Saturday, January 31, 2015

Iran: Unafraid and Undeterred by Caroline Glick

Iran: Unafraid and Undeterred
New-Iranian-President-Hassan-Rouhani-encouraged-by-Obamas-positive-tone-NBC-News-645x325Originally published by the Jerusalem Post
Israel’s reported strike January 18 on a joint Iranian-Hezbollah convoy driving on the Syrian Golan Heights was one of the most strategically significant events to have occurred in Israel’s neighborhood in recent months. Its significance lies both in what it accomplished operationally and what it exposed.
From what been published to date about the identities of those killed in the strike, it is clear that in one fell swoop the air force decapitated the Iranian and Hezbollah operational command in Syria.
The head of Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, the head of its liaison with Iran, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Hezbollah’s longtime operational commander Imad Mughniyeh who was killed by Israel in Damascus in 2008, were killed. The younger Mughniyeh reportedly served as commander of Hezbollah forces along the Syrian-Israeli border.
According to a report by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shimon Shapira, a Hezbollah expert from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the Iranian losses included three generals. Brig.- Gen. Mohammed Alladadi was the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps liaison officer to Hezbollah and to Syrian intelligence. He was also in charge of weapons shipments from Iran to Hezbollah. Gen. Ali Tabatabai was the IRGC commander in the Golan Heights and, according to Shapira, an additional general, known only as Assadi, “was, in all likelihood, the commander of Iranian expeditionary forces in Lebanon.”
The fact that the men were willing to risk exposure by traveling together along the border with Israel indicates how critical the front is for the regime in Tehran. It also indicates that in all likelihood, they were planning an imminent attack against Israel.
According to Ehud Yaari, Channel 2’s Arab Affairs commentator, Iran and Hezbollah seek to widen Hezbollah’s front against Israel from Lebanon to Syria. They wish to establish missile bases on the northern Hermon, and are expanding Hezbollah’s strategic depth from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to the outskirts of Damascus.
On Wednesday night, Yaari reported that the Syrian military has ceased to function south of Damascus. In areas not held by the al-Qaida-aligned Nusra Front and other regime opponents, the IRGC and Hezbollah have taken control, using the Syrian militia they have trained since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
The effectiveness of Hezbollah’s control of its expanded front was on display on Wednesday morning. Almost at the same time that Hezbollah forces shot at least five advanced Kornet antitank missiles at an IDF convoy along Mount Dov, killing two soldiers and wounding seven, Hezbollah forces on the Golan shot off mortars at the Hermon area.
While these forces are effective, they are also vulnerable. Yaari noted that today, three-quarters of Hezbollah’s total forces are fighting in Syria. Their twofold task is to defend the Assad regime and to build the Iranian-controlled front against Israel along the Golan Heights. Most of the forces are in known, unfortified, above ground positions, vulnerable to Israeli air strikes.
THE IDENTITIES of the Iranian and Lebanese personnel killed in the Israeli strike indicate the high value Iran and Hezbollah place on developing a new front against Israel in Syria.
The fact that they are in control over large swathes of the border area and are willing to risk exposure in order to ready the front for operations exposes Iran’s strategic goal of encircling Israel on the ground and the risks it is willing to take to achieve that goal.
But Iran’s willingness to expose its forces and Hezbollah forces also indicates something else. It indicates that they believe that there is a force deterring Israel from attacking them.
And this brings us to another strategic revelation exposed by the January 18 operation.
Earlier this week, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdolahian told Iran’s IRNA news agency that the regime had told its American interlocutors to tell Israel that it intended to strike Israel in retribution for the attack. The State Department did not deny that Iran had communicated the message, although it claims that it never relayed the message.
While the Obama administration did perhaps refuse to serve as Iran’s messenger, it has worked to deter Israel from striking Hezbollah and Iranian targets in Syria. Whereas Israel has a policy of never acknowledging responsibility for its military operations in Syria, in order to give President Bashar Assad an excuse to not retaliate, the US administration has repeatedly informed the media of Israeli attacks and so increased the risk that such Israeli operations will lead to counterattacks against Israel.
