The woke war on objectivity hits the federal judiciary by Jerome Marcus

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The woke war on objectivity hits the federal judiciary
by Jerome Marcus | July 24, 2020 04:25 PM

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/the-woke-war-on-objectivity-hits-the-federal-judiciary

The Michael Flynn case has opened a new front in the woke war on objectivity: Within the federal judiciary, we now have judges taking sides in the cases before them. It’s a development directly at war with the political philosophy that animates our Constitution. It would, if left unchecked, destroy the neutrality of the federal courts. If that were to go, the judiciary’s legitimacy and public respect for its dictates would be destroyed.

When the Justice Department decided to agree with Flynn that his prosecution was unfounded and joined in his motion to dismiss the criminal charges against him, presiding Judge Emmet Sullivan refused. Instead, he appointed another lawyer, who had already gone on public record opposing dismissal, to “advise” the court whether Flynn should be prosecuted even after the prosecutor chose to end the case. The adviser later came through with a 70-page brief accusing the Justice Department of cronyism and corruption.

Flynn appealed, and the Court of Appeals held the judge had no authority to do anything other than what the prosecutor and the defendant had jointly agreed upon. He could not, the court held, take a side in the case or seek a resolution unwanted by either of the actual parties.

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Now, Sullivan has doubled down on his insistence that he need not be neutral: He has, as if he were a party to the case, filed a motion in the court of appeals asking that its decision be vacated and that the entire District of Columbia appellate bench rehears the matter. In so doing, he has dropped all pretense of neutrality and revealed his desire to steer the criminal case against Flynn, rather than presiding over it as a neutral figure who interprets and applies the law.

So why isn’t it the case that … if the government makes a considered but racist decision that it just does not want to have a white officer stand trial for excessive force on a black victim that the District Court can deny the motion and then the political chips can fall where they may, and perhaps under pressure from the public or Congress or whatever, the District Court may not be able itself to force government to prosecute the case that maybe through operation of the legislative branch or other pressures from the public and the media…a new prosecutor is appointed and the case proceeds?

Like Sullivan, the judge in Wilkins’s example is not a neutral decisor. He is on the political ramparts and inviting others to join him there.

How would this work in practice? A motion for dismissal of an indictment, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a), would be denied by a judge who distrusts the prosecutor and believes the decision to dismiss is animated by impermissible considerations. Many people now believe that virtually every decision made by the Trump administration is driven by racism. Perhaps the judge before whom our Rule 48(a) motion is pending is such a person. So the judge writes an opinion, denouncing the effort by the prosecution to dismiss the case and making whatever allegations about the prosecutor’s motivation the judge finds persuasive. The judge has life tenure after all; he can say whatever he wants. Such a ruling isn’t appealable. Then the fun starts.

“Pressure from the public” is brought to bear. “The media,” who may share the judge’s hostility to the prosecutor or the prosecutor’s boss (the president) do their part to amplify the judge’s allegations in newspaper stories, interviews, talk shows, and late-night monologues. Sympathetic members of Congress join the effort. Most importantly, an election is never too far away. Elections can produce a new president, and that’s how you get a new attorney general and then, as Wilkins says, “a new prosecutor.” According to this understanding of the federal courts’ role, the judge’s denunciation of the prosecutor is appropriately a part of that process, which will end when “the political chips fall where they may.” If the judge gets his way, “a new prosecutor is appointed, and the case proceeds.”

A judge who rules with the expectation that he can make “political chips fall” as a result of how he rules has crossed the clearest line there is distinguishing the federal courts from the other two branches.

It should hardly need explaining that judges don’t (they can’t) take sides from the bench in political disputes. They are neutral interpreters of the law; they aren’t parties to the case.

President Dwight Eisenhower was able to send the army to enforce Brown v. Board of Education, and so to integrate the schools in Little Rock, because the nation recognized that if the Supreme Court had decided the law required it, then the law required it. We had, and have, no choice as a country but to follow the law.

If the federal courts allow judges to become parties, no one will any longer believe that the judges are applying the law. They will be revealed as people trying to advance political goals. A nonelected body trying to advance political goals will not long be obeyed in a democracy.

There’s a simple way to put a stop to this: When the Court of Appeals denies (or better, dismisses) Sullivan’s petition for rehearing, it should reassign the case to a judge — an actual judge, who will be neutral. That would have to be someone other than Emmet Sullivan.

Jerome Marcus is an attorney in private practice and a former federal prosecutor.

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Looks like the rest of the country gets to become familiar with the way normal people have been treated by the federal courts, and state courts alike for going on more than 20 years now.

And what was it that was said around 100 years ago now? In 1960, the ruling was already 30 years old so, yes, around 100 years ago…

It was in ELKINS v. UNITED STATES, 364 U.S. 206 (1960) 364 U.S. 206?? No. 126.
Argued March 28-29, 1960.   Decided June 27, 1960.

The Court, discussing the use of evidence illegally obtained by State Police, by federal prosecutors, and the FBI, and the Rights violations are discussed pretty heavily. Hell nowadays, the Courts do not give a second thought to violations of our civil and constitutional rights:

Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 222-23 (1960) (“These, then, are the considerations of reason and experience which point to the rejection of a doctrine that would freely admit in a federal criminal trial evidence seized by state agents in violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. But there is another consideration — the imperative of judicial integrity. It was of this that Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Brandeis so eloquently spoke in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, at 469, 471, more than 30 years ago.
“For those who agree with me,” said Mr. Justice Holmes, “no distinction can be taken between the Government as prosecutor and the Government as judge.” 277 U.S., at 470. (Dissenting opinion.) “In a government of laws,” said Mr. Justice Brandeis, “existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face.” 277 U.S., at 485. (Dissenting opinion.)”)

This basic principle was accepted by the Court in McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332. There it was held that “a conviction resting on evidence secured through such a flagrant disregard of the procedure which Congress has commanded cannot be allowed to stand without making the courts themselves accomplices in willful disobedience of law.” 318 U.S., at 345. Even less should the federal courts be accomplices in the willful disobedience of a Constitution they are sworn to uphold.

For these reasons we hold that evidence obtained by state officers during a search which, if conducted by federal officers, would have violated the defendant’s immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible over the defendant’s timely objection in a federal criminal trial. In determining whether there has been an unreasonable search and seizure by state officers, a federal court must make an independent inquiry, whether or not there has been such an inquiry by a state court, and irrespective of how any such inquiry may have turned out. The test is one of federal law, neither enlarged by what one state court may have countenanced, nor diminished by what another may have colorably suppressed.

Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 223-24 (1960)

Now think about the Flynn case, and numerous other cases, where the last thing the Courts think about, is if the evidence was illegally obtained, or if someone’s rights were violated in the illegal obtaining of the evidence.

We have no rights, and the many Courts’ flagrant disregard of the procedure
which Congress had commanded cannot stand…

All I can wonder is what the fuck?

A Timeline—Pandemic and Erosion of Freedoms Have Been Decades in the Making

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MAY 21, 2020
A Timeline—Pandemic and Erosion of Freedoms Have Been Decades in the Making

A Timeline—Pandemic and Erosion of Freedoms Have Been Decades in the Making

By the Children’s Health Defense Team

From the moment of “COVID-19’s” naming—and particularly since the imposition of unprecedented restrictions on “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”—some people have smelled a rat. And with each passing week, the smell becomes worse. A growing chorus of ordinary citizens and world-renowned medical and scientific experts is raising questions about matters ranging from the coronavirus’s origins to the rationale for continued lockdowns (see here, here and here).

The mainstream media have shown themselves only too ready to lob ad hominem attacks against any and all such non-conformists. However, one does not have to be insensitive to the illness and deaths associated with COVID-19 to recognize that powerful agendas are riding on the coattails of SARS-CoV-2. Citizens are waking up to the fact that the countries, officials and public figures who embrace draconian interventions such as immunity certificates, microchipping, forced vaccination and the removal of children from their homes also approve of making our sovereign rights—whether to earn a living, maintain bodily integrity, congregate to practice our spirituality, enjoy the arts or protect and educate our children—contingent upon our acceptance of these Big Brother measures and technologies.

To make it easier for the public to assess what is happening and what is at stake, Children’s Health Defense has put together the following timeline of selected events. We invite readers to consider how these events—some of them seemingly unrelated—and the network of partnerships and relationships that they illustrate have contributed to the unfolding set of circumstances in which we now find ourselves.

While the lockdown is a cataclysm for the world economy, it is an opportunity for Gates” and his billionaire brotherhood…

Notes/Explanatory Context

Gain-of-function research: COVID-19 has prompted renewed questioning about a long-debated branch of virology that, around 2012, scientists benignly rebranded as “gain-of-function” (GOF) research. GOF experiments seek to generate viruses “with properties that do not exist in nature” or, stated another way, “alter a pathogen to make it more transmissible or deadly.” One of the leading proponents of GOF work is Dr. Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC), a “legend in coronavirology” and “trailblazer of synthetic genomic manipulation techniques” who specializes in engineering lethal coronaviruses from “mail-order DNA.” Baric and other GOF enthusiasts argue that this type of viral tinkering is “critical to the development of broad-based vaccines and therapeutics,” but critics, such as Dr. Thomas Inglesby (director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security), dispute this putative benefit.

