The Soviet Socialist State Of South Carolina

The SC Legislature has been trying for at least a year or more to pass the Dilapidated Buildings Act (S 375). This would give the SC Counties the same authority as the cities, outlined in this newsarticle. The Senate recently passed it and the House scheduled it for fast track on the last day they were in session. Fortunately, enough SC citizens found out and bombarded them with emails and phone calls and they decided not to act on it. The citizens’ action may be a day late and a dollar short the next time. This is not going to go away. They’ll try to sneak it past us again in the future. Once they appropriate the same authority for the counties, the state will be next. This is what is referred to as incrementalism by the communists. Yes, I used the “c” word. If that offends you, get a life.

I’ve contacted Senators about this to protest from the first time I heard about it over a year ago. A couple replied to my email with the attitude like “You poor little misguided nincompoop. Why is it you don’t understand that this is good for you. Just listen to us brilliant legislators and we’ll explain why we’re smart and you’re dumb.” Another one arrogantly responded to me that I’d never seen the “property police”. Got news for you senator, you’re wrong on that count and you’re also a liar. I have seen and heard from them. That’s why I thank God I don’t live in the city limits. Most of our cities are basically communist enclaves. It’s not about sanitation, safety or health. It’s about power over the people. As in this newsarticle the authority to confiscate your property and prosecute you before a compliant judge is given to an unelected and unaccountable bureaucrat. They love that Gestapo like power and interpret the laws according to their wishes. Don’t look to your elected officials to help you. They may make excuses. Excuses are simply white washed lies. Telling lies is what “politicians” do best. They may even agree with you but they like having someone deliver while they’re not accountable. I even downloaded S 375 in Word 2010 format, highlighted certain parts and added notes outlining my concerns. I then attached it to an email and forwarded it to my local Tea Party board of directors asking them to take some action even before the senate passed it. Well, that was a great big waste of time. If anyone would like a copy of the legislation with highlights and notes send me your contact information. I’ll be glad to email it to you. It’s only 8 pages and not difficult to read.

We need to be vigilant and work together to make sure such legislation is never passed in South Carolina. If we don’t many of us may be in jail or living under a bridge in the not too distant future. We’ve elected smiling, dishonest “politicians” that have no character or even extremely poor character. If we don’t unite and replace the “politicians” with representatives with character in the next and future elections, well, where’s that bridge again?

Apollo Nida Sentenced To Eight Years For Bank Fraud, ID Theft

Apollo Nida, the husband of Phaedra Parks on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” Tuesday received an eight-year sentence by a federal court judge for his four-year scheme involving bank, mail and wire fraud and ID theft of more than 50 individuals to the tune of  an estimated $2 million.

He cooperated with authorities, which helped reduce his sentence.

Judge Charles Pannell, under sentencing guidelines, could have given him anywhere from 92 to 115 months. The government was okay with the lower end of those guidelines. Pannell went slightly above the 92 months partly because white collar criminals of his ilk tend to have a high rate of recidivism, Pannell said on the stand.

Nida, dressed in a tan suit and wearing a beard and mustache thicker than seen on the television show, questioned the slightly harsher 96-month sentence to the judge and appeared annoyed after the hearing. “The government did what they had to do,” Nida said before entering the elevator the downtown federal courthouse. When asked if he was unhappy about the sentence, he said, “Whatever the judge gave.”

“Today’s sentencing exemplifies impartial justice regardless of economic class or perceived celebrity status.  Nida’s sentence should be an eye opener for other like-minded criminals who scheme to steal victims’ identities, defraud them and ignore the consequences of their actions,” said Reginald G. Moore, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service, Atlanta Field Office, in a press release.


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Why Organic Is Not Just A Fad Or Trend

Guest Article by Robyn O’Brien, cross posted from Prevention.com 

The reason that I do what I do is because I believe that clean and safe food should be affordable to all families.

This isn’t lifestyles of the rich and famous or some hippie thing. It is a fundamental human rights issue. Kroger gets it. Seventy percent of their shoppers are choosing organic or natural every time they enter the store. Wal Mart gets it: they are launching a private label organic line. Annie’s gets it, WhiteWave, Chipotle: just check out their share prices. They know that this shift in consumer demand is not a fad. It is not a trend. Cancer, autism, life threatening food allergies, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s are not fads or trends either. These conditions don’t care if we are Republican or Democrat or where we sit on the socioeconomic ladder. When these conditions and diseases hit our families, our hearts hurt the same way.


