Michael Flynn’s Lawyers Claim Lisa Page Altered FBI Interview Record to Frame Him

Michael Flynn’s Lawyers Claim Lisa Page Altered FBI Interview Record to Frame Him

Lisa-Page-after-meeeting-lawmakers-Capitol-Hill-ap-640x480
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/10/25/michael-flynn-lawyers-accuse-fbi-of-laying-trap-withholding-evidence/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=daily&utm_campaign=20191025&utm_content=Final

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page leaves following an interview with lawmakers behind closed doors on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, July 13, 2018.
JOEL B. POLLAK
25 Oct 2019

Lawyers for former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn reportedly filed a motion on Thursday in which they allege that the Department of Justice manipulated a document to frame their client and is withholding exculpatory evidence.
The apparent “sealed” filing, dated October 24, 2019, was posted to social media on Thursday evening.

US v Flynn; DE 129-2 by Techno Fog on Scribd

The filing by Flynn’s new legal team, which took over the case several weeks ago, argues that the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted an “ambush-interview” of Flynn in the White House not to discover any evidence of criminal activity, but to coax him into making false statements.

When Flynn’s new lawyer Sidney Powell first made those allegations in September, prosecutors replied that she was indulging in “conspiracy theories” and noted his client had already pleaded guilty to the crime of lying to the FBI in 2017. Flynn has been awaiting sentencing since then, and even told the sentencing judge in 2018 that he would not claim FBI misconduct, despite growing evidence that they had departed from normal practice in interviewing him and had only completed their “302” — the report of their meeting — after he had already been forced to resign from his position in the administration over the allegations.

The new defense filing alleges that the government is refusing to turn over a mountain of potentially exculpatory evidence, some of which has begun to emerge in the media — either through leaks or through ongoing inquiries into the origins of the probe into alleged Russia “collusion” with the Trump campaign, later found not to exist.

That evidence, Flynn’s legal team alleges, includes an apparent admission by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page — who resigned after being discovered having an affair with agent Peter Strzok, with whom she shared anti-trump texts — that she had edited the 302 — something that she allegedly told FBI investigators she did not recall, the filing states.

The edits, the filing alleges, were substantive: they included a claim that Flynn said he did not discuss any sanctions with the Russian ambassador. Flynn’s lawyers allege he merely told the FBI he did not recall, and that the claim he said otherwise was added only after a transcript of his discussion with the ambassador had been leaked to the media.

In a footnote, the filing adds that former FBI general counsel James Baker “is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn’s calls to [Washington Post reporter David] Ignatius.” It also alleges that former National Intelligence Director James Clapper told Ignatius to “take the kill shot on Flynn.”

The filing emerged hours after reports that the Department of Justice had shifted its investigation of the origins of the Russia probe to become a criminal investigation under the supervision of prosecutor John H. Durham.

Flynn was subject to surveillance — allegedly in response to claims that he might have violated the Logan Act, an archaic and rarely-enforced law barring private citizens from diplomacy — during President-elect Donald Trump’s transition to office. Flynn’s name was then unmasked in the transcript of his telephone conversation with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which was then leaked illegally.

Flynn’s subsequent prosecution for lying to the FBI was key to the “Russia collusion” theory, later found to have no substance after a lengthy investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that took nearly two years to complete.

Critics have alleged that Mueller may have induced Flynn to plead guilty by suggesting that the government had more evidence of “Russia collusion” than it actually did.

This story is developing.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

I Don’t Think They Ever Even Looked for Richard Merritt, While the Victims That Testified Against Him Remain in Fear

Richard-Merritt-via-Fox-5-Atlanta

Ex-Lawyer Supposed to Be In Prison for Cheating Clients, But Now He’s Wanted in His Mom’s Murder
by Alberto Luperon | 5:51 pm, February 3rd, 2019

Disbarred lawyer Richard Merritt, 44, was due in prison Friday for swindling his clients. Yet it’s two days later and he’s now wanted for allegedly killing his mother. Cops in Dekalb County, Georgia said that officers responded to a local home on Saturday morning regarding a dead person, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They found Shirley Merritt was fatally stabbed. Cops blame this on her son.

Cops said Richard Merritt might be driving his mom’s brown 2009 Lexus RX350. It features the Georgia license plate CBV6004.

The suspect shouldn’t even be out, whether or not there was a murder. The suspect was convicted of settling lawsuits without clients’ knowledge, and keeping the cash. He was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison, to be followed by an equally long stint on probation. Prosecutors say he took advantage of the elderly, and those alleging medical malpractice. This scheme affected 17 former clients. He’d lie to them about the settlements, and claim their cases were ongoing, authorities said. Prosecutors claim he forged their signatures and checks, and notary seals.

Merritt surrendered his law license last year. From the Supreme Court of Georgia in a filing dated January 29, 2018:

In his petition, Merritt, who has been a member of the Bar since 2000, admits that in February 2017 he settled a client’s personal injury matter for $75,000, but failed to promptly disburse those funds to his client or her medical providers and failed to render a full accounting of the funds to his client.

The judge in his sentencing gave him time to prepare for prison, and turn himself in by 5 p.m. on February 1. The defendant had to deal with what was described as family medical issues before serving his sentence, according to a Fox 5 Atlanta story.

9b13335e-7797-4ef3-9e0d-f54a723ab33b_750x422
Georgia: Disbarred Lawyer Richard Merritt Jailed on Theft, Elder Abuse Charges
http://www.barcomplaint.com/attorney-theft/georgia-disbarred-lawyer-richard-merritt-jailed-on-theft-elder-abuse-charges/

The problems of Richard Merritt have come to a head with his arrest. This has been long coming has his behavior has been in question for several years.
Georgia: Disbarred Lawyer Richard Merritt Jailed on Theft, Elder Abuse Charges
Attorney Richard Merritt was disbarred Monday for pocketing a client’s $75,000 settlement and jailed Wednesday on multiple felonies.

Richard Vinson Merritt

Former Smyrna attorney Richard V. Merritt, who was disbarred Monday after admitting to settling a client’s suit for $75,000 and then pocketing the money, woke up in the Cobb County Jail Thursday after being arrested on separate felony elder abuse, theft, exploitation and check fraud charges.

The spokesperson for the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office said he had no further information on the charges, which were apparently filed by the Smyrna Police Department. The booking report includes a notation that Merritt is to be held for the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, where a press liaison said they received a bench warrant for “indirect criminal attempt.”

He provided no further information, and there was no immediate response from Smyrna police.

On Friday, Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds said there was little he could offer concerning Merritt’s case so far.

“We have yet to receive the complete investigative file from the Cobb Sheriff’s Department,” said Reynolds via email. “When we do, our White Collar Unit will begin the process of determining what charges we will proceed to the grand jury with. In addition, our Investigators will begin reviewing the file upon receipt to see if there are any additional victims or charges which need to be pursued.”

Merritt remained in jail on Friday afternoon.

Merritt is the subject of multiple civil suits in Cobb County, including one filed by a woman who claims he forged her name on a $150,000 settlement agreement and check without her knowledge. She claims Merritt never turned over any funds.

He also faces several legal malpractice and fraud lawsuits in Cobb County from clients claiming he agreed to handle their cases and then never filed them and never pursued any actions.

Merritt has represented himself in each of the lawsuits.

The attorney for a plaintiff in one case, Sapp & Moriarty partner Daniel Moriarty—interviewed before word of Merritt’s arrest was known—said he was surprised at the mild tone in the state Supreme Court’s disbarment opinion, which only said Merritt “settled a client’s personal injury matter for $75,000 but failed to promptly disburse those funds to his client or her medical providers and failed to render a full accounting of the funds to his client.”

“That’s a euphemism for stealing money,” said Moriarty. “I talked to an investigator who has seen his bank records and determined that he had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars. It just blows my mind what he’s gotten away with.”

According the bar complaint reviewed by the Daily Report, Merritt was retained to handle a personal injury matter in December 2016 and settled it last February, cashing the forged check Feb.7. On Feb. 10, he filed a lawsuit “and continued to lead me on until late May 2017 when I learned what he had done,” the confidential complaint said.

“I have never seen a dime of the $75,000,” said Merritt’s former client.

Another civil suit filed in Cobb County State Court last year said Merritt forged a husband and wife’s signature on a settlement and check in a medical malpractice case and never told them.

Another complaint said Merritt accepted a med-mal case and continually told his client that he was investigating it. Merritt sent emails saying “All is well and we are moving forward on your case,” and “No worries I’m on it!”

Then he stopped accepting the woman’s calls, and the filing deadline passed.

In that case, Judge Maria Golick struck Merritt’s answers and ordered a damages-only trial after finding he “willfully failed to respond” to hearing notices. Golick scheduled a show-cause criminal contempt hearing, and the decision is apparently still under advisement, according to court records.

In the case Moriarty is handling, Merritt also allegedly claimed to be conducting discovery and searching for experts, even scheduling bogus depositions for his clients, only to cancel them at the last minute.

Merritt was the principal for the Smyrna-based Merritt Firm, whose offices were the subject of several dispossessory actions between 2015 and 2017, according to court records.

Last August, Merritt sued two attorneys on behalf of spine surgeon and frequent medical expert James Chappuis. At the time, Merritt said he vice president and general counsel of Chappuis’ Orthopaedic & Spine Surgery of Atlanta.

That case settled confidentially shortly after it was filed.

Source: Professional Legal Blog
Doctor Claims Patient, Lawyers Stiffed Him After Winning $700K at Trial
The doctor, who claims he’s owed more than $200,000, also testified as an expert witness at his patient’s trial.

An Atlanta spine surgeon who sometimes works as an expert witness in personal injury cases has sued a former patient and his lawyers, claiming they stiffed him on $200,000 in medical bills after netting a $700,000 jury award.

The complaint filed Monday by Dr. James Chappuis, founder and CEO of Orthopaedic & Spine Surgery of Atlanta, said he’s owed $205,323 for more than two years of treatment provided to Shin Cho. Chappuis also testified as an expert witness at Cho’s trial.

The complaint was filed by the surgery’s vice president and general counsel, Richard Merritt, and named Cho as well as his attorneys in the personal injury action, James Rice Jr. and Thomas Schaefer.

It accuses Cho of using “pressure and misrepresentation” to convince a clinic staffer to accept just $7,500 as full payment of the debt and said the lawyers paid themselves and disbursed Cho’s net award from their trust account despite knowing Chappuis was still owed.

Even the debt Cho purportedly satisfied was “erroneous” and allegedly constituted less than a quarter of the actual sum owed to the doctor, according to the complaint.

Rice denied the suit’s allegations, pointing to a May 31 letter from Chappuis’ practice, saying Cho’s $7,500 payment satisfied his “current outstanding patient balance of $43,871.01.”

“Shortly after they sent that, they contacted us to say there was a ‘bookkeeping error’ and that Mr. Cho owed more than $205,000,” Rice said. “I retained outside counsel to get advice on what to do, and we told their office we were going to disburse the funds in two weeks, and that’s what we did.”

“I also contacted the Georgia bar, and they confirmed that that was the proper way to handle it, so we did all our due diligence before we distributed the money,” Rice said.

Rice said the doctor and his practice were already paid more than $100,000 by Cho’s insurer, and “Mr. Cho candidly feels that he doesn’t owe them anything.”

Schaefer said he was out of town and had not had a chance to review the complaint but was “not really sure why I’ve been named as a party.”

“Our official quote is that we stand by the complaint as drafted,” said Merritt, declining to discuss the case further.

On May 22, Cho was awarded $700,000 for claims that he developed back pain following a minor car wreck in Gwinnett County.

Rice told the Daily Report at the time that Cho drove away from the scene. He argued Cho, who already suffered at least three previous back injuries, was an “eggshell plaintiff” for whom even a low-impact wreck was dangerous.

Last year, Cho signed a “letter of protection” with Chappuis and his practice, agreeing to pay or have his attorneys pay “all outstanding medical bills” from funds accruing from the legal action, the complaint said.

The lawyers had previously worked with Chappuis on other cases and “knew the critical importance of the medical care being provided by [Chappuis], as it related to satisfying the burden of proof in proving causation and damages, and in the effectiveness of Plaintiff Chappuis’ testimony, as both a treating physician and a medical expert,” according to the complaint.

In fact, Rice sent Chappuis a congratulatory text message after the trial, saying the jury “liked you a lot and coming across as objective helped,” while they did not “buy” the defense expert’s “nonsense.”

But on May 31, Cho went to Orthopaedic & Spine Surgery’s main office and “through deliberate pressure and misrepresentation of the facts, convinced a clerical employee to accept $7,500 in satisfaction and payment in full of an alleged $43,871.01, which was erroneous, as the amount due and owing is $205,323.70,” according to the complaint.

The complaint said that, on June 17, Chappuis’ attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Rice “specifically instructing him not to disburse any funds” until he and his practice had been paid. On June 30 a satisfaction of judgment was filed with the court, but Rice and Schaefer “intentionally disregarded their obligation to compensate” the plaintiffs.

The suit, filed Aug. 21, names Cho, Rice, Schaefer and the lawyers’ practices as defendants, and includes counts for fraud, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract.

Rice said it is “unfortunate that the plaintiffs have chosen to bring both my firm and Mr. Shaefer’s firm into a matter that is moot,” and is also moot regarding Cho.

“To say the least, the lawsuit is disappointing, but in any event we will vigorously defend it, including seeking fees and costs,” Rice said.

Source: Daily Report

Name Of The Attorney: Attorney Richard Merritt
Name Of The Law Firm: Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds
State: Georgia
xyz_fbap: 1

New York’s Lawyers and Judges Behaving Badly, From New York Law Journal

https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2018/12/30/lawyers-judges-behaving-badly/
Tara-Lenich-Article-201612051956
Tara Lenich, admitted to forging judicial orders to run illegal wiretaps on a fellow prosecutor and a New York City Police Detective, sentenced to one year in prison in early 2018.

