Critical Thinking

Racism101

2021-04-01T19:09:00.006-07:00

WHAT I CAN TEACH YOU

ABOUT RACISM

Let me tell you how my story ends: I become a tenured, award-winning professor of political science at an Ivy League university, and then at one of the leading universities in the South.

Now let me tell you how my story begins: I grow up in rural Virginia, literally dirt poor. I drop out of school in the eighth grade and have three children by the time I'm 20.

I consider myself to be a reasonably modest person, but even I have to admit that's quite a journey.

How did I do it?

I worked hard. Not crazy, 24/7 hard—just hard. I made good decisions. Not brilliant, three-dimensional-chess decisions—just good ones. I met people along the way who helped me and sincerely wanted to see me succeed—not because they had something to gain, but because they were decent people. Almost all of these individuals, by the way, were white.

But mostly, I think I was blessed in one crucial way: I was born in America, a true land of opportunity for anyone of any color or background. In this country, where you start your life does not determine where you end up.

That works in both directions, by the way. You can start out with every advantage and waste them all. Or you can start out with nothing and become a success. It all depends on you. Your attitude is far more important than your race, gender, or social class in determining what you will accomplish in life.

When I hear young Blacks—or anyone, for that matter—talk about systemic racism, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I want to laugh because it's such nonsense. I want to cry because I know it's pushing untold numbers of young Blacks into a dead end of self-pity and despair. Instead of seizing the amazing opportunities America offers them, they seize an excuse to explain why they're not succeeding.

I was born into a world where systemic racism was real—no-fooling, outright-bigotry, back-of-the-bus real. But here's what you need to know: Yes, that racism shaped the black experience—but even then, it did not define it. Change was in the air. Call it systemic reform.

The modern Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy, and the leaders who fought for equal rights for Blacks were men and women of all races. They believed in America and were determined to see it live up to its highest ideals—ideals manifest in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

(https://cgalightbearer.blogspot.com/2020/08/only-in-america-living-dream.html)

Did I know, growing up, that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves? I don't think I ever thought about it. If I did, I'd like to think that I would have had enough common sense to know that we can't judge men who lived 250 years ago by the moral standards of our own day.

But I know that Jefferson wrote the words in the Declaration of Independence that made slavery ultimately impossible: that all men are created equal. And I know that Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Adams and the rest of the Founders risked everything to make my world, my America, possible. How could I not be grateful for that and for the sacrifices so many others have made to preserve it?

The truth is I cannot remember a time when I did not love America and feel pride in the belief that I live in the greatest country in the world. I knew if I diligently pursued my ambitions, I could leave the poverty of my early years, with all its abuse and depression, behind me.

I was fortunate in another way. I was spared the life-sapping, negative messages about America that are crippling a generation of young people. These ideas are poison:

☆ White privilege.
☆ Whiteness as a form of property.
☆ Unconscious racism.
☆ Reparations.
☆ Microaggressions.
☆ Police have it out for blacks.
☆ That the United States was created to protect and promote slavery.

These are the ideas young people are told they must accept. And then they're told to reject the ideas that can save them—the antidote: the success principles that enabled me and millions of other Americans to escape lives of poverty.

These principles aren't complicated: work hard, learn from your mistakes, take personal responsibility for your actions. When I made the decisions to get my high school equivalency, attend a community college, and then earn four additional college and university degrees, I believed that my education would open doors. And it did.

It was only when exposed to academic theories of oppression in graduate school that I was informed that because I was Black, poor, and female, I could never do what I had already accomplished.

Thank God, it was too late for these toxic messages to stop me. Don't let them stop you.
—Carol Swain

2020 Voter Fraud Coup

2020-11-07T09:30:00.007-08:00

AMERICA UNDER SIEGE.

"Color Revolution": Biden team is following carefully scripted coup intended to take down America

'This is a carefully scripted coup intended to take down our constitutional republic and transform it into something unrecognizable to our Founders and inimical to our liberties'

November 5, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – I know that some of you may be dispirited, even despairing, that Trump and all of us who support him didn’t achieve a decisive win on election day. But events are moving very quickly now. We need everyone to get back on their feet and back in the game. Your country needs you. The babies need you.

The first thing everyone must recognize is the seriousness of the current situation. We are in the middle of what is called Color Revolution. This is a carefully scripted coup intended to take down our constitutional republic and transform it into something unrecognizable to our Founders and inimical to our liberties.

This means that what just happened was not a “normal” election. Rather, it was a pre-scripted scam used by the revolutionaries to determine how many votes they needed to tip the balance in their favor. Once they knew that number—in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—late ballots are being “discovered” to put their candidate in the lead. This is how the Left operates in places like Venezuela. It must not be allowed to succeed here.