Big Data and Big Telecom: Children’s Health Defense Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Dafna Tachover (director of CHD’s “Stop 5G and Wireless Harms Project”) wrote on May 8: “5G has almost nothing to do with improving your lives; it’s all about controlling your life, marketing products, and harvesting your data for Artificial Intelligence purposes. The 21st century’s ‘black gold’ is data.” They note that Bill Gates, along with a number of other players and companies, is helping set up a “microwave radiation-emitting spider web [that] will allow Big Data/Big Telecom and Big Brother to capture what happens inside and outside every person at every moment of life” using a sinister brain-machine interface and other technologies, many financed by Gates. In short, “While the lockdown is a cataclysm for the world economy, it is an opportunity for Gates” and his billionaire brotherhood, ably assisted by an unadmirable fleet of medical and scientist yes-men.

Timeline of selected events
1998
May 18: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 states file antitrust charges against Microsoft.

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2000
2000: Bill Gates steps down from his position as Microsoft CEO, and Bill and Melinda Gates launch their eponymous foundation.

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2000: The Gates Foundation (along with other partners) launches the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), known today as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The foundation has given $4.1 billion to Gavi over the past 20 years.

2001
November: After initially losing the antitrust lawsuit and appealing the decision, Microsoft settles its case with the DOJ out of court.

2002
November 2002: University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC) researcher Ralph Baric publishes a “breakthrough work” in gain-of-function research (studies that alter pathogens to make them more transmissible or deadly, see Notes above), describing the creation of a synthetic clone of a natural mouse coronavirus.

November 2002: China’s Guangdong province reports the first case of “atypical pneumonia” (later labeled as SARS).

The speed of the Baric group illustrates how quickly a qualified team of virologists can create a synthetic clone from a natural virus, and therefore make genetic modifications to it.
2003
October 28: A paper by the Baric research group at UNC describes their synthetic recreation of the “previously undescribed” SARS coronavirus. (Writing in 2020, a scientist states, “The speed of the Baric group illustrates how quickly a qualified team of virologists can create a synthetic clone from a natural virus, and therefore make genetic modifications to it. Moreover, that was back in 2003. Today, a qualified laboratory can repeat those steps in a matter of weeks.”)

2005
December: Congress approves the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “to issue a PREP Act Declaration . . . that provides immunity from liability for any loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of countermeasures to diseases, threats, and conditions determined in the Declaration to constitute a present or credible risk of a future public health emergency.”

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2009
2009-present (and earlier): The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awards millions of dollars in global health funding to Imperial College London; funding covers areas such as polio, HIV, family planning, malaria, health care delivery, agricultural development, information technology and “public awareness and analysis.”

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2009: The Gates Foundation funds human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine trials in India, administering the vaccine to 23,000 young girls in remote provinces. Seven die and approximately 1,200 suffer autoimmune conditions, fertility disorders or other severe reactions. Ethical violations include forged consent forms and refusal of medical treatment for the injured girls.

October 2009: Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), goes on YouTube to declare that serious adverse events for the H1N1 influenza vaccine are “very, very, very rare.” Months later, serious adverse events such as miscarriages, narcolepsy and febrile convulsions explode in multiple countries.

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2010
January: Bill Gates pledges $10 billion in funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) and announces “the Decade of Vaccines.”

May 18: Senator and physician Tom Coburn calls out Dr. Fauci for misleadingly touting “significant progress in HIV vaccine research”—research that has ushered millions into NIAID’s coffers. Dr. Coburn stated, “Most scientists involved in AIDS research believe that an HIV vaccine is further away than ever.”

2011
December 30: Dr. Fauci promotes gain-of-function research on bird flu viruses, arguing that the research is worth the risk. The risks worry other “seasoned researchers.”

2012
April 20: Baylor College researchers publish their evaluation of four vaccine candidates for SARS, concluding that “Caution in proceeding to application of a SARS-CoV vaccine in humans is indicated.”

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May: The 194 Member States of the World Health Assembly endorse the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with NIAID, WHO, Gavi, UNICEF and others. Dr. Fauci is one of five members on the GVAP’s Leadership Council.

2014
2014: Dr. Deborah Birx takes the helm of PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which Dr. Fauci helped launch (in 2003) and which benefits from generous Gates Foundation support. Birx and Fauci are long-time allies, having worked together during the early years of AIDS and sharing overlapping career paths.

October 7: National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins announces a “new phase of cooperation” between NIH and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, including partnering for vaccine development.

October 17: Under President Obama, the NIH halts federal funding for gain-of-function (GOF) research (see Notes) and asks federally funded GOF researchers to “agree to a voluntary moratorium.” The funding hiatus applies to 21 studies “reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.” NIH later allows 10 of the studies to resume.

[T]hese data and restrictions represent a crossroads of [gain-of-function] research concerns; the potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens.
2015
2015: NIAID, under Fauci, awards a five-year, $3.7 million grant to EcoHealth Alliance (whose director gets credit on subsequent publications for “funding acquisition” rather than scientific work) to conduct gain-of-function studies on the “risk of bat coronavirus emergence.” Ten percent of the award goes to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which does “the bulk of the on-the-ground sample collection and analysis.”

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January: In a public appearance, Bill Gates states, “We’re taking things that are genetically modified organisms and we’re injecting them into little kids’ arms; we just shoot ‘em right into the vein.”

September 24: UNC’s Ralph Baric is granted a patent for the creation of chimeric coronavirus spike proteins.

November 9: Baric and the Wuhan Institute’s Shi Zheng-Li (the leading GOF coronavirus researcher in China) publish what some refer to as “the most famous gain-of-function virology paper” (in Nature Medicine), describing their creation of a synthetic chimeric coronavirus. The authors state: “[T]hese data and restrictions represent a crossroads of GOF research concerns; the potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens [emphasis added]. In developing policies moving forward, it is important to consider the value of the data generated by these studies and whether these types of chimeric virus studies warrant further investigation versus the inherent risks involved.”

2016
2016: The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity states that “very few government-funded gain-of-function experiments [pose] a significant threat to public health.”

…researchers blame the Gates-funded polio vaccination campaign for almost half a million cases of childhood paralysis.
2017
February 8: The Modi administration in India severs ties with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, after researchers blame the Gates-funded polio vaccination campaign for almost half a million cases of childhood paralysis.

November 30: Shi Zheng-Li and coauthors publish a paper in PLoS Pathogens describing the creation of eight new synthetic coronaviruses.

December 19: The NIH and Dr. Fauci’s NIAID restore federal funding for gain-of-function research, ending the moratorium that began in October 2014.

December 19: Dr. Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health tells the New York Times that the type of gain-of-function experiments endorsed by Dr. Fauci’s NIAID have “done almost nothing to improve our preparedness for pandemics, and yet risked creating an accidental pandemic.”

NIAID awards a six-year renewal grant of $3.7 million to EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology to continue their gain-of-function studies on bat coronaviruses.
2019
2019: NIAID awards a six-year renewal grant of $3.7 million to EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology to continue their gain-of-function studies on bat coronaviruses. The renewal is approved “unusually quickly,” receiving a “really extremely high priority for funding.”

August 14: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) records show that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation owns 5.3 million shares of Crown Castle International Corp., representing the Foundation’s second largest tech holding after Microsoft. Crown Castle dominates ownership of 5G infrastructure throughout the U.S., including cell towers, small cell nodes and fiber.

October: A report released by NBC News in May, 2020 declares, “The analysis of commercial telemetry data in Wuhan suggests the COVID-19 pandemic began earlier than initially reported” and “supports the release of COVID-19 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” NBC’s May 8 summary states, “there was no cellphone activity in a high-security portion of the Wuhan Institute of Virology from Oct. 7 through Oct. 24, 2019, and that there may have been a ‘hazardous event’ sometime between Oct. 6 and Oct. 11.”

October 6: On May 5, 2020, British and French researchers publish a study estimating that COVID-19 could have started as early as October 6, 2019.

October 18-27: Wuhan hosts the Military World Games (“Wuhan 2019”), held every four years. More than 9,000 athletes from over 100 countries compete. The telecom systems for the Athletes’ Village constructed for the event are powered by 5G technology, “showcas[ing] its infrastructure and technological prowess.”

October 18: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security convene an invitation-only “tabletop exercise” called Event 201 to map out the response to a hypothetical global coronavirus pandemic.

November-December: General practitioners in northern Italy start noticing a “strange pneumonia.”

December 2-3: Vaccine scientists attending the WHO’s Global Vaccine Safety Summit confirm major problems with vaccine safety around the world.

December 18: Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report the development of a “novel way to record a patient’s vaccination history,” using smartphone-readable nanocrystals called “quantum dots” embedded in the skin using microneedles—this work is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

December 31: Chinese officials inform the WHO about a cluster of “mysterious pneumonia” cases. Later, the South China Morning Post reports that it can trace the first case back to November 17.

Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College … tells a Congressional Committee that coronavirus vaccines have always had a “unique potential safety problem”
2020
January 7: Chinese authorities formally identify a “novel” coronavirus.

January 10: China makes the genome sequence of the new coronavirus publicly available.

January 11: China records its first death attributed to the new coronavirus.

January 20: The first U.S. coronavirus case is reported in Washington State.

January 23: Shi Zheng-Li releases a paper reporting that the new coronavirus is 96% identical to a strain that her lab isolated from bats in 2013 but never publicized.

January 30: The WHO declares the new coronavirus a “global health emergency.”

Jan. 31, 2020: A group of Indian scientists publishes a study finding HIV sequences in the 2019-nCoV coronavirus. The scientists withdraw the study within 24 hours, presumably under some pressure.

February 4: Sixty-seven year-old scientist Dr. Frank Plummer, head until 2015 of Canada’s level-4 National Microbiology Laboratory, dies under mysterious circumstances while in Nairobi, Kenya. During the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s, Plummer told the New York Times that 60% of “probable” and “suspected” SARS cases had failed the test needed to confirm a link between coronavirus and SARS: “[W]hether it is the entire explanation for SARS I am just not sure yet.”