Edmund-Duffy
Edmund Duffy’s five-decade legal career, during which he rose to prominence as the former heard of the China practice at Skadden, officially ended 02/08/2018, when he was automatically disbarred after he pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.

AP-Robert-Cicale-web
A Suffolk County District Court Judge was suspended from the bench after he was arrested and charged with burglary. He was caught with women’s underwear that he allegedly stole from a private residence.

Evan-Greebel-Article-201710202147
Evan Greebel, a former partner at Kaye Scholer and Katten Muchin Rosenman, was sent to prison for working with disgraced pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli to defraud investors.

ravelo-keila-Article-201810091948
Keila Ravelo was sentenced to five years for conspiring to defraud her former law firms and clients out of $7.8 Million, using bogus litigation vendors. Prosecutors said that the former Hunton & Williams and Willkie Farr & Gallagher partner used the money to fuel a lavish lifestyle.

Frank-Aquila-Article-201809281858
Prominent M&A partner Frank Aquila deleted his Twitter account after tellling White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders she should “Rot in Hell You Bitch” for defending Sen. Lindsey Graham amid the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.

Aaron-Schlossberg-Article-201805171926
Manhattan attorney Aaron Schlossberg’s rant against employees speaking Spanish at a Mexican Restaurant provoked a firestorm on social media.

Anna-Lushchinskaya-Article-201812142118
Another viral video captured a second New York City lawyer who directed racially charged comments at bystanders.

Gavel-and-Book-Article-201710162142
“Egragious and outragesou” conduct by ex-Mintz Levin associate Anthony Jacob Zappin during his pro se legal war with his former wife, also an attorney, led to his disbarment.

Judicial-Robe-Article-201712011528
New York’s high court unanimously said that Civil Court Judge Terrence O’Connor’s “intemparate” and “inappropriate” behavior in the courtroom were bad enough, but his decision to not cooperate with an investigation into his actions also contributed to his removal from the bench.

From Our Friends at Livinglies, Neil Garfield

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/95852/posts/2112751964

How to Use and Oppose Judicial Notice

One of the biggest bluffs used by claimants in foreclosure and eviction proceedings is the request for judicial notice. If unopposed, this results in myths being propagated as facts. Just because a document exists or has been uploaded to SEC.GOV or any other site doesn’t mean the source or the content is credible or reliable.
If I manage to record a deed purporting to transfer title that doesn’t mean that title is transferred nor that my ownership is to be presumed. The same is true if I upload the same fabricated deed to SEC.gov or any other site on the internet.
Judicial notice is erroneously applied as a vehicle for shifting the burden of proof. The basic rule of evidence is simple: the proponent of evidence must prove the truth, credibility and reliability of that evidence, even if it is admitted into evidence. Otherwise the evidence is admitted with zero weight.
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PLEASE FILL OUT AND SUBMIT OUR FREE REGISTRATION FORM WITHOUT ANY OBLIGATION. OUR PRIVACY POLICY IS THAT WE DON’T USE THE FORM EXCEPT TO SPEAK WITH YOU OR PERFORM WORK FOR YOU. THE INFORMATION ON THE FORMS ARE NOT SOLD NOR LICENSED IN ANY MANNER, SHAPE OR FORM. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Get a Consult and TERA (Title & Encumbrances Analysis and & Report) 202-838-6345 or 954-451-1230. The TERA replaces and greatly enhances the former COTA (Chain of Title Analysis, including a one page summary of Title History and Gaps).
THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
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Most states essentially have the same statute in their laws of evidence, like this one from Florida:

90.202 Matters which may be judicially noticed.A court may take judicial notice of the following matters, to the extent that they are not embraced within s. 90.201:

(1) Special, local, and private acts and resolutions of the Congress of the United States and of the Florida Legislature.

(2) Decisional, constitutional, and public statutory law of every other state, territory, and jurisdiction of the United States.

(3) Contents of the Federal Register.

(4) Laws of foreign nations and of an organization of nations.

(5) Official actions of the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the United States and of any state, territory, or jurisdiction of the United States.

(6) Records of any court of this state or of any court of record of the United States or of any state, territory, or jurisdiction of the United States.

(7) Rules of court of any court of this state or of any court of record of the United States or of any other state, territory, or jurisdiction of the United States.

(8) Provisions of all municipal and county charters and charter amendments of this state, provided they are available in printed copies or as certified copies.

(9) Rules promulgated by governmental agencies of this state which are published in the Florida Administrative Code or in bound written copies.

(10) Duly enacted ordinances and resolutions of municipalities and counties located in Florida, provided such ordinances and resolutions are available in printed copies or as certified copies.

(11) Facts that are not subject to dispute because they are generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the court. (e.s.)

(12) Facts that are not subject to dispute because they are capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot be questioned. (e.s.)

(13) Official seals of governmental agencies and departments of the United States and of any state, territory, or jurisdiction of the United States.

History.s. 1, ch. 76-237; s. 1, ch. 77-77; s. 1, ch. 77-174; ss. 3, 22, ch. 78-361; ss. 1, 2, ch. 78-379.

A quick review of this statute, essentially the same as all others, reveals that it is not intended to be used as proof of contested facts. The fact that a document obviously exists may not be subject to contest unless the objection is that the document was prepared expressly for trial and not as part of whatever transaction is being contested.

Courts often overstep by becoming the lawyer for the claimant in foreclosure or eviction. As an example of the court stepping into the shoes of the claimant, there is the issue of judicial notice. You should research this. Because judicial notice is intended to be used as follows:
  1. For judicial economy — i.e., acceptance of facts that are virtually incontrovertible and not requiring proof. VERSUS your objections to the content of those documents. The requirement of absolute credibility is essential for judicial notice. There is no prejudice to any party by requiring actual proof of the documents and its contents. Judicial economy does not trump the rules of evidence which are designed to ferret out the truth not to assume facts that are untrue or that could easily be untrue because they came from an interested party.
  2. For documents, the only application of the judicial notice doctrine is that the documents exist and are maintained on a completely trusted site and not that what is written on them is true.
  3. In the case of government documents prepared by government with no interest in making any claims or defending any claims but simply in the ordinary course of record keeping, the record is subject to judicial notice and the content is generally presumed to be true unless disproven by the the opposing party.
  4. Judicial notice is completely inappropriate where the documents were prepared by parties with an interest in the outcome of litigation and claims and are not inspected, reviewed or scrutinized as to accuracy.
  5. Verifying facial validity of a document is NOT the same as verifying the statements contained on the document.
  6. For documents the source must be an independent third party source with no interest in the outcome. So if a fabricated assignment of mortgage is recorded in the county records, then the the existence of the document may be judicially noticed without any presumptions of the veracity or sufficiency of the statements contained in the assignment.
  7. Failure to object to the introduction of the document MIGHT be grounds for admission of both the document and its contents. The ability of the opposing party to present evidence that the document had been fabricated and that the statements contained within it are untrue or misleading is not barred by failure to object.
  8. The fact that it is admitted in evidence does not mean that should be given great weight by the trial court. Any evidence submitted by a party who has a direct interest in the outcome of litigation is to be viewed skeptically and requiring corroborative proof.
  9. Judicial notice is NOT appropriate for the PSA or anything else if the request for notice directs the court’s attention to SEC.GOV. This is an effort at misdirection.
  10. SEC.GOV is merely a repository for uploading documents with no more official capacity than box.com or dropbox.com. The fact that a document is there is NOT an indication that the document is an official document. The SEC has not reviewed it or approved it in any way, manner shape or form.
  11. BEST Evidence: Only the original document produced in court would be sufficient evidence of the document’s existence and then only if it was complete and signed — which means that the mortgage loan schedule is attached as the original mortgage loan schedule attached the trust instrument, the prospectus and the servicing agreements when they were originally executed.
  12. It is a common ploy to upload documents to SEC.Gov and then request judicial notice. This is wrong.
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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.

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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.
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Attorneys of the Month for January thru March 5th, 2018.


The following Georgia attorneys were disciplined and/or disbarred for the month Of March, 2018:

March 5, 2018
S18Y0348. IN THE MATTER OF SAM LOUIS LEVINE

Sam L. Levine
S18Y0350. IN THE MATTER OF CHRISTOPHER AARON CORLEY
S18Y0383. IN THE MATTER OF ANDRE KEITH SANDERS
S18Y0559. IN THE MATTER OF WALTER LINTON MOORE

Februry 19, 2018:
S18Y0315. IN THE MATTER OF NATALIE DAWN MAYS
S18Y0434. IN THE MATTER OF CHERYL JOYCE BRAZIEL
S18Y0511. IN THE MATTER OF DONALD EDWARD SMART

February 5, 2018:
S18Y0484. IN THE MATTER OF ADAM LORENZO SMITH

Adam L. Smith

January 29, 2018:
S17Y1329. IN THE MATTER OF RICKY W. MORRIS, JR.
S17Y1918. IN THE MATTER OF CLARENCE R. JOHNSON, JR.
S17Y2016. IN THE MATTER OF CAMERON SHAHAB
S18Y0142. IN THE MATTER OF ROBERT JUTZI HOWELL
S18Y0256. IN THE MATTER OF LARRY BUSH HILL
S18Y0264. IN THE MATTER OF CHRISTOPHER MARK MILLER
S18Y0269. IN THE MATTER OF LORNE HOWARD CRAGG
S18Y0387. IN THE MATTER OF RICHARD V. MERRITT

Rich Merritt

If you want to know more, go to Supreme Court of Georgia, 2018 Opinion sand Summaries
The number on the left hand side above, is the case number for the attorney. The Attorney discipline is at the end of each section. If you click the case number, you can read the Order,

LEO HOHMANN: NOW WE KNOW HOW MANY ILLEGAL ALIENS REALLY IN U.S. More than 100,000 granted legal status every year

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2016/10/immigrants-in-u.s.-1.jpg

immigrants in u.s.
A new study on immigration underscores that immigration – legal and illegal – is adding 8.3 million people to the U.S. population every four years and that some of the fastest rates of migration are coming from countries hostile to American values of freedom and democracy.

For instance, the sending country with the largest percentage increase in immigrants living in the U.S. during the four years from 2010 to 2014 was Saudi Arabia, with a 93 percent increase, followed by Bangladesh at 37 percent and Iraq at 36 percent.

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2016/10/legals-illegals-in-pie-chart.jpg
legals illegals in pie chartAbout one-fourth of the 42.4 million foreign-born people living in the United States are illegal immigrants – this amounts to roughly 10.5 million, according to the study by Center for Immigration Studies.While many immigration hawks might dispute that number and say it’s actually much higher, the facts don’t bear it out, says Steven Camarota, director of research for CIS and co-author of the report with demographer Karen Zeigler.

“You can easily have a situation where 400,000 new people settle in the U.S. every year by overstaying their visas or sneaking across the border and that doesn’t mean you’re adding to the overall illegal immigrant population,” Camarota told WND.

Read the entire study and view all the charts at CIS.com.

Obama in November 2014 issued a series of executive orders that granted amnesty to about 5 million illegals, or nearly half of the estimated 10.5 million to 11 million now in the country. The federal courts have thus far blocked his actions as unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court, which deadlocked on the issue previously, ruled Monday that it will not re-hear the case.

Meanwhile, illegal-alien crime sprees continue to rock the country, including a series of M-13 gang-related killings on Long Island. The most recent case involved the murder of two teenage girls.

On Sept. 13, Nisa Mickens, 15, and her best friend, Kayla Cuevas, 16, were murdered, their battered bodies found near an elementary school in Brentwood on the island, the New York Times reports.

A week later and just two miles away, the remains of two more teenagers – Oscar Acosta, 19, and Miguel Garcia-Moran, 15 – were discovered in the woods near a hospital.

For nearly two decades, MS-13, an El Salvadoran gang, has been “terrorizing” the town, especially its young people, according to the Times report. Since 2009, its members have been accused of at least 14 murders.

So the problems of illegal immigration are not to be downplayed. But the problems of legal immigration are many times greater, according to the CIS study, which analyzed Census data.

“You could have half-a-million every year come illegally, and in that same year some go home, every year some will die, and some who were illegal become legal,” Camarota said.

He said there are more than 100,000 illegals given legal status every year.

“They marry an American, they find employment with a company that gives them a visa, they win the visa lottery, or they get a ‘cancellation of removal’ order from a judge that essentially gives them asylum status,” he said.

Ann Coulter’s back, and she’s never been better than in “Adios, America!: The Left’s Plan to Turn our Country into a Third World Hellhole.”

“Some get deported, and some go home voluntarily every year on their own. We can calculate death rates by age, and that’s why the overall illegal population can be stable even if 400,000 come in every year,” he added.

“You also have to remember that there are no illegal-immigrant births in the United States, because everybody born here is automatically a U.S. citizen,” Camarota added. “Now you can bemoan that and say it’s wrong, but for these purposes we can’t add them into the illegal population. We can only add those coming from abroad.”

Legal immigration has roughly four times the impact of illegal immigration, Camarota says.

“So the bottom line is, illegal immigration is dwarfed by legal immigration. The impact on our schools and on our welfare system is much bigger, and also the political impact.”

When states do apportionment and redistricting, they draw the lines for seats in Congress and state legislatures based on total population, regardless of immigration status.

“There are at least three legal immigrants for every illegal immigrant,” Camarota said. “And while the illegals do vote fraudulently, sometimes it’s the legal immigrants who vote in much larger numbers and have the big political impact on our system.”

Legal immigrants are also more dangerous in terms of their propensity to commit acts of Islamic terrorism, a lesson that should have been learned from the 9/11 attacks in which the hijackers were here largely on student and tourist visas.

