certiorari that we receive.
These cases are often the most complex – and the most consequential. They involve
issues of great importance to the legal system and the State as a whole. Or they involve an area of law that has become inconsistent and needs clarification.
Businesses and citizens need to know what the law allows them to do and what it does
not allow them to do. It is our job at the highest court to reduce any uncertainty and bring consistency and clarity to the law.
Under the Commission’s recommendations, our 21st century Georgia Supreme Court will
be able to accept more of these important appeals.


As we move into the 21st century, plans are being discussed to build the first state Judicial Building in Georgia’s history that will be dedicated solely to the judiciary. We are grateful for the Governor’s leadership on this. The building that now houses the state’s highest court and the Court of Appeals was built in 1954 when Herman Tallmadge was governor. Back then, it made sense to combine the state judicial branch with part of the executive branch, by locating the Law Department in the same building.
But the world has changed since 1954, and the building we now occupy was not designed with visitors in mind. It was not designed with technology in mind. And it surely was not designed with security in mind. Indeed, it was designed to interconnect with neighboring buildings that housed other branches of government.
A proper Judicial Building is about more than bricks and mortar. Outside, this building will symbolize for generations to come the place where people will go to get final resolution of civil wrongs and injustices; where the government will go to safeguard its prosecution of criminals; and where defendants will go to appeal convictions and sentences to prison for life.
Inside such a building, the courtroom will reinforce the reality that what goes on here is serious and solemn; it is a place of great purpose, in the words of a federal judge. The parties and the lawyers will understand they are all on equal footing, because they are equal under the law.
There is a majesty about the law that gets played out in the courtroom. It is a hallowed place because it is where the truth must be told and where justice is born. The courtroom represents our democracy at its very best.
No, this building is not just about bricks and mortar. Rather it is a place that will house Georgia’s highest court where fairness, impartiality, and justice will reign for future generations.


We are no longer living in a 1950s Georgia. The courts of the 21st century must be
equipped to handle an increasingly diverse population. Living today in metropolitan Atlanta alone are more than 700,000 people who were born outside the United States. According to the Chamber of Commerce, today some 70 countries have a presence in Atlanta, in the form of a consulate or trade office. We must be ready to help resolve the disputes of international businesses that are increasingly locating in our state and capital. Our 21st century courts must be open, transparent and accessible to all. Our citizens’ confidence in their judicial system depends on it. We must be armed with qualified, certified interpreters, promote arbitration as an alternative to costly, courtroom-bound litigation, ensure that all those who cannot afford lawyers have an avenue toward justice, and be constantly updating technology with the aim of improving our courts’ efficiency while saving literally millions of dollars. For all of this, we need your help.


When I first became a judge, we had no email, no cell phones, no Internet. People didn’t Twitter or text, or post things on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. The most modern equipment we had was a mimeograph machine.
This past year, by Supreme Court order, we created for the first time a governance
structure to bring our use of technology into the 21st century. Chaired by my colleague Justice Harold Melton, and co-chaired by Douglas County Superior Court Judge David Emerson, this permanent Judicial Council Standing Committee on Technology will lead the judicial branch by providing guidance and oversight of its technology initiatives.
Our courts on their own are rapidly moving away from paper documents into the digital age. At the Supreme Court, lawyers must now electronically file all cases. This past year, we successfully launched the next phase by working with trial courts to begin transmitting their entire court record to us electronically. The Court of Appeals also now requires the e-filing of applications to appeal, and this year, will join the Supreme Court in accepting electronic trial records.

Our goal is to develop a uniform statewide electronic filing and retrieval system so that lawyers and others throughout the judiciary can file and access data the easiest way possible.
Using a single portal, attorneys will be able to file documents with trial courts and appellate courts – and retrieve them from any court in the state. This is the system advocated by our partner, President Bob Kaufman of the State Bar of Georgia, and by attorneys throughout the state.
Such a system will not only make our courts more efficient at huge savings, but it will make Georgia safer. When our trial judges conduct bond hearings, for example, they often lack critical information about the person before them. They usually have reports about any former convictions, but they may not have information about cases pending against the defendant in other courts. The technology exists now to ensure that they do.
Also on the horizon is the expanded use of videoconferencing – another electronic
improvement that will save money and protect citizens’ lives. After a conviction and sentence to prison, post-trial hearings require courts to send security teams to pick up the prisoner and bring him to court. Without encroaching on the constitutional right of confrontation, we could videoconference the inmate’s testimony from his prison cell. Again, the technology already exists.
Our Committee on Technology will be at the forefront of guiding our courts into the 21st century.


As Georgia grows, it grows more diverse.
Our Georgia courts are required by the federal government to provide language services free of charge to litigants and witnesses, not only in criminal cases but in civil cases as well.
Even for fluent English speakers, the judicial system can be confusing and unwelcoming.
My vision for Georgia’s judiciary in the 21st century is that every court, in every city and every county in Georgia, will have the capacity of serving all litigants, speaking any language, regardless of national origin, from the moment they enter the courthouse until the moment they leave. That means that on court websites, signs and forms will be available in multiple languages, that all court staff will have the tools they need to assist any customers, and that court proceedings will have instant access to the interpreters of the languages they need.
Chief Magistrate Kristina Blum of the Gwinnett County Magistrate Court has been
working hard to ensure access to justice for all those who come to her court, most of whom are representing themselves.
Recently her court created brochures that provide guidance for civil trials, family
violence matters, warrant applications, garnishments, and landlord-tenant disputes. These brochures provide basic information about each proceeding – what to expect and how best to present their case in court.
Judge Blum, who is in line to be president of the Council of Magistrate Judges and is a member of our Judicial Council, has had the brochures translated into Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese. Such non-legalese forms and tutorial videos that our citizens can understand go a long way toward building trust in the judicial system, and in our entire government.
The Supreme Court Commission on Interpreters, chaired by Justice Keith Blackwell, is
making significant strides in ensuring that our courts uphold the standards of due process. With the help of Commission member Jana Edmondson-Cooper, an energetic attorney with the Georgia Legal Services Program, the Commission is working around the state to educate judges,court administrators and lawyers on the judiciary’s responsibilities in providing language assistance.
The essence of due process is the opportunity to be heard. Our justice system is the envy of other countries because it is open and fair to everyone seeking justice. By helping those who have not yet mastered English, we reinforce the message that the doors to the best justice system in the world are open to everyone.
Our law demands it. Our Constitution demands it.


