Saddam-al Qaeda Connection—(Mar. 16, 2008) • When you put liberals in charge of any analytical project in the federal government, you can bet that what they find in 600 thousand pages of Iraqi documents will be magically converted into a sow's ear. The Institute of for Defense Analyses [IDA], a federally-funded defense think tank in Alexandria, Virginia released its report on the 600 thousand pages of Department of Defense [DoD] documents captured from Saddam Hussein's government in 2003. The purpose of the DoD report was to answer the question posed by the liberals in Congress: "Was there a connection between former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda that would justify military intervention in Iraq?"

When the synopsis of the IDA report was released it suggested that those studying the documents "...found no smoking gun." Without ever actually reading the report (to say nothing of the 600 thousand pages of documents which, of course, had been translated from Arabic and/or Farsi), ABC News was the first to conclude that "...the report was the first official acknowledgment from the US military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to al Qaeda."

The Washington Post, which was also too busy to actually read the report, apparently felt the content would agree with the view expressed in the synopsis, wrote a brief piece under the heading "Study Discounts Hussein, Al-Qaeda Link." The New York Times band leaders jumped on the band wagon with a similar headline, and Ruppert Murdoch's New York Post chimed the hollow, metallic "me. too" echo that was supposed to make the story a bipartisan denunciation of the Bush-43 invasion of Iraq which the left insisted was orchestrated as payback for Saddam's attempt to kill Bush-41 for the first Gulf War.

Which, of course, led to hundreds of emails filling my inbox with a variety of subject lines claiming no al-Qaeda link was found to justify Bush's invasion of Iraq—and personal notes from scores of those emailers reminding me—in case I forgot—that I was wrong for suggesting since 2003 that there was an al-Qaeda link.

The full IDA report, ordered by the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia and released Thursday, March 13, paints a slightly different picture than the synopsis of those who wanted to paint an anti-al-Qaeda portrait of Saddam's Iraq. The report states there was considerable overlap between Saddam's security forces and al Qaeda in the financing and training of "outside groups" in projects with "shared goals." On page 42 of the report it says: "...Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri) or that generally shared al-Qadea's shared goals and objectives." According to the full text of the study, Islamic Jihad was one of the terrorist groups Saddam funded, trained and equipped.

The captured and examined documents revealed that when US troops were being slaughtered in Mogadishu, Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of an Iraqi terrorist group that joined in the battle against the poorly armed US troops that were slaughtered there. The Mogadishu incident became the basis for the movie Blackhawk Down. Unfortunately, Hollywood made the fight more even by giving the US soldiers automatic rifles with which to engage the enemy. In reality, antiwar president Bill Clinton stripped those soldiers of everything except sidearms while al Qaeda street fighters were armed with AK-47s. Even more important, in the months leading up to the US invasion, the IDA report clearly reveals that al-Qaeda was training terrorists in several camps in Iraq.

Also in 1993, Saddam financed a secret Islamic Palestinian organization that was to wage "...armed jihad against American and Western interests." At the same time, and for most of the time that Bill Clinton was in office, Iraqi military leaders trained Sudanese "freedom fighters" to wage jihad against the Sudan's pro-western government.

In fact, even before the first Gulf War, the Iraqi military was training non-Iraqi jihadists in secret training camps throughout Iraq. Shortly after the co-presidency of Bill and Hillary Clinton took office and Saddam suddenly lost his fear of the United States, the dictator reopened the desert training camps. (So much for who is qualified to answer the phone in the Oval Office at 3 a.m.) It's only fitting that the sins of the father should visit the mother when she tries to wear the ill-fitting pants of the father. The report went on to say that in 1998 Saddam began to finance jihadists in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

On July 9, 2001 the report reveals that Saddam's military intelligence people were financing a group directly under the control of Osama bin Laden which was receiving its instructions from Yemen. Shortly after 9-11 Saddam became even more emboldened and issued Iraqi passports to 699 known or suspected terrorists to help them enter Europe where they could then apply for travel visas to the United States. Only a few months before the US invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein hosted a total of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi terrorist groups. The report made it very clear that Saddam's government knowingly supported organizations it knew were connected to al-Qaeda providing the organization's near-term plans dovetailed with Saddam's long-term strategy of bringing down the United States.

Over 1,600 pages of the examined DoD documents were drenched with clear and precise evidence that tied Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government with al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations that were determined to bring down the free enterprise system of the west. The most damning was a report which detailed how the Iraqi Intelligence Service was handling requests from terrorist groups around the world for inventories of weapons and explosives (plastic explosives and TNT). The Iraqis, using both legal and illegal means, were smuggling weapons and explosives into their embassies around the world for use by terrorists in those countries.

When the erroneous report—first leaked by a McClatchy Newspapers reporter two days before the report was released—hit the wire services, it was incumbent upon the Bush-43 Administration's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to do damage control. He failed to do so. When the full report hit the street, the antiwar media ignored it and the lame duck Bush team could see no need to fight the battle of media for an administration on its way into the history books, and a president who seems to have little interest in correcting the perception of his legacy.

 

The plastic lifeline—(Mar. 3, 2008) • When he made his mid-morning TV address on Thursday, Feb. 27, President George W. Bush spoke briefly on the economy, sounding more like a wishful Herbert Hoover trying to conjole the economy out of the doldrums than a student of backyard capitalism assuring his neighbors that the economy of the United States is still healthy even though the nation continues to hemorrhage jobs—and money as our trade deficit grows and the United States assumes the undisputed title as the world's largest debtor nation. Bush noted that he didn't think we were headed into a recession although he admitted the economy was slowing down. Under the rules of backyard capitalism, if you still have your job as money tightens and jobs get scarce, the economy is slowing down. If you lost your job, its a recession. If everyone in the neighborhood looses theirs, it a depression.

All political rhetoric aside, here's the simple truth. When the working class has to use plastic as a lifeline to splice the first of the month with the end of the month because they lack sufficient monetary liquidity to pay their bills, the economy is in real trouble. The folks at the top of the pyramid who have been playing the money shell game with the economy since 1993 succeeded in fabricating the illusion that a very anemic economy was healthy based not on consumer capital liquidity but the inflated value of the stock market. Liquidity was artificially stimulated by providing the working class with toxic mortgages that were nothing less than financial time bombs, and with lines of credit they couldn't afford—but were needed by the societal planners to jumpstart the economy and make it appear that the jobs being exported to Mexico, China and the third world were not impacting our economy, and that the plans of the globalists to create an American Union by stimulating the free enterprise system in the western hemisphere were economically solid.

However, the consumers who participated in the globalists' grand scheme are proof-positive that the utopian dream of universal prosperity is just so much puppy poop. The victims of the subprime home mortgage debacle were also the first victims of the subprime credit card debacle. However, before the banks and credit card companies started the plastic tsunami they successfully lobbied Congress to change the bankruptcy laws to make sure those they were about to flood with credit couldn't escape the debt.

The tragedy for the real victims of the subprime debacle—the consumers who got trapped in a credit circle of despair—is that they can't escape. They grab the subprime credit cards even at exorbitant interest rates because they provide them with the appearance of liquidity that marginal credit risk consumers heretofore did not possess. Everything was fine until the ARMs kicked up a notch, sending mortgage payments spiraling skyward. Sequentially, what happens is whatever discretionary income exists is rapidly depleted as rising interest rates eat up the cash. As cash dries up, money to pay all debts—not just the mortgage payment and the credit card payments, but the local utility payments—also dry up. Late utility payments start the domino affect that impacts the consumer's credit score This in turn triggers an increase in the interest rates on that consumer's credit cards and even causes the premiums on their auto insurance to rise, depleting even more of what discretionary income is left in the household.

What ultimately happens is an absolute dependency on plastic. Hard-pressed consumers today are living on plastic. Their credit cards are more important than cash since plastic has become the only cash they have. They use plastic to pay other debts—even using cash advances on their credit cards to make their minimum credit card payments.