Refugees connected to acts of terror

More recently, the stabbing attacks on a St. Could, Minnesota, mall that injured 10 and the pipe bombings in New York city that injured 29 were carried out by refugees, meaning they were legal immigrants. The Chattanooga shooting of five U.S. servicemen and the mass shooting in San Bernardino in 2015, as well as the attack on an Orlando gay nightclub in June 2016, were all carried out by second-generation Americans born to Muslims who legally migrated to the U.S.

The study also found some surprising facts on jobs.

“There really are no jobs Americans won’t do,” Camarota said. “Pretty much every job category is at least half American, even farms, because there are still a lot of family farms.”

In the area of entrepreneurship, Camarota found that immigrants do start businesses, but overall their rates of employment versus self-employment are about the same as native-born Americans. “So entrepreneurship is not lacking among immigrants but nor is it a distinguishing characteristic.”

Promoters of refugee resettlement use ‘stupid’ arguments not supported by data

This refutes one of the main arguments used by mayors trying to promote refugee resettlement and mass immigration in their cities.

“The way in which refugee resettlement gets sold sometimes is so stupid,” Camarota said. “We could all say that the idea that they are fleeing for their life is probably not true in most cases, but the idea is that they are in desperate circumstances and we’re taking them as a humanitarian gesture. But we know from lots of data that refugees use welfare in large amounts and for very long periods of time. We know that about this population, so it’s reasonable for them to struggle financially.

“Resettlement, if we’re going to do it, should be done as part of an honest discussion. We have the data on this, but we don’t [have an honest discussion].”

Welfare usage rates extremely high

Rates of welfare usage are not only high among refugees but also among immigrants from Latin America.

“Sixty percent of families from Mexico use at least one welfare program,” Camarota said. “Roughly half the Mexicans in the U.S. are illegal. But more importantly, what you see here if you pull out the illegals from Mexico and Latin America and you see that they sign their kids up for lots of programs. And those kids were born here, many of them. Even if they were not born here and are illegal, they can get free school, WIC and Medicaid. A pregnant woman can get Medicaid too if she is illegal.”

This is something that was not a problem during earlier waves of immigration in the 1880s, 1920s and 1950s. Immigrants were required to be self-supporting.

“Lots of immigrants come to America now and can’t support their own kids,” Camarota said. “They have to turn to the taxpayer. That’s the question to ask. Depends how you feel about that.”

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2016/10/welfare-usage-among-various-immigrant-categories.jpg

welfare usage among various immigrant categories

Copyright 2016 WND

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/now-we-know-how-many-illegal-aliens-really-in-u-s/#AiCxWYKTVYZVBtSz.99

OPINION: The heightened pleading standard established in 2009 is based on faulty propositions. Arthur H. Bryant, The National Law Journal


National Law Journal
http://www.nationallawjournal.com/printerfriendly/id=1202758245088

‘Iqbal’ Brings Seven Years of Bad Luck for Plaintiffs

OPINION: The heightened pleading standard established in 2009 is based on faulty propositions.
Arthur H. Bryant, The National Law Journal
May 23, 2016

The seventh anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal was May 18. It’s a date that should live in infamy.
A 5-4 decision, Iqbal ignored reality — and the fact that truth is stranger than fiction. It flouted the process for amending the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. And it particularly limited access to justice for civil rights, employment discrimination and individual plaintiffs.
Seventy years before Iqbal, in 1938, the Federal Rules were adopted to get rid of “fact” pleading, which the rule-makers thought “led to wasteful disputes about distinctions that … were arbitrary or metaphysical, too often cutting off adjudication on the merits.” Under the new Rule 8, to start a lawsuit, the plaintiff had to file a complaint with “a short and plain statement of the claim showing the pleader is entitled to relief.”
As the court later explained in Conley v. Gibson, the complaint did not have to “set out the facts in detail.” It just had to give the defendant “fair notice of what the plaintiff’s claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” A motion to dismiss would only be granted if “it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” Then, the plaintiff could take discovery, to find out what the defendant and other relevant people knew and when they knew it. After that, the court would determine whether there was sufficient proof to require a trial.
In Iqbal, the court rejected a complaint alleging that high-level U.S. officials had a Pakistani Muslim and thousands of other Arab men illegally arrested and detained after the 9/11 attacks because of “their race, religion, and national origin … and not because of any evidence” of their “involvement in supporting terrorist activity.”
To do so, the court changed the rules. It held that, from now on, to “survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Dismissal no longer turned on whether the complaint provided “fair notice” to the defendant; it turned on whether the claim was “plausible on its face.” How were judges to determine that? By drawing on their “judicial experience and common sense.”
Motions to dismiss were immediately filed throughout the federal courts. Judges’ and lawyers’ workloads increased enormously. The lower courts and lawyers are still struggling to figure out how the new system is supposed to work — and, if they can, make it fair.
For three reasons, however, it’s become increasingly clear that Iqbal was a mistake.
First, whatever one thinks about the allegations in the case, the Iqbal pleading standard is based on a proposition — allegations probably aren’t true if they’re not plausible on their face — that is false. Reality keeps teaching us that. None of us, including federal judges using their “judicial experience and common sense,” would have believed that any of the following was plausible a few years ago:
• Donald Trump would be the presumptive Republican Party nominee for president of the United States of America.
• A prominent candidate for president would propose banning all Muslims from entering America or call women “fat pigs,” “dogs” and “disgusting animals.”
• Same-sex marriage would be legal nationwide.
• The U.S. government would obtain and be able to search virtually all Ameri­cans’ phone records.
• Olympic champion Bruce Jenner would become a woman, Caitlyn Jenner.
• Federal, state and local governments would battle over what kind of bathroom people such as Caitlyn Jenner could use.
Similar implausible things happen every day.
Second, Iqbal effectively rewrote the Federal Rules without following the legally established rules for amending them. Under the Rules Enabling Act, before rules are changed, detailed procedures must be followed involving the Advisory Committees to the U.S. Judicial Con­ference’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure; the Standing Committee itself; notice to and comment from lawyers, judges and the public; the U.S. Judicial Conference; the Supreme Court; and Congress — so the changes are fully considered and fair.
In 2002, the court unanimously rejected a company’s plea for a heightened pleading standard in employment discrimination cases, saying that result “must be obtained by the process of amending the Federal Rules, and not judicial interpretation.” It should have said that in Iqbal, too.
Third, Iqbal is especially harmful to civil rights, employment discrimination and individual plaintiffs. Last year, the most comprehensive study of Iqbal’s effects, “Measuring the Impact of Plausi­bility Pleading,” was published in the Virginia Law Review. It found that Iqbal increased dismissals of most cases by 10 percent, but employment discrimination and civil rights cases much more (16 percent and 19 percent, respectively). Cases filed by individuals were also dismissed far more often (18 percent), but not cases filed by corporations.
In theory, this could mean that only bad cases were dismissed more promptly. But, if that were true, a higher percentage of the cases remaining in court would succeed. They didn’t. These plaintiffs were just disproportionately denied a chance to prove their claims.
The high court should reverse the Iqbal decision. Whether cases proceed should turn on the facts and the law, not on whether judges think the allegations are plausible.
Arthur H. Bryant is the chairman of Public Justice, a national public interest law firm dedicated to advancing and preserving access to justice. His practice focuses on consumers’ rights, workers’ rights, civil rights, environmental protection, and corporate and government accountability.

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!!!!!

The Daily Sheeple: “FUKUSHIMA? 10,000 DEAD SQUID WASH UP ON CHILE BEACH”


FUKUSHIMA? 10,000 DEAD SQUID WASH UP ON CHILE BEACH
JANUARY 18, 2016 | MELISSA DYKES | THE DAILY SHEEPLE | 4,008 VIEWS
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/fukushima-10000-dead-squid-wash-up-on-chile-beach_012016

It is being referred to as Cthulhu-geddon.
Squid have washed up on Santa Maria Island off Chile this week in what some have described as biblical proportions. Thousands of dead and dying squid are piled up on the shore. While some squid normally do wash up this time of year, it’s never been in this large of a quantity.

Exact reason for this die-off is unknown, but some experts claim it might be a sudden drop in oxygen content in the water or an increase in water temperatures. They just really don’t know.

Of course, just like all the other mass die-offs up and down the Pacific coast in recent years, no one in any official capacity is pointing to the Fukushima disaster, still dumping tons of radioactive water into the sea as it has been for the last half a decade now just across the globe from Chile.


Screenshot 2016-01-18 at 8.08.59 AM

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We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos (Click for details).
Contributed by Melissa Dykes of The Daily Sheeple.
Melissa Dykes is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple and a co-creator of Truthstream Media with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded Nutritional Anarchy with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!
Wake The Flock Up! Please Share With Sheeple Far & Wide:

Agendas Acc0rding to the Federal Bar Association


I ran across this tonight, looking for something else, but it caught my eye and so I read it.
Knowing what I know about this country and being “awake”, I find the following pretty fucking interesting. What are your thoughts?:

FEDERAL BAR ASSOCIATION
2015-16 ISSUES AGENDA
http://www.fedbar.org/Advocacy/Issues-Agendas.aspx

Active Issues | Monitored Issues
ACTIVE LEGISLATIVE ISSUES

Independence of the Federal Judiciary

The Federal Bar Association reaffirms the importance of the independence of the judiciary, recognizing that judicial decisions are not immune from scrutiny, but are to be made solely on the basis of the law.

Funding for the Federal Courts

The Federal Bar Association supports adequate funding for the general and continuing operations of the federal courts, including an equitable level of rent and facilities expense consistent with actual costs, budgetary constraints, staffing needs and security considerations, to permit the courts to fulfill their constitutional and statutory responsibilities

Federal Judgeships and Caseloads

The Federal Bar Association supports the authorization and establishment of additional permanent and temporary federal judgeships, including bankruptcy judgeships, along with support personnel, as proposed by the Judicial Conference of the United States, when rising caseloads in the federal courts threaten the prompt delivery of justice. The Federal Bar Association also supports efforts to educate Congress, the legal profession and the general public about how the overwhelming case loads threaten the ability of the Third Branch of the federal government to function.

Federal Judicial Vacancies

The Federal Bar Association calls upon the President and Congress to act promptly and responsibly in nominating and confirming nominees to the federal appellate and district courts. The Federal Bar Association supports the development of strategies to reduce the time required to fill federal judicial vacancies.

Courthouse Security

The Federal Bar Association supports the adoption of adequate security measures to protect the federal judiciary, their families and court personnel in and outside the courthouse, while preserving meaningful public access to judicial proceedings.

Federal Judicial Pay

The Federal Bar Association support equitable compensation and regular periodic adjustments for the federal judiciary, as well as senior officials of the Executive Branch and Members of Congress, to promote the recruitment and retention of the highest quality public servants.

Respect for the Federal Courts

Declining public confidence in our courts undermines public respect for the courts and the legitimacy of their rulings. To counter that influence, the Federal Bar Association supports programming and other efforts to educate the public about the federal courts and the role they serve in assuring a just society.

Professionalism and Stature of Federal Attorneys

The Federal Bar Association supports and promotes efforts to improve the professionalism and stature of attorneys employed by the federal government, including: enhancements to the compensation packages of federal attorneys, including pay and retirement benefits, to assist in recruitment and retention; the expansion, consistent with applicable conflict of interest laws, of policies encouraging full participation of attorneys employed by the federal government in professional organizations and pro bono legal activities, including approval for use of administrative leave; enhanced federal funding for participation in continuing legal education and training programs, including paid tuition and administrative leave; and the establishment of programs for student loan deferral and repayment assistance for all federal attorneys, including federal law clerks, federal defenders and judge advocates of the Armed Forces, in support of recruitment and retention efforts.

Social Security Disability Appeals Backlog

The Federal Bar Association supports adequate funding and resources for the Social Security Administration to remove the significant backlog of disability benefit appeals awaiting adjudication and to assure the fair and timely administration of justice for all appellants.

Authority of Bankruptcy Judges in “Core Proceedings”

The Federal Bar Association supports amendment of bankruptcy law to expressly allow bankruptcy judges to issue proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law in core proceedings in which they are otherwise barred from entering final judgments under Article III of the United States Constitution.

Commission on Nazi-Confiscated Art Claims

The Federal Bar Association supports the Congressional creation of a commission to address identification and ownership issues related to Nazi-confiscated artworks, pursuant to the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, as signed by the United States and the international community.

Article I Immigration Court
The Federal Bar Association supports the transfer of responsibilities for the adjudication of immigration claims from the Executive Office of Immigration Review within the Department of Justice to a specialized Article I court, as established by Congress, for the adjudication of claims under the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

Federal Criminal Sentencing
The Federal Bar Association supports efforts to advance fairness and consistency in federal sentencing, while preserving judicial independence and discretion to deal with the particular circumstances of individual cases.

Military Spouse Attorney Mobility
The Federal Bar Association supports state-level legal licensing accommodations, including bar admission without additional examination, for attorneys who are spouses of service members, i.e., members of the uniformed services of the United States as defined in 10 USC §101(a)(5), when: (1) those “military spouse attorneys” are present in a particular state, commonwealth, or territory of the United States or District of Columbia due to their service members’ military assignment; (2) they are graduates of accredited law schools; and (3) they are licensed attorneys in good standing in the bar of another state, commonwealth, or territory of the United States or District of Columbia.

Patent Litigation Reform
The Federal Bar Association supports legislation that curbs abusive patent litigation practices and other responsible measures to improve the quality and clarity of patents. The FBA opposes legislation that reduces judicial discretion in adjudicating patent actions or circumvents the Rules Enabling Act by mandating changes that depart from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in patent cases.

MONITORED LEGISLATIVE ISSUES

Courthouse Construction

The Federal Bar Association supports the full funding of courthouse construction proposed by the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Cameras in the Courts

The Federal Bar Association encourages a discussion of the competing considerations vis-a-vis proposed legislation which would authorize federal judges, in their discretion, to permit photographing, electronic recording, broadcasting, and televising of federal court proceedings in appropriate circumstances.

