Credit Cards Hit Clients With 'Robo-Signed' Lawsuits

Courts flooded with cases based on slim or falsified evidence

Looks like mortgage foreclosures aren't the only things banks "robo-signed." A glut of credit card lawsuits is revealing that card issuers have the same tendency to use shoddy, incomplete, or erroneous documents against clients, the New York Times reports. Companies like American Express, Citigroup, and Discover have been filing lawsuits against clients to recoup unpaid bills, but dozens of judges, regulators, and lawyers say their evidence is atrocious, and includes mass-produced documents or flat-out falsified ones. (In one case, a document Discover says was from 2004 featured ads dated 2010 on it.)


In many cases, lenders sue after piling on erroneous fees. "I would say that roughly 90% of the credit card lawsuits are flawed, and can't prove the person owes the debt," says one Brooklyn judge, who sees as many as 100 such cases a day. He recalls one witness giving identical testimony in a slew of cases—or, as he termed it, "robo-testimony." The Times notes that some credit card holders say they don't owe anything, but most don't agree with the amount the card issuers claim is outstanding. 

But because borrowers rarely show up to defend themselves, lenders win 95% of the time, their errors unnoticed.



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IRS Is Overwhelmed By Identity Theft Fraud

Billions wrongly paid out as scammers find agency an easy target

Rashia Wilson bought a $92,000 Audi, proclaimed herself a millionaire, and announced on her Facebook page that she was “the queen of IRS tax fraud,” as prosecutors told the story.

But even more than her flamboyance, it was the seeming ease of her crime that was most stunning: She and an accomplice were alleged to have hijacked the identities of other taxpayers to get fraudulent refunds. They used stolen Social Security numbers, a computer, and basic knowledge of how to file a tax return, according to the government.

After the Florida mother of three was caught and pleaded guilty last year to crimes totaling at least $3 million, her defense attorney, Mark O’Brien, made his own plea. He said in court that he hoped the “IRS will figure out a way to prevent this from happening in the future, so someone with a sixth-grade education can’t defraud them so easily.”

Across the country, the theft of taxpayer identities has taken off, while receiving far less attention than the loss of credit card information. Even some drug dealers, always with an eye out for easy profits, have turned to taxpayer identity theft after hearing how uncomplicated it was to scam the IRS. A medical assistant at a nursing home stole the identities of hundreds of patients. A prison guard stole the identities of inmates and filed false returns under their names.

All told, in just the first six months of last year, 1.6 million taxpayers were affected by identity theft, compared with 271,000 for all of 2010, according to a recent audit by the Treasury Department’s inspector general. While the IRS said it discovered many of the incidents, the cumulative thefts have resulted in billions of dollars in potentially fraudulent refunds, according to an array of government reports.


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Time For Western States To Evict Feds

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, “It’s time for Western states to take control of federal lands within their borders, lawmakers and county commissioners from Western states said at Utah’s Capitol on Friday.

“More than 50 political leaders from nine states convened for the first time to talk about their joint goal: wresting control of oil-,timber-and mineral-rich lands away from the feds.

“‘It’s simply time,’ said Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, who organized the Legislative Summit on the Transfer for Public Lands along with Montana state Sen. Jennifer Fielder. ‘The urgency is now.’

“Utah House Speaker Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, was flanked by a dozen participants, including her counterparts from Idaho and Montana, during a press conference after the daylong closed-door summit. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee addressed the group over lunch, Ivory said. New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington also were represented.

“The summit was in the works before this month’s tense standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management over cattle grazing, Lockhart said.

“‘What’s happened in Nevada is really just a symptom of a much larger problem,’ Lockhart said.”

See the report here:

Western Lawmakers Gather In Utah To Talk Federal Land Takeover

Now we are getting somewhere!

The western states have been used as both playground and sugar stick for big-government politicians since before most of the western states became states. Compare the percentage of State land owned by the federal government in the western states to that of the eastern states.

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Why Is Obama Decimating The Military While Arming Federal Agencies?

The rate at which this administration is arming federal agencies is quite alarming. Case in point–the recent standoff against Cliven Bundy in Nevada. In recent years, armed federal government agents have stormed against citizens in Ruby Ridge, Miami (the Elian Gonzalez case), and Waco, Texas (the Branch Davidians). Each of these assaults occurred under a Democrat presidential administration. Enabled by lies and deceit, could it be that liberal progressive socialism only works by fear, intimidation, and coercion? Or is Obama more afraid of the American people than our enemies abroad?