The forces arrayed against us are formidable. I’m not talking here just about the Democrat Party. Despite the fact that it has been hollowed out by Socialists, it alone could be dealt with. Rather, I’m talking also about the Globalists and their institutions, including Wall Street and the major U.S. media. And, of course, I’m talking about the Chinese Communists and their many front organizations and flunkies in the United States. Joe Biden is the compromise candidate of all these groups.

In the same way, the chaos is not just about President Trump; it is about defeating and disarming every last one of us who believes in the promise of America as a sovereign nation that defends life, protects liberty, and preserves equal justice before the law. As the president has said, “They are really after you. I am just in the way.”

In order to encourage each other and organize, we must all move onto new media. Even Fox (aside from the evening talk show hosts) can no longer be trusted. Sign up for LifeSiteNews and other news sites like Epoch Times, Breitbart, Newsmax, One America News (OAN), or Real America’s Voice. Use Twitter but link up on Parler as well for the day when @Jack shuts you down like he has so many others.

To encourage ourselves and others, keep the Trump signs up and the flags flying. Ramp back up the Trump Trains that shocked the opposition. I look for the President and his surrogates to start holding rallies again soon. It’s a great way for him to bypass the hostile media and speak directly to the American people.

Don’t listen to the voices of surrender—there will surely be a few of these from the members of the Republican Establishment. Take your cues instead from people like Newt Gingrich, Tom Cotton, Allen West, Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump Jr., and, of course, from the President himself.

Finally and most importantly, we must pray. Try to spend some time before the Blessed Sacrament to pray for our country and our president. The late, great Father John Hardon often reminded us to never underestimate the graces that flow from spending any amount of time in His Eucharistic presence.

Prayer can change history. We all know about the Battle of Lepanto. But let me also share with you a much more recent example that comes from the “People Power” revolution in the Philippines which was shared with me by Cardinal Jaime Sin, the then-Cardinal-Archbishop of Manilla, over dinner some years ago.

In 1986, the people of Manilla rose up and demanded an end to the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. Cardinal Sin was afraid that the demonstrations, which grew larger every day, would end in a government crackdown and much bloodshed.

He called all of the convents in the country and begged the nuns to get down on their knees before the Blessed Sacrament and pray for divine intervention. “Raise your arms to Heaven as Moses did and pray for victory,” he told them. “Pray that Marcos will step down, and democracy restored.”

The key moment came when the demonstrators approached the presidential palace. The palace guard was lined up in firing position. Just as the commander was about to give the order to fire, a beautiful lady appeared in the sky before the soldiers. They all simultaneously took their fingers off the triggers.

The massacre was averted and Marcos fled.

In order to defeat those who would steal not just an election, but our very country, we must likewise storm Heaven.

Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute and the author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order

CON'T

As devout Christians and faithful citizens of the United States of America, we have intense and heartfelt concern for the fate of our beloved country while the final results of the Presidential election are still uncertain.

News of electoral fraud is multiplying, despite the shameful attempts of the mainstream media to censor the truth of the facts in order to give their candidate the advantage. There are states in which the number of votes is greater than the number of voters; others in which the mail-in vote seems to be exclusively in favor of Joe Biden; others in which the counting of ballots has been suspended for no reason or where sensational tampering has been discovered: always and only against President Donald J. Trump, always and only in favor of Biden.

In truth, for months now we have been witnessing a continuous trickle of staggered news, of manipulated or censored information, of crimes that have been silenced or covered up in the face of striking evidence and irrefutable testimony. We have seen the deep state organize itself, well in advance, to carry out the most colossal electoral fraud in history, in order to ensure the defeat of the man who has strenuously opposed the establishment of the New World Order that is wanted by the children of darkness. In this battle, you have not failed, as is your sacred duty, to make your own contribution by taking the side of the Good. Others, enslaved by vices or blinded by infernal hatred against Our Lord, have taken the side of Evil.

Do not think that the children of darkness act with honesty, and do not be scandalized if they operate with deception. Do you perhaps believe that Satan’s followers are honest, sincere, and loyal? The Lord has warned us against the Devil: “He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44).

Trump Planned Ahead!! Secretly Marked All Official Ballots, like the Silk Threads in U S Money Paper.