Division of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

The Federal Bar Association opposes the division of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, consistent with its capacity to effectively and efficiently render justice.

Continuing Legal Education Funding for the Federal Judiciary

The Federal Bar Association supports the expansion of and enhancement of federal funding for continuing legal education and training programs for the federal judiciary.

Expansion of Federal Jurisdiction Over State and Local-Prosecuted Crimes

The Federal Bar Association advocates strict scrutiny of legislation proposing to grant original jurisdiction to federal authorities over crimes traditionally reserved to state and local prosecution.

Criminal Justice Act Panel Attorney Compensation

The Federal Bar Association supports Congressional funding to permit an increase in compensation rates for Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys.

National Security and Civil Liberties

The Federal Bar Association encourages the discussion of the competing considerations in the nation’s war against terror between the protection of civil liberties and the interests of national security.

Prevention of Epidemics and Civil Liberties

The Federal Bar Association encourages and contributes to a discussion of the competing considerations between governmental restrictions to guard against epidemics and pandemics and the preservation of individual rights, as well as the use of technology to ensure the continuance of participatory governance.

Safety of Administrative Judges

The Federal Bar Association supports the efforts by the Social Security Administration and the Executive Office of Immigration Review to take appropriate steps to ensure the security of their administrative law judges and immigration judges, and all others who participate in its proceedings.

Veteran Disability Claims Adjudication

The Federal Bar Association supports legislative and administrative improvements to the veterans disability claims process in the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs to assure equitable and expeditious determinations.

Attorney Fee-Based Representation of Veterans

The Federal Bar Association supports proposals to expand the availability of fee-based representation of veterans in the disability claims process and to oppose any efforts to repeal the authority of attorney representation to veterans in the furtherance of such claims.

Frivolous Litigation

The Federal Bar Association opposes legislative proposals to eliminate judicial discretion in the imposition of sanctions for frivolous litigation, including proposals to revise Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by imposing mandatory sanctions and preventing a party from withdrawing challenged pleadings on a voluntary basis within a reasonable time.

Adopted by the Board of Directors
Federal Bar Association
July 10, 2015

The compass of FBA’s government relations program is its Issues Agenda, a roster of policy priorities to which the Association devotes its advocacy resources. The policy priorities embraced by the Issues Agenda are associated with active issues that concern the health and welfare of the federal judicial system and effective federal legal practice. For example, they concern the preservation of judicial independence, adequate funding and facilities for the federal courts, sufficient numbers of federal judgeships, equitable compensation for the federal judiciary, fairness and consistency in federal sentencing and a host of other matters

Former Top IAEA Official: Actually, Fukushima “is a catastrophe for every citizen of the world… radiation doesn’t recognize borders”

Former Top IAEA Official: Actually, Fukushima “is a catastrophe for every citizen of the world… radiation doesn’t recognize borders” — Dose from Fukushima fallout in Europe many times higher than California gov’t claimed for West Coast (VIDEO)

 
Published: October 5th, 2014 at 7:42 pm ET
By
Email Article http://enenews.com/former-iaea-official-actually-fukushima-catastrophe-every-citizen-world-radiation-doesnt-recognize-borders-dose-fukushima-fallout-europe-many-times-higher-california-govt-reported-west-coast-video
 

Interview with Olli Heinonen, former IAEA deputy director general, former Finland Reactor Laboratory senior officer and senior fellow at Harvard University (emphasis added): “[We] have a potential catastrophe on our hands… I think that when this thing is over — this is certainly a national catastrophe for Japan — but actually this a catastrophe for every citizen of the world… Russians, Americans, they are also subject radiation. The radiation doesn’t recognize borders… It looks to be a very dire situation.”

United Nations (pdf), 2014: Estimated doses in the first year following the [Fukushima] accident

> Italy — External exposure, inhalation and ingestion of 131I, 134Cs, 137Cs

  • 1-year-old: 180 microsieverts/year
  • Adult: 35 microsieverts/year
  • Very conservative assumptions were applied as the highest concentration values measured for each radionuclide in rainwater were used to calculate the dose from ingested water.

> Serbia — Effective doses from 131I concentrations in food, milk, air and rainwater

  • Adult estimated effective dose: 7.2 microsieverts/month
  • [Does NOT include: Inhaled 134Cs/137Cs; Ingested 134Cs/137Cs; External doses]

Nuclear Physics Workshop (pdf), Apr. 12, 2014: Data discussed in the present work includes the observations of Fukushima related radionuclides in… Italy… [transported] from Japan, across the Pacific and to Central Europe… Estimated committed doses for population related to the contributions of Fukushima fallout due to different pathways were at least one order of magnitude [i.e. around ten times] less of the limit of 1 [millisievert a year] even if the calculations are made using high conservative assumptions… caesium and iodine were found above their detection limits in all environmental samples, but well below levels of concern.

Dr. Steve Wing, Univ. of North Carolina epidemiologist: “What we know about radiation is any amount increases risk of cancer… [At Fukushima] there’s a spectrum of types of radiation being emitted… Risks to populations exposed will play out over the rest of their lives. Even after the radiation is gone, genetic damage could lead to cancer many years later.”

Watch the interview with the former IAEA deputy director here

National Geographic Tell Of Zombie Virus a Combo of Rabies and Ebola, or Other Mutant Virus

A dog with rabies.

A dog stricken with paralysis during late-stage rabies in an undated photo.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY BARBARA ANDREWS, CDC

Ker Than

for National Geographic News

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 27, 2010

In the zombie flicks 28 Days Later and I Am Legend, an unstoppable viral plague sweeps across humanity, transforming people into mindless monsters with cannibalistic tendencies.

Though dead humans can’t come back to life, certain viruses can induce such aggressive, zombie-like behavior, scientists say in the new National Geographic Channel documentary The Truth Behind Zombies, premiering Saturday at 10 p.m. ET/PT. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society, which part-owns the National Geographic Channel.)

For instance, rabies—a viral disease that infects the central nervous system—can drive people to be violently mad, according to Samita Andreansky, a virologist at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine in Florida who also appears in the documentary.

Combine rabies with the ability of a flu virus to spread quickly through the air, and you might have the makings of a zombie apocalypse.

Rabies Virus Mutation Possible?

Unlike movie zombies, which become reanimated almost immediately after infection, the first signs a human has rabies—such as anxiety, confusion, hallucinations, and paralysis—don’t typically appear for ten days to a year, as the virus incubates inside the body.

Once rabies sets in, though, it’s fatal within a week if left untreated.

If the genetic code of the rabies virus experienced enough changes, or mutations, its incubation time could be reduced dramatically, scientists say.

Many viruses have naturally high mutation rates and constantly change as a means of evading or bypassing the defenses of their hosts.

There are various ways viral mutations can occur, for example through copying mistakes during gene replication or damage from ultraviolet light.

(Related: “New, Fast-Evolving Rabies Virus Found—and Spreading.”)

“If a rabies virus can mutate fast enough, it could cause infection within an hour or a few hours. That’s entirely plausible,” Andreansky said.

Airborne Rabies Would Create “Rage Virus”

But for the rabies virus to trigger a zombie pandemic like in the movies, it would also have to be much more contagious.

Humans typically catch rabies after being bitten by an infected animal, usually a dog—and the infection usually stops there.

Thanks to pet vaccinations, people rarely contract rabies in the United States today, and even fewer people die from the disease. For example, in 2008 only two cases of human rabies infection were reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(See pictures of infectious animals in National Geographic magazine.)

A faster mode of transmission would be through the air, which is how the influenza virus spreads.

“All rabies has to do is go airborne, and you have the rage virus” like in28 Days Later, Max Mogk, head of the Zombie Research Society, says in the documentary. The international nonprofit is devoted to “raising the level of zombie scholarship in the Arts and Sciences,” according to their website.

To be transmitted by air, rabies would have to “borrow” traits from another virus, such as influenza.

Different forms, or strains, of the same virus can swap pieces of genetic code through processes called reassortment or recombination, saidElankumaran Subbiah, a virologist at Virginia Tech who was not involved in the documentary.

But unrelated viruses simply do not hybridize in nature, Subbiah told National Geographic News.

Likewise, it’s scientifically unheard of for two radically different viruses such as rabies and influenza to borrow traits, he said.

“They’re too different. They cannot share genetic information. Viruses assemble only parts that belong to them, and they don’t mix and match from different families.”

(Take a quiz on infectious diseases.)

Engineered Zombie Virus Possible?

It’s theoretically possible—though extremely difficult—to create a hybrid rabies-influenza virus using modern genetic-engineering techniques, the University of Miami’s Andreansky said.

“Sure, I could imagine a scenario where you mix rabies with a flu virus to get airborne transmission, a measles virus to get personality changes, the encephalitis virus to cook your brain with fever”—and thus increase aggression even further—”and throw in the ebola virus to cause you to bleed from your guts. Combine all these things, and you’ll [get] something like a zombie virus,” she said.

“But [nature] doesn’t allow all of these things to happen at the same time. … You’d most likely get a dead virus.”

MORE HALLOWEEN FACTS, PHOTOS, VIDEO, AND TIPS

Green Halloween

A Green Halloween: Costumes, Candy, Pumpkins and More

Safe Halloween Costumes and Makeup

“Fair Trade” Halloween Candy

Halloween Discoveries

Vampire Moth Discovered—Evolution at Work (With Video)

Chupacabra Science: How Evolution Made a Mythical Monster

“Zombie Virus” Possible via Rabies-Flu Hybrid?

African Spider Craves Human Blood, Scientists Find

Halloween Shines Light on Witchcraft Today

Ritual Cat Sacrifices a Halloween Myth, Experts Say

Giant Pumpkins “Go Heavy” This Halloween

Halloween Interactives

Salem Witch Trials: Confess!

Quiz: Halloween, Harvests, and Honoring the Dead

Quiz: Real-Life “Monsters”

Halloween Pictures

Pictures: Animal Mummies (National Geographic Magazine)

Animal “Zombies”: Nature’s “Walking Dead” in Pictures

Pictures: Crypts and Catacombs

Pictures: Eerie Animals

Pictures: Dogs in Halloween Costumes

Pictures: Creepy Animals for Halloween

Transylvania Pictures

Halloween: For Kids Only!

Halloween Quiz Game

Kids’ Green Halloween Ideas

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

Toxic Pollution Now Suspected – Fukushima Not Dismissed? How Friggin Stupid Are Our Scientists?

Head Scientist: “I used to think I knew” why mystery epidemic is decimating millions of West Coast starfish, “but now I don’t” — Toxic pollution now suspected — Fukushima ‘not dismissed’ as cause — California Professor: Significant levels of fallout got into our coastal food web… marine life exposed… It’s not good

 
Published: September 10th, 2014 at 9:00 am ET
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NOAA, Sept 5, 2014: Disease is destroying sea stars along entire Pacific coast of N. America

Skagit Valley Herald, Sept. 7, 2014: “It certainly is shocking… from 51 sea stars with none of them affected to all of them affected, and then gone.”

The Straight (Vancouver), Aug 20, 2014: [Sea] stars that normally crammed into every rock gully along the beach were missing. Not one starfish… empty black crevices… devoid of life. This scene is repeated up and down the West Coast… Divers report piles of white goo and pieces of starfish arms on the ocean floor… [T]o suddenly disappear is more than disconcerting: it is truly shocking. The speed… is mystifying. Yet the great die-off has not attracted that much media coverage… what else might follow tomorrow?

Portland Monthly, August 2014: In the spring, [Oregon State Prof. Bruce Menge] says, the tide pools were lined with thousands of healthy sea stars… The sickly few that remain hang limply

Laguna Beach Independent, Sept. 4, 2014: Scientists [say] pollution is surfacing as a suspected cause… [UC Santa Cruz biology professor] Pete Raimondi… attended a sea star “mortality event” conference… and left confused… Water pollution, scientists agree, is usually localized and doesn’t affect an entire coastline or an entire species. Usually… Scientists are debating [if] a secondary infection took over because the sea stars were weak due to environmental pollutants… Raimondi reported that pollution is being considered because no pathogens were detected in the animals until a secondary infection took over… [The] findings raised a question, Raimondi relayed… if the bacteria is always present… why would it lead to an epidemic now?

Prof. Raimondi: “I used to think I knew, but now I don’t… AIDS would be a good example for a human analogy… what kills you off is usually a secondary infection… I left [the conference] much more uncertain than when I walked into the room.”

Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sept. 1, 2014: “It’s been very mysterious in a lot of ways,” said Raimondi, as he discounted, but did not dismiss, possible causes. Unlike previous wasting events, this one occurs in warm and cold water, near and far from pollutant discharge… Ocean acidification and de-oxygenation are possible factors, yet sea stars are exposed to natural variations in acidity and oxygenation and they have never before been observed to exhibit this extent of wasting. To date, no one has found Fukushima radiation where the syndrome is observed.

So “no one has found Fukushima radiation where the syndrome is observed”? Significant levels of Fukushima fallout have been found in ecosystems along the Pacific coast from Canada to Southern California. Additionally, the massive amount of radioactive water being transported across the ocean from Fukushima was detected along the N. American shores in June 2013.

Prof. Steven Manley, Cal State Univ: “We measured significant… levels of radioactive iodine… it may have affected certain fish… the big question was, is another major isotope that came over in the cloud, cesium 137, present in the kelp, too?  It has a half-life of 30 years [and may still be there]… Most of this fallout comes from the atmosphere primarily in rain… Radioactivity is taken up by the kelp and anything that feeds on the kelp will be exposed… [it] got into the environment… In fact, the values that we reported for iodine probably [are an] underestimate [and] could be two to three times more… it enters the coastal food web and gets dispersed over a variety of organisms… It’s not a good thing, but whether it actually has a measurable detrimental effect is beyond my expertise.”