The courts of the 21st century will symbolize a new era. A turning point in our history occurred when we realized there was a smarter way to handle criminals.
Six years ago, my colleague and then Chief Justice Carol Hunstein accompanied
Representative Wendell Willard to Alabama to explore how that state was reforming its criminal justice system. Back in Georgia, Governor Deal seized the reins, brought together the three branches of government, and through extraordinary leadership, has made criminal justice reform a reality. Georgia is now a model for the nation.
Today, following an explosive growth in our prison population that doubled between
1990 and 2011 and caused corrections costs to top one billion dollars a year, last year our prison population was the lowest it has been in 10 years. Our recidivism rate is the lowest it’s been in three decades. And we have turned back the tide of rising costs.
For the last five years, the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform – created by the governor and your legislation – has been busy transforming our criminal justice system into one that does a better job of protecting public safety while holding non-violent offenders accountable and saving millions in taxpayer dollars. I am extremely grateful to this Council and commend the steady leadership of co-chairs Judge Michael Boggs of the Court of Appeals and Thomas Worthy of the State Bar of Georgia.
Throughout this historic reform, Georgia’s trial court judges have been in the trenches.
Our number one goal in criminal justice reform is to better protect the safety of our citizens.
Central to that goal is the development of our specialty courts – what some call accountability courts.
These courts have a proven track record of reducing recidivism rates and keeping our
citizens safe. Nationwide, 75 percent of drug court graduates remain free of arrest two years after completing the program, and the most conservative analyses show that drug courts reduce crime as much as 45 percent more than other sentencing options. Last year, these courts helped save Georgia more than $51 million in prison costs.
From the beginning, you in the legislature have steadfastly supported the growth in these courts, most recently appropriating more than $19 million for the current fiscal year.
Georgia now has 131 of these courts, which include drug courts, DUI courts, juvenile and adult mental health courts, and veterans courts. Today, only two judicial circuits in the state do not yet have a specialty court, and both are in the early stages of discussing the possibility of starting one. In addition to those already involved, last year alone, we added nearly 3500 new participants to these courts.
Behind that number are individual tales of lives changed and in some cases, lives saved.
Our judges, who see so much failure, take pride in these success stories. And so should you.

Chief Judge Richard Slaby of the Richmond County State Court, speaks with great pride of Judge David Watkins and the specialty courts that have grown under Judge Watkins’ direction. Today the recidivism rate among the Augusta participants is less than 10 percent.
The judges who run these courts are committed and deserve our thanks. We are grateful to leaders like Judge Slaby, who is President-Elect of the Council of State Court Judges and a member of our Judicial Council; to Judge Stephen Goss of the Dougherty Superior Court, whose mental health court has been recognized as one of the best mental health courts in our country; to Chief Judge Brenda Weaver, President of the Council of Superior Court Judges and a member of our Judicial Council. Judge Weaver of the Appalachian Judicial Circuit serves on the Council of
Accountability Court Judges of Georgia, which you created last year by statute. Its purpose is to improve the quality of our specialty courts through proven standards and practices, and it is chaired by Superior Court Judge Jason Deal of Hall County. Judge Deal’s dedication to the specialty court model in his community, and his guidance and encouragement to programs throughout the state, are described as invaluable by those who work with him.


We may not have a unified court system in Georgia. But we have judges unified in their commitment to our courts. Among our one thousand four hundred and fifty judges, Georgia has many fine leaders. I’ve told you about a number of them today. In closing, I want to mention two more.
When the United States Supreme Court issued its historic decision last year on same-sex marriage, our Council of Probate Court Judges led the way toward compliance. Three months before the ruling was issued, the judges met privately at the behest of the Council’s then president, Judge Chase Daughtrey of Cook County, and his successor, Judge Don Wilkes of Emanuel County. Together, they determined that regardless of what the Supreme Court decided, they would follow the law. Both Governor Deal and Attorney General Sam Olens also publicly announced they would respect the court’s decision, despite tremendous pressure to do otherwise.
These men are all great leaders who spared our state the turmoil other states endured. The bottom line is this: In Georgia, we may like the law, we may not like the law, but we follow the law.


The day-to-day business of the Georgia courts rarely makes the news. Rather judges,
their staff and clerks spend their days devoted to understanding the law, tediously pushing cases through to resolution, committed to ferreting out the truth and making the right decision. It is not easy, and they must often stand alone, knowing that when they sentence someone to prison, many lives hang in the balance between justice and mercy.
So I thank all of our leaders, and I thank all of our judges who are leading our courts into the 21st century.
May God bless them. May God bless you. And may God bless all the people of Georgia.
Thank you.