I find it humorous that liberal progressives accuse their opponents of being fascists, but the liberals are actually the most intolerant and oppressive when it comes to free speech, expression, and petition of redress of grievances by the American citizenry.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) now have armed agents. The Department of Justice is heavily partisan — and that assertion has nothing to do with racism. I support our law enforcement agencies having the proper resources and equipment to fulfill their mission of keeping us safe from criminals and enemies who have penetrated our sovereign borders. However, we do not need to become a “police state” where our government agencies start to resemble special operation strike troops of the U.S. mlitary.


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New Virginia Law Protects Farmers From Meddling Local Officials

Well-funded Greens, bureaucrats sought to kill this landmark legislation

 In a hard-fought and stunning victory for family farmers and property rights throughout the Commonwealth, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) ON March 5 signed into law legislation solidifying Virginia’s status as a right-to-farm state by limiting local officials’ ability to interfere with normal agricultural operations.

The governor’s signature marks the latest chapter in a swirling controversy that attracted nationwide attention in 2012 when the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors forced family farmer Martha Boneta to cease selling produce from her own 64-acre farm. No longer allowed to sell the vegetables she had harvested, Boneta donated the food to local charities lest it go to waste.

Fauquier County officials threatened Boneta with $5,000 per-day fines for hosting a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls without a permit, and advertising pumpkin carvings. Seeing in the county’s action against Boneta as a brazen effort to drive her off her land, Virginians from all walks of life rallied to her defense.  Supporters gathered in Warrenton, the county seat, for a peaceful “pitchfork protest” to vent their anger over what an out-of-control local government had done to a law-abiding citizen.

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Secure Property Rights: Hold Government To The Law

Cliven Bundy marched into my life one Friday morning in January 1992 in a protest bound for a federal courthouse in Las Vegas. He held up one side of a street-width banner that asked, “Has the West been won or has the fight just begun?”

To my great relief, just as Bundy promised, nearly 200 ranchers from all over the state marched behind him, yelling “Property rights!” Nearly a mile later, the marchers fell silent and filed into the courtroom where Wayne Hage of Pine Creek Ranch faced arraignment for the felony of cleaning brush out of his ditches without a U.S. Forest Service permit.

The Forest Service had already confiscated Hage’s cattle and left him bankrupt, just as the Bureau of Land Management would try with Bundy 22 years later.

Hage had already filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service in the U.S. Court of Claims, just as Bundy now has cause to do against the BLM – last week, during their failed attempt to confiscate Bundy’s cattle, agents wantonly bulldozed his water supply into oblivion without court authority.

Wayne Hage did not stand in that courtroom alone because I was honor bound to prevent it – I had published his 1989 book, Storm Over Rangelands: Private Rights in Federal Lands, which unleashed the federal fury.

     The message terrified abusive bureaucrats: There are private rights in federal        
     lands – vested rights, not privileges.

His book, the product of three intensive, grueling years consulting with dozens of experts and sifting through many archives, found the dirty little secret that could destroy the abusive power of all federal Western land agencies – by making them obey their own laws.

It was so stunning that a sitting Supreme Court justice secretly sent Wayne a message marveling at his shining intellect – burnished with a masters degree in animal science and honed by academic colloquies as a trustee of the University of Nevada Foundation – and warning of the titanic battle to come.


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Why They Changed The Bible

I was standing next to a premier missionary and linguist, who had been teaching us the science of language at the University of Washington, during the first of three summers with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), the "primary partner organization" of Wycliffe Bible Translators. I had gone that day up to the mountains with him, his wife and children to see Mt. Rainier and have some "delicious berry pie" at their favorite diner.

But something he had just said disturbed me. Did he mean what it sounded like he meant? I had to word my question carefully. I wanted my teacher to reveal what he believed, but not let my motives or beliefs get in the way of him telling me the truth.

"Do you believe the story of Noah and the ark, the great flood and all that?" I asked.

What he said next floored me.

"No, but David, look: don't let that bother you. When you go to all those churches to raise your missionary support, they have these Statements of Faith for you to sign. It doesn't matter what you believe. Just sign them. When you get to the [mission] field, you can do whatever you want."

So here was this veteran missionary, advising me to lie to the congregations that would support me. Then somehow I would have to go to the mission field and translate God's holy word, the Bible, regardless of whether I believed it or not, into another language. Then I would be charged with teaching the Bible to those people. And I would do all this with a clean conscience? How would I be able to sleep at night? Could I live a lie like that, as a Bible translator? Could that be what God wanted me to do?