And when they hit, more and more families are cleaning out their pantries. Doctors at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center call it “the doorknob syndrome.” A patient has been diagnosed, is sitting in their office, hearing about the procedures and treatments that are going to be done, and as they turn to leave, with their hands on the doorknob, they turn back into the office, toward the doctor and ask: “Is there something I could be doing differently with my diet?”

The cancer doctors that have shared these stories with me call is “the doorknob syndrome” because of how often they have seen it. “We need to upstream this information, they also say.” Yes, we do.
I recently received this email from a dad of three who lost his health and then got it back. This is why I do what I do, as it has everything to do with how our families hold together and our country.


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Anndorie Sachs Is Accused Of Being An Unfit Parent

The story of Anndorie Sachs is unsettling, to say the least. It all began when Sachs (a mother of four who was attending school for a biomedical engineering degree) received a call from the Salt Lake City Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS). It seemed that someone answering Sachs’ name and description had given birth to a premature baby girl, who subsequently tested positive for methamphetamine. The mother had abruptly fled from the hospital leaving the infant and a $10,000 bill behind, and DCFS wanted some answers.

Of course, Sachs was not the mother of this child. The baby girl belonged to a woman named Dorthy Bell Moran, who’d stolen Sachs’ driver’s license from her car two months before. DCFS, however, was preparing to submit paperwork to declare Sachs an unfit mother and put her four kids into state custody. Sachs’ 7-year-old daughter was also pulled out of school by DCFS agents and subjected to questioning.

Eventually, the issue was cleared up, but Sachs’ problems persisted. Her medical records had been changed to include Moran’s health profile, including her blood type and other information. Sachs can’t even view her own medical records to ensure the information has been changed back — the hospitals involved won’t let her, ironically, because it could compromise the identity thief’s own rights to medical privacy. 

“It’s especially scary,” said Sachs, in an interview with WebMD, “because I have a blood-clotting disorder. If a doctor gave me the wrong blood type, it could be fatal.”

Your Takeaway: Medical identity theft is a little-known type of identity theft that can have particularly devastating consequences. In a case like the Sachs fiasco, where the victim has a serious medical condition, the effect could be deadly. While Sachs certainly didn’t mean for it to happen, she helped the identity thief by leaving her license somewhere that it could be stolen. If you never allow your license to leave your possession for any reason, however, you’ll be exponentially decreasing your odds of having your identity stolen in a similar manner.

Banking Bad: One Man’s ID-Theft Nightmare

Fighting a bad cold, Carlos Gomez had decided to sleep by himself that night so he wouldn’t expose his wife.

He awoke to a nightmare. Just before dawn, insistent pounding on the front door jolted the ex-Marine and young father out of bed. Federal agents poured into his Kendall home, pushing his wife aside and rushing to his bedroom. They held guns to his face before slapping him in handcuffs.

“I kept asking, ‘What is going on?’ ’’ recalled Gomez, who works as a UPS driver. “I was scared for my life.”

Gomez, busted in a money laundering scheme, would spend nearly two weeks in a federal detention center and another seven months under house arrest.

It took 222 days before federal prosecutors realized it was all a terrible mistake: A rogue bank worker had stolen his identity.

Thanks in part to Gomez’s own sleuthing, prosecutors eventually discovered he had been wrongfully charged. The Wachovia Bank employee had stolen $1.1 million from customers, then swiped Gomez’s identity to create a checking account under the pilfered name to launder portions of the embezzled proceeds.

Now, nearly three years after the ordeal, Gomez is suing Wachovia for “malicious prosecution.”


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The Judicial-Industrial Complex

Companies, organizations and businesses are all similar to people. They are entities shaped by many factors, some not easily detected. There are countless afflictions which can potentially harm the average person, many without a discernible source or cure. Stress, however, is a common denominator among any number of afflictions, often serving as the accelerator, the catalyst, or even the cause of the affliction. Stress is an invisible killer.

The equivalent of stress in an organization or company is litigation. Stress is created as a result of fear -- an emotion on which some might argue the legal profession is based. By creating a fear of the unknown, attorneys are effectively given license to endlessly bill their clients while creating no-win propositions for their opposition. Granted, a small percentage of cases truly require legal intervention. But most disputes could be easily resolved out of court, often with better results for all parties involved.