See also: EPA: Models show “greater potential impact” to US West Coast from Fukushima-contaminated rainfall than from radioactive water crossing the Pacific Ocean — California sea water with over 10 Million pCi/m3 of iodine-131 found in sample squeezed out of seaweed

 
Published: September 10th, 2014 at 9:00 am ET
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Related Posts

  1. UC Berkeley Professor: California seeing Fukushima fallout won’t be a surprise — ‘Especially concerned’ after radioactive leaks at plant were admitted — “I’m not terribly confident in information Japan is sharing” January 19, 2014
  2. BBC: Scientist surprised at how much higher radiation levels are in some parts of ocean from Fukushima, it’s a ‘mystery’ — KPBS: Fukushima radiation is just going to become ‘a way of life’ for us” — California Professor: It’s certainly going to be in the environment, it just doesn’t go away (AUDIO) February 10, 2014
  3. ‘Marine Mystery’ in California: “Toxic outbreak threatening marine life” — Birds falling from sky, sea lions convulsing — “Worst they’ve ever seen” — Toxin hits record level, almost 1,000% above gov’t limit — Heart lesions, severe shrinking in part of brain, nervous system failure (VIDEO) May 3, 2014
  4. California Professor: “Serious threat” to our ocean, environment and society from ongoing Fukushima radiation releases — U. of California: “Unprecedented events with global consequences… fallout is far from over” — Scientist: ‘Risky’ (PHOTO) May 27, 2014
  5. PHOTOS: Sea star began “ripping itself into pieces” — Like a horror movie — AP: Deaths from Alaska to S. California — Biologist: Related to an environmental change? “An early warning that we aren’t picking up on?” — Professor: “None of us had ever seen anything like this before” November 4, 2013

Harvey Wasserman “Diablo Must Go” On EcoWatch

Shut California’s Fukushima: Diablo Must Go

| September 6, 2014 12:02 pm | Comments
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hwassermanThe catastrophe at Fukushima was not an accident. It’s unfolding again in California.

The next west coast quake could easily shake the two reactors at Diablo Canyon to rubble.

They are riddled with defects, can’t withstand potential seismic shocks from five major nearby fault lines, violate state water quality laws and are vulnerable to tsunamis and fire.

Diablo’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), is in deep legal and financial crisis.

diablonuclear
A 42-page report from NRC inspector Dr. Michael Peck says new fault line discoveries challenge Diablo’s “presumption of nuclear safety.”

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has just proposed that PG&E be fined $1.4 billion for a 2010 gas explosion and fire that killed eight people and obliterated a neighborhood in San Bruno. The federal government has announced 28 indictments, meaning the CPUC fine may just be the tip of a very expensive iceberg for PG&E. The San Bruno disaster was caused by pipeline defects about which PG&E had been warned for years, but failed to correct. The fines cover 3,798 separate violations of laws and regulations, both state and federal. PG&E was previously fined $38 million for a 2008 pipeline explosion in Rancho Cordova.

Similar defects remain uncorrected at Diablo Canyon, whose radioactive cloud could span the continental U.S. in four days. Mass citizen action recently shut two coastal reactors at San Onofre. It must do the same at Diablo before the next quake hits.

Ironically, as America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) allows Diablo to operate, all 54 reactors in Japan remain shut. Its Nuclear Regulatory Authority has just ordered the Tsuruga reactor to be scrapped because of its vulnerability to earthquakes. Two more elderly reactors at Mihama may also be terminated before year’s end.

At Fukushima, Tokyo Electric Power now admits that far more radiation is spewing into the Pacific than previously admitted. Thethyroid cancer death rate among children in the area is 40 times normal. So is the still-rising childhood thyroid abnormality rate, a terrifying re-run of downwind Chernobyl.

Tepco has begun paying compensation to local suicide victims, including the widower of a woman who doused herself with kerosene before burning herself alive.

All of it predictable.

For decades Japanese citizens warned Tepco not to build reactors in an earthquake/tsunami zone. The company repeatedly ignored safety warnings and tolerated known defects that worsened the disaster.

Diablo Canyon’s twin reactors sit eight miles west of San Luis Obispo, between Los Angeles and San Francisco, surrounded by earthquake faults.

The Hosgri, three miles offshore, was found as the reactors were being built. Design specifications were never fully altered to account for it. Nor have they been upgraded for the newly-found Los Osos, San Luis Bay and Shoreline faults.  The Shoreline lies just 650 yard from Diablo’s cores.

The massive San Andreas fault is just 45 miles away, about half as far as was the March 11, 2011, Richter-9.0 epicenter from Fukushima.

A shock that size from any of the fault lines near Diablo could reduce it to a seething pile of radioactive hell, far deadlier than Fukushima. Prevailing winds could blanket virtually all of North America with its deadly fallout.

The nuclear industry would immediately deny all health impacts. It would blame “unpredictable” God and nature.

But a 42-page report from NRC inspector Dr. Michael Peck says new fault line discoveries challenge Diablo’s “presumption of nuclear safety.”

Buried by the NRC for at least a year, it was released by Friends of the Earth and reported on by the Associated Press and the great enviro-journalist Karl Grossman, as well as by the Nuclear Information & Resource Service and Beyond Nuclear.

Peck has a doctorate in nuclear engineering and was Diablo’s chief on-site inspector for five years. He’s now a senior instructor at the NRC’s Technical Training Center in Tennessee. His status as a current NRC employee makes such a critical report highly unusual—and alarming.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen has warned about sea-level intake pipes like those at Diablo. When the tsunami struck Fukushima, he writes, “The cooling equipment along the shoreline was turned into a scrap yard of twisted metal.”

Then there is fire.

Diablo Canyon, writes David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, “has never, ever complied with fire safety regulations, not even for a second by mistake.”

“The one-two punch of earthquake/tsunami caused Fukushima,” Lochbaum wrote in an email to me.

“A one-two punch of earthquake/fire could cause Diablo Canyon.”

But, says Lochbaum, “It can’t be an accident. Not when the company and its alleged regulator both know that the plant does not met earthquake and fire safety regulations.

“That cannot cause an accident. Criminal negligence perhaps. At least malicious mayhem. But not an accident.”

More than 10,000 people were arrested trying to stop Diablo in the 1970s and ‘80s. During the delays they caused, PG&E found major errors in reading key blueprints involving some of Diablo’s most critical equipment.

Damage is still being tallied from California’s Aug. 25 Napa Valley quake. The 1994 Northridge quake killed 57 people, injured roughly 5,000. The Loma Prieta quake during the 1989 World Series killed 63 people, injured more than 3,700. The infamous 1906 San Francisco quake leveled the city and killed thousands.

New shocks at Diablo Canyon could dwarf all those numbers—and Fukushima’s.

Tens of millions of Americans would be irradiated.  Our continent’s eco-systems would be poisoned.  Our nation’s economy would be gutted.

But as at San Bruno, there would be no excuses.

Harvey Wasserman wrote SOLARTOPIA!  OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH and editswww.nukefree.org.  He was arrested at Diablo Canyon in 1984, and is likely to be back soon. Listen to Wasserman’s recent radio discussion of Diablo with David Lochbaum and Rochelle Becker.

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Fukushima Cs-137 Found in Beef, Milk, Vegetation, Beginning in 2011 Through now

Fukushima nuclear material reported in West Coast groundwater; It’s discharging into Pacific Ocean — Fallout also found in meat and fish from same area — “Routinely detected’ in plant life long after March 2011

 
Published: September 4th, 2014 at 11:02 am ET
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Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) Units 1 and 2 Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report, published April 30, 2014: Isotopic releases occurred in Japan and were carried by the jet stream to the west coast of the United States… [DCPP] periodically detected cesium (Cs-137) within market fish and cow meat due to deposition of Cs-137 from [Fukushima]… Fukushima Cs-137 was detected within one sample of monitoring well… Cs-137 was detected in three samples of market fish most likely due to rainwater washout of Fukushima Cs-137… Cs-137 was detected in [a] 2013 meat samples due to the Fukushima Japan nuclear accidents. This detection occurred… in October… [DCPP] detected cesium within milk, vegetation, and meat throughout 2011 [and] continued to detect cesium within groundwater, fish, vegetation, and meat throughout 2012.

Diablo Canyon Power Plant Units 1 and 2 Annual Radiological Environmental Operating Report, Apr. 30, 2013: Throughout 2012 [we] continued to detect cesium (Cs-137) within milk, vegetation, monitoring wells, fish, and meat due to deposition of Cs-137 from that event… Concentrations of cesium (Cs-137) were also detected in two shallow monitoring wells… This cesium was evaluated and attributed to rain-washout of Fukushima fallout… Due to topography and site characteristics, this groundwater gradient flow discharged into the Pacific Ocean… Cs-137 was detected in three samples of fish most likely due to rainwater washout of Fukushima Cs-137… Cs-137 was detected in 2012 vegetation samples… due to rainwater washout of Fukushima Cs-137 [that] was absorbed by plant life and the soil. DCPP… has routinely detected Cs-137 in plant life since March of 2011 due to this Fukushima event… Cs-137 was detected in… [cow] meat samples due to the Fukushima Japan nuclear accidents… Vegetation uptake and subsequent digestion by the animals were the source of these Cs-137 isotopes into the meat.

See also: California Nuclear Plant Engineer: We were hit by explosion at Fukushima Unit 3 (MAP) — “The public started to freak out” — Tell colleagues what radioactive material is coming their way… don’t notify public — Don’t release initial data to officials until they’re ‘on board’

City of Springfield Banned all Foreclosures! How Will The Supreme Court Rule On That?

 

BOSTON – A group of Western Massachusetts banks argued before the state’s highest court on Thursday that the city of Springfield’s anti-foreclosure ordinances should be overturned.

The banks say the local ordinances contradict state laws, and a bond levied on lenders constitutes an illegal tax. “It’s not that banks are opposed to mortgage laws and reform, but to how it’s being done,” said Craig Kaylor, general counsel for Hampden Bank, one of the banks that brought the lawsuit. “These are for the state to decide, not city by city.”

But the city disagrees and says the laws are necessary to avoid blight and protect neighborhoods that have high rates of foreclosure.

“This is the city’s response to the foreclosure crisis,” said Springfield Assistant City Solicitor Thomas Moore, who argued the case before the Supreme Judicial Court. “It’s a response from the city council and mayor based on what they see every day in the city. They’ve taken the strongest stance to protect homeowners and the city itself.”

The city of Springfield passed two anti-foreclosure ordinances in 2011 as the city was being hit hard by the mortgage foreclosure crisis. One ordinance requires a bank that forecloses on a home to pay for a $10,000 bond, which can be used by the city to maintain the foreclosed properties, if the bank fails to do so.

The other ordinance requires the establishment of a mandatory mediation program to help homeowners facing foreclosure. The bank would be responsible for paying most of the cost of the mediation.

Springfield is among the top cities in the state in the number of distressed properties it has. The city says high rates of foreclosures lead to health and education problems for children in families that lose their homes, and high rates of blighted or vacant properties lead to crime and violence in those neighborhoods.

Six western Massachusetts banks, with Easthampton Savings Bank as the lead plaintiff, challenged the ordinances. A U.S. District court judge upheld the ordinances. However, on appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a stay preventing Springfield from enforcing them. The federal court then asked the Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s highest court, to answer two questions related to state law before the federal court makes its ruling. The case is Easthampton Savings Bank and others vs. City of Springfield.

The SJC must decide whether the local foreclosure ordinances are preempted by existing state foreclosure laws. The court must also decide whether the $10,000 bond is a legal fee or an illegal tax. Cities and towns cannot create taxes without legislative approval.

The banks also argue that the ordinances violate the contract clause of the U.S. Constitution by impairing the contract between the homeowner and the mortgage-holder, a question that remains before the federal court.

During Thursday’s arguments, Tani Sapirstein, an attorney representing the banks, argued that the bond is a tax because banks do not get any particular benefit from paying it – which is the criteria for calling something a fee. The way the bond works is when a foreclosed property is sold, if the city did not have to use the bond money to maintain it, $9,500 would be returned to the bank and $500 is kept by the city as an administrative fee, used to maintain blighted properties and implement the foreclosure laws.

Chief Justice Ralph Gants questioned Sapirstein on whether the bank does not actually receive benefits. “You have an interest in preserving the value of your property,” Gants said. “If there are foreclosed properties going to hell all around your property, it diminishes the value of your property and diminishes the value of what you receive on the foreclosure. Why is this concern about avoiding blight not something that would benefit the bank as well as the city?”

Sapirstein replied that eliminating blight would benefit the bank “as well as the city and other property owners in the neighborhood.” “How is that a particularized benefit?” she said.

Moore argued that the bond is a fee, which the city needs to hire code inspectors and create a database of who controls foreclosed properties.

But Justice Geraldine Hines said if she pays for a copy of her birth certificate, she gets a document in return for the fee. “Here I don’t see that,” she said. “The property owners, the mortgagees, don’t have something tangible.”

Moore said the banks get a “well-regulated industry” and preservation of their property values. In addition, when a bank registers ownership in the database, the city knows who is responsible and problems can be resolved more easily.

Sapirstein also argued that local law cannot require more than state law in an area that is regulated by the state or the result would be “a patchwork of ordinances.”

Gants indicated that the court may move to narrow the ordinances – for example, applying them only to a bank that has taken possession of a house, not a bank that is in the process of foreclosure when the homeowner is still living there. Gants said the ordinance as written could fine a bank for not maintaining a property where the homeowner still lives. As a homeowner, Gants said, “I’d say I’m still living here. This is my home. How can they be punished for not invading what’s still my home just because they happen to be foreclosing on it?” Gants said.