No way! I could never do that as a faithful Christian.

On top of that, this guy had married and raised a family on the mission field, without even believing the Bible he was translating. How could he do that? It turned out the guy liked to "do" linguistics, and this was a job that paid him to spend years doing just that. How did he become a Wycliffe Bible Translator? He lied about the Bible! Did he lie about everything? Was he even a Christian?

That wonder-filled day, which started with such open-hearted feelings of devotion to my God, crashed down with such disappointment in this man. Now I couldn't share with him the wonderful realization of my newfound need to honor God and thank Him daily. From now on I would have to treat this man as an unbeliever.

I reined in my feelings for the rest of the day, until I could see my fiancée, Deborah, before I went back to the dorms that night.

What else would we learn as we trained to translate the Bible for a foreign culture? We found out in our second summer of SIL.


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Morano Stirs The Debate In New York

Controversy. Confrontation. Facts.

Such words could be used to describe the past, exciting week for CFACT as they held their 2nd REAL Energy Speaker Series, featuring Marc Morano.

Morano, the founder and executive editor of ClimateDepot.com, and noted TV commentator on such channels as FOX News, CNN, and The Blaze, was the featured speaker for two different New York campuses.

For two nights at Syracuse University and SUNY-Albany, Morano addressed large crowds to discuss the climate change narrative driving so much of our popular culture and policy. Morano focused on the growing number of contradictions within the rank-and-file of scientists and climate change activists, and how it has overshadowed much of the scientific evidence prevalent in those same circles.

First, on a Tuesday evening in the 100-seat Gifford Auditorium, the room was nearly filled with students and activists on both sides of the issue, eager to hear what Morano had to say.

Morano started his discussion with introductory videos of his past debates on television, then dipped into the myriad of quotes setting the stage for where the climate change debate stands today. He talked about how all of these ideas simply amount to “scientific crap.”


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The Jet That Shocked The West

How the MiG-15 grounded the U.S. bomber fleet in Korea.

The Korean conflict was less than six months old on the morning of November 30, 1950, when a U.S. Air Force B-29 Superfortress, attacking an air base in North Korea, was lightly damaged by a fighter that overtook the bomber too fast for the attacker to be identified, much less for the Superfort’s gunner to fix it in the sights of his gun’s tracking system. Straight-wing Lockheed F-80 jets escorting the bomber made a token pursuit, but the accelerating fighter rapidly shrank to a dot, then disappeared.

The bomber crew’s reports sparked an organized panic that sizzled through the U.S. chain of command. Although the airmen’s description of the intruder matched no aircraft known to be operating in the theater, U.S. intelligence officials quickly made an educated assumption. The attacking aircraft was a MiG-15, most likely flying from a base in Manchuria. Before the incident, analysts believed that the only use Stalin had authorized for MiGs supporting communist China’s air force was protecting Shanghai from attack by nationalist Chinese bombers. The MiG was an ominous sign: China’s involvement in Korea was increasing, and Soviet technology was spreading.

For the crews strapping into the lumbering Superfortresses, the jets slashing through their formations became a source of suffocating dread. “I’ll tell you, everybody was scared,” says former B-29 pilot Earl McGill, as he describes the notable absence of radio chatter while he held his four-engine Boeing—the weapon system that had ended World War II—short of the runway for a mission against Namsi air base, near the border between North Korea and China. “On my first mission, we were briefed for heavy MiG interception. I was so scared on that day that I’ve never been frightened since, even when I flew combat missions in the B-52 [over Vietnam].” Earlier, the ready-room chatter had been filled with black humor. “The guy who briefed the navigation route had been an undertaker,” McGill says. He delivered the briefing in an undertaker’s stove-pipe hat.

On one disastrous day in October 1951—dubbed Black Tuesday—MiGs took out six of nine Superforts. McGill’s first encounter with the craft had been typically brief. “One of the gunners called him out. He was a small silhouette,” McGill says. “That’s when I saw him…. [The gunners] were shooting at him.” McGill says the bomber’s centrally controlled firing system provided some protection against the fighters.

MiG-15 pilot Porfiriy Ovsyannikov was on the other end of the B-29’s guns. “When they fired at us, they smoked, and you think, Is the bomber burning, or is it machine gun smoke?” he recalled in 2007, when Russian historians Oleg Korytov and Konstantin Chirkin interviewed him for an oral history of Soviet combat pilots who fought in World War II and Korea. (The interviews are posted on the website lend-lease.airforce.ru/english.) The historians asked Ovsyannikov to rate the B-29’s defensive weapons. His reply: “Very good.” But MiG pilots were able to open fire from about 2,000 feet away, and at that distance, says McGill, they could savage a B-29 formation.