February 4: With just 11 people in the U.S. who are confirmed to have COVID-19, HHS issues a Declaration, published on March 17 in the Federal Register, that places the new coronavirus under the umbrella of the 2005 PREP Act, making medical countermeasures (including vaccines) immune from liability.

February 5: Bill and Melinda Gates announce $100 million in funding for coronavirus vaccine research and treatment efforts.

February 10: French and Canadian scientists publish a paper about the new coronavirus describing an “important” anomaly—12 additional nucleotides—not observed in previous coronaviruses. They suggest that the distinct feature “may provide a gain-of-function . . . for efficient spreading in the human population.”

February 11: The WHO gives the disease thought to be caused by the new coronavirus a name: “COVID-19.” WHO’s Director-General explains, “We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual or group of people, and which is also pronounceable and related to the disease.”

February 24: Moderna, Inc. sends the first batch of its experimental coronavirus vaccine, mRNA-1273, to its research partner, NIAID.

February 25: Moderna stock shares trade 15% higher.

February 29: The U.S. reports its first COVID-19 death.

March 5: Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College (who has previously tried to develop a SARS vaccine) tells a Congressional Committee that coronavirus vaccines have always had a “unique potential safety problem”—a “kind of paradoxical immune enhancement phenomenon.”

March 6: President Trump signs an $8.3 billion emergency coronavirus spending package, much of which “directly benefit[s] the drug industry.”

March 10: Dr. Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia expresses concerns about the push to “rush [a vaccine] through,” particularly in the absence of “any history of making a coronavirus vaccine.”

March 10: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard commit $125 million to identify, assess, develop and scale up COVID-19 treatments, forming the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. The $50 million in Gates Foundation funding is part of the $100 million in COVID-19 funding announced by Gates on February 5.

March 11: The WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic.

March 13: Bill Gates steps down from the Boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to “dedicate more time to philanthropic priorities.”

March 16: Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, scientific advisor to the UK government, publishes his computer simulations warning that there will be over two million COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. unless the country adopts “intensive and socially disruptive measures.”

March 16: Dr. Fauci tells Americans that they must be prepared to “take more drastic steps” and “hunker down significantly” to slow the coronavirus’s spread.

March 16: NIAID launches a Phase 1 trial in 45 healthy adults of the mRNA-1273 coronavirus vaccine co-developed by NIAID and Moderna, Inc. The trial skips the customary step of testing the vaccine in animal models prior to proceeding to human trials.

March 17: The Nation publishes an analysis covering conflicts of interest in the Gates Foundation’s charitable giving, describing “close to $2 billion in tax-deductible charitable donations to private companies,” including GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and “close to $250 million in charitable grants . . . to companies in which the foundation holds corporate stocks and bonds,” including Merck, GSK, Sanofi and other pharmaceutical corporations. A critic states that the foundation has “created one of the most problematic precedents in the history of foundation giving by essentially opening the door for corporations to see themselves as deserving charity claimants at a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high.”

March 22: U.S. bioweapons expert Dr. Francis Boyle repeats earlier statements that the purpose of Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) labs such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology “is the research, development, testing and stockpiling of offensive biological weapons” and that the new virus is a “weaponized” SARS coronavirus that leaked out of the Wuhan BSL-4 lab.

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Bill Gates announces significant funding for a company, EarthNow, that will blanket Earth with $1 billion in video surveillance satellites.
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March 24: Bill Gates announces significant funding for a company, EarthNow, that will blanket Earth with $1 billion in video surveillance satellites.

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March 26: Microsoft announces that it is acquiring Affirmed Networks, a company focused on 5G and “edge computing.”

March 26: Dr. Fauci publishes an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine (with senior NIAID official H. Clifford Lane and CDC director Robert Redfield), stating that “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza,” with a case fatality rate of perhaps 0.1%.

March 27: President Trump signs the $2 trillion CARES Act into law.

March 27: Children’s Health Defense publishes its video and article, “Dr. Fauci and COVID-19 priorities: therapeutics now or vaccines later?” Shortly thereafter, Mailchimp deactivates CHD’s account with no advance notice and no violation of Mailchimp’s rules.

March 29: President Trump extends nationwide social distancing guidelines until April 30.

March 31: White House coronavirus advisors Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Fauci cite models showing a potential 100,000 to 240,000 coronavirus deaths “even if the country keeps stringent social distancing guidelines in place.” Fauci describes social distancing and lockdowns as “inconvenient” but “the answer to our problems.”

April 2: Bill Gates states that a coronavirus vaccine “is the only thing that will allow us to return to normal.”

April 3: Forbes reports that Moderna’s CEO has become an overnight billionaire after the company ended 2019 with a net loss.

April 6: Dr. Fauci describes a COVID-19 vaccine as a “showstopper” and states, “I hope we don’t have so many people infected that we actually have . . . herd immunity.”

April 9: Dr. Fauci states that the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus “looks more like the 60,000 [range],” adding the “models are really only as good as the assumptions that you put into the model.”

April 9: The Gates-funded Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) reports that 115 COVID-19 vaccines are in the pipeline.

April 9: Children’s Health Defense publishes “Gates’ globalist vaccine agenda: a win-win for pharma and mandatory vaccination.”

April 11: Children’s Health Defense publishes “Here’s why Bill Gates wants indemnity… Are you willing to take the risk?”

April 15: Bill Gates pledges another $150 million to coronavirus vaccine development and other measures. He states, “There are seven billion people on the planet. We are going to need to vaccinate nearly every one.”

April 16: Moderna announces up to $483 million in funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to speed up the mRNA-1273 vaccine’s development.

April 18: Professor Luc Montagnier, recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of HIV, appears on French television and states that SARS-CoV-2 has been “manipulated” to include “added sequences” from HIV. Professor Montagnier asserts that this “meticulous” insertion could only have been carried out in a laboratory. Others raise similar questions about the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

April 18: News outlets report that the country’s first coronavirus tests are ineffective due to CDC lab contamination and the CDC’s violation of its manufacturing standards.

April 21: Washington State announces plans to have a 1,500-person contact tracing team in place by mid-May.

April 23: Researchers issue a preprint reporting “direct evidence” of at least 30 different SARS-CoV-2 genetic variants.

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April 23: News outlets report that American billionaires’ wealth increased by 10% during the first few months of COVID-19.

April 23: Children’s Health Defense Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. publishes “The Bill Gates effect: WHO’s DTP vaccine killed more children in Africa than the diseases it targeted.”

April 24: The NIH cancels the funding awarded to EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology for gain-of-function research on coronaviruses (funding awarded continuously since 2015). The NIH and Dr. Fauci decline to comment.

April 27: Former FDA head Scott Gottlieb (now with Pfizer) and former Medicare/Medicaid official Andy Slavitt urge the Trump administration to dedicate $46 billion to contact tracing and isolation.

April 28: A Newsweek article reports, “Dr. Fauci backed controversial Wuhan lab with U.S. dollars for risky coronavirus research.” Fauci does not respond to requests for comments.

April 29: Bloomberg publishes a story about President Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed,” a planned pharmaceutical-government-military collaboration to shrink the development time for a coronavirus vaccine.

April 30: Bill Gates writes that “the world will be able to go back to the way things were . . . when almost every person on the planet has been vaccinated against coronavirus.” Gates also states that “Governments will need to expedite their usual drug approval processes in order to deliver the vaccine to over 7 billion people quickly.”

April 30: Dr. Fauci states that it is “doable” to have hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine available by January 2021.

May 1: Dr. Thomas Inglesby (director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security), discussing gain-of-function research, states that “laboratory systems are not infallible, and even in the greatest laboratories of the world, there are mistakes.”

May 1: Democratic Representative Bobby Rush of Illinois introduces the TRACE Act (“HR 6666: COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, and Contacting Everyone”). The conspicuously vague Act would allocate $100 billion to CDC-hired entities for contact tracing and “other purposes,” including family separation. (See also May 15.)

May 4: Bill Gates pledges another $50 million toward COVID-19, for a total of $300 million in commitments.

May 4: President Trump states that the U.S. will have a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020.

May 5: British and French researchers publish “Emergence of genomic diversity and recurrent mutations in SARS-CoV-2,” suggesting that the recurrent mutations detected “may indicate ongoing adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 to its novel human host.”

May 5: Neil Ferguson resigns from the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) after flouting his own social distancing rules. The married lover with whom Ferguson has his trysts works for an organization “loosely connected with Bill Gates, through the World Economic Forum.”

May 5: Children’s Health Defense Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. publishes “Redfield and Birx: can they be trusted with COVID?”

May 6: An anonymous software engineer (ex-Google) pronounces Neil Ferguson’s COVID-19 computer model “unusable for scientific purposes.”

May 6: New York governor Andrew Cuomo announces that the state will partner with “visionary” Bill Gates to restructure education by placing “technology at the forefront.” Cuomo appoints former Google CEO Eric Schmidt to lead a blue-ribbon committee for this purpose. Critics push back, describing past Gates-Foundation-funded educational fiascos that amassed “detailed personal information about millions of students” in the cloud.

May 7: Business Insider reports that over 33 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the seven-week period since COVID-19 restrictions began.

May 7: NPR reports that 44 states and the District of Columbia have plans to deploy a contact tracing workforce of over 66,000 workers.

May 8: NBC News releases a private report describing an unconfirmed shutdown of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in October 2019.