As US companies downsize and terminate employees or cut their hours, today's consumer is adjusting to the task of living on less income in a time of rapidly spiraling costs. Todays incomes are having more trouble stretching from payday to payday. Many of those with home equity lines of credit use them to buy groceries, pay their utility bills and put gas in the family car. For many, the home equity line of credit becomes the "cash" that is ultimately used to make their mortgage payments.

As the economy worsens—and it will—credit will tighten even more. Those with good jobs and stellar credit won't notice the belt-tightening at first, but Joe and Judy Workingclass, who've fallen on hard times and have been forced to juggle their financial resources far too often, and who pay their mortgages and credit card payments late, have discovered those essential lifeblood lines of credit have vanished and the available credit on their plastic has melted into oblivion. Daniel Trevor, a well-to-do home owner in suburban Phoenix, Arizona had a handful of friends whose banks cut off their home equity lines of credit. Trevor, who pays his bills on time, never thought it would happen to him. Trevor never used his quarter million home equity line of credit until last month when he tapped his home equity line of credit to finance an investment he was advised by his broker to grab. Much to his surprise, he received a call from his bank advising him the funds he needed would not be available. They froze his loan, they said, because the equity in his home had dminished because of plummeting home prices. Nationwide, home prices dropped 8.9%. Home prices plummeted 15.3% in Phoenix and Las Vegas and by 17.5% in Miami, Florida. Since the subprime crash, banks have erased over $1.5 trillion in home equity wealth.

One Countrywide Mortgage homeowner was dismayed when the mortgage company froze his credit line in the middle of a major home remodeling. Citing falling home values in his area, Countrywide wouldn't let him withdraw the funds he needed to repair several rooms that had been gutted to the studs. The American dream has taken a fatalist detour in which the consumer increasingly is pushed against the wall as their financial resources dwindle. Keeping the credit cards payments current takes precedent over keeping the mortgage payment current. When the money—or the available credit—doesn't stretch from payday to payday and tough choices need to made, nine-times-out-of-ten, they will let the mortgage payment slip and make the credit card payments because it takes three months for a mortgage to go into default. The consumer always believes he will be able to catch up the payments and stave off foreclosure within 90 days.

Experian Decision Analytics noted that most of victims of economic reappraisal are consumers with low credit scores. They are paying their credit cards with what should be their mortgage payments. Equifax statistics verify that 38% of delinquent mortgage holders kept their credit card payments current and 62% kept their car payments current as their homes went into foreclosure. Record home mortgage foreclosures triggered by greedy mortgage brokers who oversold homes using exotic mortgages to get people into homes they couldn't afford started the ripple in the economic domino effect that threatens to cripple some banks, bringing on a new banking crisis unrivaled since the days of the Keating Five. In all, 76 small banks are in trouble. According to Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp [FDIC], the troubled banks hold only $22 billion in assets. Bair was prompted to make this statement after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spooked the investment world with a statement before Congress on Thursday in which he said that the central bank faces more difficult issues than it did during the recession in 2001, adding that several small banks are at risk of failing.

On Thursday, Bush noted that the economy was flat, posting a gain of only 0.6 % in the 4th quarter. He blamed it on the still-eroding housing market. Bernanke suggested some banks could fail, causing the NYSE to lose over 300 points on Friday. Instead of thinking in terms of the 76 small banks mentioned by Bair, the media chose to raise questions about Citibank, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch which collectively have over $150 billion in subprime real estate and credit card losses. But each of them, plus Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have the reserves to avoid failure. The small banks don't have the financial stature to attract foreign capital and are therefore more at risk than the transnational giants.

In January Citibank announced it posted a 4th quarter loss of nearly $10 billion after eating $17 million in subprime chargebacks. To cover the losses, Citibank cut their dividends by 41% after previously assuring investors that their dividends were not in jeopardy. Key Citigroup investors in Singapore, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia kicked in close to $7 billion to stabilize the bank. None of this bodes well for the little guy. While banks and mortgage companies are giving reprieves to owners of delinquent toxic mortgages, the worsening economy will eventually cause them to curb subprime credit card debt. The most profitable business banks have today is subprime because interest rates are 2, 3 or 4 times higher than standard interest rates. During the first half of last year—just before the subprime mortgage collapse—there was a 41% increase in direct mail credit card offers to sub-prime card users. Subprime users are the most vulnerable of getting overloaded with credit card debt. As those consumers max out what credit cards they have they desperately need more since the only "discretionary income" they possess is the available credit on those cards. When financially-strapped consumers max out their credit cards without the prospect of getting another one, they will walk away from their credit card debt the same way they walked away from their toxic mortgages.

When Fairfield, California homeowner Phyllis Coleman's toxic mortgage payment jumped 26% last year she had no recourse but to use plastic to bridge the gap between her resources and her obligations, taking cash advances on her credit cards to make up the mortgage shortfall. When she maxed out her credit cards she lost her home. Hounded by credit card companies for money she didn't have, she walked away from the credit card debt as well.

It appears when the money barons needed to goose the economy they chose to use the least creditworthy consumers to prove that NAFTA wasn't affecting the US economy. According to several credit counselors, using credit cards for daily needs—gas for the car, groceries, or to keep the lights or phone from being shut off is now occurring not only with subprime blue collar workers but middle class professionals as well. Sadly in the next couple of years it is going to get even worse. People have less cash in their pockets, and as the transnational industrialists export even more jobs to Mexico, China, India and Indonesia, and illegal aliens devalue what jobs remain, making ends meet will be even more difficult for the American consumer.

Is there a solution? There's an election coming up. We need to separate the nationalists from the globalists and fire the globalists. We need to retake both Houses of Congress with enough of a majority to override any veto—or an impeachment when we order the President to construct a wall to keep illegals out of the country, or for failing to enforce federal law by arresting and prosecuting corporate executives and seizing the businesses of those who hire illegals; and to legislatively repeal NAFTA—and impeaching any federal judge who does not obey the Constitution including those sitting on the Supreme Court. The globalists believe the Election of 2008 will open the door to the dissolution of the United States of America. Let's show them that November 4, 2008 is an election of the people and for the people of the United States. That's the day the nationalists take their country away from the globalists who are determined to surrender our sovereignty to the Utopians in Europe.

 

Did Hillary steal New Hampshire?—(Jan. 25, 2008) • Ask Congressman Dennis Kucinich [D-OH] who is paying for a "recount" of the electronic balloting in New Hampshire and he will likely tell you that the old Clinton shenanigans were taking place in the nation's first primary. Staffers for Congressman Ron Paul [R-TX] will say the same thing, but laying the blame on Sen. John McCain rather than Hillary Clinton. But, in both instances, the name "Diebold" will pop up in the dialogue.

According to the totals, Hillary Clinton won over Barack Obama 39.4% to 36.8%. When you examine the Diebold AccVote Optical-Scan voting machine count for each candidate, you discover that Hillary took 52.95% of the votes compared to 47.05% for Obama. However, when you examine the paper ballots, Obama took 52.93% of the votes compared to 47.07% for Hillary. By no stretch of the imagination can you make the argument that in all of the voting precincts where machines were used, Hillary actually won, and that Obama only won in the districts using paper ballots. It is more logical to assume that someone switched the names in the voting machine's memory bank, and credited the Obama hits to Hillary and visa versa. Two things lend credence to that train of thought.

First, election officials in New Hampshire have confirmed that employees from LHS Associates—the programmers for Diebold's AccVote Optical-Scan voting machines—were allowed to access vulnerable optical scan data systems throughout election day. Talk about a front row seat to who's voting for whom. Second, every major pollster—and we are talking about the biggest and most important names in the public opinion field—ended up with egg on their faces in New Hampshire because every one of them—including those doing the exit polling—predicted that Clinton would lose to Obama.

(It turns out that Hillary's "human moment" in New Hampshire wasn't due to "woman talk," but defeatism. When Hillary was caught by a photographer with a tearful gaze, staring off into space, its because she had just learned that every pollster in the country was awarding the night to Obama. I suspect Hillary was not at all sure the voting machines would be able to save the day.) In the days leading up to the primary, Obama led 41% to 28% in a USA Today-Gallop poll. Just before the primary a CNN poll gave Obama a 39% to 30% edge over the New York Senator. Fox News put the race at 32% to 28% for Obama. Every indicator—including the people who cast the votes—gave the win to Obama.