“The MiG-15 surprised the hell out of us,” says National Air and Space Museum curator Robert van der Linden. Compared to the North American F-86 Sabre, hastily introduced in combat after the MiGs showed up, “the MiG was faster, could outclimb it, and had more firepower,” he says. And Sabre pilots knew it.


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Combating Lawlessness In America

America is becoming a lawless nation. While the number of individual law-breakers has been increasing, it is not just criminals who are lawless. It is also those we elect to uphold the law.

The words of President Obama while visiting my home town of Charlottesville last month sum up the thinking of many of our government leaders: “That’s a good thing about being President. I can do whatever I want.”

While the context was breaking protocol while visiting Monticello, he nonetheless has displayed this thinking in many ways: he has unilaterally changed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) at least 24 times, his administration has threatened businesses that speak out against Obamacare, and he has made judicial appointments without Congress being in recess. In addition, he has allowed the IRS to target certain political groups without taking any action to rectify this abusive and unlawful act.

And it is not just the President. Many other leaders ignore the law (even those they approved) and the Constitution, and have become a law unto themselves. Judges regularly make law — like the U.S. District Judge in Texas who toppled a marriage amendment upholding the traditional and Biblical view of marriage that had been approved by more than 75% of the voters in that state. Similar federal rulings have discarded marriage laws in Oklahoma, Virginia, California, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Kentucky.

Twelve days after Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring took an oath to uphold the Constitution of Virginia, he said he would not enforce the marriage definition provision in the Constitution and would, in fact, work against it. He, in essence, declared he would be the source of the law. Other Attorneys General have done likewise, and in February 2014 the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declared that state AGs are not obligated to defend laws with which they disagree.

Regarding discussion on immigration reform Thomas Sowell writes: “Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them. One of the big problems that those who are pushing ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ want solved is how to help people who came here illegally and are now ‘living in the shadows’ as a result.”

Add to this, government agencies that run rough-shod over the rights of individual citizens and the failure of Congress to perform its legal duties, and we can see we have a serious problem.


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Reject The Proposal To Bypass The Electoral College!

A plan, now stealthily making its way through state legislatures with astonishing speed, would junk the Electoral College and award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote.

The plan involves an Interstate Compact where states would commit to select electors pledged to vote for the national popular vote winner regardless of how their own state voted.  When enough states pass this law -- sufficient to cast 270 votes for the a majority of the Electoral College -- it will take effect.

The Electoral College will become a vestigial anachronism.
   
So far, nine states and D.C. -- casting 136 electoral votes -- have joined -- half way to the 270 needed to put the compact into effect.  The ratifying states are: Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, DC, Vermont, California, and Rhode Island.

Both houses in New York have passed it and it's on Governor Cuomo's desk.

And, it has already passed one house in:  Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon.   These states, plus New York represent 107 votes.  Combined with the others they are up to 242 votes.  They need 270.

Who is pushing this?

All of the ratifying voted for Obama as did eight of the ten one house states.

The Movement is funded, in part, by the Center for Voting and Democracy, a George Soros-funded election group.

Essentially, it is an end run around the regular constitutional amending process.  Rather than get a two-thirds majority of each house of Congress and three-quarters of the states, this proposal would take effect when a simple majority approve it.

Why are Democrats pushing this plan?

To read more and sign the petition Click Here:

Obama’s EPA About To Make The ‘Biggest Land Grab In The History Of The World’

It seems like the Obama administration is interested in grabbing as much as they can, and putting it under the control of the federal government.

Via WND:

In a move lawmakers and farmers are calling “the biggest land grab in the history of the world,” the Environmental Protection Agency is requesting jurisdiction over all public and private streams in the United States that are “intermittent, seasonal and rain-dependent.”

The EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in late March jointly released a proposed rule, Waters of the United States, in an effort to clarify which streams and wetlands are protected under the Clean Water Act.

A statement issued by the EPA says “the proposed rule will benefit businesses by increasing efficiency in determining coverage of the Clean Water Act.”

But some lawmakers strongly disagree.

According to congressional budget testimony last week, Waters of the United States would give the EPA authority over streams on private property even when the water beds have been dry, in some cases for hundreds of years.