Ugly as Sin

2020-09-29T03:33:00.008-07:00

News Feed posts Daily magyar 2h · Csúnya, mint a bűn. [ˈtʃuːɲɑ mint ɑ byːn] or Csúnya, akar a bűn. [ˈtʃuːɲɑ ɑkɑr ɑ byːn] (gipsy slang) Translation: He/she/it is ugly as sin. Meaning: He/she/it is ugly as fuck.; He/she/it is really ugly. csúnya [ˈtʃuːɲɑ] – ugly; nasty mint [ˈmint] – than; as…as; like akár [ˈɑkaːr] – just like; as; like akar [ˈɑkɑr] 1) just like; as; like (dialectical word or gipsy slang) 2) he/she wants akarni [ˈɑkɑrni] – to want bűn [ˈbyːn] – sin; vice; guilt

Black Like Me, or You, or Us. Whatever (Draft)

2020-09-15T19:39:00.001-07:00

Jessica A. Krug, then an associate professor at George Washington University, posted a confession on the publishing platform Medium, last Thursday, explaining that she is not who she’d been claiming to be. “To an escalating degree over my adult life,” she wrote, “I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness.” Her life and, by extension, her scholarly career—or is it the other way around?—had been based on a lie, she admitted, or rather a glut of them, feeding on good faith like, as Krug put it, “not a culture vulture” but “a culture leech.”The blog post is light on details—the where, when, and how of Krug’s masquerade. She speculates that “mental health issues” were an impetus for her behavior; professionals have assured her that altered identity is a “common response” to “the severe trauma” that she incurred during childhood. But she does not name a diagnosis or elaborate upon the instigating traumatic events, resorting instead to the generic jargon of self-help, blended with the D.I.Y. verbiage endemic to the self-care branch of social justice: “redress,” “harm,” “gaslit,” “belonging,” “accountability.” (Absent are the words “sorry” and “apologize.”) The post is not well written, but it wants to be—its self-flagellations taking on the repetitious rhythms of slam poetry. (“I am a coward…. I am a coward”; “Intention never matters more than impact.”) The performance is, above all, profoundly awkward. For all her apparent study of the ways in which certain oppressed groups address wrongs that are done, Krug proves incapable of writing her way to recompense. “You should absolutely cancel me, and I absolutely cancel myself,” she writes, borrowing, with all sincerity, a term of cultural panic that lost its candor eons ago. “What does that mean?” she asks. “I don’t know.” Within twenty-four hours, a group of Krug’s colleagues at G.W. released a statement calling on her to resign or, if not, to be stripped of her tenure and fired. “With her conduct, Dr. Krug has raised questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching,” the G.W. Department of History said in a written statement posted to its Web site. On Wednesday, it was announced that Krug had resigned. (She did not respond to my requests to speak with her.)
It seems that Krug exposed herself to avoid being exposed. “I had been following her transformation for a while,” a scholar in Krug’s field told me. The scholar, a junior professor who wished to remain anonymous, met Krug more than a decade ago. “The first time I encountered her, she would talk about ‘us’ and ‘we,’ ” the junior professor said over the phone. “And I was scratching my head, like, ‘us’ and ‘we’? And then I realized she meant Black.” Specifically, “part Algerian”—Krug said that she was the daughter of Algerian immigrants on her mother’s side, and that her father was a white man of German origin. “I took her at her word,” the professor said, “But I always had certain misgivings.” Krug spoke back then of trauma as part of her heritage, describing herself as the product of rape between her mother and father, and the junior professor said that she didn’t want to impinge on Krug by bringing it up, even as she and other friends, all Latinx, harbored doubts about Krug’s claims. The way Krug spoke about the junior professor’s own identity was part of what aroused her suspicion. “I’m middle class. I’ve never tried to be anything else,” she said. “I think she was pushing me or encouraging me to adopt a more radical political position.” These sorts of challenges ate away at the remaining amiability between
Krug and her Afro-Latinx peers. “There came a point when we were just, like, ‘This is bullshit.’ ” Still, they were operating on a feeling. Without proof or a violation of academic protocol or issues with Krug’s scholarship—“I always respected her intellectually,” the junior professor said—there was nothing to be done but add distance. “There wasn’t any big dramatic moment. I just quietly severed the relationship on all fronts.”
Years later, Krug came back on the scholar’s radar when mutual friends on Facebook shared articles Krug had written for RaceBaitr, a platform for race-forward news and criticism, and later for Essence. Those articles, now deleted (though Krug’s work appears in the September/October print issue of Essence), made it apparent that a change had occurred. Krug had left her Algerian roots and been remade, chameleon-like, by Spanish Harlem. “I am boricua, just so you know,” she wrote for Essence last year. Still, the junior scholar told me, “I just sat quietly with it, because who is going to believe me?”
(Krug’s reckoning was finally set in motion after another G.W. professor, H. G. Carrillo, died, in April, at the age of fifty-nine, due to complications of the novel )Krug’s reckoning was finally set in motion after another G.W. professor, H. G. Carrillo, died, in April, at the age of fifty-nine, due to complications of the novel coronavirus. Carrillo, who went by the nickname Hache (“H” in Spanish, spelled out), was known as a queer Cuban-American author who captured the estranged experience of the Latin American diaspora, notably in his novel “Loosing My Espanish,” from 2004. Upon reading a tribute to the author in the Washington Post, however, Carrillo’s sister and niece contacted the paper with some critical updated information: Carrillo was not born in Cuba but in the United States, Detroit to be exact. His parents were also born in Michigan, and they, like Carrillo (born Herman Glenn Carroll), were Black Americans with no Latino heritage. This was a shock to Carrillo’s husband and to the literary community, prompting conversations among Afro-Latinx writers who had counted him as one of their own.