The pollsters were so shocked by missing the mark so bad it apparently did not dawn on any of them that someone might have been playing loosey-goosey with the voting machines. The explanation offered by the pollsters was that the voters were leaning this-a-way and that-a-way and just weren't really locked in on Obama (even though they said they were) until they got into the voting booth. Some of them, I guess, weren't even sure—even after they had cast their ballots—how they voted when they engaged in exit interviews. Or, maybe 20% or so of the voters lied to those doing the exit polls because they didn't want to admit they would be stupid enough to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Here's the hard and fast nitty-gritty. Take it to the bank. First, only 35% of those who call themselves Democrats will vote for Hillary. Fifty-two percent of all the total voter pool in the United States would rather poke out their eyes with a dirty stick than vote for her. That leaves 17% of the voters—mostly Reagan Democrats—that Hillary must convince (or at least 8% of them) that she really is a closet conservative. And then she has to hope that someone like Congressman Ron Paul or former Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan can be convinced to jump in as a third party candidate and drain off 10% to 12% of the vote—or that conservatives will be so disillusioned with the GOP choices that, once more, they will sit out the election and allow her to win the White House with a 42% mandate to govern as those voters did during the 2006 midterm election .

A preliminary investigation by election officials in New Hampshire revealed conflicting information concerning what was actually going on in the voting precincts that were using the AccVote Optical-Scan voting machines. There was a great deal of confusion from clerks in the precincts and officials in the Attorney General's office regarding protocols and security procedures. The people on the ground couldn't understand why the AccVote Optical-Scan people needed to check the voting machines and the people in Concord had no established protocol to regulate what was happening on the ground. It does appear that the voting machines broke down quite often, or didn't perform in a manner that made it easy for the voter to complete the task of casting his or her vote.

The Ron Paul Campaign insisted that votes cast for John McCain were switched with those cast for Dr. Paul. On his War Room site, Dr. Paul captured a Fox & Friends clip in an interview with Ed Felton, a Princeton University professor who infected a touch-screen voting machine with a simple virus. http://www.ronpaulwarroom.com/?p=1103 shows easily how a hackers—anyone who can write can write code—can reconfigure the votes. While there is a paper trail of sorts with an Optical Scanner (since the computer simply reads what's on the ballot) there is not with a touch-screen voting machine. (It was comparing the totals generated by the AccVote Optical-Scan with the paper ballots that convinced the Ron Paul Campaign that the votes were manipulated.)

With the touch-screen computers—such as those used in the Fox and Friends experiment, there is no paper trail to prove who voted for which candidate. When you cast your ballot electronically, there is no definitive method to prove how many votes were stolen from one candidate and deposited with another one. In both cases—with the AccVote Optical-Scan machines or the touch-screen computer—the first clue that someone hacked the voting machines comes from the exit polls—just as it did in New Hampshire.

Only, in New Hampshire, the pollsters blamed themselves. When people doing exit polling learn that 56% of the voters claimed to have voted for Candidate A and 44% claimed to have voted for Candidate B, its a fairly safe bet that Candidate A will end up the winner at the end of the day. That's how TV networks are able to predict the winners 30 to 45 minutes after the polls close with only 1% to 2% of the vote counted.

In the Election of 2000, the exit polls showed that Al Gore won Illinois. One minute after the polls closed, CNN gave him the win. The exit polls showed he would win New Jersey by 15 points. CNN gave him the state one minute after the polls closed. Because the western States had up to 3 additional hours to vote, if you recall, no George W. Bush wins were granted that quickly. Even though the polls in Ohio closed at 7:30, and the exit polls gave the State to Bush, it took the networks 1 hour 45 minutes to give him the win. And even though the exit polls showed that Bush had won Bill Clinton's home State by six points, the networks, fearing it would damage Gore's vote-getting in the west, held back from giving Arkansas to Bush for almost three hours. When the totals disagree—particularly when the totals are flip-flopped—take it to the bank. Someone was screwing with the voting machines. The people in that State need to demand the election be recast—on paper ballots.

The American people need to understand this. I mean, really, really understand this. When special interest groups and multinational corporations invest multiple millions of dollars in the "candidate of their choice" (and also finance the designated loser), they are very serious about getting their man—or woman—elected. Since they have preselected the winner and loser of the presidential race, the only thing they have to do is to make sure that the designated winner and the designated loser get their parties' nomination. How do they do that? By manipulating the primary system, and convincing the voters that its better for them if the nominees are selected by them before they get to the convention where the State delegates get to pick them. AN OPEN CONVENTION SERVES THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BETTER THAN LETTING THE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS AND MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS BUY THEIR PRESIDENTS IN THE PUBLIC MARKET PLACE. When we have open conventions, we have a better chance of getting an honest candidate. Candidates like Ron Paul or Fred Thompson—or Zell Miller—stand a better chance of being nominated and elected in an open convention than they do under rigged primaries.

And, while we are at it, we need to force Congress to enact a law that outlaws all campaign contributions larger than $500 from individuals, and outlaws any form of contributions from PAC groups, corporations or any type of organization to any political candidate or political party. Here's why. Hillary Clinton and John McCain share a major donor—one of three largest donors for both candidates. The contributor is a law firm: Greenberg Traurig LLP. Greenberg Traurig specializes in international law, i.e., the merging of international law into the US Code. At this moment 5 US Senators and 48 Congressmen are functioning as advisers to an NGO headquartered in Brussels with offices in Washington, DC that is working out the details of what is being described as a Transatlantic Common Market. This group will forge an economic agreement between the United States and the European Union to be solidified by 2015.

In April of last year the Bush Administration quietly, and without media fanfare, created a forum called the Transatlantic Economic Council. The Bush plan was actually written by a Cecil Rhodes devotee and ardent globalist, Clarence Streit, in 1939 in a book entitled Union Now. Bush signed this agreement in a White House summit last April with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (the current president of the European Council and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso of Portugal. Whether or not this agreement ever ends up in the US Senate remains to be seen. However, signed it was signed by all parties, according to the 17th century Law of the Nations, it is binding on all parties—in perpetuity.

Congressman Jim Costa [D-CA], one of the members of the congressional advisory group said the Transatlantic Economic Council is charged with the responsibility of creating the Transatlantic Common Market regulatory infrastructure. Wouldn't Greenberg Traurig love to have that contract? And, since the next president will be tasked with the responsibility of getting that job done, by backing both Clinton and McCain—viewed by the money barons as the most likely winners of the Election of 2008—Greenberg Traurig wants to make sure they are a welcome guest in the Oval Office where quid pro quos are rubber stamped. Also part of the Transatlantic Policy Network (the advisory panel) are Senators Thad Cochran [R-MS], Barbara Mikulski [D-MI], Pat Roberts [R-KS], and Gordon Smith [R-OR]. Congressmen, in addition to Costa, are John Boehner [R-OH], John Dingell [D-MI], and F. James Sensenbrenner [R-WI]. (Running for reelection in November are Thad Cochran, Pat Roberts, and Gordon Smith. Of course, all of the members of the House are up for reelection. Remember: we must get control of the Senate. To do that, we have to remove our three wayward GOP senators in the primary and elect their replacements. It's a tough job, but I think America is up to the task.

 

Will your next blood transfusion kill you?—(Oct. 9, 2007) • The Red Cross is in a constant search for whole blood. Much of that blood is used within a day or two of its donation. Much of it is held for 42 days and thrown away unused. Due to the fear of transfusions from HIV-tainted blood, many people who are anticipating surgery, are now donating their own blood to themselves over a period of weeks to make sure they don't receive donor blood that may be contaminated with HIV or the Herpes virus, hepatitis or some other hard-to-detect viral or bacterial agent. A handful of people have a reserve of their own blood cryogenically frozen to guarantee that if some catastrophic mishap occurs to them, their own blood is available for the transfusion.