Wells Fargo Agrees to pay $1.2 Billion (yes, with a B) to resolve claims by Justice Dept. & other federal agencies for the origination of “shoddy loans” insured by FHA


Compliance & Regulation
Why Wells Fargo Blinked in Its FHA Fight with the Government
Kate Berry
By Kate Berry
February 3, 2016
http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/compliance-regulation/why-wells-fargo-blinked-in-its-fha-fight-with-the-government-1071213-1.html?utm_medium=email&ET=nationalmortgage:e4010451:a:&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=-feb%205%202016&st=email

The long arm of the government is tough to elude, even if you are the nation’s largest home lender.

Wells Fargo stunned the mortgage industry Wednesday by tentatively agreeing to pay $1.2 billion to resolve civil claims by the Justice Department and other federal agencies that it originated shoddy loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

The proposed settlement could prove a bellwether for other banks that have outstanding investigations of FHA loans including PNC Financial Services Group, Regions Financial and BB&T.

Wells had been the lone big bank holdout willing to go to trial as a potential test of the government’s pursuit of banks for violations of the False Claims Act. That Civil War-era law allows the government to collect triple damages for fraud against the government. The law also has been a lightning rod for banks, causing some to pull out of FHA lending entirely.

Some observers said they were surprised at the size of the deal. Wells had put up a fight, claiming it has always been a prudent and responsible FHA lender. But some observers said the risk to its reputation and the cost of continuing the litigation was just too great.

“Nobody’s put [the government] to the test like Wells,” said Allen Jones, an independent mortgage consultant who managed Bank of America’s FHA business from 2005 to 2009. “They definitely made a run like no one else has. But there comes a point in time where you add it up and have to quantify the downside risk.”

The $1.8 trillion-asset bank reached an “agreement in principle” on Monday to resolve the FHA claims but could not provide any additional details until the deal is finalized, said Catherine Pulley, a Wells spokeswoman.

The agreement is forcing Wells to shave $134 million, or three cents a share, off its previously reported net income for 2015, the bank said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Wells said its revised profit for 2015 is $22.9 billion, or $4.12 a share.

The San Francisco bank had to provide for an additional legal accrual because of the settlement, which increased its operating losses within noninterest expense by $200 million, the filing said.

The deal appears to provide Wells some future protections. It would resolve “other potential civil claims relating to the company’s FHA lending activities for other periods,” the filing said.

Prosecutors had alleged that Wells “engaged in a regular practice of reckless origination and underwriting of its retail FHA loans” from 2001 to 2010.

Theoretically lenders are required to indemnify FHA for loans that contain mistakes or are defective, essentially self-insuring the loan so taxpayers are not on the hook for potential losses. In this case, Wells not only failed to report material violations to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, but HUD also paid insurance claims on thousands of defaulted loans that it later found had significant violations, the lawsuit alleged.

Last year the government added a Wells executive in charge of quality control, Kurt Lofrano, as a defendant to the lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2012. Lofrano was responsible for reporting loans with material defects to HUD, which oversees the FHA.

Prosecutors were preparing to use Wells’ own internal quality control reports to prove that executives knew some loans were of poor quality but did nothing about it. Wells failed to report the errors or change its practices because of pressure to fund more loans, the government claimed.

Patricia McCoy, a professor at Boston College Law School who specializes in banking law, said that because details of the settlement have not yet been released, there is no way to gauge the severity of Wells’ lending errors.

“Part of the problem is, there is a continuum of different types of conduct that would have led to a False Claims Act claim, and depending on the lender it could have been really bad, or a mixture with innocuous errors that slipped through,” McCoy said. “We don’t know where Wells Fargo fell along that continuum. At worst, it was a mix, some bad and probably a lot of innocuous errors.”

A bigger problem, McCoy said, is that the Justice Department has used the False Claims Act and its potential for treble damages for each violation as a tool to get banks to settle FHA violations. That threat has caused many to flee the program, she said.

“It’s a very heavy sledgehammer, and that’s not a constructive approach because in the course of underwriting innocent mistakes can happen and often they can be cured or fixed,” she said. “If the FHA is saying as a condition of a lender doing FHA loans, they have to be 100% perfect or else they are automatically going to face this threat of treble damages — that’s not a viable lending program.”

The Bank With the Most Homes in the End Wins!!!!!

Blacklisted News: ENTIRE FLORIDA POLICE DEPT BUSTED!

ENTIRE FLORIDA POLICE DEPT BUSTED LAUNDERING TENS OF MILLIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL DRUG CARTELS
Published: January 1, 2016
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http://www.blacklistednews.com/Entire_Florida_Police_Dept_Busted_Laundering_Tens_of_Millions_For_International_Drug_Cartels/48092/0/38/38/Y/M.html

SOURCE: JUSTIN GARDNER

The village of Bal Harbour, population 2,513, may have a tiny footprint on the northern tip of Miami Beach, but its police department had grand aspirations of going after international drug traffickers, and making a few million dollars while they were at it.

The Bal Harbour PD and the Glades County Sheriff’s Office set up a giant money laundering scheme with the purported goal of busting drug cartels and stemming the surge of drug dealing going on in the area. But it all fell apart when federal investigators and the Miami-Herald found strange things going on.

The two-year operation, which took in more than $55 million from criminal groups, resulted in zero arrests but netted $2.4 million for the police posing as money launderers. Members of the 12-person task force traveled far and wide to carry out their deals, from Los Angeles to New York to Puerto Rico.

Along the way, the small-town cops got a taste of luxury as they used the money for first-class flights, luxury hotels, Mac computers and submachine guns. Meanwhile, the Bal Harbour PD and Glades County Sheriffs were buying all sorts of fancy new equipment.