May 8: Children’s Health Defense Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Dafna Tachover (director of CHD’s “Stop 5G and Wireless Harms Project”) publish “The brave new world of Bill Gates and Big Telecom.”

May 11: UK chief medical officer Dr. Chris Whitty (an insider who has received millions in malaria research funding from the Gates Foundation and who endorses stigma as a useful public health intervention) states that COVID-19 is “harmless to [the] vast majority.”

May 13: Australian researchers report that “SARS-CoV-2 is uniquely adapted to infect humans, raising important questions as to whether it arose in nature by a rare chance event or whether its origins might lie elsewhere.”

May 14: Microsoft announces that it is acquiring UK-based Metaswitch Networks “to expand its Azure 5G strategy.”

May 15: The House passes the 1,815-page, $3 trillion HEROES Act (“Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act”), sneaking in portions of the TRACE ACT that would funnel $75 billion to the CDC for “coronavirus testing, contact tracing and isolation measures.”

May 18: Moderna announces interim results from the Phase 1 trial of its mRNA-1273 coronavirus vaccine. The company reports that three out of 15 healthy participants (20%) experienced Grade 3 systemic adverse events following a second dose. (The Merck Manual defines Grade 3 as “severe or medically significant but not immediately life-threatening; hospitalization or prolongation of hospitalization indicated; disabling; limiting self care.”)

May 18: Discussing the interim results from Moderna’s Phase 1 trial of its mRNA-1273 vaccine—co-developed with NIAID—Dr. Fauci states: “I must warn that there’s also the possibility of negative consequences, where certain vaccines can actually enhance the negative effect of the infection.”

May 18: After describing its interim Phase 1 results as “promising,” shares of Moderna stock soar 25%, closing at a “record high.” The company’s stock has gained 241% since the beginning of 2020.

May 19: Children’s Health Defense Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. publishes “How Bill Gates controls global messaging and censorship.”

May 20: Microsoft announces its new supercomputer intended to create “human-like” artificial intelligence.

Stop the conveyor belt
Around the world, many people are understandably reeling in shock at the rapid economic, social and cultural changes that have followed in the wake of the phenomenon called “COVID-19.” Many of these changes involve ever-tighter restrictions on our rights and freedoms, accompanied by inexorable messaging—both public and subliminal—that a “vaccine for all” and 24/7 tracking and surveillance are the only way out. Increasingly, however, there are hopeful signs that more members of the public are recognizing the duplicity and self-interest of those offering false salvation. Each of us needs to do our part to expose these issues, standing up for individual sovereignty and working to halt the transition “to a totalitarian singularity more despotic than Orwell ever imagined.”

Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. CHD is planning many strategies, including legal, in an effort to defend the health of our children and obtain justice for those already injured. Your support is essential to CHD’s successful mission.

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Judge is removed from bench after asking woman whether she closed her legs to prevent rape

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(judge and gavel Image from Shutterstock.com.)

Judge is removed from bench after asking woman whether she closed her legs to prevent rape
BY DEBRA CASSENS WEISS
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/judge-is-removed-from-bench-after-asking-woman-whether-she-closed-her-legs-to-prevent-rape
MAY 28, 2020, 11:05 AM CDT

The New Jersey Supreme Court on Tuesday removed a judge from the bench who asked a woman whether she had tried to close her legs to stop a sexual assault.

The court ordered the removal of Judge John Russo in a May 26 decision.

The woman was in Russo’s Ocean County courtroom in 2016 to seek a final restraining order against her alleged assailant. Russo took over questioning after cross-examination by defense counsel. The judge asked the woman whether she had tried to block her body parts, close her legs, call police or leave.

The questions were unwarranted, inappropriate and discourteous, the supreme court said in an opinion by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. “No witness, alleged victim or litigant should be treated that way in a court of law,” the court said.

Russo claimed the woman was a demoralized witness, and he was trying to help her get reengaged in the hearing. But that explanation “does not square with the record,” the court said. “The plaintiff plainly testified that defendant forced her to have sexual intercourse against her will. She also described other acts of alleged domestic violence. And she did so without needing any assistance from the trial judge to express herself.”

“Beyond that,” the court said, Russo’s “coarse questions about how the plaintiff responded during the alleged assault were not relevant.” Sexual assault in New Jersey turns on the use of physical force by the alleged assailant, not the victim’s state of mind or resistance.

Just as problematic were Russo’s comments to court staff after the hearing, the court said. Russo asked whether staffers heard “the sex stuff” and said he was the master of “being able to talk about sex acts with a straight face.”

“Judges set the tone for a courtroom,” the court said. “Especially when it comes to sensitive matters like domestic violence and sexual assault, that tone must be dignified, solemn and respectful, not demeaning or sophomoric. [Russo] failed in that regard.”

The court said Russo also committed misconduct in three instances.

• Russo ruled in a hearing even though he stated at the outset that he knew both the defendant and his wife since high school. The defendant was arrested after failing to comply with a judge’s order to pay. $10,000 out of nearly $145,000 in past-due child support. Russo vacated the arrest warrant and lowered the purge amount from $10,000 to $300 based on the defendant’s uncorroborated financial information.

• Russo made an ex parte call to a mother in a paternity matter who failed to appear in court. When Russo asked for the woman’s address, she said she didn’t want to disclose it because she was afraid. She said the putative father had molested her daughter, and she feared for her son’s safety. Russo threatened the woman with financial penalties and said she wouldn’t be able to keep her address secret. “He’s going to find you, ma’am,” Russo told the woman. “We’re all going to find you.”

• Russo asked the family division manager in his courthouse to intercede in another vicinage to reschedule a guardianship hearing in a personal matter involving himself, his ex-wife and his son. Russo should have worked through his lawyer rather than the manager, the court said.

“The series of ethical failures that [Russo] committed are not errors of law, innocent missteps or isolated words taken out of context,” the court said. “Viewed as a whole, they are flagrant and serious acts of misconduct.”

Russo is a former mayor of Toms River, New Jersey. Law360, Courthouse News Service, Law.com, NJ.com and the Legal Profession Blog had coverage of the decision.

California Throws The Books At Undercover Reporter Who Exposed Baby Body Trafficking

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California Throws the Books at Undercover Reporter Who Exposed Baby Body Trafficking

California Throws the Books at Undercover Reporter Who Exposed Baby Body Trafficking


Thomas BrejchaBy Thomas Brejcha
MARCH 10, 2020
From the time of its founding and fight for independence, America has been synonymous with the idea of freedom – freedom to speak your mind, pursue your own dreams, worship as you want. The American press has often been called the “Fourth Estate” or referred to as the fourth branch of government for its ability to hold leaders to transparency with the ability to expose wrongdoing. Today, that cherished Freedom of the Press is at risk. Why? Because of the power of the abortion lobby and its insistence that the rules are different when it comes to the business of selling death.

Federalist
The Federalist

Read The Federalist article by Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, on how the rights of all journalists are at risk because a California federal court deemed David Daleiden’s undercover work – exposing baby body parts trafficking by abortion vendors – a crime.

“What does it tell you that the Daleiden case may have been the first time that any journalist has been criminally charged with violating the California recording law in the many years it has been on the books?” from California Throws The Books At Undercover Reporter Who Exposed Baby Body Trafficking by Tom Brejcha.

California Throws The Books At Undercover Reporter Who Exposed Baby Body Trafficking
Even those who disagree with David Daleiden and his techniques but care about how the legal actions against him could define press freedom need to follow this case.

Thomas BrejchaBy Thomas Brejcha
MARCH 10, 2020
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/10/california-throws-the-books-at-undercover-reporter-who-exposed-baby-body-trafficking/

An undercover reporter has been arraigned in California and charged with ten felonies for secretly recording conversations, and it’s time to revisit how the judiciary and the law can stifle the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press.

The accused, David Daleiden, used standard media undercover techniques to investigate and expose Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted fetus body parts. While the use of undercover techniques like Daleiden’s is a controversial practice even within journalism circles, Daleiden’s upcoming jury trial has far wider implications for journalists.

Namely, can and should government criminalize undercover reporting, which historically has revealed otherwise hidden wrongdoing of all kinds?

Being Pro-Life Is Not a Crime
Let’s first put aside that Daleiden, as director of the Center for Medical Progress, is a pro-life activist—which is not a crime. He should have the same right to penetrate the practices of America’s abortion providers and report his findings just as other reporters and publications investigate other matters.

Consider the multitude of covertly conducted investigations exposing threats to public health and safety, racism, and various other injustices, dating back to the dawn of our republic. To mention a few: In a classic case of disguised reporters using hidden cameras, ABC “Prime Time Live” outed Food Lion’s alleged unsanitary food handling practices. “Dateline” NBC deployed decoys and hidden cameras to expose men who solicited sex with minors on the Internet. Vanity Fair had a clandestine reporter join a tour group to the Holy Land to probe then-President George W. Bush’s alleged ties to religious right leaders.

Undercover Chicago Tribune reporters, working from the inside as employees, exposed life-threatening conditions in nursing homes. Another Tribune reporter worked undercover in the city’s election board to reveal widespread election fraud. Chicago Sun-Times reporters, working inside, turned up dangerous practices at abortion clinics. The paper also opened a bar, the Mirage, in a sting using hidden cameras to bare shakedowns by city inspectors.

Jerry Thompson of the Nashville Tennessean infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan to provide a first-person account of its racist practices and beliefs. BBC used clandestine students to describe a “sex for grades” scandal. In Los Angeles, CBSN’s David Goldstein regularly goes undercover.