The medical community is now experimenting with cryro-freezing blood. Researchers claim they will be able to safely store blood for 20 years or longer, allowing clients to have a supply of their own blood available if they are ever in an accident or need a transfusion for any reason. When they need the stored blood, the hospital notifies the Cryo-Freezing Center which thaws the blood and delivers it to the surgical center that is going to operate. Needless to say, cryo-frozen blood does not lend itself to emergency situations where you have, say, an arm ripped from your body and you have an immediate need to replace most of the blood in your body. Cryo-frozen blood will take from an hour to an hour and a half to thaw. Sadly, the odds are about 1 in 3 that after you are transfused with either thawed cryo-frozen blood or fresh blood you donated within the last 42 days, you will suffer a heart attack.

In recent years, doctors reported unexplained increased levels of heart attacks and strokes in patients receiving uncomplicated blood transfusions. Many of the patients—usually elderly—suffered from anemia. Some suffered from more serious age-related illnesses. In one study, 78,974 elderly patients suffering from various heart ailments were charted. This subgroup came from a larger population of 234,769 patients—all over 65 years of age. (Younger patients were excluded since the study group determined younger people were more transient and would be harder to follow post-operatively). Of those in the study group, 43.4% were anemic. Transfusions were performed on 4.7% of the study group, or 3,712 patients. Most of the transfusions were ordered by family physicians and not cardiologists even though all of the patients were admitted for myocardial infarction. The study was done to prove that blood transfusions for anemia in myocardial infarction patients would decrease the mortality rate caused by postoperative heart attacks. The results were anything but conclusive.

Patients with blood hematocrits of 32% or less experienced a decreased mortality rate. Those with hematocrit levels of 33% or greater experienced an increased mortality rate. (Hematocrits are the percentage, by volume, of red blood cells in a given sample of blood after centrifugation.) The doctors participating in that study concluded that using blood transfusions to treat elderly patients who had suffered from a heart attack would reduce the mortality rate in patients with hematocrits of 33% or lower.

A second study, reported by doctors from the Cleveland Clinic last year reached the opposite conclusion. In that study, undertaken by Dr. Vivek Rajagopal, a cardiology fellow at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that "...the research suggests that blood transfusions might be associated with increased mortality," adding that "substantial caution should be applied." In his study, Dr. Rajagopal compared 363 heart patients who had transfusions with 3,710 non-transfused patients. The transfusions, the doctor concluded, increased their risk of death by 3.6 times. Thirteen percent of the transfused group died within 30 days of being hospitalized compared to 5% of the non-transfused group.

Dr. Evgeia Nikolsky, instructor of cardiology at Columbia University studied the medical records of 2,060 patients who were enrolled in a trial primary percutaneous coronary intervention program. Eighty-two of them had blood transfusions. The examination of the medical records of those 82 patients showed they had a 10% greater risk of dying of a stroke or heart attack while still in the hospital, and a 20% greater risk of dying within 12 months. "Given these outcomes," Dr. Nikolsky said, "the judicious administration of blood transfusions is warranted in patients treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention."

Dr. Peter Kim, clinical cardiology fellow at William Beaumont Hospital in Detroit, got on the right path, but stopped too soon. He examined the histories of patients who received blood that had been stored for longer than 25 days and concluded that patients receiving blood types A or AB were less likely to survive to 5 years after undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. Close, but yet, so far from the truth.

The answer was supplied by Dr. Jonathan Stampler of Duke University, the leader of one of two research groups at Duke that was trying to learn why patients—in all age groups and both sexes who receive blood transfusions—are at an increased risk of experiencing a major, if not sudden death, heart attack or a massive stroke. "It doesn't matter how much oxygen is being carried by red blood cells," Stampler noted, "[if] it can't get to the tissues that need it without nitric oxide. If the blood vessels cannot open, the red blood cells back up in the vessel and tissues go without oxygen. The result can be a heart attack or even death. The issue of transfused blood being potentially harmful to patients is one of the biggest problems facing American medicine."

The second team, headed by Dr. Timothy McMahon, studied the changes that occur in stored blood. Currently, blood is stored in blood banks for 42 days. At the end of that time, it is discarded. McMahon's group discovered that nitric acid, the element that prevents blood clots, blocks exocyosis (the onset of infections), and prevents inflammation of the blood vessels. It also serves one other very important function—it's the key that "unlocks" the blood vessel, opening them and allowing the oxygenated blood to flow through. Without nitric oxide, the blood vessels collapse or otherwise close down. The blood simply piles up like a landslide at a tunnel entrance, keeping oxygenated blood from passing through. A heart attack—many times fatal—or a stroke, generally results.

Nitric oxide is the byproduct of nitrogen. About 78% of the air we breathe is nitrogen. Nitric oxide is a common air pollutant (your car exhaust that Al Gore wants to eliminate contains nitric oxide). Nitric oxide is important in treating diabetes, cancer, anorexia, sunburn and male impotence. Nitric oxide works like a traffic cop in your blood vessels. When the brain tells the body more blood is needed, the nitric oxide gas molecules open the gates and deliver the flow. Nitric oxide can also be created by white blood cells to help fight infection. It controls our blood pressure. But even more important, nitric oxide functions as an antiatherogenic (which means it helps keep our arteries from getting clogged.)

Nitric oxide depletes from stored blood quickly. In most cases, it dissipates within the first 24 hours. Once its gone, it's gone. It does not regenerate. Fortunately, all of the research done by Duke, Columbia, the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins shows that when nitric oxide is introduced to the stored blood, the red blood cells once again are able to open the blood vessels and deliver life-giving oxygen to the heart and brain of the patient.

Several of the researchers involved in the nitric oxide study have either equity or consulting relationships with Nitrox/N30, a company developing nitric oxide-based therapies they hope will prolong the lives of cardiac patients, those with diabetes, cancer—and men with erectile dysfunction whose doctors will not allow them to take the little blue pill.

 

Unqualified judge orders DHS to break the law—(Oct. 1, 2007) • A US District Court judge with absolutely no judicial experience before he was appointed to the Northern California District by former President Bill Clinton in 1997 temporarily blocked the Department of Homeland Security from enforcing the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. The jurist, Judge Charles Breyer (younger brother of US Supreme Court Stephen Breyer—one of the third most liberal justices in the United States), claimed that the government crackdown on illegals using phony Social Security numbers could ensnare "guest workers" who are in this country legally. (Lawyers for Homeland Security should have pointed out to the judge that guest workers who are here legally have valid Social Security numbers. Illegal aliens buy their Social Security cards on a street corner with as many as 200 to 1,000 illegals use the same Social Security number—which usually belongs to an active taxpayer. In February, 2005 a Dublin, California housewife, Andra Schmierer [who has been unemployed since the birth of her son in 2000] received a demand letter for back taxes. The IRS said she owed $15,813.00 from a job she never had in Texas for an employer for whom she never worked.] When the IRS finally checked, they discovered that 200 illegal aliens in 17 states were using her Social Security number.)

Breyer justified his injunction by claiming that the 90-day verification process that employers are required to complete to confirm the legal status of employees whose Social Security numbers do not match them would, in and of itself, bring about the "...termination of employment to lawfully employed workers."

Breyer should have recused himself from hearing the case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], the AFL-CIO and the US Chamber of Commerce—for no other grounds than sheer stupidity. Legal guest workers are issued Social Security numbers—and, through payroll deduction, they are required to pay income tax on the incomes they earn here as guests of the United States. It is requisite of the employers of guest workers to provide certification. When the original law went into effect in 1987, it was incumbent upon the employers to ascertain the citizenship of employees before hiring them. Each employee had to complete an I-9 form and attach two pieces of government-issued identification to verify they have complied with the law. One of those pieces of identification had to be a Social Security card, and the other had to be a driver's license or some other "State-issued" identification that could not easily be counterfeited.

If a legal guest worker is working under a phony Social Security number, that alien—like any US citizen who works under a phony Social Security number—would have committed a felony and should be incarcerated. Breyer's reason for granting the injunction was bogus since only those aliens using phony identification would be singled out for scrutiny. And, only those using counterfeit ID—specifically phony Social Security numbers—would be fired.