Moore acknowledged that the ordinance may be overbroad and said the city does not anticipate pursuing a violation in a case like that. Moore said the lenders’ lawsuit is premature because there is no information yet about how the city will enforce the laws. “We have the lenders essentially saying the sky will be falling, we are worried about x, y, z happening. None of that has happened and none of that may happen,” Moore said.

Moore said the city is still writing the regulations for the ordinances and if they are upheld, “The city is ready to go forward with implementation within a period of weeks.”

Similar foreclosure ordinances were established in Lynn and Worcester, and local banks challenged those as well. That lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in Worcester. The case involving Lynn and Worcester could be affected by the SJC’s ruling in the Springfield case.

Several activists supporting homeowners came in from Lynn and Springfield to hear the arguments. Candejah Pink, a Springfield homeowner and community organizer battled foreclosure for four years before reaching an agreement to keep her home. She helped write the Springfield ordinances. Pink said the bond is there to ensure that homes are maintained, which keeps crime and violence down. The mediation program, she said, is important to help homeowners come to an agreement with lenders. “We’re not asking to live in our homes for free. We’re asking for some mediation,” she said.

The Next Round of Tepco Lies? Are We Getting Massive Doses, That Nobody Is Going to Tell Us About? Again!

VIDEO: Wreckage crashes into nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima Unit 3 — Officials not reporting if damaged, but “will continue monitoring regularly” — Cooling in pool interrupted

 
Published: September 2nd, 2014 at 8:25 am ET
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TEPCO: The Console of the Fuel Handling Machine dropped during debris removal operation of Unit 3 Spent Fuel Pool, Sept 1, 2014 (emphasis added):

  • Accident situation: During debris removal operation from spent fuel pool, to rise the console of the fuel handling machine, the crane tried to grasp the console with its fork, but the console dropped around the middle of east side of the pool… It dropped between debris in the pool and curing material on the upper part of fuel rack… there were 2 fuels under dropped debris.
  • Time… 12:45p: Failed to grasp the console of fuel handling machine and dropped it; 2:37p: Resumed coolingthe spent fuel pool
  • Confirmed situation and future schedule– After console dropped, parameters concerned were confirmed to be normal. (1) monitoring post : no significant change; (2) atmosphere dose of operation floor of reactor building: no significant change (3.2mSv/h); (3) water level of spent fuel pool : no significant change; (4) water level of skimmer surge tank : no significant change (confirmed after restart of cooling spent fuel pool); (5) dust monitor of operation floor of reactor building: below the detection limit (1.0×10-5Bq/cm3)
  • TEPCO will continue monitoring regularly ((1) to (4) above) until it is confirmed that the fuel rack etc. are not damaged.
  • Schedule – August 29: analyzing concentration of radioactive materials of spent fuel pool; August 30:Using underwater camera, TEPCO will confirm that fuel rack and two fuels are not damaged.

See also: Accident in Reactor 3 fuel pool at Fukushima — Large piece of wreckage falls nearby spent uranium rods — M5 quake hits plant soon after — Official: “Unable to say” whether any are damaged (PHOTOS & VIDEO)

Watch underwater video of the impact here

 
Published: September 2nd, 2014 at 8:25 am ET
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Related Posts

  1. Accident in Reactor 3 fuel pool at Fukushima — Large piece of wreckage falls nearby spent uranium rods — M5 quake hits plant soon after — Official: “Unable to say” whether any are damaged (PHOTOS & VIDEO) August 29, 2014
  2. UK Newspaper: Multiple sets of fuel rods at Unit 4 reportedly damaged AFTER disaster; Explosions to blame? — AP: “Assemblies and their handles may have been damaged when big pieces of debris fell” November 18, 2013
  3. Fukushima documents discuss “fuel that is severely damaged” inside cooling pool — Illustrations of “deformed or leaking fuels” (PHOTO) October 26, 2013
  4. Nuclear Industry Report: ‘Reduced stability’ of fuel pool in Fukushima Unit 4; Admits there’s damaged fuel inside? — Gundersen: Fuel racks moved and damaged; Fallen debris distorted tops (AUDIO) September 27, 2013
  5. Damaged Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 had 204 unused fuel rods inserted before quake + Scientists say another 9.0 megaquake may hit at year’s end = “Fukushima is still on the edge” October 29, 2011

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Gov’t Experts: Fukushima fuel rods were melting 75 minutes after tsunami; Reactor core not covered with water 10 minutes after power blackout — Worker: Before explosion, Unit 1 “filled with what looked like steam or dust… a series of large bangs… noise never heard before” (VIDEO)

 

TV: Devastating mystery illness hits California horses — “Nobody will even tell us what it is” — Skin falling off, covered in painful lesions, eyes swollen shut, liver damage, fainting — Expert: Never seen anything like it in 40 year career (PHOTOS & VIDEOS)

 

Scientists: Fukushima radiation is causing “serious biological effects” — Disaster’s widespread impact now being revealed — “Major irreversible shifts” in ecosystems discussed — “High rates of abnormality and mortality”… severe damage to humans next? (PHOTOS)

 

Japan TV: Injecting water into Fukushima reactor accelerated meltdown — Nuclear fuel rods had “reaction generating large amounts of heat” — ‘Restricted’ Data: Monitoring post measured nearly 1,000,000 microSv/hr; Within hours radiation dose spiked 30,000% far away from plant (VIDEO)

 

Plutonium detected underground near Fukushima reactor — Test results not revealed publicly for almost a year after sampling date — Officials plan to pump up groundwater from same well it was found in and dump it into Pacific Ocean (PHOTO)

 

Gov’t Expert: Fukushima hot particles can’t be dissolved, even with hot nitric acid! — Huge amounts of fallout are still bound to organic material… “we have very little knowledge about this” — “Reaction is irreversible” (PHOTO)

 

200,000,000,000,000 becquerels/kg in fuel rod materials found near Tokyo… “the material spread globally” — Composed “major part” of worst Fukushima plume — Persists for long time in living organisms — Must reconsider disaster’s health effects (PHOTOS)

 

Nuclear fuel found 15 miles from Tokyo suburbs — Fukushima uranium in ‘glassy’ spheres transported over 170 km — Structural materials from the nuclear reactors also present (PHOTOS)

 

Japan Professor: Outbreak of cancer is now underway in Fukushima children; Clear evidence of an epidemic — All of Japan is still being exposed to nuclear radiation — Gov’t Official: It will be ‘disastrous’ if we have to conclude there’s an actual increase in thyroid cancer from Fukushima

 

‘Shock’: Water underneath Fukushima reactors to be dumped in ocean — Attempts to deal with problem have ‘failed’ — Officials: It’s better than radioactive substances just “spilling directly into the ocean” like it is now (VIDEO)

 

TV Host: I’m studying Fukushima every day — “They have no idea what they’re going to do… There’s no solution… It’s a nightmare” — Tens of thousands of gallons of radioactive water spill into Pacific Ocean each day — “We really need to shut down all reactors” (VIDEO)

 

Gov’t: Fuel melted “much deeper” into concrete at Fukushima reactor than revealed — Triple the depth of original estimate — Tepco: “Impossible for us to evaluate potential impact”

 

‘Increasing alarm’ at Fukushima: Trenches filled with thousands of tons of plutonium contaminated liquid leaking into ocean — ‘Biggest risk’ at plant — ‘Exceptionally difficult’ problem — ‘Constant flow’ in and out of trenches — ‘Racing to stop’ more from coming in (PHOTO)

 

Official: “Unfortunately, the fuel itself is exposed” at Fukushima — Scientist: Our tests show contamination isn’t going away… reactors are leaking out into ocean… there’s still a problem — PBS: Plume of water tainted with radiation is reaching to other side of Pacific (VIDEO)

 

TV: “Mysterious die off of young salmon” in Pacific Northwest — “Healthy… and then they die” heading out to sea — “Far less plankton than normal… There are too many questions” — Researchers now testing for plankton and Fukushima contamination off West Coast (VIDEO)

 

NHK News Flash: Meltdown at Fukushima worse than thought — Most of nuclear fuel ‘melted through’ Reactor 3 and “continued down to bottom of outer containment vessel” — “Has changed their understanding of what’s happening inside” (VIDEO)

 

Alaska: “Scientists alarmed by new mystery disease” — Pacific Northwest: “Alarming changes” — “Couldn’t believe my eyes” — “Scientists really stumped… It’s kind of an alien thing” — “Gotten much, much worse… a horror show… could wreak havoc on entire ecosystems from Mexico to Alaska” (VIDEO)

 

New report estimates 278 trillion Bq of plutonium released from Fukushima reactors — Over 200 times higher than amount reported by Tepco — “Highly radiotoxic when incorporated into human body” as it decays

 

Physician: U.N. whitewashing Fukushima catastrophe, yet their report reveals “more than 9,000 will die of cancers”… number likely much higher if correct data used — Professor: “It’s brainwashing… an infamous lie… an abuse of science… their own data contradicts their public conclusion” (VIDEO)

 

Experts: Fukushima ‘globally enhanced’ cesium-137 levels in air by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude — Radioactive plume that reached Europe “contaminated the land, and as a consequence the whole food chain” — Concentrations greatly underestimated

 

Study: Plutonium from Fukushima went further than Chernobyl — Researchers ‘surprised’ their most plutonium-contaminated sample was from site farthest from Fukushima plant — Concern material is flowing into Pacific Ocean from land

 

TV: Huge increase in dead and sick sea mammals on California coast — Unprecedented numbers, annual record broken in 7 months — Starving, drooling, brain damaged, suffering seizures — Sea lions ‘mysteriously’ vanishing on other side of Pacific — Experts: We don’t know what’

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http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/09/list-of-all-genetically-linked-diseases_1674.html

 

List Of All Genetically Linked Diseases Caused By Low Level Radiation Exposure

HOW ARE GENETIC DISEASES CAUSED BY LOW DOSE RADIATION?

“When ionizing radiation interacts with one of the chromosomes, there are two major ways in which the information system of the cell can be permanently altered by radiation. Genes are the units of information within the chromosome. They are composed largely of the chemical known popularly as D.N.A. (deoxyribonucleic acid). Radiation can produce a chemical alteration in a part of a single gene, so that the gene functions abnormally thereafter, providing the cell with false directions. When such cells divide, the altered gene may be reproduced in the descendant cells.

http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/PP/chp3.html

RESEARCHERS KNEW IN 1926 THAT LOW DOSE RADIATION BREAKS DNA

Research done back in 1926 proved that even low doses of radiation can cause harm genetically speaking, as explained by Dr. Baxter. The nuclear ‘experts’ knew even back then that low doses of radiation were harmful to insects and human beings, but even today, the nuclear ‘experts’ are covering this up and/or denying it, because of what this would mean for the nuclear industry. For more information about how and why this works, click on the link below.

Global Corporations And The 1%; Art And Science Of Deception
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/p/corporations-art-and-science-of.html

What genetic diseases are linked to radiation? Scroll down to see the full list of all known genetic diseases.

Remember, any one of these genetic ‘diseases’ can be caused by exposure to low doses of radiation, such as X-rays, depleted uranium, low doses of radiation from a nuclear accident or nuclear bomb testing radiation fallout.
Uranium Mining and Enrichment – Nuclear Bomb -Nuclear Fuel Manufacturing
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/p/uranium-mining-and-enrichment.html

MEDICAL DOCTOR EXPLAINS DANGERS OF LOW DOSE RADIATION

In the video above, listen to Dr. Helen Caldicott MD talks about the damaging health effects of radiation, and an estimate of what it would cost if a nuclear accident happened in the USA. Actually, due to nuclear power plants, DU weapons, 2,400 open air nuclear bomb tests, and medical use of radioactive isotopes, we are living in the equivalent of low level global nuclear war, and everyone is being damaged on a genetic level by internal low dose radiation. Just because man made radioactive elements released by all of these sources are invisible, does not mean it is harmless.

It is estimated that 40 to 60 million deaths have already resulted from the 2,400 open air nuclear tests, and multiples of that number in terms of diseases and genetic diseases caused by the low dose radiation.

40 – 60 MILLION Deaths Due To Global Open Air Nuclear Weapons Testing 1945 to 2003; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/04/40-60-million-deaths-due-to-global-open.html

Everyone has man made radiation inside of them, which acts like a machine gun firing in all directions on a cellular level, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

Background Radiation Has Increased 600 Percent – 1 mSv In 1950 To over 6 mSv In 2014; Where Is This Coming From?

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/03/background-radiation-has-increased-600.html

LOW DOSE RADIATION DOES DNA DAMAGE, SHOWS UP YEARS LATER

Dr. Caldicott MD explains how the cancers and genetic diseases caused by man made radioactive elements do not show up right away. These diseases and cancers have an incubation time of many years, before they actually show up. Genetic diseases caused by low dose radiation damaging the chromosomes in eggs or sperm often do not show up until the next generation, or in the case of recessive genes, the genetic diseases do not show up until multiple generations in the future.

Links Between Chronic Fatigue From Ionizing Radiation And Cancer/Leukemia; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/05/links-between-chronic-fatigue-from.html

DNA DAMAGE INCREASES WITH EACH GENERATION

Dr. Caldicott MD also says that genetic diseases that the radiation causes get worse with each succeeding generation, as the radiation keeps damaging genes, and those damaged genes get passed on through each generation.
Depleted Uranium, X Ray’s, Low Dose Radiation, And Effect On Health, Aging, DNA, RNA, Future Generations; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/04/depleted-uranium-x-rays-low-dose.html

Dr. Rokke Former Military Reveals Dangers Of DU Dust; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/09/dr-rokke-former-military-reveals.html

 

MEDICAL AND NUCLEAR SCHOOLS DO NOT TEACH LOW DOSE RADIATION HAS HARMFUL EFFECTS

Medical schools and nuclear technology courses in colleges that train the nuclear ‘experts’, do not teach the negative genetic effects of low dose radiation or the harm that it causes to health. They also do not teach the harmful effects or symptoms of low dose radiation. Why not? As a matter of fact, most doctors and nuclear experts are taught to believe in the hormesis theory, that radiation is actually good for you. Around Fukushima, the medical authorities are claiming that smiling will protect residents from radiation.