In many cases, an actual physical plaintiff seeking representation is not necessary -- just a person to act as the anchor of a class action claim, often over a nominal sum, against a company. Despite this pseudo-plaintiff having never sought representation, the law firm can now proceed with seeking to extract a settlement from the opposing side. Said settlement is calculated to be a percentage of the legal fees and other damages which would be incurred by the party defending the matter, regardless of the outcome. Nevertheless, the main beneficiary is, of course, the law firm mounting the case.

An increasingly alarming number of frivolous cases are being filed, both as class action suits and individual claims. Many proceed for years, sometimes for more than a decade. Even if a claim is defeated, the costs involved in defending a claim are exorbitant. Additionally, accusations contained in the lawsuit become public record, and the attorneys often utilize a negative press campaign along with litigation. The fallout from this tactic is only exacerbated by the Internet, with public fixation on the accusation rather than the outcome. Furthermore, the winner of a litigation is not entitled to recovery of fees and cannot recover the damages resulting from the negative effects of the publicity, often forcing a reasonable defendant to settle the claim in order to save money, mitigate reputational damage, and be able to focus on their business. In short, it's open season for attorneys to sue anyone for virtually any reason, particularly in California.

A 2012 survey by the Institute for Legal Reform ranked California 47th out of 50 among the worst states in "lawsuit climate" and Los Angeles and San Francisco as among the "six least fair jurisdictions in the entire nation." California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, a tort reform group, stated, "California is one of the most litigious states in the nation... Nearly 1.4 million lawsuits are filed in California every year."

The increase in the number of litigations is a direct result of there being no disincentive for attorneys to sue, regardless of whether or not the case is winnable. The only obstacle is surviving the pleading stages, which one might presume is difficult if the claim is truly frivolous, but would be incorrect because of what's called "litigation privilege." For a party to sue another party, they need only allege wrongdoing, regardless of the validity of the allegation. In all states, lying is "protected activity" under litigation privilege, and is without consequence for lawyers.

While the meaning can range depending on venue, litigation privilege basically states that attorneys can commit torts and even crimes as long as they do so in pursuit of their client's interests. That "privilege" protects the attorney not only from acts the attorney directs against the opposing side, but acts committed against any innocent victim -- even if they are not part of the dispute -- who is impacted, intentionally or otherwise, along the way. Different venues have varying definitions for "protected activity," but at a minimum, protected activity provides that attorneys are entitled to lie on behalf of their clients. The public policy purpose, which attorneys promoted as the justification for litigation privilege, was to allow attorneys to sue anyone they wished without intimidation. The result however is the ability for attorneys to litigate against anyone without consideration for whether or not a claim is valid. Essentially, attorneys are not accountable for what they do so long as that activity is done under the broad interpretation of "in pursuit of their client's interests."


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A Fresh Look At The Veterans’ Scandal

Let’s set the stage for discussing the scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs: A new president, promising hope and change, campaigns to help veterans and improve their medical care. He appoints a decorated war hero to head the Veterans Bureau. But soon thousands of veterans complain about wait times and lack of treatment. On the financial side, leaders at the Veterans Bureau cook the books, and make fortunes buying and selling land to build new VA hospitals. Taxpayers lose millions of dollars in fraud and the medical needs of veterans are often ignored.

Sound familiar? It should. That’s the story of President Warren Harding and Charles Forbes, the man Harding chose as the first head of the Veterans Bureau. From the start, the Veterans Bureau was corrupt and mismanaged. Government was not capable of sound administration in the 1920s, under President Harding, and not much has improved ninety years later under President Obama. The fraud at Veterans Affairs then and now may be a foreshadowing of government-run health care for the nation.

The idea of hospital care for veterans began after World War I. Before that, war veterans received small pensions if they could show they were injured in military service to the point they could not do their civilian jobs. The American Legion became a powerful lobby after WWI, and free health care for vets became a reality in the 1920s. A more financially sound idea for providing medical care would have been to give vouchers to veterans for medical services at existing hospitals. But politicians saw advantages to setting up special veterans’ hospitals in their political districts–Congressmen, under a system of government-run hospitals, could take credit with voters for building new hospitals locally for veterans.

The good intentions of medical help for veterans turned into scandal and fraud right from the start. President Harding and the many supporters of the new veterans’ hospitals did not understand that new incentives were in place for corruption, not health care. Lt. Col. Charles Forbes, the new head of the Veterans Bureau, won the Distinguished Service Medal in WWI. But once in power in government, he and his friends made millions of dollars from selling high priced land for the new hospitals, and then overcharging to build them.


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