US citizens caught committing identity fraud are arrested. Under this new policy, so are the illegals caught in the roundup. Illegals arrested for identity fraud are supposed to be deported. (Those who are successfully deported are generally back in the United States within a few days or weeks, where they simply purchase someone else's Social Security number and, if they have enough money, a green card, with which to continue their underground existence stealing jobs from American workers.) Being fired is merely a very minor inconvenience. Who is inconvenienced most are the agri-giants who knowingly hire thousands of illegals when they could easily import documented temporary foreign workers.

When they hire documented seasonal alien workers, corporations are responsible for those workers during their temporary stay. And, the employer is responsible to make sure they return to Mexico when their visas expire. Big Agriculture doesn't like being a babysitter for the alien human capital they believe is a critical asset to their success. They don't have to monitor the illegals they hire. And, when the harvest is done, they don't have to physically round them up and ship back across the border.

In a major setback for the Bush Administration in the area covered by the US District Court of Northern California, Breyer stopped Homeland Security from implementing the 21-year old law that requires business owners to verify the legal status of job applicants before they can hire them. In the view of the ACLU, the AFL-CIO and the US Chamber of Commerce, the law inconveniences over 8.5 million illegal aliens and 140 thousand employers and therefore, shouldn't be enforced.

Breyer decided the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, which was designed to lessen costly and completely unnecessary red tape on small businesses, could be used to circumvent the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. (The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 was designed to lessen the impact of costly New Deal and Great Society laws that were created to give the federal government more control over small business.) Breyer, like most agendized liberals, can usually find a legal needle in the haystack. In Breyer's case, it's his hobby. In his spare time, Breyer reads innocuous case law and figures out how to apply the tenets of the laws to current legal issues. When Breyer gets a case he knows is going to get national attention, according to University of California Hastings College of Law professor Rory Little, "...he rubs his hands and gets excited about it. Sometimes he gets good press. Sometimes he gets bad press. He doesn't care."

When he issued his injunction, Breyer noted that the plaintiffs had raised such serious questions about the plan to mail Social Security no match letters to 140 thousand US employers, that the DHS action should be blocked from proceeding. Breyer said: "The government's proposal to disseminate no-match letters affecting more than 8 million workers will, under the mandated time line, result in the termination of employment to lawfully employed workers..." (In point of fact, workers using phony Social Security numbers are not legally employed, therefore, they should have no expectations of keeping a job they should never have had in the first place.) Apparently to Breyer, one wrong and one right makes a dynamite high profile case. He's probably also envisioning his appointment to the first vacancy on the US Circuit Circuit of Appeals after Hillary Clinton or Al Gore, Jr. becomes the 44th President of the United States. In defense of his ruling, Breyer concluded that "...the threat of criminal prosecution...reflects a major change in DHS policy." The previous policy Breyer referred to was a refusal by the Bush Administration to enforce the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986.

Business groups who rely on cheap labor from illegals hailed the decision. The ACLU, the AFL-CIO (which now officially represents illegal aliens) and, specifically, the US Chamber (which represents the 140 thousand employers), are fighting the Bush edict not because they have firm legal grounds to stand on, or because there are grey areas in the law that should be debated, but because they don't want to lose their cheap labor pool. Randall Johnson, a US Chamber vice president said Breyer's decision was "...a signal to the government that they can't do anything they want simply by calling it enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security overstepped its bounds on this one." Actually it didn't. DHS did what the law demanded it to do—just not quick enough. Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff said he was considering a legal challenge. "This is only one arrow in a whole quiver full of strategies that we are undertaking to continue to increase enforcement efforts directed at employers who hire illegals. Our commitment to enforcement is not going to be frustrated or diminished because we have hit a bump on this one particular element of the strategy."

It's important to understand there are no clean hands here. Not with the ACLU. Not with the unions. Not with the US Chamber of Commerce. And least of all not with an ambitious unqualified judge who sees his star rising in the east. Nor with the Bush Administration that does not want to deport anyone. Bush's objective, and therefore Chertoff's objective, is to force the Mexican illegals out of the shadows into the light of day where they will have to apply for real Social Security cards, work "on payroll" and not under the table (nor paid as 1099 workers with no federal or State income taxes, Social Security taxes, or Medicare or Medicaid taxes deducted from their paychecks). Bush needs 20 million new taxpayers who are actually having these taxes deducted from their paychecks in order to save the Social Security system. The employers do not not want the illegals they hire on the federal and State tax rosters because that will increase the amount of tax dollars they have to pay to Washington and to their own State.

Chertoff is determined to turn up the heat on employers who knowingly and systematically violate the law. DHS noted that most agriculture workers are in the country illegally. So the agri-giants are nervous, too. Craig Regalbrugge, Vice President for Government Relations for the American Nursery & Landscape Association said that the decision to go after employers puts them "...in an untenable position of either firing trained and trusted workers who are on the books, or disregard the guidelines and take enormous risk." He hailed Breyer's decision as "...a bit of welcome relief."

It has never ceased to amaze me how liberals believe law breakers are entitled to relief from the laws they break, and how liberal judges think they're right

 

Freehold, NJ suspends 1st Amendment—(Sept. 25, 2997) • The 1st Amendment to the Constitution declares: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Simple, straight forward—with no complicated legalese for the uneducated politicians in Freehold, New Jersey to trip over. Simply put, the Bill of Rights says, "Freehold, New Jersey, you can't do that!" Since the Founding Fathers wanted to make sure the people would not encounter problems on their journey into history from activist bureaucrats who might want to determine what form of God—if any—people could, or should, worship, the 1st Amendment prohibits government from restricting the right of the people to worship God in any matter.

On the face of it, the township of Freehold, New Jersey had no constitutional authority to enact a ordinance that restricts the right of American citizens living in that community to worship God in their own homes. The ordinance was adopted on Sept. 25, 2007. When the township adopted the ordinance, there should have been outrage from the general public—and a recall of every town official who voted in favor of abrogating the Bill of Rights since the Constitution, very succinctly, denies government—at any level—from restricting the free expression of religion. The township of Freehold will likely argue—when they get their day in court—that the ordinance wasn't enacted to suppress anyone's right to worship, but rather, it merely prevented private homes from being substituted for church buildings. The problem with that argument is that the 1st Amendment is very clear—no government body can enact a law that stymies the citizen's right to the free exercise of his or her religious beliefs. By telling an American citizen that they cannot meet with other likeminded Americans, in the privacy of their own home, and worship God, that government has prohibited the free exercise of religion that government is, in point of fact, restricting the right of those people, to freely worship their God.

It is unclear why the township which, although it's near an area of New Jersey with a rapidly growing Muslim population, has only a few Islamic families, decided to target a Jewish Rabbi. The persecution of churchgoers in the United States is almost exclusively targeted at Christians who are viewed by the secular progressives as adherents of a religion that fosters hate. That view is increasingly mouthed by the media not because Christians kill those who disagree with them theologically like the Islamic extremists we see almost daily on the news but, rather, because God condemns homosexuality as perversion and abortion as murder. For that reason, the secular progressives who believe their mission in life is to lessen the world's population, view those who oppose their agenda as a more serious danger that a faith that is waging Jihad on the Judeo-Christian world.

But, in Freehold Township, New Jersey, it is the Hasidic Jews—in particular, Rabbi Avraham Bernstein—who is, or are, under attack. One or more of the Bernstein's neighbors complained to township officials when the Rabbi's practice of welcoming few family members and friends into his home on Friday evening to observe the Sabbath grew to what the neighbors thought was "congregation strength." Maybe they were offended by the gathering. Or perhaps they thought the Bernsteins might be an ideal bombing target for a Muslim extremist and decided Bernstein lived just a little too close to them. Or, maybe it was just busybodies with nothing better to do with their time than stir the secular progressive pot. Bernstein is a cleric in the global Jewish organization, Lubavitch Chabad. The Chabads are Hasidic Jews. The name Lubavitch, taken from the Lyubavichi in Russia, is where the movement began and is still the international headquarters of the movement.