The US has also refused to acknowledge Iran’s control over the Syrian regime, and so denied the basic fact that through its proxies, Iran is developing a conventional threat against Israel. For instance, earlier this month, Der Spiegel reported that Iran has been building a secret nuclear facility in Syria. When questioned about the report, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf sought to downplay its significance. When a reporter asked if the administration would raise the report in its nuclear negotiations with Iran, Harf replied, “No, the upcoming talks are about the Iranian nuclear program.”
Until this month, the White House continued to pay lip service to the strategic goal of removing Assad – and by inference Iran, which controls and protects him – from power in Syria. Lip service aside, it has been clear at least since September 2013, when President Barack Obama refused to enforce his own redline and take action against the Assad regime after it used chemical weapons against its opponents, that he had no intention of forcing Assad from power. But this month the administration crossed a new Rubicon when Secretary of State John Kerry failed to call for Assad to be removed to power in talks with the UN envoy in Syria Staffan de Mistura. Right before he met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Kerry told Mistura, “It is time for President Assad, the Assad regime, to put their people first and to think about the consequences of their actions, which are attracting more and more terrorists to Syria, basically because of their efforts to remove Assad.”
IRAN’S PRESENCE on the Golan Heights is of course just one of the many strategic advances it has made in expanding its territorial reach. Over the past two weeks, Iranian-controlled Houthi militias have consolidated their control over Yemen, with their overthrow of the US-allied government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Rather than defend the elected government that has fought side-by-side with US special forces in their Yemen-based operations against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the administration is pretending that little has changed. It pretends it will still be able to gather the intelligence necessary to carry out drone strikes against al-Qaida terrorists even though its allies have now lost power.
The post-Houthi-conquest goal of the administration’s policy in Yemen is to seek a national dialogue that will include everyone from Iran’s proxy government to al-Qaida.
The idea is that everyone will work together to write a new constitution. It is impossible to understate the delusion at the heart of this plan.
With the conquest of Yemen, Iran now controls the Gulf of Aden. Together with the Straits of Hormuz, Iran now controls the region’s two maritime outlets to the open sea.
Far beyond the region, Iran expands its capacity to destabilize foreign countries and so advance its interests. Last week, Lee Smith raised the reasonable prospect that it was Iran that assassinated Argentinean prosecutor Alberto Nisman two weeks ago. Nisman was murdered the night before he was scheduled to make public the findings of his 10-year investigation into the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center and the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. According to Smith, Nisman had proof that Iran had carried out the terrorist attacks to retaliate against Argentina for abrogating its nuclear cooperation with Tehran.
From the Golan Heights to Gaza, from Yemen and Iraq to Latin America to Nantanz and Arak, Iran is boldly advancing its nuclear and imperialist agenda. As Charles Krauthammer noted last Friday, the nations of the Middle East allied with the US are sounding the alarm.
Earlier this week, during Obama’s visit with the new Saudi King Salman, he got an earful from the monarch regarding the need to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But it seemed to have no impact on his nuclear diplomacy with Teheran. The administration believes that Iran and Saudi Arabia will be able to kiss and make up and bury a thousand- year rivalry between Sunni and Shi’ite Islam because they both oppose the Islamic State. This too is utter fantasy.
Israel’s January 18 strike on Iranian and Hezbollah commanders in Syria showed Israel’s strategy wisdom and independent capacity.
Israel can and will take measures to defend its critical security interests. It has the intelligence gathering capacity to identify and strike at targets in real time.
But it also showed the constraints Israel is forced to operate under in its increasingly complex and dangerous strategic environment.
Due to the US administration’s commitment to turning a blind eye to Iran’s advances and the destabilizing role it plays everywhere it gains power, Israel can do little more than carry out precision attacks against high value targets. The flipside of the administration’s refusal to see the dangers, and so enable Iran’s territorial expansion and its nuclear progress, is its determination to ensure that Israel does nothing to prevent those dangers from growing – whether along its borders or at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Freedom Center pamphlets now available on K