The Washington Post captured a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service by disclosing disgusting and unsanitary conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The reporters never identified themselves as such, which, according to Brooke Kroeger, a New York University law and journalism professor, defines their action as investigative reporting. It is, she argued, yet another demonstration of how deception in investigative reporting is not only permissible but a necessary tool regularly exposing wrongdoing that can’t be found any other way.

Attacking Whistleblowers Who Exposed Crime
Instead, Daleiden faces a legal system that has unleashed both criminal and civil actions against him for a variety of supposed violations of law, including criminal trespass, fraud, and breach of contract, even federal civil racketeering. A jury in the civil trial awarded the plaintiffs more than $2.2 million in damages, enough to permanently silence Daleiden’s small pro-life and nonprofit operation. We are appealing.

The criminal case, the one more likely to chill undercover work, was the product of then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris. A judge threw out six of 15 criminal charges against Daleiden and co-investigator Sandra Merritt but ruled that the other counts can go to a criminal trial. Thus, the arraignment. Never mind that Harris violated shield laws protecting reporters by raiding Daleiden’s home and capturing previously unpublished raw journalism materials.

How ironic, because about the time that Daleiden published his findings, animal rights activists were praised for ­documenting abuse in the poultry industry. Unlike in Daleiden’s case, Harris launched probes of the poultry industry and didn’t charge the reporters.

That Harris received campaign donations from, and touted her support for, pro-choice groups suggests she was motivated by political bias. Same for the judge in the civil case, who was affiliated with an organization that had a joint venture with a Planned Parenthood affiliate whose successor is now one of the entities suing Daleiden.

No one can be blamed for thinking that the legal actions were inspired and carried out by pro-choice organizations to punish and silence their opponents. What does it tell you that the Daleiden case may have been the first time that any journalist has been criminally charged with violating the California recording law in the many years it has been on the books?

Putting Reporting Under Government Threat
Even if the government’s action were bias-free, Daleiden’s pursuit still jeopardizes quality journalism. The California accusations are based on the claim his targets had an expectation of privacy even when the conversations were conducted in a public place, like a restaurant or hotel convention hall, where bystanders could hear them. It’s a ludicrous assertion, a gross misinterpretation, and an undue and overbroad extension of the law.

I refer to two pro-choice law professors, Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. Dorf, who support Planned Parenthood’s work but warned that the criminal pursuit of Daleiden “follows a troubling pattern in American constitutional jurisprudence” to cripple investigative journalism. In a CNN opinion article, they wrote, “Whatever the precise facts of this case prove to be, the prosecution has broader implications, and not just for abortion and anti-abortion speech. Undercover exposés play a vital role in informing the American public of important facts that would otherwise remain hidden.” The Los Angeles Times deemed the prosecution “disturbingly aggressive” and an “overreach.”

Possible prison sentences and burdensome fines attached to criminal conduct cannot be ignored in this debate. They are more than a disincentive to expose wrongdoing; they give the upper hand to criminal enterprises, powerful corporations, avenging politicians, ideologues, and special interests to protect themselves from public condemnation and costly penalties for misconduct. This is not a loophole that the Founding Fathers had in mind when they crafted the constitutional protection of freedom of the press.

Even those who disagree with Daleiden and his techniques but care about how the precedent-setting legal actions against him that could define press freedom in the future need to follow this case as it winds through the legal system, possibly all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Thomas Brejcha is founder, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm defending life, family and religious liberty. It represents David Daleiden.
Photo kambodza / Flickr

Fact, Not Advice!

legal15

Too, whenever you file a case, you need to do everything, as if you plan to appeal. Every case goes to appeal, unless it is so shitty a case that it don’t warrant an appeal. Everything you do in your case should prepare for an easy appeal, you have to be diligent, as if you are the one being sued, and you have to do plenty of discovery if you want anything from the opposing party, and the most important thing, is you have to follow the Rules of Civil Procedure, Uniform Superior Court Rules, the Court’s Rules and all Orders.
If any of the above things have not been followed to a “t” then you have made it hard for yourself, and will most likely loose the case. If you have planned to appeal, which should always be done, then it will be easier and less costly to appeal.

Damn, that’s good, I am going to post.

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Supreme Court Lets Trump Build the Wall; Lifts Injunction

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(EL PASO, TEXAS – FEBRUARY 11: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the El Paso County Coliseum on February 11, 2019 in El Paso, Texas. U.S. Trump continues his campaign for a wall to be built along the border as the Democrats in Congress are asking for …Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Supreme Court Lets Trump Build the Wall; Lifts Injunction
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/07/26/supreme-court-lets-trump-build-the-wall-lifts-injunction/
JOEL B. POLLAK26 Jul 201911,830

The U.S. Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump to begin building the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border using emergency funds, lifting an injunction Friday that had been imposed by a district court in California and upheld by the Ninth Circuit.
After Congress refused to appropriate enough funding to build a barrier along the border earlier this year, President Trump declared a national emergency to allow the administration to access more money. In total, he ordered $8 billion spent — though, as Breitbart News pointed out, only $3.6 billion needed an emergency declaration.

The president was exultant on Twitter:

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump
Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!

126K
6:37 PM – Jul 26, 2019
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56.7K people are talking about this

The decision was largely along partisan lines, with all five Republican-appointed justices voting to lift the injunction, while all three liberal justices were opposed. Justice Stephen Breyer sought to have it both ways, allowing the process to go forward but not the construction: “There is a straightforward way to avoid harm to both the Government and respondents while allowing the litigation to proceed. Allowing the Government to finalize the contracts at issue, but not to begin construction, would al- leviate the most pressing harm claimed by the Government without risking irreparable harm to respondents.”

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.

“The Fraud Squad’s” Ilhan Omar Now Facing Up To 40 Years In Prison & Deportation If Steinberg’s Allegations About Her Past Are Proven To Be True In Court

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“The Fraud Squad’s” Ilhan Omar Now Facing Up To 40 Years In Prison & Deportation If Steinberg’s Allegations About Her Past Are Proven To Be True In Court
POSTED BY: DEAN JAMES JULY 18, 2019
https://rightwingtribune.com/2019/07/18/the-fraud-squads/
Posted by Dean James at Right Wing Tribune

David Steinberg released his latest report on controversial Rep. Ilhan Omar on Thursday, it can be read in its entirety at PowerLineblog.com.

Jim Hoft’s, The Gateway Pundit suggests that: According to Steinberg there is credible evident that Ilhan Omar and her family changed their name to illegally enter the United States back in 1995.

There are also allegations that suggests that Ilhan Omar, from that time forward, through her time as an adult, has continued to break United States law. Steinberg believes Rep. Omar committed perjury at least eight times, beginning as early as 2009. If proven in a court of law, the charges against the Muslim Democrat Rep could mean up to 40 years of prison time and/or even forced deportation.

If Steinberg’s research and allegations prove to be true, it would sure seem that Ilhan Omar has no regard for US law and yet there she is, “serving” in Congress representing Minnesota, voting on what becomes the law of the land in the greatest nation on Earth and is even a sitting member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

This story is developing quickly and David Steinberg has reported today on Ilhan’s alleged criminal activity.

Again, if the allegations are proven, it would sure seem that the Minnesotan Rep has no qualms about lying on federal documents. I’m not an attorney and I could be wrong, but that sounds like the “F” word to me … FRAUD.

Powerline.com Reported: Please read the verified evidence below — and read it alongside the three years of verified evidence published by Scott Johnson, Preya Samsundar, and myself (our work is linked here https://twitter.com/realDSteinberg/status/1095789152589754377). The answers to those questions about 2009 appear to give probable cause to investigate Omar for eight instances of perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, up to eight years of state and federal tax fraud, two years of federal student loan fraud, and even bigamy.
To be clear: The facts describe perhaps the most extensive spree of illegal misconduct committed by a House member in American history.

David Steinberg wraps up his article with the following list of possible crimes Ilhan Omar may have committed:

Consider the disturbingly inadequate evidence used to obtain FISA warrants on members of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Consider that Democratic representatives have demanded that Attorney General William Barr release grand jury testimony — itself an illegal act.

Yet here we have:

Verifiable UK and U.S. marriage records

Verifiable address records

Time-stamped, traceable, archived online communications (Convictions and settlements based upon social media evidence are commonplace, Anthony Weiner being a notable example)

Background check confirmations of SSNs and birthdates

Archived court documents signed under penalty of perjury

Photos which can be examined to rule out digital manipulation

The 2019 Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board investigation, which found Omar filed illegal joint tax returns with a man who was not her husband in at least 2014 and 2015

Three years’ of evidence published across many articles — none of which has been shown to be incorrect, or have even been challenged with contradictory evidence from Rep. Omar or any other source

Perjury evidence that stands on its own — regardless of whom she married:

Long after June 2011, she was clearly in contact with the only man in either the U.S. or the UK with the same name and birthdate as the man she married. She was clearly in contact with several people who were in contact with him.

Further, Preya Samsundar did contact him, published how she managed to contact him, and published his email admitting to being photographed with Omar in London in 2015. To be clear: Omar was legally married to an “Ahmed Nur Said Elmi” at the time she was photographed next to a man who admits his name is Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, and that he is in the photo.

Samsundar published all of this information on how to contact Ahmed Nur Said Elmi a few months before Omar swore to that nine-question court document.

Rep. Omar has refused all inquiries from her constituents, elected officials, and media outlets to provide any specific evidence contradicting even a single allegation suggested by three years of now-public information.

In fact, Omar has responded by making information less available:

In August 2016, after Scott Johnson and Preya Samsundar posted the allegations, Omar’s verified social media accounts were taken offline.