Freehold Township in Monmouth County adopted new zoning regulations that define "any structure or building that is used as the regular site for traditional services and/or gatherings of an organized religious body...[as a] church or places of worship." The zoning regulations then banned those types of structures in residential neighborhoods without a permit. Yet, sports bars and strip clubs are okay. The township—after secretly installing surveillance cameras on a municipal building across the street from Bernstein's home to see just how many people were going to the rabbi's home—and how often they came—determined from the number of people coming and going that Bernstein was operating a synagogue from his home. Township attorney Duane Davidson said that Bernstein faces several hundred dollars in fines because his home has been defined as a place of worship and is now in violation of Freehold's zoning laws since its in the middle of an area zoned for residential dwellings.

Bernstein, however, said the gathering at his home was just a friendly get-together with a few acquaintances. Over the years, he said, it just grew as other Hasidic Jews joined the group to observe the Sabbath. Under orthodox Jewish law, Jews observing the Sabbath need to be part of a minyon—10 men—reading the Torah together. Most of those who go to Bernstein's house each Friday evening, Bernstein noted in one court action, were neighbors who walk to the rabbi's house (since Orthodox Jews may not drive a motor vehicle on the Sabbath). The neighbors, however, complain that at one time, the Bernsteins had a big tent in the yard, and that during Bernstein's Sabbath, chanting could be heard coming from the rabbi's home.

The township claims the rabbi is in violation of the law by using his home as a place of worship. The township said that complaints about disruptions and noise from neighbors have been going on since 1999. Bernstein's lawyer, John Whitehead from the Rutherford Institute, countered that what's going on is "...a small group of Jews meeting in somebody's home. If there [were] a hundred cars pulling up it might be some concern. But these people walk. It's their Sabbath They can't drive." At issue, Whitehead said, is whether Bernstein can be banned from hosting a minyon—10 men—to pray in his home on Shabbatt, which lasts from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday.

Davidson, however, claims the surveillance camera the township installed on the township municipal building that is across the street and about 35 feet from Bernstein's home shows as many of 50 people, not 10, visiting the Bernstein home for the Shabatt. I wonder how many of Bernstein's neighbors have parties at their homes on special occasions—and have between 20 to 30 couples in attendance? But then, I guess, drinking, laughing and loud music is far more acceptable conduct to the residents of Freehold, New Jersey than religious chanting.

"A certain amount of religious activity is allowed in any home," Davidson added, "but when the activity reaches a certain level, then at that point, it has graduated into a house of worship for which you need a permit." And, of course, the minute an American citizen needs a permit to worship God, the government has regulated religion and has prohibited that citizen from the free exercise thereof.

Anyway you look at it, that's a violation of the Constitution of the United States. It's also a violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 which says "...no government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution, unless the government demonstrates that imposition of a burden on that person, assembly or institution is in the furtherance of a compelling government interest and is he least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest." (It's intriguing how citizens of the United States allow those they elect to stand by while activists on the federal bench steal the constitutional rights of the American people with a judicial sleight-of-hand by coupling the unbridled religious liberty found in the first half of the 1st Amendment with the conditional religious rights found in Article 13 of the UN's Covenant on Human Rights which says: "Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations that are prescribed by law.")

However, for the moment, Whitehead is using the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act to force Freehold to revoke its ordinance and restore the rabbi's right to respect God in the privacy of his home. Bernstein receiving a zoning violation complaint in February, 2007 after neighbors complained about loud noise. He was given a summons in April. A month later Bernstein's local attorney sued in State court. In August, after the township installed the spy camera, Bernstein filed in federal court. When the Rutherford Institute entered the picture, they amended the lawsuit in federal court arguing that the township of Freehold infringed on Bernstein's right to practice his religion in his own home.

It is important to keep in mind that all across this nation, thousands of American citizens exercise their constitutional prerogatives by worshipping God in the privacy of their own homes in a home-based church where small numbers of likeminded Christians congregate to "hold church." If cities can regulate home churches out of existence it will affect not only Hasidic Jews like Avraham Bernstein but born-again Christians who congregate in small numbers to escape the institutionalized secular progressive churches in order to return to their 1st century Christian roots.

 

DC will attempt to circumvent DC Circuit decision—(Washington, DC —May 13, 2007) • On March 9, 2007 a three judge panel for the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned Washington DC's 30-year gun ban much to the chagrin of newly elected DC mayor Adrian Fenty. The Appellate court ruling stemmed from a legal action filed on Feb. 10, 2003 by six Washington, DC residents: Shelly Parker, Dick Anthony Heller, Tom G. Palmer, Gillian St. Lawrence, Tracey Anbeau and George Lyon. The original lawsuit was filed against then DC mayor Anthony Williams and the District of Columbia for violating their constitutional right to own a "functional" weapon that each felt was necessary to protect them from violence in the second most lethal city in the country. In the lawsuit that was filed by Parker and joined by the others, Parker noted that she "...resides in a high-crime neighborhood...[and as a] consequence of trying to make her neighborhood a better place to live, Ms. Parker has been threatened by drug dealers. Ms. Parker presently intends to possess a functional handgun within her home for self-defense, but is prevented from doing so only by defendants' active enforcement of unconstitutional policies complained of in this action. Ms. Parker fears arrest, criminal prosecution, incarceration, and fine if she were to possess a functional handgun within her home."

At that time the US District Court for DC ruled in favor of the DC government, stating that the 2nd Amendment did not bestow any rights on individuals except, perhaps, when that individual serves in an organized militia such as today's National Guard.

Based on that argument, the US District Court found for the Defendants, Mayor Anthony Williams and the District of Columbia. Further, the court added that since the plaintiffs had "...not yet suffered an injury-of-fact because they did not possess handguns," they lacked "constitutional standing" to file their lawsuit. (The injury the court referred to was that of arrest, incarceration, or fine for possessing an illegal weapon within the jurisdiction of the DC government.) And, finally, the US District Court decided that the 2nd Amendment did not apply in the nation's capital because the District of Columbia is not a State.

Parker and her co-plaintiffs appealed. The case was argued on December 7, 2006 and decided on March 9, 2007. A three judge panel (Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman and Judges Thomas Griffith and Karen LeCraft Henderson) of the US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, contradicted the prior view of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the 2nd Amendment does not provide an individual the right to own firearms. The 9th Circuit previously ruled that the right to own firearms is not an individual but a collective right through State militias (i.e., the National Guard, which is now an extension of the US military). The 9th Circuit ruled that "...the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right," the court ruled, "existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense—the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate the anti-Federalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for military duty. Despite the importance of the 2nd Amendment's civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia." Henderson dissented, arguing that the 2nd Amendment did not apply to the District of Columbia. In her dissent she said: "To sum up, there is no dispute that the Constitution, case law and applicable statutes all establish that the District is not a State within the meaning of the 2nd Amendment."

Henderson, like most liberals, believes the Constitution is an evolving document designed to accommodate the evolving needs of society-at-large. She simply doesn't grasp the historic meaning of the phrase "individual rights." The right to own and possess guns in this country is an individual right—not a collective societal right—since societal rights deal with the rights of governance, not individual people.

When the appellate decision came down on March 9, Fenty immediately petitioned for a hearing before the full court. By a vote of 6 to 4, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reconsider the case. In the first quarter of this year, federal prosecutors have charged over 134 DC residents with violating the DC unlicensed gun and/or ammunition ban. City officials have 90 days to take their appeal to the US Supreme Court. During that 90 day period, the DC gun ban will remain in effect. It appears, however that Fenty's advisors counseled against risking an appeal to the high court believing that not only will the Supreme Court uphold the DC Circuit, but affirm the right of individual gun ownership. Such a ruling could set the gun ban crowd back 70 years. At a press conference shortly after the DC Circuit Court's decision was upheld by the full court, Fenty held a press conference protesting the court's decision, Fenty noted that during the next three months while the bank remained in effect, the District's legal minds would craft new legislation in lieu of a US Supreme Court appeal. Fenty noted that the new law would mandate how privately-owned handguns and ammunition would have to be stored within the District, and precisely what types of handguns could legally be owned.