Whahhhh Whahhhh! I'm Black! (And NOT an Adult!)

Look, play that race card well.....
On a cold Sunday afternoon 10 years ago, Comfort and Kofi Boateng stood with Comfort’s mother and their three children before a quarter-acre parcel in a brand-new subdivision in the center of Prince George’s County.
The place was called Fairwood. They stepped onto Lot 71, an empty stretch of gravel, and closed their eyes and bowed their heads. Comfort raised her hands to the sky.
$617,000 worth of house on approximately $110,000 in gross income, living in one of the highest-tax areas of the nation.
If you read Leverage you know that the historical "safe" leverage limit for home buying is 28% of one's gross.  This purchase was close to doublethat safe limit.
Of course this is called a "plight", never mind that the two have not made a mortgage payment in over 2,000 days, or more than six years.
That's right -- these folks are "plighted" and "horribly damaged" and it's all someone else's fault despite living for free in a $600,000 house for more than six years.
Why six years?  That's kind of obvious -- the banks do not wish to recognize the loss on resale of the house that is worth far less than was lent on it, and if they foreclose and then resell it, they'll have to do that.  So they "let" the couple live there for free because it makes their balance sheet look better. 
In other words this couple gets a "free ride" by aiding and abetting fraud at the lender who "granted" them the loan!
It gets even better.  Five years earlier than their act of stupidity with this house they bought a nicely-affordable townhouse for $129,000!
But then they decided to have more kids (a choice), and suddenly "needed" more house.  Five times as much house, to be exact, in dollar terms.
Oh, and that wasn't all.  There was borrowing going on by one of the spouses without the other's knowledge, there was Mary Kay, there was all sorts of financial engineering -- including signing a piece of paper at the closing that their financial situation had not changed while knowing it had as the husband had been laid off in the interim.
In other words they appear to have committed mortgage fraud as well.
But they're victims, you see.  They were taken advantage of, despite being active in the deception.
Never mind the magical thinking.
This, my friends, is what's wrong with this country.  Refusal to call things what they are, to take responsibility, to be adults, is why we're here.  It's why we all think we deserve big houses and expensive European cars, it's why we believe those teachers, firefighters and cops who claim to deservepension payments and medical care for life at our expense, it's why we believe prices never go down, always up and that they do so magically, not by destroying the value of the currency.
In short we deserve what we got in 2008 and what we are on the brink of getting now, which is going to be several times worse than 2008, because we not only refused to face reality then we continue to do so today.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE SAYS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS SHOULD WORK, GOP WILL CONFIRM

On Thursday, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) announced that he would vote against the nomination of Loretta Lynch for attorney general based on her statement that she supported President Obama’s executive amnesty.