Besides these “official” uses of the money, confidential records obtained by the Miami-Herald show that officers withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars with no record of where the money went.

“They were like bank robbers with badges,” said Dennis Fitzgerald, an attorney and former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who taught undercover tactics for the U.S. State Department. “It had no law enforcement objective. The objective was to make money.”
The operation, which was not fully reported to federal authorities, funneled millions of dollars to overseas criminals and interfered with investigations being carried out on known money launderers.

The latest revelations show that at least 20 people in Venezuela were sent drug money from the Florida cops, including William Amaro Sanchez, the foreign minister under Hugo Chavez and now special assistant to President Nicolas Maduro.

They wired a total of $211,000 to Sanchez, even while the U.S. government was investigating Venezuelan government leaders involved in the drug trade. Instead of reporting their knowledge of Sanchez to federal agencies, the cops went on laundering money, taking their cut, and all the while aiding Sanchez in his machinations, which likely included political corruption.

Four other Venezuelan criminals and smugglers were major recipients of the millions being wired from the Bal Harbour PD and Glades County Sheriff’s Office, including a figure tied to one of the largest drug cartels in the hemisphere.

These actions violated strict federal bans on sending illegal money overseas, and the Florida cops never investigated the backgrounds of the people receiving their laundered drug money.
“I can’t think of a more podunk town than Bal Harbour — not in a bad way. But in the sense that these cops would have otherwise been stopping traffic or shooting radar,” said Ruben Oliva, who has represented alleged narco-traffickers since the 1980s. “In reality they were being launderers. The minute they started doing busts, it would have been over.

“This is like a movie. You’ve got these guys and they’re flying all over. They’re saying, ‘Hey, I’m in the big leagues.’ I’ve seen every kind of law enforcement money-laundering investigations. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s really one for the ages.”
After the Department of Justice busted the Bal Harbour PD for misspending seized money to pay police salaries, the Miami-Herald began deeper investigations and found a much bigger pool of money that was never noticed by the feds. Soon after that, the ambitious sting operation–which was really just a money-making scheme–began to fall apart.
“The Miami Herald gained unprecedented access to the confidential records of the undercover investigation, reviewing thousands of records including cash pickup reports, emails, DEA reports, bank statements and wire transfers for millions of dollars. The inquiry found:

▪ Police routinely withdrew cash — thousands at a time — totaling $1.3 million from undercover bank accounts, but to this day there are no records to show where the money was spent. “In all my years of law enforcement, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Chief Overton said.

▪ Bal Harbour officials say they cannot find receipts for hundreds of thousands in expenses, including five-star hotel bookings, dinners that ran up to $1,000 and scores of purchases like laptops, iPads, electronic money counters, flower deliveries, and even iTunes downloads.

▪ While posing as launderers, police delivered nearly $20 million to storefront businesses in Miami-Dade to launder the money for drug groups — gathering critical evidence against the business owners — yet took no action against them. Years later, the businesses are still open, some still suspected by federal agents of laundering for the cartels.”
Cash deposits to SunTrust Bank totaling $28 million do not appear anywhere in police records. It’s no coincidence that the operation was launched “at a time law enforcement agencies across Florida were looking to boost their budgets during one of the state’s toughest economic periods.”
“We had to find a revenue stream,” said Duane Pottorff, chief of law enforcement for Glades. “It allowed us to have resources we wouldn’t normally have.”
Federal authorities and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have launched probes into the Bal Harbour police, which will surely confirm the rampant abuses of power. However, the fact that these types of shady operations, carried out with the help of agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, can occur at all is even more troubling.

Government creates a black market of drugs and blood money through prohibition, then under the War on Drugs it grants itself the power to break the law and get involved in money laundering operations. While the professed goal is to “sting” the bad guys, government rakes in millions upon millions of dollars to further bolster its prohibition and war on drugs.

The War on Drugs is the real scheme that should be investigated.

A Must See For Every True American

I just watched a very, very short video at: http://www.conservativewarchest.com/

 It really made one hell of a statement.  Every true American needs to see this video, to see where we stand in this country.  A true eye-opener.  

<a href="

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king obama 300x224

Everyone has 2 minutes to see this.  It last only two minutes:

 

Judge Brian House Up For Re-Election?

It don’t get much more obvious that the corruption in Ringgold Georgia.  The judges there violate their ethics and the Cannons in blatant style.  Check the link to the news on Brian House.  He lied three times during the interview!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLZla0lf1pI

TRUTH

Someone told me recently, that things are not as bad as I think.  It don’t matter who it was.  What mattered to me, is I post what REAL news shows me.  How things REALLY are.  I feel yall have a right to know.  In order for people to protect themselves, and their families, these people must know the truth.  How can someone say that things are not as bad as I think?

http://enenews.com/internal-organs-falling-place-california-sea-lions-dying-tumors-kidney-failure?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29

The truth:

Report shows California sea lions dying from organs falling out of place, tumors, accumulation of pus inside bodies (PHOTO)

Published: September 6th, 2014 at 8:20 pm ET
By
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352 comments

Marine mammal deaths reported by The Marine Mammal Center (Sausalito, Calif) since June 2014 (domoic acid-related deaths exclude

d):