Calling it “the biggest land grab in the history of the world,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said the “economic impact of that would be profound.”

“A community needing to build on private land that had on it one of these so-called streams that you considered a waterway under the new rule would have to travel thousands, hundreds of miles to D.C., to get approval,” Rogers said.

The congressman argued it “would absolutely freeze economic activity in this country.”

Rogers said the proposal is “proof in and of itself of the mal-intent of this administration toward the private sector.”


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Our Borders Aren't Constitution-Free Zones

The stories don’t make national headlines, but every day residents of border communities face warrantless stops and searches, destruction of private property, and physical abuse from Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers. The worst part is that right now there is no clear, effective complaint process for reporting these violations and holding the perpetrators accountable.

In recent years, our federal government has massively ramped up spending on enforcement in the name of “border security,” turning border communities into militarized zones.

But right now, we have a major opportunity to change that. President Obama has sworn in Jeh Johnson as the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—the federal department in charge of CBP— and he has pledged reform. So now is the time for civil liberties supporters to stand together and demand common-sense regulations that rein in runaway abuse.

Join me and sign the petition to President Obama and Secretary Jeh Johnson asking for implementation of a strong, transparent, investigation and complaints mechanism to hold CBP accountable for abuses:

https://www.aclu.org/secure/hold_border_patrol_accountable?ms=oth_acluaction_140325_borderpatrol_yt

Guess How Many People Work Versus How Many People Take? You Might Be Shocked!

This is truly shocking and a must read for any taxpayer, or anyone who care about liberty.

There are more people receiving means-tested welfare type benefits that there are people working full time!

Via CNS News:

Buried deep on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau is a number every American citizen, and especially those entrusted with public office, should know. It is 86,429,000.

That is the number of Americans who in 2012 got up every morning and went to work — in the private sector — and did it week after week after week.

It is not a rancher with a few hundred head of cattle that is attacking their habitat, nor an energy company developing a fossil fuel. It is big government and its primary weapon — an ever-expanding welfare state.

First, let’s look at the basic taxonomy of the full-time, year-round American worker.

In 2012, according to the Census Bureau, approximately 103,087,000 people worked full-time, year-round in the United States. “A full-time, year-round worker is a person who worked 35 or more hours per week (full time) and 50 or more weeks during the previous calendar year (year round),” said the Census Bureau. “For school personnel, summer vacation is counted as weeks worked if they are scheduled to return to their job in the fall.”

Of the 103,087,000 full-time, year-round workers, 16,606,000 worked for the government. That included 12,597,000 who worked for state and local government and 4,009,000 who worked for the federal government.

The 86,429,000 Americans who worked full-time, year-round in the private sector, included 77,392,000 employed as wage and salary workers for private-sector enterprises and 9,037,000 who worked for themselves. (There were also approximately 52,000 who worked full-time, year-round without pay in a family enterprise.)


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Here’s Why America Fell Into The Hands Of Tyrants

When faced with the inevitable destabilization and destruction of one’s country and culture, it is only natural to define and expose the culprit behind the chaos. The liberty movement spends an incredible amount of time and energy unmasking the criminality of international financiers and globalists, but it is important to point out that the power of the elites is entirely dependent on the ignorance and stupidity of the masses. Without a majority of thoroughly foolish Americans, there would be no base of support for the actions of tyrants. Without the mind-boggling superficiality and bias of the average citizen, there would be no fertile ground for the schemes of totalitarians to blossom. Truly, there are two great enemies of any liberty-based society: the power-mad oligarchy and the idiots who make their conquests more feasible.

Is our Nation built upon carefully crafted lies? Yes. Is our political establishment a false paradigm? Yes. Is our public school system corrupt and poisonous? Of course. But are elitists the only source of our despair? No. It is vital that we acknowledge the important part played by biased, selfish, cruel and mentally challenged persons in the destruction of all that is good in this world. There is no power over us but that which we give away; and, sadly, too many useless Americans are willing to give away everything in the name of comfort, fear or narcissism.

Do you want to see the face of this Nation’s decline? Check out the video diary of this woman and understand that there are millions more out there like her:

Melissa Melton of The Daily Sheeple posted the video under the headline “’The Fruits of Socialism’: I Can’t Even Stand to Watch the Rest of this Video.”


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McCain, Graham Helping Osborn In Nebraska GOP Primary

2 RINO's = 2 jackasses wearing elephant costumes

Former Navy pilot Shane Osborn is getting help from two of the most prominent moderates in the Senate in his campaign for the GOP nomination for an open senate seat in Nebraska. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he had donated to Osborn and that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is planning to travel to Nebraska to help Osborn raise campaign funds. 