Rachel Maddow – Hormesis Promoting Republican Art Robinson Wants To Sprinkle Radioactive Waste From Airplanes Over Cities? via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/08/rachel-maddow-hormesis-promoting.html
Hormesis; What Does Not Kill You, Is Good For You
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/05/hormesis-what-does-not-kill-you-is-good.html

In his book; “NUCLEAR RADIATION: THERE IS NO SAFE DOSE, by  Dr. Romeo F. Quijano, M.D., says that; “Government “experts” are actually misinterpreting the standards used world-wide as the common basis for radiological protection standards……The concept of “permissible” or “acceptable” level is derived from toxicologic assumptions and extrapolations which do not constitute a valid rationale for a conclusion of “safety”……The “small” amount of radiation, claimed to be “safe” by authorities, added to our increasingly fragile environment will cause serious harm to the health of human beings and other living organisms all over the world. Radioactive particles, especially Plutonium, Strontium, and Cesium are bioaccumulative, extremely persistent and highly toxic…..Particularly devastating would be the inevitable damage to the genetic pool which will lead to an increase in the number of seriously defective offspring who will be born in future generations.”

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/insights/04/01/11/nuclear-radiation-there-no-safe-dose

Quotes From Famous People About Nuclear Energy, Weapons And Low Dose Radiation Dangers; via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/07/quotes-from-famous-people-about-nuclear.html
Low Dose Radiation Dangers/Symptoms For Children And Adults
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/p/low-dose-radiation-dangers-for-children.html

Low Level Nuclear Radiation In Food And Water
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/p/low-level-nuclear-radiation-in-food-and.html

“…When the DNA of germ plasm is affected by radiation it can result in chromosomal diseases, such as trisomy 21, more commonly known as Down’s Syndrome. Mentally retarded children, victims of Down’s Syndrome, have been reported in Kerala, India, an area of high natural radioactivity.[7] Recently, cases of Down’s Syndrome have been tentatively linked to women exposed to radioactive releases from the large plutonium fire at Sellafield (Windscale) in 1957.[8] While Down’s Syndrome babies have long been associated with births to older women (those with higher accumulated exposure to natural background radiation),[9] the Sellafield-related cases involve women with an average age of 25 years….”

http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/NIDcell.html

“BOTH point mutations and structural aberrations of chromosomes are induced by ionizing radiations, causing genetic variation and abnormalities in man and other organisms.,,,“During an epidemiological study of nodular lesions of the thyroid in this area, we noticed an apparently high prevalence of Down’s syndrome and other forms of severe mental retardation. We therefore made a house-to-house survey of developmental abnormalities in this area and in a comparable control area without high background radiation (Fig. 1). We also determined the frequency of chromosome aberrations in a sample of the normal population living in the study and control areas. The observations we report here support the view that radiation-induced genetic anomalies occur with above average frequency in the population living in the area with high background radiation.

Nature 262, 60 – 61 (01 July 1976); doi:10.1038/262060a0

Down’s syndrome and related abnormalities in an area of high background radiation in coastal Kerala

N. KOCHUPILLAI, I. C. VERMA, M. S. GREWAL & V. RAMALINGASWAMI

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v262/n5563/abs/262060a0.html

Radiation of the reproductive organs induces genetic mutations in the sperm and eggs, increasing the incidence of genetic diseases like diabetes, cystic fibrosis, hemochromatosis and thousands of others over future generations. Recessive mutations take up to 20 generations to be expressed.”
http://www.helencaldicott.com/2013/11/radiation-fears-are-real/

LIST OF ALL GENETIC DISEASES CAUSED BY MAN MADE RADIATION

Here are some of the most commonly found genetic diseases. But the full list of over 1,000 genetic diseases is available below via the link you can click on.

To give just one example out of the thousands out there, pulmonary fibrosis can be caused by radiation, per this study…

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675823/

This one website above provides many studies proving the harm that low dose radiation causes, such as the ones below.

Disorder Mutation Chromosome
22q11.2 deletion syndrome D 22q
Angelman syndrome DCP 15
Canavan disease 17p
Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease
Color blindness P X
Cri du chat D 5
Cystic fibrosis P 7q
Down syndrome C 21
Duchenne muscular dystrophy D Xp
Haemochromatosis P 6
Haemophilia P X
Klinefelter syndrome C X
Neurofibromatosis 17q/22q/?
Phenylketonuria P 12q
Polycystic kidney disease P 16 (PKD1) or 4 (PKD2)
Prader–Willi syndrome DC 15
Sickle-cell disease P 11p
Tay–Sachs disease P 15
Turner syndrome C X

To see the full list of many more genetic diseases listed, go to; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_disorders

There are now more than 2,600 genetic diseases on record, any one of which may be caused by a radiation-induced mutation, and many of which we’re bound to see more of, because we are artificially increasing background levels of radiation….Nuclear power is neither clean, nor sustainable, nor an alternative to fossil fuels — in fact, it adds substantially to global warming.” Dr. Caldicott MD

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01caldicott.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print

 

In the video above, Kevin Blanch talks about the genetic effects of nuclear radiation.

HEALTHCARE COSTS WILL RISE IN FUTURE DUE TO INCREASING RADIATION DAMAGE

Are we really able to afford the health care costs for unlimited future generations when this small spinning dust mote in space is being increasingly contaminated and radiated by hundreds of man made toxic, heavy metal radioactive elements created by humans? Dr. Helen Caldicott MD talks more about the dangers of radiation in the following video..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Of-3VontE&feature=share

Man made radiation is spreading all around the world and it is causing harm, from multiple sources.  If you do not believe Dr. Caldicott MD, maybe the Veterans Administration will convince you. Veterans exposed to low dose radiation from the atomic bomb tests are being compensated for harm caused by that radiation. The VA has accepted as fact that certain diseases are caused directly by low dose radiation, and lists them on their website. Nuclear workers are also being compensated for the harm caused to their health by low dose radiation exposure from the US government. Lawsuits have been won by radiation exposure victims, where they had to prove harm in court, as proven in the link below.

Veterans Compensated For Exposure To Depleted Uranium Radiation/Poison; What About Everyone Else? via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/04/veterans-compensated-for-exposure-to_30.html

300,000 Atomic Bomb Testing Veterans and 1 Million Agent Orange Victims; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/atomic-bomb-testing-veterans.html

How Can A Radiation Exposure Victim Get 10 Million Dollars As Compensation For Health And Property Damage? via @AGreenRoad
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/04/how-can-radiation-exposure-victim-get.html

MAN MADE RADIATION TEARS APART THE FABRIC OF LIFE

Why is the military industrial complex and the nuclear industry deliberately creating those things that tear the fabric of life apart on a genetic level for all living things? Wouldn’t you agree that what the nuclear and military industrial complex are doing is like lemmings rushing off a cliff and committing suicide via man made radiation?

End

List Of All Genetically Linked Diseases Caused By Low Level Radiation Exposure; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/09/list-of-all-genetically-linked-diseases_1674.html

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Posted 1st September 2013 by Dr. Good Heart

Labels: accident Caused By exposure Fallout Genetically Linked Diseases ionizing list Low Level nuclear bombRadiation

SHEEPLE AWAKEN!!!

Once Upon a Time…. I Thought the Worst We Had To Face Was Foreclosure Hell, I WAS WRONG!

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Ya know, I used to think that Foreclosure Hell was the worst thing we in this Country had to face.  Wow, Was I Wrong!

I didn’t realize that just like in Japan, they will cook us to death with radiation, and not even bother to tell us.  I have condemned the Japanese for nuking the world and not telling us the truth about it, but fuck me, this country is doing the same thing.

While most people go about their daily business, they never think about the fact, that a pleasure of getting rained on is killing them.  We are the walking dead, and being asleep to the fact is just fucking us up more.

I would apologize for my slang, no, crude language, but something needs to wake these sleeping zombies up!

So, they are not only going to take every house they can get their grimy paws on, but they are going to continue the slow kill of humankind from the planet.  

It is not the kids growing up now that will suffer so much, it is like the butterfly test in Fukushima.  It is the children’s children that will be riddled with deformities. 

No matter what they try to tell us, we cannot be stupid, and believe that radiation is ok.  The thought of believing that, well, it is, stupid.  The sheeple that make up this country now, is amazing.  If the government says the radiation is not hurting us, we’ll just believe them.  Because the government says so?  Yall need to get out from under the rock, and out of the sun, cause damn!  You been drinking too much water with fluoride in it, for too long, and it has made you dumb!  I take that back, it has made you dumber than dirt!

For years, they have been doing things with the weather, with our food, with our prescriptions, our health!  They have taken healthy human beings and turned them into out of shape, fat slugs that have lives that are meant for cattle.  Chemtrails is no lie either.  What about HARP?  I guess that you also believe that 911 was not an inside job.

No, I am not a conspiracy theorist, I believe in taking what is put before me, studying it, seeing it for what it is, listening to scientists, listening to experts, and deducing my own opinion.  You see, we woke up.  We quit drinking the tap water.  We quit watching the regular news.  The news media is brainwashing you sheeple, which is not hard for them to do.

Terrorists are here, they are going to get you, so we have to militarize the Police forces.  These false flag shootings, are to outrage you sheeple, so that you will agree that guns are bad, and they can confiscate our guns.  We are told that our rights have to be taken, so that we can be protected from the terrorists, etc.,

If you are so blind you cannot see your nose on your face, you will not notice that Fannie Mae, and the banks are throwing our elderly out on the street.  Right now, in Goodyear, Arizona, an 83 year old woman and her 86 year old husband are being thrown out of their home.  No one cares.  In Colorado Springs, CO, an 82 year old woman is being thrown out of her home.  No one cares.

What the hell is wrong with you sheeple?  It’s not you, so it is Ok?  The Bank With the Most Homes in the End Wins, Get Used to It!!!

Sheeple Awaken!

Neil Garfield Telling It As It Is…”Bullying As An Acceptable Way of Life – Covered By A Corporate Shell Game!

By Paul Craig Roberts – Police Are More Dangerous To The Public Than Are Criminals, (Explained to Where Even Sheeple Can Understand!)

A MUST READ FOR EVERY AMERICAN!

From:  http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/09/16/police-are-more-dangerous-to-the-public-than-are-criminals-paul-craig-roberts/

Latest Book

 PCR’s new book, HOW AMERICA WAS LOST, is now available:In Print by Clarity Press and In Ebook Format by Atwell Publishing

 

Police Are More Dangerous To The Public Than Are Criminals — Paul Craig Roberts

The goon thug psychopaths no longer only brutalize minorities–it is open season on all of us –the latest victim is a petite young white mother of two small children

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36211.htm

Police Are More Dangerous To The Public Than Are Criminals

Paul Craig Roberts

The worse threat every American faces comes from his/her own government.

At the federal level the threat is a seventh war (Syria) in 12 years, leading on to the eighth and ninth (Iran and Lebanon) and then on to nuclear war with Russia and China.

The criminal psychopaths in Washington have squandered trillions of dollars on their wars, killing and dispossessing millions of Muslims while millions of American citizens have been dispossessed of their homes and careers. Now the entire social safety net is on the chopping bloc so that Washington can finance more wars.

At the state and local level every American faces brutal, armed psychopaths known as the police. The “law and order” conservatives and the “compassionate” liberals stand silent while police psychopaths brutalize children and grandmothers, murder double amputees in wheel chairs, break into the wrong homes, murder the family dogs, and terrify the occupants, pointing their automatic assault weapons in the faces of small children.

The American police perform no positive function. They pose a much larger threat to citizens than do the criminals who operate without a police badge. Americans would be safer if the police forces were abolished.

The police have been militarized and largely federalized by the Pentagon and the gestapo Homeland Security. The role of the federal government in equipping state and local police with military weapons, including tanks, and training in their use has essentially removed the police from state and local control. No matter how brutal any police officer, it is rare that any suffer more than a few months suspension, usually with full pay, while a report is concocted that clears them of any wrong doing.

In America today, police murder with impunity. All the psychopaths have to say is, “I thought his wallet was a gun,” or “we had to taser the unconscious guy we found lying on the ground, because he wouldn’t obey our commands to get up.”

There are innumerable cases of 240 pound cop psychopaths beating a 115 pound woman black and blue. Or handcuffing and carting off to jail 6 and 7 year old boys for having a dispute on the school playground.

Many Americans take solace in their erroneous belief that this only happens to minorities who they believe deserve it, but psychopaths use their unaccountable power against everyone. The American police are a brutal criminal gang free of civilian control.

Unaccountable power, which the police have, always attracts psychopaths. You are lucky if you only get bullies, but mainly police forces attract people who enjoy hurting people and tyrannizing them. To inflict harm on the public is why psychopaths join police forces.

Calling the police is a risky thing to do. Often it is the person who calls for help or some innocent person who ends up brutalized or murdered by the police. For example, on September 15 CNN reported a case of a young man who wrecked his car and went to a nearby house for help. The woman, made paranoid by the “war on crime,” imagined that she was in danger and called police. When the police arrived, the young man ran up to them, and the police shot him dead. http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/justice/north-carolina-police-shooting/

People who say the solution is better police training are unaware of how the police are trained. Police are trained to perceive the public as the enemy and to use maximum force. I have watched local police forces train. Two or three dozen officers will simultaneously empty their high-capacity magazines at the same target, a minimum of 300 bullets fired at one target. The purpose is to completely destroy whatever is on the receiving end of police fire.

US prosecutors seem to be the equal to police in terms of the psychopaths in their ranks. The United States, “the light unto the world,” not only has the highest percentage of its population in prison of every other country in the world, but also has the largest absolute number of people in prison. The US prison population is much larger in absolute numbers that the prison populations of China and India, countries with four times the US population.