  • (12) Abscess: Collection of pus… in the tissue of the body
  • (1) Carcinoma: Cancer that begins… when altered or damaged DNA occurs to such an extent that the cells become transformed, and begin to exhibit abnormal malignant properties.
  • (1) Cardiomyopathy: “Heart muscle disease”… deterioration… of the… heart muscle… usually leading to heart failure
  • (1) Coccidioidomycosis: Fungal disease… Serious complications may occur in patients with weakened immune systems
  • (2) Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation: Blood clots [that can] lead to multiple organ damage… clotting is disrupted and severe bleeding can occur
  • (7) Neoplasia: Commonly referred to as a tumor… A malignant neoplasm is a cancer
  • (6) Otostrongylus: Lungworms… in lungs or heart of seals
  • (3) Peritonitis: Inflammation of… tissue that lines the inner wall of the abdomen… may result from infection (often due to rupture of a hollow organ)
  • (4) Pneumonia: Inflammatory condition of the lung
  • (6) Prolapse: Latin for “to fall out” — Organs, such as the uterus, fall down or slip out of place… organs protruding through the vagina or the rectum
  • (3) Pyothorax: Accumulation of pus in the pleural cavity
  • (2) Renal Failure: Kidneys fail to adequately filter waste products from the blood
  • (5) Septicemia: Potentially fatal whole-body inflammation caused by severe infection

See also: CBS San Francisco: Record number of sick seals & sea lions — Doctor: A lot with “large pockets of green and yellow puss all over their body” (PHOTO & VIDEOS)

And: Alarm as record numbers of seals & sea lions ‘starving to death’ along California coast — “It’s just spiked… calls started coming nonstop” — “So many unhealthy… washing ashore” — “Extremely complex issue… multitude of factors in play” — “Definitely a mystery, we’re hoping it’s not the new norm”

DANGER, ALERT, WARNING

Keep in mind, that there is no known vaccine, they say that you can be saved by blood transfusions.  They have also found that the blood of survivors is for sale on the black market.  So, if you survive Ebola, chances are good that you will be abducted, and your blood stolen from you.   That still might not be as bad as dying from Ebola, having all your blood removed, you just fall asleep.  King Obola opened up the borders, allowing sick and diseased persons from anywhere and everywhere invade our country.  He then allows people from anywhere and everywhere to fly into our country.  The BK and other countries have banned flights.  He brought Ebola into this country with the first two cases here, one taken to Atlanta.  Now, the hospital in Dallas, turns away a man, from Liberia, who shows symptoms of Ebola, and allows him to wander around in Dallas for four days.  He was in contact with at lease 80 people so far.  Now, he is dying in the hospital in Dallas, but has infected children who attend four different Dallas schools.

Ebola Update: New Ebola Infections Report

By Josey Wales

http://beforeitsnews.com/health/2014/10/ebola-update-new-ebola-infections-report-2551594.html?currentSplittedPage=0

Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national who had traveled to the U.S. from Liberia on September 20 to visit family, has been quarantined at a Dallas hospital for Ebola 

Ebola Patient “Zero” is now identified as Thomas Eric Duncan, pictured above, Mr Duncan carried his landlord’s sick daughter to a Liberian hospital on September 15, and boarded a flight bound for the U.S. four days later.

The pregnant woman Mr Duncan carried to the hospital, her brother and three neighbors later died of the disease But Mr Duncan wasn’t showing any signs of the virus when he boarded a plane on September 19 (most likely from Roberts International Airport, pictured right on August 27), and was therefore allowed to fly all the way to Dallas, Texas where he became the first patient diagnosed with the disease on U.S. soil.

Mr Duncan’s family are among up to 80 people being monitored after exposure to the man along with the ambulance crew who transported him to hospital.

 Five of those being monitered are students that attended four different Dallas schools this week after possibly being in close contact with the Ebola patient over the weekend.

Now to Hawaii, the Department of Health has confirmed a patient is currently in isolation and undergoing testing in Honolulu.

The Hawaii Nurses Association said the person is being treated at The Queen’s Medical Center.

Officials told KHON2 Ebola is a possibility, however the unnamed patient has yet to be specifically tested for the virus.

“We are early in the investigation of a patient — very, very early — who we’re investigating that might have Ebola,” said Dr. Melissa Viray, deputy state epidemiologist. “It’s very possible that they do and they have Ebola. I think it’s also more likely that they have another condition that presents with similar symptoms.”

Dr. Viray said the patient could have a number of illnesses including Ebola, flu, malaria and typhoid.

Dr. Viray wouldn’t confirm any details about the patient, symptoms, or if the person had recently traveled to West Africa. But she did say red flags for Ebola include fever and recent travel to that area.

“Why is this person being isolated?” KHON2 asked.

“What we’ve asked the hospitals to tell us about is anyone with a travel history, and anyone with a fever.  And when those things come together, we’ve asked them to be very careful and in an abundance of caution while you’re working, for whatever else might be going on, also make sure you isolate against Ebola, just in case,” she said.

“So it sounds like this person does have a fever and recently traveled to West Africa,” KHON2 asked.

“Again, I can’t be the one to confirm that,” Dr. Viray said.

The patient is currently being kept in a regular room, and anyone who goes in or out must wear protective gear, officials said.

“They’re monitoring who goes in and out of that room, and making sure that everybody is as safe as possible, while the patient is being evaluated for Ebola and what other conditions that patient might have,” Dr. Viray said.

Below you will see 3 videos, the first one is an interview with Mike Adams with NaturalNews.com, Mike walks us through the chain of events that have led to Ebola being allowed in the U.S. and what we can expect in the days to come. The second video brings to light many inconsistentcys in how the first Ebola case was handled, as you will see it’s very troubling. The third video is a update from Sierra Leone, where new infections in that country are spreading to 5 new people every hour and could rise to 10 every hour by the end of October! last is what to expect when Ebola enters the human body, once infected.