“I've given him money,” Graham told Breitbart News, adding, “I think John McCain's going out to help him, he's a great candidate.”

The endorsements could help Osborn on the money trail, but they are unlikely to motivate Nebraska voters the way former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will help Ben Sasse, a university president and former George W. Bush aide she endorsed. 

McCain seemed to realize his imprimatur may not be a godsend for Osborn in a primary that has emerged as a key proxy battle between the national Tea Party groups and the GOP Establishment.
Asked about his Nebraska travel plans, McCain jokingly uttered a string of expletives to express his displeasure that Graham had told a reporter about the issue. 

“I haven't gone yet. I hadn't had plans to go yet. I am supporting him,” McCain said, adding that he was in the process of donating funds to Osborn.


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LegalShield Develops Military Outreach Program To Support Military Reservists

DALLAS, April 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- LegalShield, one of the nation's leading providers of legal safeguards for individuals, families and small businesses, announced today a partnership with American Jobs for American Heroes, to create a military outreach program offering servicemen and women the tools to start their own home-based business. 

The program will allow LegalShield to visit military reserve installations around the nation throughout the remainder of 2014. LegalShield will make a series of presentations that focus on the unique business opportunity that exists for reservists as LegalShield associates.  A portion of the membership fees secured through the presentations will go directly to DAV (Disabled American Veterans).

"Our nation's military veterans have developed key skills in leadership, teamwork and discipline that every business values in its employees," said Rip Mason, CEO of LegalShield. "We're excited about this new initiative with American Jobs for American Heroes to give back to our nation's reservists and assist them in finding new opportunities as they serve our country."

"We're thrilled to have LegalShield as a partner to assist in creating more business opportunities for our troops," said Stacy Bayton of American Jobs for American Heroes. "Our troops offer a tremendous range of skills that can benefit any employer and with LegalShield's help we will be able to offer a portable and flexible business model for reservists."

For more information about LegalShield and this program, visit: https://www.legalshield.com/.

About LegalShield
LegalShield is one of the nation's leading providers of legal safeguards for individuals, families and small businesses. LegalShield also offers one of the industry's most affordable identity theft plans. Members receive identity theft protection for the entire family for the cost most competitors charge to cover a single individual. LegalShield legal plans cover more than 1.4 million families and 3.7 million lives across North America. More than 34,000 companies offer the LegalShield plan to their employees as a voluntary benefit. For as low as $20 per month, LegalShield members get access to attorneys who are experienced in the areas of law that most impact families and small businesses. Unlike other legal plans or do-it-yourself websites, LegalShield has dedicated law firms in 49 states and four provinces in Canada that members can call for help without having to worry about high hourly rates. The attorneys at these firms have an average of 19 years of experience in such areas as family matters, estate planning, financial and business issues, consumer protection, tax, real estate, benefits disputes and auto/driving issues. In 2013 alone, LegalShield firms received more than 1.8 million calls from members. For more information, visit www.legalshield.com or call 800-654-7757.


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Standoff In Nevada: Another Federal Siege Against The Innocent

With the memory of Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, still very vivid in the collective memory of the American people comes another example of a federal government run amuck. A rancher in Nevada is watching the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) seize his cattle and arrest his son for simply taking pictures of the events. BLM has also placed several federal snipers around his home with their high-powered rifles trained on his family. The last report I read said more than 200 federal agents are now surrounding the homestead complete with attack helicopters. All that seems to be missing are tanks.

Did the family do anything violent? No. Did they do anything immoral? No. Did they even do anything wrong? No. Did they do anything illegal? Well, that’s where the story gets interesting.

Cliven Bundy’s family has been grazing cattle on their ranchland since the 1880s. But in 1993, the federal government reclassified 600,000 acres of land, including the land that the Bundy cattle have been grazing on forever. The pretext used by the feds for seizing the land was to protect some “endangered” tortoise. However, the feds would allow Cliven to continue to graze his cattle on the land--if he pays the federal government for the privilege. The rancher refuses to pay.

“Federal snipers with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) trained guns on members of a family yesterday after they dared to stop and take video footage of cattle outside the bounds of a designated ‘First Amendment Area,’ before arresting one of the men for non-compliance.

“The cattle were being rounded up by BLM officers as part of a crackdown on Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has refused to pay ‘grazing fees’ demanded by the feds as a result of a re-classification of 600,000 acres of federal land in northeastern Clark County which Bundy claims has been in his family for generations.”