The judicial system provides a grace period for appellants that keeps the court's decision in abeyance while they attempt to have the decision overturned. Generally, the ruling court grants a stay for 90 days. If an appeal is granted, the higher court stays execution of the lower court's decision until that court has had a chance to examine the arguments of the litigants. Fenty and the DC Attorney General are using the stay granted by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to prevent DC residents from lawfully purchasing firearms for home security even though they do not intend to pursue a Supreme Court appeal. The DC government is using the time to fashion new laws to hamstring any DC residents who are intent on buying firearms for home security.

As he protested the court's decision, Fenty credited DC's gun ban with reducing violent crime in the nation's capital over the three decades its been in force. Fenty noted there were 32.8 murders per 100 thousand people (100M) in 1975, the last year before the DC gun ban went into affect. In 1976, that number dropped to 26.7 murders per 100M. In 1975 there were 12,704 violent crimes in DC. During the first year of a rigidly enforced gun ban, violent crimes in the nation's capital dropped to 10,399. When Bill Clinton promised to rid the nation of crime in 1993, there were 16,888 violent crimes in DC, with 78.5 murders per 100M. By 1996, the death rate (from murder) rose in the nation's capital to 73.1 per 100M. By 2000, the last year of the Clinton regime's reign in Washington, there were 33,000 violent crimes in Washington, and a murder death toll of 41.7 per 100M. Fenty argued that the dramatic rise in violent crimes and the death toll comes from drug gang violence and drive-by shootings.

Statistically, the most dangerous cities in the world are those with the most restrictive gun laws. When law abiding citizens lack the legal means to protect themselves from home intrusions, from rape, or other forms of potentially violent crime, those crimes happen with increased frequency because in a world without legal firearms, only the outlaws are have guns.

Home prices fall, property taxes continue to rise—(Washington, DC —April 26, 2007) • Home owners who expected to see some relief from the tax collector as housing prices nosedive in most major urban-suburban areas of the country are both puzzled and disappointed. Even though home prices are falling, property taxes continue to rise on homes that no longer command premium prices in markets where foreclosures now exceed new home sales. What's more, properly taxes in many of what are now distressed home markets will continue to rise as the housing sales slump continues to impact property values.

This new real estate reality comes on top of the announcement by the National Association of Realtors on April 24 that sales of existing homes in March dropped by 8.4%—the highest rate in 18 years. Thus, even though prices on existing homes are dropping like a rock in quicksand in some markets, county tax assessors across the nation are not reappraising the homes within their markets to coincide with realistic market values in their communities. The reason is quite simple. Property taxes largely go to the local municipal government to pay for schools, the upkeep of roads and sidewalks within the city limits, police and other emergency personnel, and all other public services within the community. As population within any community mushrooms, demand for public services increases exponentially. When the real value of existing homes falls because the housing boom has peaked, there is not a sudden lessening demand for public services. Generally there is an increased demand for social programs of one type or another—particularly in distressed areas experiencing extreme levels of economic adversity. The long and short of it is this: every real estate boom area in the country has added one element in the equation of governance: more people whether those people are home owners, renters, or those requiring public housing assistance. All of those people require public services provided by the community.

As the current housing boom started to soar in most major urban-suburban areas of the nation in the late-1990s, citizen groups—acting in their economic best interests—lobbied county and State legislators to cap overzealous tax assessors by limiting massive property tax increases during real estate bubbles. Property tax limits were enacted in 45 States. None of those laws, however, actually cap communities from increasing property taxes. Rather the laws all merely obligated the community to stay below the housing appreciation bell curve by requiring the taxing authority to take smaller bites, staging their tax increases over several years. Just as you pay personal property taxes (taxes on your automobiles and personal property) three or more years behind the curve, you do the same with the taxes on your home. The real estate taxes you pay are theoretically based on the fair market value of your home three or more years ago although in reality, the tax assessor values your home based on the average price that homes in your neighborhood sold for last year—or are selling for this year.

Tax laws are structured to allow communities to slowly increase their assessments a little bit each year until the home reaches the benchmark "market value." After a decade or more of soaring prices, it can take another decade for the tax value of the home to reach market value—even though sliding home prices may have eroded the market value. It is much easier for a community to arbitrarily fix the market value of homes based on square footage, numbers of bedrooms and baths and acreage rather than ask the voters to vote higher tax rates to compensate the city or county for declining real estate values and revenue shortfalls due to foreclosed homes.

When markets soften, most local governments simply raise the tax rates to offset declining home values, arguing that the State legislators gave them the right to "spread the assessment" over several years to avoid creating financial hardships on struggling homeowners by overtaxing them during the real estate bubble. Thus, they argue, the "increased tax assessment is really just a delayed assessment which the homeowner actually previously owed based on the market value of the home.

Ventura County, California County Tax Assessor Dan Goodwin pretty much speaks for most of the nation's county tax assessors when he said: "To [qualify for] a tax cut, you have to buy a home at the peak and have it lose value quickly. You can't enjoy double-digit increases in your home value and then expect a tax cut when the market dips." Here is the simple truth about home values: unless you are trying to sell your home, or you are using whatever equity you possess in your home to secure a home equity loan, the value placed on your home by a tax appraiser is simply an arbitrary number used to tax you. If you decide to sell your home, the real estate appraiser's figure will likely be 20% to 30% less than the tax value which is two or three years behind the current market value.

Sadly, the laws passed at State level over the past decade that were purportedly enacted to protect the homeowner from greedy tax assessors were actually structured to protect the tax revenue base of the county governments when the housing booms burst and home values collapsed, The taxing methods used either arbitrarily increased the tax value of the dwelling until it reached housing bubble peak market value, or arbitrarily increasing the applicable tax rate to compensate the taxing agency for any anticipated loss of tax revenue based on the economic climate. In past decades, whenever the local municipal government or county needed more tax revenue, it went on the ballot and the voters decided whether or not to increase their own taxes. Under these new real estate tax laws that ostensibly protected the consumer from the tax collector, the taxing authority can now use sleight-of-hand to make up their tax revenue shortfalls.

Remember: the next time your legislators tell you they are enacting a law to protect you from them, don't believe it. It will never happen. Read the bill—all of it. Then fire the legislators. You'll be glad you did.

 

Regulators now investigating home builders—(Washington, DC —April 5, 2007) • The federal government is finally looking at the culprit it should have been investigating first when the upward spiraling of risky exotic mortgages brought the mortgage loan industry to the brink of disaster. They didn't because everyone—the banks, the mortgage loan companies, the home builders, the economists and even the consumers who were ultimately scammed by unscrupulous real estate developers and the salespeople employed by them—knew what they were doing was good for them and, they assumed, anything that was good for them was probably good for the nation.

With the spotlight on the collapsing housing industry and those who financed the deals it was only a matter of time before regulators would start questioning the aggressive sales techniques and lending strategies used by some of the nation's most successful—and profitable—regional home builders. Many of them are now the targets of finger-pointing by regulators who have come just short of formally accusing them of using lax standards and illegal sales tactics to convince subprime buyers to accept mortgages they should never have agreed to. Brian Sullivan, a spokesman for HUD said his agency has been "...seeing increased consumer complaints about builders including kickbacks and illegal referral fees, phantom incentives and other violations of our real estate laws."

Most of the nation's largest home builders either have internal mortgage divisions or subsidiary companies to finance the homes they sell giving them an almost perfect batting average since they can finance anyone—including subprime risks, or they partner with local or regional banks in joint ventures that produce a steady stream of business—and additional profits for both.

Sullivan indicated that HUD is now receiving a steady stream of consumer complaints centered on the tactics used by builders' salespeople to pressure home buyers into agreeing to company mortgages. One complaint, Sullivan said came from a Winchester, Virginia home buyer, Griffin Carmichael. Carmichael signed a contract to purchase a $378 thousand home built by Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based Ryan Homes in the Shenandoah Valley. Carmichael paid them a deposit of $37,800.00.