As Mike Adams also explains below, how the Ebola virus thrives in winter conditions and darkness.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/vkL90ISljYI?hl=en_US&version=3

Not only did Patient Zero come Liberia and inform staff of this, he also handled a person who not only had Ebola before he left Liberia, but stayed with them till they died also! But there is more in this next video.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/iZvS-ZikKlo?hl=en_US&version=3

It takes up to 21 days for symptoms of the deadly virus to show.

The death toll in West Africa from the latest Ebola outbreak has passed 3,300.

Nurses recently protested in Las Vegas, saying they are not trained to treat Ebola patients. Surveys show many Americans are afraid the Ebola virus might spread inside the U.S.

Ebola outbreak: ‘Five infected every hour’ in Sierra Leone

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/yCiaEMSw2wQ?hl=en_US&version=3

A leading charity has warned that a rate of five new Ebola cases an hour in Sierra Leone means healthcare demands are far outstripping supply.

Save the Children said there were 765 new cases of Ebola reported in the West African state last week, while there are only 327 beds in the country.

Experts and politicians are set to meet in London to debate a global response to the crisis.

It is the world’s worst outbreak of the virus, killing 3,338 people so far.

There have been 7,178 confirmed cases, with Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea suffering the most.

Save the Children says Ebola is spreading across Sierra Leone at a “terrifying rate”, with the number of new cases being recorded doubling every few weeks.

It said that even as health authorities got on top of the outbreak in one area, it spread to another.

The scale of the disease is also “assively unreported” according to the charity, because “untold numbers of children are dying anonymously at home or in the streets”.

Ebola deaths

Up to 28 September

 3,338

 Deaths (probable, confirmed and suspected)

1,998 Liberia

  •  710 Guinea
  •  622 Sierra Leone
  •  8 Nigeria
  •  Source: WHO
Getty

“We’re in a race against time,” said Justin Forsyth, the organisation’s chief executive.

Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme he said that the figure for Sierra Leone could rise to 10 people every hour before the end of the month if urgent action were not taken.

Americans have a right to be worried, this disease is already spreading out of control in the countries where it all started.

There was a lot of good information on what you can do to strengthen your immune system to prevent the spread of the disease. People should be preparing for the worst and hope for the best. This is one disease we cannot take for granted.

How our government ever allowed this to happen is unforegivable.

From Mike Adams NaturalNews, Throughout the course of human history, governments — even those that claimed to be benevolent — have killed millions of their own people in horrible fashion through the use of what were essentially weapons of mass destruction. A new historical review by Dr. Stefan Riedel, MD, PhD, for Baylor University Medical Center documents some of those uses, but there are other examples as well that Natural Newsfound in its own research.

Dr. Riedel’s review was spurred in part by the continuing threat of global terrorism and, in some current conflicts, the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilian populations.

But in addition to the standard threats — chemical and conventional weapons – there should be additional concerns about non-traditional, biological threats, and the current deadly Ebola virus outbreak serves as a reminder that pandemics can also be unleashed on populations as a means of decimating them.

The historical review noted:

Because of the increased threat of terrorism, the risk posed by various microorganisms as biological weapons needs to be evaluated and the historical development and use of biological agents better understood. Biological warfare agents may be more potent than conventional and chemical weapons.

Biological warfare has been used for 2,500 years

In the past century especially, there has been substantial progress in the fields of biotechnology and biochemistry, progress that has “simplified the development and production” of biological and chemical weapons. Also, Dr. Riedel’s review found that the field of genetic engineering is most likely the deadliest of all.

“Ease of production and the broad availability of biological agents and technical know how have led to a further spread of biological weapons and an increased desire among developing countries to have them,” the review said. “The threat of bioterrorism is real and significant; it is neither in the realm of science fiction nor confined to our nation.”

Early in our history, men learned how to kill one another using incurable, untreatable sickness as a biological weapon. As early as 600 B.C., the use of infectious diseases was recognized as a way to impact, with deadly results, entire armies and the populations that supported them. Indeed, biowarfare has been used for some 2,500 years, according to a 1995 study:

The techniques of delivery and weaponization of biological warfare agents have gradually evolved from the catapulting of plague victims to the deliberate use of infected clothes, insect vectors, and specialized weapon systems.

“The crude use of filth and cadavers, animal carcasses, and contagion had devastating effects and weakened the enemy,” Dr. Riedel’s review added.

Another tactic adopted by warring factions was the poisoning of water sources of the opposing military force — a tactic that was continued often through the many European wars, as well as the American Civil War. The tactic has been used into and throughout the 20th century as well.

Middle Ages and more technological advances.

Military tacticians and leaders during the Middle Ages understood that bioweapons — infectious diseases — could be deployed against opposing armies and their supporting civilian populations.

For example, in 1346 during the siege of Caffa, a strongly fortified seaport controlled by the Genoese (now, the region is known as Feodosia, which is in Crimea, recently annexed by Russia), the assaulting Tartars fell victim to a plague epidemic. But the Tartars used it to gain military advantage; they catapulted cadavers of the deceased into the city, which then led to an outbreak of plague there. That forced the Genoese forces to retreat.

An epidemic of plague, known also as the Black Death, followed and continued to sweep through Europe, the Near East and North Africa during the 14th century. It has been called the worst pandemic in recorded history.

“The siege of Caffa is a powerful reminder of the terrible consequences when diseases are used as weapons,” said the review.

The 14th century plague killed more than 25 million Europeans, and there were other instances where disease and poisons were used during warfare, the historical review said.

In more recent times, other diseases have been used as biological weapons, most notably smallpox. Francisco Pizarro, for instance, reportedly gave native South Americans disease-contaminated clothing in the 15th century; also, during the French and Indian War in North America, the commander of British forces, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, suggested that the smallpox virus should be deliberately introduced into the Native American population hostile to the Crown, as a way of diminishing resistance.