The report continues: “The feds have now started rounding up Bundy’s cattle in the name of protecting a supposedly endangered species, the desert tortoise, forbidding Bundy from interfering or even entering the vast area. The case is quickly turning into another iconic battle between big government and a besieged family.

“Fears that the confrontation may turn violent and concerns that Bundy is drawing increased support from liberty activists and the local community prompted the feds to tape off two ridiculous ‘First Amendment Areas,’ outside of which free speech in support of Bundy is banned. A sign placed inside the area reads ‘Welcome to Amerika--Wake Up’ alongside a hammer and sickle logo.

“When Bundy’s family members violated that rule yesterday in an attempt to peacefully document the cattle roundup, they were met with a barrage of loudspeaker warnings and four BLM snipers with their guns trained on the dissenters.”

The report goes on saying, “None of the family members were armed, but as soon as Dave Bundy began filming the cattle in the distance, 11 BLM vehicles each with two agents arrived and surrounded him.

“‘They also had four snipers on the hill above us all trained on us. We were doing nothing besides filming the area,’ said Ryan Bundy.


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House Leadership Makes Another End-Run Around Conservatives

Once again, House GOP leaders have shown why it is important for us to elect enough stalwarts to replace the entire leadership team.

Every Republican complains about spending.  One establishment Republican is even running an ad promising to “castrate” D.C. spending.   Yet few of them are committed to blocking a new spending increase, much less roll back existing programs.  Today, House leaders brought a bill to the floor that will increase spending.  They didn’t have enough votes to pass it, so they decided to ram it through by voice vote.

Every year, due to the lack of free-market healthcare for seniors, Congress must supplement payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.  Government intervention into the healthcare market has precipitated such inflationary pressure in the healthcare sector that the government reimbursement rate, known as the SGR formula, is insufficient to cover the costs of Medicare payments.  In order to rectify the situation, instead of passing free-market Medicare reform, Congress passes a temporary fix (doc fix) every year to reimburse doctors for the underpayments, which are roughly 24 percent of their payments.

After failing to adopt the annual temporary “doc fix” last December, the House passed a bill two weeks ago that will permanently boost payments and pay for the increased spending by tying it to a long-term delay of the individual mandate in Obamacare.  H.R. 4015, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act, passed the House with 12 Democrats joining every Republican in the chamber.  This bill actually used a legitimate offset to end this charade of temporary fixes until we can finally impose free market structural reforms on the single-payer Medicare system.

After Senate Democrats balked at the proposal, Republicans decided to give in and pass a temporary extension.  They used a hodgepodge of tenuous offsets spread out mainly over the next 5-10 years to compensate for an immediate expense that will undoubtedly reoccur every year under the 10-year budget frame.  When they sensed that they lacked the votes to pass the bill, House leaders made an end-run around Congress:


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Physicist: There Was No Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

The terrible toll from Japan's tsunami came from the wave, not radiation

I have watched a TV programme called ‘Fear Factor.’ In the series there are contestants who have to confront their worst fears to see who bails out and who can fight the fear and get through.

People who are afraid of heights are made to Bungee-jump off a high bridge, and people who are scared of spiders or insects are made to get in a bath full of spiders.

In virtually all cases the contestants later say that the fearful experience was not actually as bad as they feared. So the fear of the fear was greater than the fear itself ‘when the chips were down.’

This is often the case in life, that the fear of some factor turns out to be worse than the experience itself. The human mind builds a very scary image in the imagination. The imagination then feeds the fear.

If the picture in the imagination is not very specific or clear it is worse, because the fear factor feeds on the unknown.

This is what has happened in the public mind concerning nuclear power over the last half century. Concepts concerning nuclear reactions and nuclear radiation are in themselves complicated and mysterious.

Over the last couple of decades physics advances in fields such as quantum mechanics, which is linked to nuclear processes has compounded matters for the public. The image of strong and mysterious forces and effects is now well entrenched. There are Hollywood movies and TV programmes about space travellers or alien invaders who use time travel and quantum forces, and then battle to evade the dangerous intergalactic nuclear zones.

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How Brittain Resort Corporation Hijacked Our City

 

TO READ HOW WE TAKE THIS TOWN BACK, CLICK THE PICTURE ABOVE

The Myrtle Beach Mafia is certainly not a new term.   It is also not a term we invented.  When we began investigating this article,  we searched the term  ”Myrtle Beach Mafia” on the internet.  This result and this result returned immediately.