Ahmed Nur Said Elmi’s social media accounts were also taken offline.

When the accounts returned, a large amount of potentially incriminating evidence had verifiably been deleted.

I found and published at least ten additional “before and after” instances of evidence still being deleted in 2018.

Omar has released carefully worded, Clintonian statements that denigrate those seeking answers from her as racists. Yet she has repeatedly refused to answer questions or issue anything other than public relations statements.

I have a large amount of information that we have not published for reasons including the protection of sources.

Sources have expressed fear regarding published video and photo evidence (https://twitter.com/realDSteinberg/status/1102349426771853312 confirming threats from Omar’s campaign team. These sources have shared other evidence of threats. I have contacted the federal authorities to share this and other unpublished information. Providing knowingly false information to the DOJ is a serious crime.

I believe Scott Johnson, Preya Samsundar, and me, with our three years of articles, columns and posts, have provided more than enough evidence to give law enforcement authorities probable cause to open an investigation. Now would be the chance for law enforcement, and especially for Rep. Ilhan Omar’s House colleagues, to make a sincere stand against corruption and for the uniform application of the law.

The Gateway Pundit Reported: Once Again… It should be noted that by American law — When a marriage fraud is discovered, not only might the immigrant face severe immigration consequences, but both members of the marrying couple may face criminal penalties… An immigrant who is found to have committed marriage fraud would likely be removed from the United States (deported).

Please read this incredible report written by David Steingberg at Power Line today
Join us at SPREELY if you want REAL NEWS without the leftist censorship!

Dean James at Right Wing Tribune

God Bless.

Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you, we appreciate it!
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Judge Issues Ruling In Pubic Housing Gun Battle The case centered around a woman who was threatened with eviction from public housing if she kept a firearm in her own home.

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Judge Hagedorn had zero chance of winning election to the state Supreme court less than four weeks ago, but a grass-roots effort helped galvanize voters.
50 States
PUBLISHED: 1:15 PM 14 Apr 2019
UPDATED: 5:05 PM 14 Apr 2019
Judge Issues Ruling In Pubic Housing Gun Battle
The case centered around a woman who was threatened with eviction from public housing if she kept a firearm in her own home.
Georgette by Georgette

One Tiny Election Shows Americans Fed Up With Liberal Manipulation, Assaults

It is no longer legal for the state to prohibit gun ownership for low-income people.
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In East St. Louis, if a person lives in public housing, they are not allowed to own or have a firearm on the property. That is… that was the previous ‘policy.’

Now, a judge has ruled the action is a violation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

The Belleview News-Democrat reported:

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the East St. Louis Housing Authority cannot deny, through rules and regulations, a tenant’s right to lawfully own a firearm.

“Among whatever else, the Second Amendment protects the rights of a law-abiding individual to possess functional firearms in his or her home for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense and defense of family,” US District Court Judge Phil Gilbert said in the ruling.

A lawsuit filed in federal court was brought by Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association, who argued that firearm bans in government-subsidized housing is unconstitutional.

Their case focused on an East St. Louis woman, identified as N. Doe, who was beaten and sexually assaulted in her home.

The assault ended only when one of her children pulled a gun on the attacker.

Doe alleged in the suit that the East St. Louis Housing Authority threatened to terminate her lease unless she could prove she did not have a gun at home.

She said she was told the building was safe and that she didn’t need a gun after she protested to housing authorities, the lawsuit states.

The ban applies only to people of low-income who live in public housing and denies them the right to keep and bear arms because they can’t afford private housing, the lawsuit states.

The Belleville News-Democrat reported that Doe’s lease says “residents are not to display, use or possess or allow members of (Doe’s) household or guest to display, use or possess any firearms, (operable or inoperable) … anywhere in the unit or elsewhere on the property of the authority,” according to the lawsuit.

Violating the lease can lead to its termination, something Doe feared.

The East St. Louis Housing Authority did not respond to a request for comments.

ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson said of the ruling:

“The right to defend your life and your property is a right for everyone regardless of where they live …” Pearson said. “It is sad that this woman had to go to these lengths just to defend herself. The threats to her are real.”

“Thankfully, she will be able to legally own a firearm and defend herself, but it is truly sad that it takes a federal judge to do what should have been done a long time ago,” he added.

But many people point out that the Second Amendment is not solely designed for the use of self-defense.

Scholars agree that the Founding Fathers placed that right early because 1.) without the power to defend your other rights, they can be taken away, and 2.) the people must have the power to dispossess an unjust government.

Thankfully, this judge understands the rule of law and upheld one of the most basic rights Americans have.

The fact that the liberal public housing authority tried to derive this woman of her right is unconscionable.

Of course, such as asinine policy has not stopped the gun violence and deaths plaguing the projects in East St. Louis. A few months ago, six people were shot in ‘unrelated’ incidents in one night, and the deaths continue to rise.

Perhaps now that decent people who are living in public housing have the ability to defend themselves from the liberal filth that has been perpetuated, deaths will decrease.

NYC officials caught up in pay-to-play gun licensing scandal… the Second Amendment only applies to those with the right political connections

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Image: NYC officials caught up in pay-to-play gun licensing scandal… the Second Amendment only applies to those with the right political connections

https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-02-08-nyc-officials-caught-up-in-pay-to-play-gun-licensing-scandal.html

Friday, February 08, 2019 by: JD Heyes

(Natural News) Americans may think they get fed up with ‘divided government’ — when one party controls Congress and the other party controls the White House, or vice versa — but the alternative, which is uni-party government, is worse.

In a uni-party system, where there is no serious opposition, the party with the power is never held accountable. And when its members aren’t held accountable, corruption becomes rampant. As the old saying goes, power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Take New York City, for example. Like most major cities, it’s controlled by Democrats and, in fact, has been for a number of years. The Democrat Party machine has not only taken over the governor’s mansion, known as Gracie Mansion (the official residence of the NYC mayor — currently socialist Democrat Bill DeBlasio), but also NY City Hall and most all of the boroughs, with a few exceptions.

Politically speaking, it’s a pretty sweet deal. It’s an arrangement that allows the party to make up rules as it goes along. Like, for instance, who is “allowed” to enjoy their Second Amendment rights and who isn’t.

As reported by the New York Daily News, Charlene Gayle, a well-connected Brooklyn real estate agent, set up what were called “de Blasio specials” with privileged ‘clients’ — easy peasy gun permits via the NYPD’s “corrupt license division in early 2014,” the paper reported, citing multiple sources.

The paper reported that Gayle was given “VIP treatment” when she accompanied members of NYC’s Jewish Orthodox community as they sought gun permits so they could better protect and defend themselves against potential threats, even as ordinary New Yorkers were either routinely denied similar permits or never bothered to apply because they knew they probably couldn’t get one thanks to NYC’s grotesquely restrictive gun laws. (Related: Recent concealed-carry study shows that relaxing carry laws does not increase violent crime.)

A former NYPD lieutenant, Paul Dean, told prosecutors that the permissively corrupt licensing environment was, in effect, sanctioned by former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, the Daily News reported in a separate story last month. Some of those who allegedly received special consideration, Dean said, included former NYC resident and now-President Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., the president’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, and an unidentified associate of de Blasio.

Reforms are badly needed — even the NRA agrees
According to Dean’s attorney, his supervisor told the lieutenant, “This person takes care of Mayor de Blasio and in return, we are supposed to take care of this person.”

The Daily News reported further:

Sources identified the businesswoman as Gayle, a longtime donor to de Blasio who served on his 2014 inauguration team. She is currently on the board of advisers to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.

It is unclear if Gayle’s alleged role in arranging the upgrades was improper. A spokesman for Manhattan Federal prosecutors declined comment. Gayle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dean discussed what was happening at the licensing division over three meetings with federal investigators in 2017, the paper said. He added that ex-Sgt. David Villanueva, another License Division employee, also told the Feds about Gayle.

In April 2017, the NRA reported on its website that the corruption was a sure sign that reforms are needed within the NYPD, mostly because it is ripe for abuse.

“New York City has an incredibly onerous handgun licensing scheme. Under this may-issue regime, law enforcement is granted wide discretion to grant or deny a license. Applicants can be denied for something as simple as ‘a poor driving history,’ or as vague as any ‘other good cause,’” the gun rights group noted.

“The process is also expensive. Applicants must pay a $340.00 application fee and an $89.75 fingerprinting fee.”

It’s bad enough that Democrats are the party of gun control; it’s worse when the party is so corrupt it denies those rights to ordinary Americans while reserving them for friends, allies, and ‘protected’ classes.

But that’s what happens when no one is around to hold Democrats responsible.

Read more about Democrat Party corruption at Corruption.news.

Sources include:

NRAILA.org

NYDailyNews.com

TheNationalSentinel.com

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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Let us help you plan for trial and draft your foreclosure defense strategy, discovery requests and defense narrative: 202-838-6345. Ask for a Consult or check us out on www.lendinglies.com.
I provide advice and consultation to many people and lawyers so they can spot the key required elements of a scam — in and out of court. If you have a deal you want skimmed for red flags order the Consult and fill out the REGISTRATION FORM.
A few hundred dollars well spent is worth a lifetime of financial ruin.
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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Senate To Be Replaced With Room Full Of Monkeys Throwing Feces

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

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

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

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

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

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

CA Assault Weapon Registration Website Crashed As Deadline Loomed

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

And it didn’t.

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

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

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

This is a prime example.