Sessions explained:
Unfortunately, when asked today whether she found the President’s actions to be ‘legal and constitutional,’ Ms. Lynch said that she did. I therefore am unable to support her nomination. My concerns are furthered by Ms. Lynch’s unambiguous declaration that ‘the right and the obligation to work is one that’s shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here.’
Unfortunately, many other Republicans did not share Sessions’ sentiments, tossing softball questions at Lynch throughout her confirmation hearing. Nonetheless, Lynch demurred from answering over and over again, abiding by the new rule that nominees must avoid giving honest answers lest they be held accountable for those answers.
For example, when queried about the legal difference between the case for same-sex marriage and the case for polygamy by Senator Lindsey Graham, Lynch simply refused to answer. “Senator,” she said, “I have not been involved in the argument or the analysis of the cases that have gone before the Supreme Court. So I’m not comfortable undertaking legal analysis without having had the ability to undertake a review of the relevant facts and the precedent there. So I certainly would not be able to provide you with that analysis at this point, but I look forward to continuing the discussions with you.” Right.
The dodges didn’t stop there. When asked about Obama’s executive amnesty, she deferred on every major legal question. She said that Obama’s amnesty was not in fact “permanent status,” even though Obama says he will not deport any of those who fall within his criteria. She added that she would not say if such illegal immigrants could sue for employment discrimination, adding that she looked forward to “discussing it with you and using, and relying upon your thoughts and experiences as we consider that point.” This was her fallback line, obviously: when in doubt, say she looks forward to discussing these hot legal issues over a cup of coffee with the president’s political opposition. How theoretically bipartisan!
To drive home the point that she would never oppose Obama’s executive amnesty, she dodged questions on the issue again and again, then said that everyone had the right to work in the United States – which ought to provide a problem, since there are approximately 6.8 billion people on the planet who do not live legally in the United States. “If someone is here,” she said, “regardless of status, I’d prefer they are participating in the workplace.” She had to be pressed repeatedly before admitting that citizenship is legally a privilege, not a right, finally conceding, “Citizenship is a privilege that has to be earned.” Sessions, bemused, stated, “I am a little surprised it took you that long.”
When asked about whether there were any limits at all to the executive’s authority under the rubric of prosecutorial discretion, she answered vaguely. Senator Mike Lee grilled her, explaining that giving permits to people to break the law did not amount to prosecutorial discretion. Lee likened Obama’s executive amnesty to law enforcement officers giving people permits to break the speed limit. Lynch remained unmoved. “Without knowing more about it, I’m not able to respond to the hypothetical,” she said, ignoring the fact that Lee’s case study was an analogy, not a hypothetical. “It certainly doesn’t sound like something that a law enforcement officer would be engaged in.”
To which Lee ought to have answered, “Tell that to your boss, since that’s precisely what he’s doing.” But that wouldn’t have moved Lynch, either.
Lynch did a good job playing the non-Eric Holder. When asked what distinguished her from Holder, she began spouting platitudes: “I would be myself. I would be Loretta Lynch. I pledge that I want to hear your concerns. I want to discuss those issues with you.” She said that not all voter ID laws would present concerns. She then tried to claim that unlike Holder, she would work closely with law enforcement rather than targeting law enforcement:
Throughout my career as a prosecutor, it has been my honor to work hand-in-hand with dedicated law enforcement officers and agents who risk their lives every day in the protection of the communities we all serve. Few things have pained me more than the recent reports of tension and division between law enforcement and the communities we serve.
Lynch also said she would continue to enforce marijuana laws, unlike Attorney General Holder, who has ignored enforcement of pot laws in states that have legalized the substance. She added that she would recommend either civilian or military courts for terrorists depending on the circumstances, but ripped into the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation techniques: “Waterboarding is torture, Senator,” she told Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), “and thus illegal.” She did not say if she would prosecute members of the CIA who engaged in the practice.
The vast majority of the senators will vote for Lynch thanks to her inspirational personal story and the fact that any nominee of President Obama’s will undoubtedly back his executive amnesty. And perhaps Lynch will be a better attorney general than Holder. But then again, that isn’t saying much – and it is too bad that Republicans take their Constitutional oaths lightly enough to merely settle for a presidential nominee rather than holding her feet to the fire.
Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book,The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org.Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

As The Middle Class Evaporates, Global Oligarchs Plan Their Escape Form The Impoverished Pleb Masses



The middle class has shrunk consistently over the past half-century. Until 2000, the reason was primarily because more Americans moved up the income ladder. But since then, the reason has shifted: There is a greater share of households on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

– From yesterday’s New York Times article: Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up

At a packed session in Davos, former hedge fund director Robert Johnson revealed that worried hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said.

So the other day, President Barack Obama once again demonstrated his contempt for the American public by using his State of the Union address to pejoratively blurt out meaningless phrases such as “but tonight, we turn the page” and: “The verdict is clear. Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don’t get in the way.”
Sorry, but why are “we turning the page” tonight? Weren’t you elected over six years ago? Why didn’t you turn the page in 2009?
Meanwhile, I’m astounded by the phrase “middle-class economics works.” Perhaps it does, but how would anyone know? The only thing I’ve seen from his administration is a laser focused determination to consolidate all American wealth and power into the hands of a tiny group of oligarchs and their lapdogs.
Indeed, the following articles published in the last two days by the New York Times and theGuardian show the true results of Obama’s oligarch-coddling legacy. The Obama years have been nothing short of an oligarch crime scene.
First, from the New York Times:
The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century.

In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets.