Bioweapons in the New World

“An outbreak of smallpox in Fort Pitt led to a significant generation of fomites and provided Amherst with the means to execute his plan,” the review said, continuing:

On June 24, 1763, Captain Ecuyer, one of Amherst’s subordinate officers, provided the Native Americans with smallpox-laden blankets from the smallpox hospital. He recorded in his journal: “I hope it will have the desired effect.” As a result, a large outbreak of smallpox occurred among the Indian tribes in the Ohio River Valley.

World War I saw the first industrialized use of chemical warfare — which was eventually banned by international treaty — but there was also talk of usingbiological warfare. German military planners considered shipping horses tainted with the anthrax and glanders bacteria to the United States and other allied countries. Also, “the same agents were used to infect Romanian sheep that were designated for export to Russia,” the review said. Germany was also suspected of making plans to send cholera to Italy and plague to parts of Russia.

A League of Nations committee cleared Germany of any biological warfare in 1924 but noted that the country used chemical warfare.

Continued research and fear of use in the 20th century

By the time World War II began, a number of countries had begun substantial research into biological weapons, according to Dr. Riedel’s review:

Various allegations and countercharges clouded the events during and after World War II. Japan conducted biological weapons research from approximately 1932 until the end of World War II. The program was under the direction of Shiro Ishii (1932-1942) and Kitano Misaji (1942-1945). Several military units existed for research and development of biological warfare.

More than 10,000 prisoners were believed to have died during their captivity in Japanese prison camps as a result of experimentation with biological warfare agents.

After World War II, biowarfare programs expanded, and that included programs in the United States, but these also involved research into countermeasure programs aimed at defeating a biological attack. By 1972, however, most nations signed onto a UN-sponsored treaty, the “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction,” which bans development and deployment of biological weapons.

Today, terrorists could deploy bioweapons

As recently as the first Gulf War in 1991, however, there were fears that biological weapons could be employed during combat. “Coalition forces prepared in 1990-1991 for potential biological and chemical warfare by training in protective masks and equipment, exercising decontamination procedures, receiving extensive education on possible detection procedures, and immunizing troops against potential biological warfare threats,” Dr. Riedel’s review said.

Since then, research into bio-agents has continued, as global terrorism fears multiply with the rise of numerous non-state actors. Even today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon’s NORTHCOM (Northern Command, which is responsible for protecting the U.S. homeland), have all warned that biological warfare is still a very real possibility. Officials cite the immediate post-9/11 incidents in 2001 involving anthrax spores sent to targets through the mail as examples.

Learn all these details and more at the FREE online Pandemic Preparedness course at www.BioDefense.com

Sources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

http://www.fema.gov [PDF]

http://science.naturalnews.com

 

What does Ebola do to the immune system?

Once the virus enters the body, it targets several types of immune cells that represent the first line of defense against invasion. It infects dendritic cells, which normally display signals of an infection on their surfaces to activate T lymphocytes—the white blood cells that could destroy other infected cells before the virus replicates further. With defective dendritic cells failing to give the right signal, the T cells don’t respond to infection, and neither do the antibodies that depend on them for activation. The virus can start replicating immediately and very quickly.

Ebola, like many viruses, works in part by inhibiting interferon—a type of molecule that cells use to hinder further viral reproduction. In a new study published today in Cell Host & Microbe, researchers found that one of Ebola’s proteins, called VP24, binds to and blocks a transport protein on the surface of immune cells that plays an important role in the interferon pathway.

Curiously, lymphocytes themselves don’t become infected with the virus, but a series of other factors—a lack of stimulation from some cells and toxic signals from others—prevent these primary immune cells from putting up a fight.

How does Ebola cause hemorrhaging?

As the virus travels in the blood to new sites, other immune cells called macrophages eat it up. Once infected, they release proteins that trigger coagulation, forming small clots throughout the blood vessels and reducing blood supply to organs. They also produce other inflammatory signaling proteins and nitric oxide, which damage the lining of blood vessels, causing them to leak. Although this damage is one of the main symptoms of infection, not all patients exhibit external hemorrhaging—bleeding from the eyes, nose, or other orifices.

Does the virus target certain organs?

Ebola triggers a system-wide inflammation and fever and can also damage many types of tissues in the body, either by prompting immune cells such as macrophages to release inflammatory molecules or by direct damage: invading the cells and consuming them from within. But the consequences are especially profound in the liver, where Ebola wipes out cells required to produce coagulation proteins and other important components of plasma. Damaged cells in the gastrointestinal tract lead to diarrhea that often puts patients at risk of dehydration. And in the adrenal gland, the virus cripples the cells that make steroids to regulate blood pressure and causes circulatory failure that can starve organs of oxygen.

What ultimately kills Ebola patients?

Damage to blood vessels leads to a drop in blood pressure, and patients die from shock and multiple organ failure.

Why do some people survive infection?

Patients fare better with supportive care, including oral or intravenous rehydration that can buy time for the body to fight off infection. But studies on blood samples from patients during the 2000 outbreak of a different Ebola strain in Uganda have also identified genes and other markers that seem to be predictive of survival.

Patients who recovered had higher levels of activated T cells in their blood and had certain variants of a gene that codes for surface proteins that white blood cells use to communicate. Earlier this year, researchers found a new association between survival and levels of sCD40L, a protein produced by platelets that could be part of the body’s attempt to repair damaged blood vessels. The authors note that markers like sCD40L could suggest new therapies that augment the repair mechanisms most important for survival.