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

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

The Awans and Wasserman Schultz Threaten To Destroy the Deep State (Part 2) thecommonsenseshow.com


The Awans and Wasserman Schultz Threaten To Destroy the Deep State (Part 2)
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/the-awans-and-wasserman-schultz-threaten-to-destroy-the-deep-state-part-2/

There are multiple freight trains headed the way of the Deep State. I know it is hard to believe that Hillary will ever spend a day behind bars. However, after reading this 3 part series, it is hard to believe that she will not. If it one thing to dodge one bullet. It is another to dodge a volley of bullets fired at point blank range and that is what key members of the Deep State are facing, especially Hillary.

The Clinton email investigation by Comey and the IG report provided Federal authorities with enough to prosecute Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Comey, McCabe, Paige, Strzok, Paige et al.

Keep in mind, the FBI never looked at the content on the DNC server. Many feel that would have implicated Podesta in th murder of Seth Rich. The IG report stopped just short of implicating Obama in the fake Dossier which should be sending Loretta Lynch to prison along with Rosenstein.

In Part One, I detailed how McCain, Clinton and Obama are implicated in the formation and providing material support for terrorists including ISIS. Previously, I exposed Clinton and Obama for Benghazi and the attempted cover up that they sanctioned, with regard to gun running, drug dealing and child-sex-trafficking. Benghazi, as I previously revealed was conducted to cover up these crimes, just 7 weeks before the 2012 election.

Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner have tapes on virtually all of these events according to a deep cover FBI source. I have written about this a number of times, maybe now, people are ready to connect the same dots I did back in 2016.
Comey and Clinton

Comey’s investigation was actually very complete and produced actionable evidence that should have sent Hillary to prison for life. Comey excoriated Clinton and then as he was reeling her in for the kill, he cut the line, exonerated her, and let America’s biggest snake slither into the darkness. The investigation could be characterized as “EXCORIATION TO EXONERATION”.
The IG Report

The IG report convicted the FBI of illegal surveillance of private citizens, collusion to plant false evidence, and most of all, flagrant violations of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act prevents Federal employees from working to influence and publicly supporting a candidate, or in Trump’s case, working to block the election of a candidate.

The IG Report followed the same exact strategy of EXCORIATION TO EXONERATION. The American people have been made aware of the fact that crimes were committed, but are told the crimes are not sufficient enough to warrant indictments. Therefore, the same pattern of EXCORIATION TO EXONERATION REMAINS IN PLAY!

America should be in the streets with pitchforks over thes two failures to indict, but instead of people like Clinton doing the perp walk, the perps are walking. However, this may change. There are two very serious revelations surfacing that even a compromised IG cannot ignore, without being charged with obstruction.

As a side note, many people have told me to back off against my crusade against Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. They say he is playing a game of deception and he and Trump have a plan to play dumb until it is time to spring the trap. Sorry, I don’t believe in Santa Claus. However, Sessions, in the face of this new overwhelming evidence, will have only two choices: (1) Resign, or, (2) Indict and Prosecute.
Wasserman Schultz Could Bring Down the Deep State IF She’s Not Murdered

Wasserman Schultz got away with her role in the death of Seth Rich because her brother, a federal prosecutor in Washington DC intervened and got the investigation into Seth Rich’s murder stopped. I wrote extensively about this in the Summer of 2016.

However, Wasserman Schultz and her good fortune is about to come to an end. It is common knowledge that Awan was given access to classified material by Wasserman Schultz, some of it very Deep State orientated. Now, Awan and his wife have entered a guilty plea to a minor bank fraud charge. In light of all that they could have been charged with, only a minor bank fraud charge is being brought against them? There is a deal in there and it is going to have major implications on the release of the DNC tapes and Wasserman Schultz’s connections to Podesta and Clinton and their criminal activities. I have been told by a reliable informant that Awan has provided information against Wasserman Schultz and Podesta. If only one of these two turn state’s evidence, then it is over for Wasserman Schultz and ultimately Hillary Clinton. And if Clinton falls, so does the Deep State. Subsequently, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is about to slip on a banana peel. Why? Debbie Awan has a deal with the DOJ, separate and apart from her husband. If she makes the deal with the DOJ it goes back to good ‘ole Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She is the key to concealing DNC voter fraud and the murder of Seth Rich and the Pizzagate scandal. Therefore, the Awan’s present a double-barreled threat to the Deep State.

This opens up avenues to John Podesta and most importantly, Hillary Clinton. OMG, the Deep State can not afford to have Clinton investigated because it will open up everything from child-sex-trafficking to organ harvesting and how the Clinton Foundation is at the heart of all of this and their main target. The best investment in town may be to invest in a life insurance policy for Wasserman Schultz. If she’s lucky, she will only be charged and convicted for obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting.

More dirt is continuing to come out on the Awan brothers. The charges border on treason and sedition, but they have gone away.How? IT is a called a plea deal. Wasserman Schultz had to have known the extent of their criminality as they destroyed evidence which would have implicated her. Here is the entire story and it is shocking. Please keep in mind the following represents old news that I previously revealed. This is why I am so frustrated with Jeff Sessions, I revealed this information two years ago and it was easy to find.

Conclusion

The Awan-Wasserman Schultz connection won’t be the only bombshells that are coming the Deep State’s way. There is a star witness that will be testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee this week. And this witness knows where all the bodies are buried, as this person served in two administrations, and I guarantee you that this witness will not fall on their sword and this person is too public to murder. This will be the topic of Part Three along with the retaliatory options the Deep State has in their arsenal.

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

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,

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.

Bar Groups See Threat from Nonlawyers

The American Lawyer
http://www.americanlawyer.com/printerfriendly/id=1202748892813
from: The American Lawyer

At ABA Meeting, Bar Groups See Threat from Nonlawyers

Susan Beck, The Am Law Daily

February 4, 2016


(Stanford Law School Professor Deborah Rhode criticized the opposition to Resolution 105, which some fear could lead to more non-lawyers providing legal services.
Photo: Jason Doiy/The Recorder)

A modest proposal that hints at opening the door to nonlawyers providing simple legal services faces a tough fight at the American Bar Association’s midyear meetings, which are currently underway in San Diego.

The ABA’s Litigation Section, as well as the bar associations of Illinois, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and Texas, are all on record opposing Resolution 105, which was submitted by the Commission on the Future of Legal Services and five other ABA divisions. The commission was formed in August 2014 by then-incoming ABA president William Hubbard, who has been vocal about the need to improve access to justice. Under the leadership of former Northrop Grumman Corporation lawyer Judy Perry Martinez, the commission has explored new ways to improve the delivery of civil legal services to the public, especially to those who can’t afford a lawyer or are confused by the legal system.

While the 30-member commission has considered many possible solutions—from technological innovations to allowing nonlawyers to provide limited legal services—Resolution 105 doesn’t propose any specific changes to the status quo. Instead, it asks the ABA to adopt “Model Regulatory Objectives for the Provision of Legal Services” that are guided by such benign principles as protection of the public and meaningful access to justice. It also urges each state’s highest court to be guided by these objectives if it is considering new rules to allow activity by “nontraditional legal service providers.”

While the resolution doesn’t advocate for such changes, the mere mention of “nontraditional legal service providers” raises hackles for some in the ABA. The Texas state bar board, for example, has asked Texas delegates to withhold their support for Resolution 105. State bar president-elect Frank Stevenson II of Locke Lord said the board opposes the proposal because it seems to presume there’s a place for nonlawyers to provide legal services. He added that Texas’ chief justice has already set up a commission to study how lawyers can reach more of the public, and his group wants to wait for that group to finish its work.

“Our position shouldn’t be interpreted as rigidly opposed to innovation in the provision of legal services,” Stevenson said. But he added, “We feel lawyers are not fungible with nonlawyers.”

The New Jersey State Bar Association’s board of trustees voted unanimously to oppose the resolution, also because it envisions new categories of legal service providers. The ABA’s Litigation Section voted 17-8 against it.

Philadelphia lawyer Lawrence Fox of Drinker Biddle & Reath, who has long crusaded against allowing nonlawyers to provide legal services, sent a Jan. 29 email to all delegates with the subject line “Save Our Profession.” He implored them to reject Resolution 105: “If we are going to show leadership, it ought to be in opposing the unauthorized practice of law, wherever it rears its ugly head,” he wrote.

The resolution does have some organized support, including from the South Carolina Bar Association, the ABA’s Business Law Section, the Bar Association of San Francisco and the Washington State Bar Association. (In Washington state, licensed nonlawyers already provide some legal services.)

ABA President Paulette Brown declined to comment on the resolution or the work of the commission.

The commission will hold a roundtable discussion in San Diego on Saturday and will meet again on Sunday. The ABA’s House of Delegates will consider the resolution on Monday.

A simple majority vote is needed to adopt a resolution. The ABA has 560 delegates, but it’s not clear how many will be present Monday.

Over the past year and a half, the Commission on the Future of Legal Services has sought new ideas to improve the public’s access to legal solutions. In May of last year it held a National Summit on Innovation in Legal Services at Stanford Law School that drew 200 participants, including 12 state court chief justices, the CEO of LegalZoom, a Microsoft Corp. in-house lawyer and numerous academics.

The following month, in a podcast on the Legal Talk Network, commission chairman Martinez sounded optimistic that the profession might change. “There’s room in this space to think differently about how we provide legal services,” she said. “This has the potential for sea change.”

Some of the profession’s rules, she said, serve as barriers that don’t protect the public. “We’re making sure that lawyers understand what services aren’t needed to be delivered by a lawyer and can in fact be delivered by somebody else.”

Martinez also noted that some lawyers might have trouble adjusting to a new model: “[There] will be some pain for those not alert and ready for change.”