But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the main reason being that more people have fallen to the bottom. At the same time, fewer of those in this group fit the traditional image of a married couple with children at home, a gap increasingly filled by the elderly.
Remember, middle-class economics works. If the goal is its total destruction.
These charts from the New York Times do not tell the tale of a thriving economy:
Screen Shot 2015-01-26 at 10.17.50 AM
Even as the American middle class has shrunk, it has gone through a transformation. The 53 million households that remain in the middle class — about 43 percent of all households — look considerably different from their middle-class predecessors of a previous generation, according to a New York Times analysis of census data.

In recent years, the fastest-growing component of the new middle class has been households headed by people 65 and older. Today’s seniors have better retirement benefits than previous generations. Also, older Americans are increasingly working past traditional retirement age. More than eight million, or 19 percent, were in the labor force in 2013, nearly twice as many as in 2000.

According to a New York Times poll in December, 60 percent of people who call themselves middle class think that if they work hard they will get rich. But the evidence suggests that goal is increasingly out of reach. When middle class people look up, they see the rich getting richer while they spin their wheels.
One of the main reasons we have seen such a low level of resistance to this historic oligarch theft, is due to the successful brainwashing of the American public. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, 60% of what is left of the middle-class still think they are going to get rich. They have no idea that they are really just a bunch of deluded plebs unable to see how systematically and catestrophically they are being played.
Meanwhile, the Guardian describes how many global oligarchs are already planning their escape. These people know full well they are being enriched criminally. Their response is to take as much money as possible and flee before the pitchforks emerge (see: The Pitchforks are Coming…– A Dire Warning from a Member of the 0.01%).
With growing inequality and the civil unrest from Ferguson and the Occupy protests fresh in people’s mind, the world’s super rich are already preparing for the consequences. At a packed session in Davos, former hedge fund director Robert Johnson revealed that worried hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said.

But as former New Zealand prime minister and now UN development head Helen Clark explained, rather than being a game changer, recent examples suggest the Ferguson movement may soon be forgotten. “We saw Occupy flare up and then fade like many others like it,” Clark said. “The problem movements like these have is stickability. The challenge is for them to build structures that are ongoing; to sustain these new voices.”

Clarke said: “Solutions are there. What’s been lacking is political will. Politicians do not respond to those who don’t have a voice In the end this is all about redistributing income and power.”

She added: “Seventy five percent of people in developing countries live in places that are less equal than they were in 1990.”
Welcome to the recovery suckers.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

The Same Surgery In The Same City Can Vary In Price By 313%—And That's A Sign Of A Much Larger Problem

Shopping around for the best value before you make a big purchase is a key part of most financial transactions.
Yet despite all the money that changes hands, our madcap healthcare system seems to operate on another planet, with different, mostly inscrutable rules. Patients rarely have enough power or information to shop around, and even if they did, prices for medical procedures often vary so wildly they seem to be almost arbitrary.
A new report from Blue Cross Blue Shield, The Health of America analyzed the cost of hip and knee surgeries in 64 areas across the US and found that the amount charged for the same procedure in the same city varied by as much as 313%.
With a pricing system that's so unpredictable and uncontrolled, it's no wonder patients so frequently find themselves mystified—and broke.

One Procedure, Many Prices

First, it bears noting that the amount charged by the hospital is different from the amount negotiated by an insurer, which is itself different from the amount owed by a patient.
That's one reason deciphering hospital bills can be so frustrating. It's also a perfect example of why people can end up buried under a mountain of confusing medical debt if they are uninsured, lack good insurance, or simply don't understand what their insurance plans actually cover.
"Increasingly, consumers are being asked to bear the responsibility [for high charges] through high copays or high deductibles," explained Dan Mendelson, the CEO of consulting firm Avalere Health and a former associate director for health at the federal Office of Management and Budget.
That's why patients should discuss costs with their providers and insurers before they have a procedure. "It's shocking," Mendelson told Business Insider, how few consumers actually know to do this.
The Blue Cross Blue Shield report drove this point home. "If you are in a plan that charges a $30 copay to see an orthopedist, that is your cost," explained Mendelson. But if you have a high deductible, if your surgery isn't covered, or if you are uninsured, your already high costs may end up being three times higher just because you chose the wrong hospital.