*Correction, 15 August, 1:51 p.m.: This article has been corrected to note that nitric oxide, not nitrous oxide, damages blood vessels.

*The Ebola Files: Given the current Ebola outbreak, unprecedented in terms of number of people killed and rapid geographic spread, Science and Science Translational Medicinehave made a collection of research and news articles on the viral disease freely available to researchers and the general public.

This is a must read link: The Report Global To The President 2000. Author Jimmy Carter! It reads like something right out of the movie “Outbreak”  Could this all have been planned?

UPDATE: This video from Sept 9th tells the rest of the story!

For Those Who Refuse to Believe That Small Doses Of Radiation Are Not Hurting Us, Read!

All of the people who are in denial about the Radiation doses we are constantly receiving, you need to wake up, and read what these people are trying to tell you!  Even small doses, what they consider background radiation, is not naturally occurring radiation.  It is from years of bomb testing, power plant leaks, numerous things.  But when your babies are being born with no brains, and spinal cords sticking out, people need to take heed.  If you babies don’t show signs, their babies will.  No ifs ands or buts.  Humans are on the way to changing from radiation.  We will never be the same.  We must stop all nuclear reactors, because humans are not responsible enough to use radiation safely.  There is no way to take care of all the waste we have now.  What do you people think we will do with all the waste?  What do you think we will do when the oceans die?  Move to another planet?  When all humanity becomes sterile?  Read what these people say….

It’s Terrifying”: Rapid rise in babies with missing brains and spinal cords sticking out in area surrounding most contaminated nuclear site in US — Mother: Actual number is WAY higher than officials are reporting (VIDEO)

Published: September 16th, 2014 at 12:31 pm ET
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Tweet by JoNel Aleccia, former NBC News reporter, Sept 2, 2014: Five pregnancies with anencephaly in Central WA state with due dates this year. State, CDC plan interviews w/ moms

After writing one of the first reports on the extremely high rate of babies missing part of their brain (anencephaly) in the 3 counties surrounding the Hanford nuclear site, Aleccia left NBC News. She is now a staff writer at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Sept. 2, 2014: ‘We take it on:’ Hutch team helps raise awareness of mysterious cluster of babies born with anencephaly… to tackle baffling problem — Outreach workers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are drawing on years of community connections in [the counties of Yakima, Benton, and Franklin in] south central Washington state to raise awareness about a devastating cluster of severe birth defects that no one can explain… babies are born without parts of the skull and brain… 32 babies since 2010… there were five women in the region who reported they were pregnant with babies with anencephaly, all due later this year, according to Washington state health officials… “A lot of what we do is around cancer prevention, but when we hear of other things that also affect health disparities, we take it on.” State and federal officials are urging groups like the Fred Hutch team to help…

It is interesting that a cancer center is getting involved with this Hanford-area birth defect cluster, especially when that cancer center played a key role in the controversial ‘Hanford Thyroid Disease Study’.

According to a review of the study by the National Academy of Sciences: “it appears that the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle enjoyed greater public trust than the federal agencies while carrying out the HTDS… [The study’s] public summary… was misleading…  the results of the HTDS were presented with unqualified certainty… Statements attributed to the HTDS investigators appear to have overstated the certainty of the results [such as claiming:] ‘These results provide rather strong evidence that exposures at these levels to 131I do not increase the risk of thyroid disease or hyperparathyroidism. These results should consequently provide a substantial degree of reassurance to the population exposed to Hanford radiation that the exposures are not likely to have affected their thyroid.’”

NBC Right Now, Aug 1, 2014: Local Birth Defect Moms Asking Why They’re Excluded From Cluster — “It’s terrifying”… said Nikki Shelton. Her son Corbin was born just months ago with Spina Bifida. She didn’t know he’d have a defect until he was born… When we asked Shelton and Alicia Jones, whose son Noah has the same defect, if they were under the assumption the Department of Health was including them under their research they both said, “Yes”. “To come to find out that they’re heading onwards with anencephaly and not looking into Spina Bifida is disheartening,” explained Shelton… In Spina Bifida the baby is born with part of their spinal cord sticking out.

On the ‘Washington Neural Tube Defects Cluster’ Facebook page, Nikki Shelton recently wrote: “I wanted you all to have a few numbers to reference to see just how rapidly the Neural Tube Defects are rising in our area. The Department of Health says we are 4 times the national average but we have to be WAY higher than that!… Physicians in Washington are NOT required to report birth defects!! The hospitals also code any termination/miscarriage as a “Complication of Pregnancy”. There are many families that choose to abort once they find out their unborn child has a defect, these are NOT counted in the national average. Not to mention all the defects that are not being reported by the physicians!!!”

Perhaps state officials will see this report that was posted on their own website… yet no longer available: “Studies by Lowell E. Sever, an epidemiologist with Battelle’s Seattle Research Center, and others reported an association between neural tube defects [anencephaly/spina bifida] and the radiation dose fathers received before their children were conceived. Thiseffect was observed in children whose parents received low doses (100 millisieverts or less) of external whole-body radiation while working at Hanford… Other research suggests there is reason to believe that radiation exposure before pregnancy can increase the frequency of birth defects… Sever and others also conducted a study of birth defects in Washington’s Benton and Franklin counties near Hanford. The researchers examined the number of cases of certain birth defects between 1968 and 1980. There were more neural tube defects than expected when the county rates were compared with rates from Washington, Oregon and Idaho… Conclusion — As with other health effects from radiation, it is assumed that any exposure to radiation carries some risk of genetic effects and birth defects.”

Watch the broadcast on NBC Right Now here