Carmichael always paid his bills on time, so he knew he had a good credit history. Ryan Homes offered to arrange the financing. Carmichael agreed, but quickly learned Ryan Homes was going to finance him as a subprime risk. Knowing his credit score, Carmichael insisted on a full documentation loan, which would have given him a fixed rate mortgage at a lower interest rate. Ryan Homes' mortgage broker insisted that Carmichael's student loans on top of his other debt would preclude him from getting a traditional loan. They offered an exotic mortgage—interest only for stipulated period with a low introductory interest rate designed to minimize customer resistance. In the agreement he signed with Ryan Homes Carmichael agreed to use NVR financing (Ryan Homes' parent company). In exchange, Ryan Homes agreed to frame and finish the basement of Carmichael's new home. So, when Carmichael refused to sign the exotic ARM contract and told Ryan Homes he would secure the loan elsewhere they told him that since he declined a loan he would have been approved for, Ryan Homes had a legal right to keep his deposit—which they did.

Most of the nation's largest builders have in-house lending arms, or a joint partnership arrangements with local banks which do the paperwork on-site and finance the mortgages they approve. While convenient since they allow the builders' sales people to close the sale while the prospective buyer is still "sold," these partnership arrangements aren't as satisfactory as having an internal, builder-owned mortgage company since the builder doesn't control the bank and doesn't have the authority to rubber-stamp loans outside the bank's normal underwriting standards. By controlling financing in-house, the builder is assured of maximizing the potential buyers and filling their subdivisions quickly—and most profitably.

Last week the IRS and HUD launched a criminal investigation of potential fraud in the mortgages issued by another national builder, Atlanta, Georgia-based Beazer Homes USA which dominates 40 markets in the country. Gretchen Shappert, US Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina said "...We take mortgage fraud very seriously. If an unscrupulous broker or lender puts an unqualified buyer into a house, they are robbing those families of the American Dream. It is very difficult to recover from a foreclosure and get a house in the future." By sticking buyers with toxic mortgages whose payments will grow like a cancer, or by selling them more house than they can realistically afford to pay for, the builder and/or bank is setting the buyer up for bankruptcy. As a result of the latest investigation of its business practices, Beazer's stock dropped 17%—or about $200 million in market value.

The Department of Housing & Urban Development [HUD], which supervises the Federal Housing Administration [FHA], began investigating Beazer after the Charlotte Observer exposed the massive amounts of loan defaults in many of the Charlotte-area starter-home developments built by Beazer Homes USA. In one Cabarrus County Beazer Homes development—a subdivision containing 406 homes—77 home owners lost their property due to foreclosure. In that subdivision HUD found that Beazer's mortgage brokers (according to the Observer) violated federal lending rules. Beazer responded to the Charlotte Observer article stating that their "...own internal investigation...[did not find] any evidence to support the allegations in the Charlotte Observer." About 3/4th of Beazer's FHA-insured loans in the Charlotte area were funded by National City Bank of Ohio. Another company that funded some Beazer home loans was Paramus, New Jersey mortgage originator, Opteum Financial Services. (Opteum's parent company, Opteum, Inc. is headquartered in Vero Beach, Florida.) Opteum told the Charlotte Observer that it stopped taking loan applications from Beazer Homes in 2005 because of the long term history of those loans.

When the government initially raised questions with Beazer about its lending practices, Beazer terminated the license of its Charlotte office to work FHA loans even though it continued to arrange FHA loans for its Charlotte-area buyers through other Beazer Homes offices. In Atlanta, Beazer Home buyers Mark and Lea Tingley filed a lawsuit in Mecklenburg County Superior Court seeking class action status. The Tingley suit alleges that Beazer Homes illegally sold borrowers mortgages they knew the borrower could not afford, should not have been given, producing a higher than normal rate of foreclosure—and a subsequent decline in property values for the neighbors of those who defaulted.

Since the housing boom began, federal prosecutors have convicted more than 50 people in the Charlotte metro area for scams involving home loans worth approximately $150 million. Those convicted include mortgage brokers, lawyers, builders, appraisers and real estate agents. The rapidly escalating number of foreclosures nationwide is bringing microscopic scrutiny by federal prosecutors to every area of the country where housing prices escalated too fast—and too much—due to unscrupulous real estate appraisers working too closely with lenders and sellers—and in some cases, municipal and county governments whose tax revenues increased as the tax values of homes in the market place skyrocket. The housing boom was a bonanza shared by everyone except the home buyer.

Sadly, something that should have been a good thing for America will likely be the catalyst that plummets the nation into an major election year recession that will haunt whomever succeeds in winning the White House in 2008.

 

Despicable decision —(Washington, DC —Mar. 31, 2007) • Twenty years ago, more or less, an employer who boldly confessed to the world they were going to arbitrarily fire 3,400 long term, full time tenured employees so they could hire cheap replacement workers would have been on the wrong side of US labor law, and would have been required by a federal court to rehire the workers and/or pay them a hefty separation settlement if they refused to hire them back. Every civil rights group in the country would be filing amicus briefs in defense of the status quo.

Yet, when Circuit City—the nation's second largest electronics retailer—announced on Wednesday, March 28 that it was going to immediately fire 3,400 employees and 130 corporate white collar jobs whose earnings were well above the average for their job classifications, there was no cries of outrage or demands for congressional hearings from members of Congress or from America's member-starved labor unions. (Fifty Circuit City IT people will be transferred to IBM which will assume Circuit City's information technology operations. The remaining 80 people have been, or will be, terminated.)

The only reaction to Circuit City's announcement came from Wall Street. Circuit City's stock rose 3% in trading the following morning—up from its 39% plunge over the past year. Philip Schoonover, Circuit City CEO said all the right things for investors to add Circuit City to their 401K portfolios: "We're taking a number of aggressive actions to improve our cost and expense structure, which will better position us for improved and sustainable returns in today's marketplace." What Circuit City didn't say—but should have—was that they are in the throes of a serious cash crunch that resulted from the company's overzealous, failed, expansion efforts and rather than fire the board room types who caused the problem, they decided to fire their most productive employees instead.

Last month, austerity measures instituted by the board of directors forced Circuit City to terminate a lease on a previously closed distribution center in Columbus, Ohio. The immediate, out-of-pocket loss to Circuit City—$4.8 million. Company officials claim the decision will ultimately save them over $6 million. Internationally, Circuit City is trying to dump its European albatross, InterTAN, Inc. The company recently hired Goldman Sachs to find a buyer. Also in February, Circuit City closed 55 stores in Canada and plans to close 10 more.

Firing the most productive employees who have qualified for the largest pay increases will logically have a chilling impact on company morale as the best of the company's remaining store management people begin sending out resumes believing they no longer have a future with the company. Company spokesman Jim Babb said those employees who were terminated for earning too much can reapply for their old jobs—at newly reduced earnings—after 10 weeks. "We continue to pay competitive wages in the stores across the country," Babb said, "but we have to control costs."

There is a much better way to do that than fire the hardest workers at store level. Fire the idiots at corporate in Richmond who made the stupid decisions that cost the company millions of dollars and drove down the company's stock almost 40% in a year. Shareholders should demand the reinstatement of the 3,530 employees and the termination of Schoonover because when the new Circuit City employees talk to their customers in Spanish and not English, Circuit City is very likely going to experience an irreversible drop in sales. When cyber-novice consumers buy their new Chinese-made, Amerian-branded computers from Circuit City and need someone knowledgeable to explain how the operating systems work, they want to make sure the clerk selling it to them—and explaining how to use it—speaks in English. Cuåndo clientes necesitan ayuda—ellos necesitan ayuda en su lengua materna aunque extranjeros ilegales trabajen mås barato.

 

Dean says firings same as Watergate—(Washington, DC —Mar. 17, 2007) • Leave it to the liberals to exaggerate—particularly Dr. Howard Dean, head of the Democratic National Committee. Sadly, about half of the lawmakers in Congress apparently don't know the substance of t