Each City Is Different

That 313% gap between the lowest- and highest-priced hip replacement surgeries was in Boston, the report found, where charges ranged from $17,910 to $73,987. Dallas had a similar situation: The price of knee surgeries there varied 267%—from $16,772 to $61,584.
Variation in price doesn't tell the whole story, though. A market can have low variability but still high average prices, and these average costs also varied considerably between cities, the report found. Montgomery, Alabama had the lowest average costs for knee and hip surgeries (both about $16,000); New York's average costs were the highest (about $60,000).
Here's a look at the areas with the highest and lowest variance and the highest and lowest average costs:
The report focused on these two procedures because they are common—in 2011, there were nearly a million hip and knee surgeries in the US—and they are on the rise.
They are also almost always scheduled surgeries, not the kind of emergency procedures that would make it impossible to discuss cost in advance. (Incidentally, emergency procedure prices vary wildly too; one California study found more than 100% variability in what local hospitals were charging for appendectomies, with unadjusted bills ranging from $1,500 to $180,000.)

No Upper Limits

"There are no restrictions on what a provider can bill," Mendelson pointed out, noting that it's typically the job of insurance companies to haggle so that prices don't get out of control. But as networks get narrower and hospitals merge, insurance companies don't have a lot of leverage in some parts of the country.
When two of Boston's top hospitals, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, merged into one system in 1994, they created one very powerful network, Partners HealthCare. Costs soared.
"Investigations by the state attorney general’s office have documented that the merger gave the hospitals enormous market leverage to drive up health care costs in the Boston area by demanding high reimbursements from insurers that were unrelated to the quality or complexity of care delivered," noted an editorial in The New York Times.
The massive price variability uncovered by the Blue Cross Blue Shield researchers and others before them is just one symptom of a healthcare system in which patients must always be on the defensive, ready to protect themselves against hospitals that overcharge, insurers that underpay, and a system that—in spite of recent reforms—is still far too challenging for most patients to navigate and understand.

What Now?

There is one reason to be hopeful that the situation will eventually improve.
Some insurers and a wide array of startups like CastlightClear Health Costs, and Healthcare Bluebook are rallying behind an important new trend: healthcare price transparency. That's the idea that quality ratings, as well as the amount patients will need to pay for various procedures, should all be easy to look up and understand. Medicare is jumping on board too; it's recently made hospital charges for various procedures public information for the first time.
Healthcare reformers and patient advocates are hoping that more transparency will empower patients to choose wisely and eventually lead to fairer pricing across the board. Until then though, Mendelson said, "the most important thing that consumers need to take away from all this is that they have to understand the charges before they agree to the service."
Talk to your doctor. Talk to your insurer. And don't be left with a bill that's three times higher than your neighbor's.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/surgery-cost-variation-blue-cross-blue-shield-2015-1#ixzz3Pjmq79yW

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Eric Holder’s changes to civil asset seizures are easily thwarted