Martinez could not be reached for comment.

The United Kingdom has already allowed some of the changes that are being fought over in the United States. In 2007 it passed the Legal Services Act, which permits so-called alternative business structures in the practice of law. The U.K. law breaks down many of the barriers that prevented nonlawyers from providing legal services or supplying capital to legal service providers.

Stanford Law School professor Deborah Rhode, who co-chaired last year’s summit and who directs the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford University, called the May gathering an “extraordinary show of support for innovation” by ABA leadership. Four past, current and future ABA presidents attended, she noted.

“The major challenge for the ABA is how to get the rank and file behind some of these innovative initiatives,” she said. “A lot of lawyers feel very threatened.”

Rhode criticized the organized opposition against Resolution 105. “It’s such a mindless reflexive response,” she said. “This [change] is coming whether the bar likes it or not. Sticking their heads in the sand and trying to block even such an unobjectionable compromise position [in Resolution 105] seems a step in the wrong direction.”

She added, “This is why I titled my book ‘The Trouble with Lawyers,’” referring to her 2015 book critiquing the profession.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say that everyone who has concerns is sticking their heads in the sand,” said Locke Lord’s Stevenson, the Texas bar president. “A lot of criticism has been very nuanced and raises some issues that need to be addressed.”

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!!!!!

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

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.

Hell, We Know We Are Killing the Pacific, As Well As the Rest of the World, Duuhh, What You Want Us To Do About It? We Have Done Nothing So Far, and It Has Worked, No One Will Make Us Do Anything!

When I was a kid, there was a cartoon.  Two vultures in a tree, looking around, really bored.  One says to the other:  “What ya wanna do?”  The other replies, “I dunno, whatya wanna do?”  That is what has gone on at Fukushima.  Hell, I dunno, maybe if we do nothing, nobody will know it happened.  I won’t tell, if you won’t tell.  What the hell?!?

The rest of the world, stands around with their fingers in their butts, and let’s them get away with it.  Can you imagine the long term impact that, we as Americans are going to endure?  Your great grandchildren may not even resemble a human.  And yall stand around like nothing has happened?  Are you sure that you were qualified to reproduce?

Think about it.

Japan Nuclear Prof.: Fukushima plant now a ‘swamp of radioactive material’ — Can’t stop pumping in more water because they don’t know where melted fuel went — Build roof over entire site? — Asahi: Continued presence of water threatens construction of ice wall around reactors

 
http://enenews.com/japan-nuclear-prof-fukushima-plant-is-now-a-swamp-of-radioactive-material-cant-stop-pumping-in-more-water-because-tepco-doesnt-know-where-melted-fuel-went-build-roof-over-entire-site-
Published: July 13th, 2014 at 9:15 pm ET 
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Interview with Professor Hiroaki Koide, Kyoto University Reactor Research Institute, translated by Fukushima Diary, July 13, 2014: Fukushima plant is now like a swamp of radioactive material due to the contaminated water […] Tepco should quit cooling with water since one year ago. However from Tepco’s assumption, it is impossible to shift to air cooling because they can’t identify the exact locations of molten fuel.

More from interview with Professor Koide
, translated by Google: I think of that accident of Fukushima […] the human race has been encountered for the first time […] Rather than the cooling in the water, should switch as soon as possible to the cooling method of another I think. […] I thought the most part rain is falling on the site […] so, I cut off the rain. In other words, it is such as paving the entire site. I think I think in some cases, that I would build a roof on the entire site […] in the premises of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, but is in a state such as the swamp of radioactivity […]

Asahi Shimbun, July 9, 2014: 11,000 tons of contaminated water [are in] underground trenches connected to the No. 2 and No. 3 reactor turbine buildings. […] contaminated water began seeping into them after the onset of the March 2011 nuclear crisis. If the contaminated water is not removed from the trenches, it could eventually leak out. The Nuclear Regulation Authority instructed TEPCO to promptly remove the water, calling it the “most serious source of concern.” […] But TEPCO officials said the ice walls failed to form because of the constant flow of a maximum 2 milliliters of water per minute around the connecting points. Toyoshi Fuketa, an NRA commissioner, has instructed TEPCO to come up with steps to resolve the matter by the end of July, arguing that the frozen walls should be able to withstand certain levels of water flow under normal circumstances. The continued presence of water threatens to prevent the creation of outer frozen soil walls encircling the No. 1 through No. 4 reactors, which are a central part of TEPCO’s plans to reduce the amount of contaminated water at the plant.

Full interview with Prof. Koide available here (Japanese only)

Published: July 13th, 2014 at 9:15 pm ET
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Related Posts

  1. Japan TV ‘News Flash’: Officials fear melted reactor fuel is now exposed at Fukushima — Tepco: We don’t know at this point if fuel is uncovered — Large drop in water level — Experts ‘struggling’ to find condition of nuclear cores, nothing is known for all 3 reactors (VIDEO) June 10, 2014
  2. Japan Nuclear Expert: “Containment vessel continued to break at various spots, one after another” from Fukushima melted fuel — “It lost the protective wall which seals in radiation” (VIDEO) March 13, 2013
  3. TV: Trouble reported with inner ‘ice wall’ at Fukushima; Highly radioactive water underground won’t freeze — Tepco: “We can’t make temperature low enough” after trying for months; Fluctuating water levels beneath Unit 2 blamed — Expert: Ground can liquify around reactors, form sinkholes (VIDEO) June 17, 2014
  4. PBS: Engineers believe Fukushima’s nuclear fuel melted right through the containment vessels, where it’s contacting ground water — Expert: The fuel “melted down into ground” (VIDEO) March 1, 2014
  5. TV: Hundreds of tons of water in contact with melted nuclear fuel have now flooded basements at Fukushima plant — Nearly 10 Trillion Bq of Cesium — Concentration of strontium-90 and other radioactive materials not reported (VIDEO) April 14, 2014

SHEEPLE AWAKEN!!!

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

Posted on  

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!

Fukushima Will Kill Us All! Must See!

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/06/this-shocking-report-from-fukushima-will-leave-your-jaw-on-the-floor-2973584.html?utm_source=direct-b4in.info&utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fb4in.info%2FrbHH&utm_medium=verticalresponse&utm_campaign=&utm_content=beforeit39snews-verticalresponse

 

This Shocking Report From Fukushima Will Leave Your Jaw On The Floor

Thursday, June 12, 2014 11:59

This Shocking Report From Fukushima Will Leave Your Jaw On The Floor

 

 

This video proves what engaged citizens already know. Every government on the planet is at war with their citizens. The amount of evil going on in the world right now is really disturbing. This is going to end terrible for humanity. A true prison planet has been created. The ultimate progressive communist utopia. Healthcare, Economies, Banking, Information have all been taken over and manipulated to attack the citizens and protect the criminal class.

 

 

Fukushima VICE

 

 

 

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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.

BIG BROTHER CONTINUES MOVING FORWARD ON THE PEOPLE

08APR2014: FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites – now

 
 http://thegovernmentrag.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/08apr2014-fbi-we-need-wiretap-ready-web-sites-now/
 1 Vote

 More backdoor surveillance…

(CNET) – CNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those backdoors mandatory.

The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance .

In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.

The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

“If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding,” an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI’s draft legislation told CNET. The requirements apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users is exceeded, according to a second industry representative briefed on it.

The FBI’s proposal would amend a 1994 law, called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, that currently applies only to telecommunications providers, not Web companies. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2004 to apply to broadband networks.

Bundy Ranch And Rights of the American People

Bundy Update: If This Politician Has His Way, The Feds Could Start Taking Out The Militia

“Get rid of these armed separatists.”


Photo Credit: Facebook/U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas

Along with Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, state Rep. Steven Horsford has been a constant voice of opposition against those who came to his state to support Cliven Bundy against federal agents they believed were using excessive force. Despite a dearth of evidence to back up his claim, Horsford has publicly stated that militia members in the Bunkerville area have established armed checkpoints and are routinely harassing local citizens.

His latest call to rid the area of these protesters came this past weekend during comments he made at an event in a neighboring town.

According to his account, an unidentified fifth grader told him Bundy suffers from a “sense of entitlement,” which apparently prompted Horsford to once again protest the presence of armed militiamen in his district.

“And that is why I am calling on [Gov.] Brian Sandoval, Sen. Dean Heller, the sheriff and any other elected official in Nevada to do their part to get rid of these armed separatists.”

Despite the fact that Nevada law allows individuals to carry firearms, Horsford wants local law enforcement to force these concerned citizens out of the community. Furthermore, he has called for a federal investigation into the activities of the remaining protesters.

Both Sandoval and Heller are Republicans who have, to varying degrees, spoken out against the invasion of federal Bureau of Land Management agents last month in Clark County.

Heller has been more supportive of Bundy and his supporters, however, describing protesters as “patriots.”

Sheriff Doug Gillespie did not immediately comment on the latest demand made by Horsford. For his part, Sandoval offered a measured response to a question regarding whether Gillespie is planning to use force in removing the protesters.

“No,” he said, “and even if he had said that, I wouldn’t share that with you; because certainly that’s a conversation between the two of us.”

Late last week, a post on the Bundy Ranch Facebook page indicated the family was calling on protesters to join them in filing a criminal complaint against the BLM. A lengthy post published Friday offered a transcription of a statement delivered by Ammon Bundy at the Clark County Sheriff’s Office earlier that day.

 

Photo Credit: Facebook/U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas


Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/nevada-democrat-wants-feds-return-time-take-militiamen/#bBl45xzbyVYtHy0X.99

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