The first result was posted online back in 2007:  ”Sarah Pfieffer | Mar 1, 2007  My husband and I have taken several trips to Myrtle Beach through Expedia over the past few years. Yesterday, we were notified that the Myrtle Beach Mafia is trying to keep travel sites like Expedia out of Myrtle Beach.  I have heard that the head of the mafia in Myrtle Beach is Matthew Brittain, head of the Brittain family syndicate.   I have stayed at their hotels before, including the Breakers and the Long Bay Resort, and my husband has booked through their Golf Holiday tee links system, but we are now concerned as we do not want to give money to anything that is not above board.  Does anyone in Toledo know about a Hotel Syndicate known as the Myrtle Beach Mafia?”

matthew-brittain (1)Matthew Brittain is among the most powerful hotel managers in Myrtle Beach.  He heads a property management corporation called Brittain Resort Management Corporation.  The hotels his group runs include: Beach Vacations (MyrtleBeachCondoRentals.com), Bay View Resort, Breakers Resort, Caribbean Resort & Villas, Compass Cove Resort, Hotel Suites Of The Market Common, Island Vista Resort, Litchfield Beach & Golf Resort, Long Bay Resort, Mar Vista Grande, Myrtle Beach Condo Rentals, Myrtlewood Villas, North Beach Plantation, Ocean Reef Resort, Paradise Resort, River Oaks & Grande Villas,  and True Blue Plantation.  Ownership of this group helped envision the Tourist Tax into existence.  A company website prominently boasts of 10,000 rooms to choose among.

In 2005/2006, Matthew’s brother David was the board chairman for VisitMyrtleBeach.com  (The Myrtle Beach Chamber).  Now deceased,  David envisioned the VisitMyrtleBeach.com Tourist Tax along with Woody Crosby  (also deceased).  Managers of the hotels listed above strongly pushed the tourist tax concept to local officials.  Later,  over $324,000 was paid out to local politicians and a candidate for the S.C. Governor’s office through a clearing house set up by VisitMyrtleBeach.com.   Councilmen were paid after they passed the tax and it became law.  The source of the funds has never been determined.  In elections since,  those same, “liked minded hotels, Brittain family members, and business associates” have become among the largest contributors to city councilmen, the mayor, and U.S. Congressman Tom Rice.


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Last Week Was A Bad Week For Abortion As Pro-Lifers Win More Victories

Oh, how the tide has turned against abortion. Just last week, there were three stunning setbacks to the pro-abortion movement.

The first came Tuesday during oral argument in the Hobby Lobby case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The left wing of the Court was having a field day by predicting a parade of horribles if Hobby Lobby were to obtain a religious exemption from contraceptive regulations that violate its owners’ consciences.

prolifeimage11But then, Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote in the Court, startled liberals with a comment he made to the Obama administration’s attorney: “Under your view, a for-profit corporation … could be forced in principle to pay for abortions.”

Kennedy evidently opposes compelling anyone, even for-profit corporations, to pay for abortions. Kennedy has not ruled in favor of abortion in more than two decades, and he is the decisive fifth vote on the issue.

Barely minutes had elapsed after Kennedy’s remark when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit independently issued its own stunning decision against the abortion industry.

It upheld the defunding of Planned Parenthood by the state of Kansas, in Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri v. Robert Moser. Kansas limited, as all states should do, the distribution of federal family planning money under Title X to public entities, hospitals and federally qualified health centers that provide full health care services.

Planned Parenthood is not on the list to receive this taxpayer money, and it ran into court to get a trial judge to block the good law. But on appeal, the 10th Circuit reinstated the law and even held that Planned Parenthood lacked a legal basis to challenge it.


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This Second Grader’s Revenge Against Common Core Math Will Make Your Day

The math curriculum used by the school is GO Math! The publisher of GO Math! is Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
 
The litany of frighteningly stupid Common Core math worksheets never ends. Perhaps now, though, kids are starting to fight back in satisfyingly creative ways.

An alert reader sent The Daily Caller this image of her seven-year-old son’s perfectly reasonable homework answer. The boy attends a public elementary school in San Jose, Calif. He is in the second grade.
 
The parent who sent the homework question to TheDC noted that the curriculum aligns with the Common Core math standards.

“If you look closely under the math question, you will be able to see the Common Core standards in a blue-colored print that aligns to that particular question,” she explained.

The constantly burgeoning inventory of sad and hideous Common Core math problems is very long.



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