POSTED AT 8:01 AM ON JANUARY 21, 2015 BY JAZZ SHAW

Today’s story stretches well back into last year and it’s one which requires a lot more attention and outrage from the public before any progress will be made, it seems. The subject at hand once again deals with the completely out of control practice of law enforcement officials at the local, state and federal levels seizing the cash, property and assets of suspects and keeping the proceeds regardless of the status of the case. We saw the IRS doing this to small business owners as well as cops grabbing trunk loads of cash without ever bringing charges against the drivers who had it.
Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder took action on this subject, bringing an end to the practice of such seizures absent a conviction for law enforcement efforts involving the federal government.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges.
Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.
That looks like progress at first glance, and I actually give Holder credit for making the effort. Unfortunately, the real world implications are severely limited. As Radley Balko points out this week, the so called equitable-sharing program applies only in limited cases and there are loopholes in which you could drive a cash laden truck through. I’ve had my disagreements with Balko in the past, (particularly over his tendency to attack the police for essentially anything they do) but he’s spot on in this case. Every program which involves federal funding or has even one federal “handler” monitoring activities can still wind up seizing assets in the same fashion under the seizure friendly guidelines for federal programs. And in too many other cases, the police can still fall back on state laws which – at least in some cases – make it just as easy to snatch and grab the goods without the suspect having their day in court.
But perhaps more to the point, Balko correctly notes that none of this addresses the underlying flaw with this theory of government intervention.
The fundamental unfairness of civil asset forfeiture is its basis on the legal fiction that a piece of property can be guilty of a crime. Therefore, forfeiture proceedings are civil, not criminal. This means you can lose your property despite never being convicted of a crime. In fact, in most civil forfeiture cases, the owner of the property is never even charged. Holder’s trying to trim the abuses, but law enforcement agencies at every level are too dependent on the lucre to cut out the process completely. Since the announcement, a few readers have asked on social media what would need to be done to eliminate the practice. It’s pretty simple: Congress could pass a law to tomorrow to require a criminal conviction before the government can keep seized assets. That would end civil forfeiture at the federal level. Any state legislature could do the same thing to end it within a particular state.
It is a cornerstone of the American justice system that you – the individual – are innocent until proven guilty. Your punishment may not be meted out until you’ve had the chance to defend yourself and been found in violation of the laws of the land. But in incidents where these civil forfeitures take place, your property is, in essence, guilty until proven innocent. Once they have their hands on it, you often can not get it back unless and until you can prove that the property is legally yours. In the case of the diner owner linked at the top of this article, the IRS has been sitting on her money for ages with no pending action against her. She simply couldn’t afford the legal costs associated with proving that they needed to return her money.
This is a flatly unamerican way to do business. And as Radley says, it could be stopped almost immediately if the government at both levels had any incentive to do so. The problem is that they have become so addicted to the cash flow to fund their various programs outside of the normal appropriations process that they don’t want to give up the skim. Since there is no motivation for police departments to do the right thing on their own, voters at the state and local level will need to find candidates for mayor and governor who are willing to run on a platform of repealing such abuse and holding them to those promises if elected.
Either way, this is an abomination which needs to stop. Clearly the government should be able to seize (and keep and use) the assets of actual criminals who are convicted in a court of law. But that’s an important qualifier and the bar should never have been lowered on it.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Green-lipsticked YOUTUBE star to interview president...

Meet the woman who will interview Obama Tuesday: GloZell Green – the green lipstick-wearing YouTube sensation who earned notoriety by gagging and swallowing a ladle full of cinnamon.
The Los Angeles-based YouTube star begins her clips by asking her viewers, “Hello this is Glozell! Is you OK? Is you? Good, ’cause I wanted to know!’”
WhiteHouse.gov said the interview after the president’s State of the Union address will be an example of “efforts by the president and his administration to speak directly to the American people online, and we’re always looking for new ways to do just that.”
GloZell Lynette Simon, who featured videos such as “My push-up bra will help me get my man,” reportedly set up her YouTube channel in 2008 for video interviews and song parodies. Now she is one of three YouTube stars selected to interview Obama.
In her announcement of the upcoming video, GloZell chortles, “I am so excited because I have been asked to interview POTUS – the president of the United States of Americ-errr. I know you’re like, what did she just say? I know, the president of the United States!”
Watch the video of her announcement:
“I need questions. Please, please, please, please … I hope the president likes green,” she say. “I’m gonna play it cool, be like, ‘Yo, whaz up? OK, president, O, I’m ready, AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
She ends her announcement with a warning not to cough on the president, and a bout of hacking and wheezing.
GloZell has suggested she may ask the president questions about “racial profiling” and “peanut butter or jelly.”
In a previous episode of her show, GloZell has bathed in a tub filled with milk and Froot Loops. She eats the cereal while thrashing about in the tub:
image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/01/GloZell_Fruit_Loops.jpg
GloZell_Fruit_Loops

In yet another clip, she holds onions to her face and tries not to cry:
image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/01/GloZell_onions.jpg
GloZell_onions

GloZell has even provided tips on how to perform a breast exam while wearing large stuffed breasts:
image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/01/GloZell.jpg
GloZell


Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/what-the-look-whos-grilling-obama-now/#RLpFPwYGcMJQDgzI.99