Just try to find a prosecutor who gives a hoot about the innocence or guilt of the accused who is in his clutches. All the prosecutor cares about is his conviction rate. The higher his conviction rate, the greater his success even if every person convicted is innocent. The higher his conviction rate, the more likely he can run for public office.

Many prosecutors, such as Rudy Giuliani, target well known people so that they can gain name recognition via the names of their victims.

The American justice (sic) system serves the political ambitions of prosecutors and the murderous lusts of police psychopaths. It serves the profit motives of the privatized prisons who need high occupancy rates for their balance sheets.

But you can bet your life that the American justice (sic) system does not serve justice.

While writing this article, I googled “police brutality,” and google delivered 4,100,000 results. If a person googles “police brutality videos,” he will discover that there are more videos than could be watched in a lifetime. And these are only those acts of police brutality that are witnessed and caught on camera.

It would take thousands of pages just to compile the information available.

The facts seem to support the case that police in the US commit more crimes and acts of violence against the public than do the criminals who do not wear badges. According to the FBI crime Statisticshttp://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/summary in 2010 there were 1,246,248 violent crimes committed by people without police badges. Keep in mind that the definition of violent crime can be an expansive definition. For example, simply to push someone is considered assault. If two people come to blows in an argument, both have committed assault. However, even with this expansive definition of violent crimes, police assaults are both more numerous and more dangerous, as it is usually a half dozen overweight goon thugs beating and tasering one person.

Reports of police brutality are commonplace, but hardly anything is ever done about them. For example, on September 10, AlterNet reported that Houston, Texas, police routinely beat and murder local citizens.http://www.alternet.org/investigations/cops-are-beating-unarmed-suspect-nearly-every-day-houston?akid=10911.81835.yRJa7d&rd=1&src=newsletter894783&t=9&paging=off

The threat posed to the public by police psychopaths is growing rapidly. Last July 19 the Wall Street Journal reported: “Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment–from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armored personnel carriers–American police forces have often adopted a mind-set previously reserved for the battlefield. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the US scene: the warrior cop–armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.”

The Wall Street Journal, being an establishment newspaper, has to put it as nicely as possible. The bald fact is that today’s cop in body armor with assault weapons, grenades, and tanks is not there to make arrests of suspected criminals. He is there in anticipation of protests to beat down the public for exercising constitutional rights.

To suppress public protests is also the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security Police, a federal para-military police force that is a new development for the United States. No one in their right mind could possibly think that the vast militarized police have been created because of “the terrorist threat.” Terrorists are so rare that the FBI has to round up demented people and talk them into a plot so that the “terrorist threat” can be kept alive in the public’s mind.

The American public is too brainwashed to be able to defend itself. Consider the factthat cops seldom face any consequence when they murder citizens. We never hear cops called “citizen killer.” But if a citizen kills some overbearing cop bully, the media go ballistic: “Cop killer, cop killer.” The screaming doesn’t stop until the cop killer is executed.

As long as a brainwashed public continues to accept that cop lives are more precious than their own, citizens will continue to be brutalized and murdered by police psychopaths.

I can remember when the police were different. If there was a fight, the police broke it up. If it was a case of people coming to blows over a dispute, charges were not filed. If it was a clear case of assault, unless it was brutal or done with use of a weapon, the police usually left it up to the victim to file charges.

When I lived in England, the police walked their beats armed only with their billysticks.

When and why did it all go wrong? Among the collection of probable causes are the growth or urban populations, the onslaught of heavy immigration on formerly stable and predictable neighborhoods, the war on drugs, and management consultants called in to improve efficiency who focused police on quantitative results, such as the number of arrests, and away from such traditional goals as keeping the peace and investigating reported crimes.

Each step of the way accountability was removed in order to more easily apprehend criminals and drug dealers. The “war on terror” was another step, resulting in the militarization of the police.

The replacement of jury trials with plea bargains meant that police investigations ceased to be tested in court or even to support the plea, usually a fictitious crime reached by negotiation in order to obtain a guilty plea. Police learned that all prosecutors needed was a charge and that little depended on police investigations. Police work became sloppy. It was easier simply to pick up a suspect who had a record of having committed a similar crime.

As justice receded as the goal, the quality of people drawn into police work changed. Idealistic people found that their motivations were not compatible with the process, while bullies and psychopaths were attracted by largely unaccountable power.

Much of the blame can be attributed to “law and order” conservatives. Years ago when New York liberals began to observe the growing high-handed behavior of police, they called for civilian police review boards. Conservatives, such as National Review’s William F. Buckley, went berserk, claiming that any oversight over the police would hamstring the police and cause crime to explode.

The conservatives could see no threat in the police, only in an effort to hold police accountable. As far as I can tell, this is still the mindset.

What we observed in the police response to the Boston Marathon bombing suggests that the situation is irretrievable. One of the country’s largest cities and its suburbs–100 square miles–was tightly locked down with no one permitted to leave their homes, while 10,000 heavily armed police, essentially combat soldiers armed with tanks, forced their way into people’s homes, ordering them out at gunpoint. The excuse given for this unprecedented gestapo police action was a search for one wounded 19-year old kid.

That such a completely unnecessary and unconstitutional event could occur in Boston without the responsible officials being removed from office indicates that “the land of the free” no longer exists. The American population of the past, suspicious of government and jealous of its liberty, has been replaced by a brainwashed and fearful people, who are increasingly referred to as “the sheeple.”

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About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

Corrupt Attorneys Being Held Accountable, Finally!

Courts

Judges Slam More and More Plaintiffs’ Attorneys for Corruption

March 13, 2014

Peasants in Leon, Nicaragua, march in 2007 to denounce the use of harmful pesticides at banana plantations

Photograph by Miguel Alvarez/AFP via Getty Images

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-13/judges-slam-more-and-more-plaintiffs-attorneys-for-corruption#p1

Peasants in Leon, Nicaragua, march in 2007 to denounce the use of harmful pesticides at banana plantations

On March 7 a California appellate court upheld a trial judge’s finding that what had been billed as a watershed liability verdict against Dole Food over pesticide use in Nicaragua was actually the product of a conspiracy by corrupt plaintiffs’ lawyers. That decision came only three days after a federal judge in New York ruled that a multibillion-dollar pollution judgment against Chevron (CVX) in 2011 was so tainted by bribery and coercion that it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

Meanwhile, in Texas, a prominent class-action injury lawyer faces mounting woes because of allegations that he faked thousands of damage claims against BP (BP)related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. When you combine these cases with the criminal convictions several years ago of plaintiffs-bar titans Mel Weiss, Bill Lerach, and Dickie Scruggs—all of whom served time for corrupting the civil justice system—it’s hard to deny that there’s deep dysfunction within a powerful portion of the legal profession that claims to fight corporate abuse on behalf of the little guy.

A look at the Dole ruling illustrates the point. The California Court of Appeal in Los Angeles affirmed dismissal of one of a series of suits filed against Dole, alleging the company’s use of pesticides in Nicaragua left banana workers sterile in the late 1970s. In all, these suits resulted in billions of dollars in judgments against Dole.

The case at issue in the March 7 ruling, known as Tellez, went to trial in 2008 and produced a multimillion-dollar verdict for workers. That verdict was thrown out when Dole’s attorneys proved that many of the plaintiffs never worked for the company and weren’t, in fact, sterile. Witnesses and investigators were intimidated in Nicaragua, and plaintiffs were coached to concoct false stories. One supposed victim testified that he was instructed to memorize and repeat phony evidence “like a parrot.”

 

Plaintiffs’ lawyers and law firms are major political contributors, particularly to Democrats

The California appellate court said the trial judge correctly sent the Tellez plaintiffs packing. The ruling was a win for the Los Angeles firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which has engineered the negation of multiple pesticide verdicts against Dole. That accomplishment prompted Chevron to hire Gibson Dunn to fight back against a $19 billion oil-contamination judgment imposed by an Ecuadorean court in 2011. In the Chevron case, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of New York ruled on March 4 that plaintiffs’ attorney Steven Donziger turned his Ecuadorean lawsuit against the oil company into a racketeering scheme, complete with extortion, bribery of judges, and fabrication of evidence. Donziger has denied wrongdoing and vowed to appeal.

Mass-tort and class-action securities-fraud suits reached their apogee in the 1990s, fueled in part by the energy and ingenuity of an elite fraternity of plaintiffs’ firms and individual lawyers, some of whom became phenomenally wealthy as a result of their success. There’s nothing necessarily wrong, of course, with plaintiffs’ attorneys doing well along the path to doing good, just as there’s nothing necessarily improper with corporate-defense lawyers getting richly paid.

But as the plaintiffs’ bar achieved lucrative triumphs in asbestos litigation and the tobacco cases, some of its leaders lost their bearings. Scruggs, who earned a fortune in both of those arenas, pleaded guilty in 2008 to crimes related to a judicial bribery scheme. Weiss and Lerach, impresarios of securities-fraud class actions, went to prison for paying kickbacks to shareholder plaintiffs-for-hire. Last year the Kentucky Supreme Court upheld the disbarment of Stanley Chesley, a scourge of the pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries, among others. Chesley allegedly sought “unreasonable” fees in the settlement of a diet drug class action against Wyeth, now part of Pfizer (PFE).

Mikal Watts of San Antonio ranks among the nation’s most feared mass-injury lawyers. In the wake of the BP oil spill four years ago, his firm filed some 40,000 claims on behalf of deckhands and others alleging economic harm from the disaster that killed 11 rig workers and sullied the Gulf Coast. Last December, BP hit back, accusing Watts of seeking to shake down the company by filing claims for thousands of “phantom” clients who didn’t fit his description of them or didn’t exist at all. Then, in January, another well-known mass-tort attorney, Danny Becnel of Louisiana, filed a separate suit against Watts on behalf of Vietnamese American fishermen and business owners who say Watts used their names without authorization. Watts last year resigned from the plaintiffs’ steering committee helping to direct the litigation against BP after media reports that federal agents had searched his offices in connection with the phantom-claims scandal. The federal criminal probe is continuing. Watts, a major fundraiser for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, has denied any wrongdoing—civil or criminal. His lawyers have said all his filings against BP were made in good faith.

Despite the egregiousness of the plaintiffs’ bar abuses, there’s little chance that Congress will enact tort reform anytime soon, says Victor Schwartz, a lobbyist for business on the issue and a partner in Washington with law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon. Plaintiffs’ lawyers and law firms are major political contributors, particularly to Democrats, who have fought attempts to cap settlements in big corporate liability cases and class actions. Lawyers spent about $135 million in 2012 helping to elect Democrats, compared with $56 million for Republican candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money. “There have been no major business civil justice victories [in Congress] for almost a decade,” Schwartz says. Likewise, President Obama has shown little interest in taking on attorneys who invested $28 million in his reelection effort in 2012, more than twice what they gave Mitt Romney, according to the center. And bar associations and state attorneys general rarely seek to prosecute litigation fraud, which is expensive to pursue and politically fraught. As a result, says Sherman Joyce, president of the corporate-funded American Tort Reform Association, “too many plaintiffs’ lawyers believe there’s not much risk in filing fraudulent suits.”

The bottom line: Dole and Chevron have won major court victories after federal judges ruled that plaintiffs’ lawyers engaged in fraud.

Barrett_190
Barrett is an assistant managing editor and senior writer at Bloomberg Businessweek. His new book, Law of the Jungle, which tells the story of the Chevron oil pollution case in Ecuador, will be published by Crown in September 2014. His most recent book is GLOCK: The Rise of America’s Gun.

Never Ending Foreclosures

      Foreclosure filings were reported on 124,419 U.S. properties in January 2014, an 8 percent increase from December but still down 18 percent from January 2013.  Foreclosure filings were reported on 1,361,795 U.S. properties in 2013, down 26 percent from 2012 and down 53 percent from the peak of 2.9 million properties with foreclosure filings in 2010.  But still, 9.3 million U.S. residential properties were deeply underwater representing 19 percent of all properties with a mortgage in December 2013, down from 10.7 million homes underwater in September 2013.[1] 

            In 2006 there were 1,215,304 foreclosures, 545,000 foreclosure filings and 268,532 Home Repossessions.  By 2007 foreclosures had almost doubled – up to 2,203,295 with 1,260,000 foreclosure filings and 489,000 Home Repossessions.  2008 saw an even further increase to 3,019,482 foreclosures, 2,350,000 Foreclosure filings and 679,000 Home Repossessions.  In 20093,457,643 foreclosures, 2,920,000 foreclosure filings, and 945,000 Home Repossessions.  2010:  3,843,548 foreclosures, 3,500,000 foreclosure filings, and 1,125,000 Home Repossessions.  2011:  3,920,418 foreclosures, 3,580,000 foreclosure filings, and 1,147,000 Home Repossessions.  Then January to September 20121,616,427 foreclosures 1,382,000 foreclosure filings and 572,844 Repossessions.  The remainder of 2012 – September through December saw an additional 2,300,000 foreclosures, 2,100,000 foreclosure filings and 700,000 Repossessions.  In other words, from 2006 through 2012, there were a total of  21,576,117 foreclosures; 17,637,000 foreclosure filings; 5,926,376 Home Repossessions.  The foreclosures added to the repossessions is equal to:  27,502,493[2].  The numbers are staggering.

            Many of the homes have been wrongfully foreclosed upon, where either the party had not been in default, or the foreclosing party lacked standing to foreclose.  It has become almost as lawless as the wildwest, or comparable to a shark feeding frenzy.


[1] All of the foreclosure figures came from RealtyTrac:  http://www.realtytrac.com/content/foreclosure-market-report

[2] http://www.statisticbrain.com/home-foreclosure-statistics/Statistic Verification  Source: RealtyTrac, Federal Reserve, Equifax

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