Jessica Anne Krug grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. Her parents, Stuart and Sherry Krug, worked as a grocer and a teacher, respectively, according to obituaries in the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. Krug attended the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, a Jewish day school located in the suburb of Overland Park, followed by the Barstow School, a prep school in the city proper. In 1996, when she was in the eighth grade, Krug wrote an op-ed in the Kansas City Star against “white-male bashing,” despite her experiences with harassment from people in that demographic. “A few years ago, while taking a shortcut through a local country club, I was confronted by people who uttered slurs about the Jewish star hanging around my neck,” she wrote. She attended Portland State University and later received her doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 2012. She was “passionate about African and African Diaspora history,” Francisco Scarano, a member of her dissertation committee, told me via e-mail, describing her as a “voracious reader.” After travels to Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, he said, “she always seem to come back

energized by experiences she had and by the people she had met here.” They never had conversations about her race and ethnicity, though, and Scarano said that he was shocked by the news of her forged identities.
“North African Blackness,” “US rooted Blackness,” “Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness”—even the coming clean reverts to a sweeping shorthand. In the course of her academic career, Krug has identified as Algerian, African-American, Black Boricua, vaguely Afro-Latinx, vaguely Caribbean; she’s been from Kansas City, from the Bronx, and “of the hood.” Krug’s students, interviewed by The Cut, recalled a “very heavy accent” and an affected brown-girl cool. The trail of locales and labels explicates little besides their author’s own ethnographic tastes. What unites them, though, is Krug’s affinity for Blackness as an instrument of authenticity as she made her way through academia.
Much of the coverage of Krug has reduced her story to this point: the want of Blackness. The comparisons to Rachel Dolezal, the Spokane woman, now known as Nkechi Amare Diallo, who went viral, in 2015, for her own living minstrel act, write themselves. But while Dolezal’s fabrication relied upon a flat sense of Black American identity (the Howard University degree, the leadership position at the N.A.A.C.P.), Krug’s transformation from white to Black was knottier. The places Krug chose to identify with—North Africa, the West Indies, East Harlem, the Bronx—cannily preyed upon a certain American laziness when it comes to parsing race beyond Jim Crow. It is germane that Krug hid among the bona fides of the American humanities, which, still, as a whole, like the nation as a whole, tend toward incuriosity about the difference between race and ethnicity, let alone how one cuts across the other. (Hence the tendency of so many outlets to account for Adele’s showing only in Black and white terms.)
Consider, for instance, the footage that has been circulating from a New York City Council hearing, held over Zoom in June, which shows Krug in her Afro-Latinx pose. She introduces herself as Jess La Bombalera, a nickname apparently of her own making, adapted from Bomba, an Afro-Puerto Rican genre of music and dance. Broadcasting live from “El Barrio,” and wearing purple-tinted shades and a hoop in her nose, she lambasts gentrifiers, shouts out her “black and brown siblings,” and twice calls out “white New Yorkers” for not yielding their speaking time. What stands out, though, is the way Krug speaks, in a patchy accent that begins with thickly rolled “R”s and transitions into what can best be described as B-movie gangster. This is where desire outruns expertise. The Times, in a piece on Krug’s exposure, last week, nonetheless called this a “Latina accent,” lending credence to Krug’s performance. (The phrase was later deleted.) The offhand notation is a tiny example of the buy-in Krug has been afforded her entire scholastic career, by advisers and committee members and editors and colleagues. They failed to recognize the gap not between real and faux, so much, as between something thrown-on and something lived-in. That inattentiveness was Krug’s escape hatch.
A symptomatic reading of the situation is almost too easy. Krug’s academic research is focussed on unhomed peoples whose identities are not reducible to state or tribal filiation—indigenous peoples turned Africans turned slaves turned fugitives who forged a new sense of themselves out of thin air. Her book, “Fugitive Modernities,” from 2018, centers on Kisama, a region within present-day Angola whose people resisted Portuguese enslavement and colonialism in the seventeenth century. It was published by Duke University Press, which is known for its cutting-edge monographs in the area of Black studies. The editorial director, Gisela Fosado, explained in a post on the press’s blog that she, too, had been lied to—in their initial contact, Fosado wrote, Krug claimed that her surname was actually Cruz. Fosado added that she is not sure what’s to be done now with Krug’s scholarship, which “has been widely praised and recognized as important.” I, working far afield from Krug’s work in period, region, and methods, am not equipped to evaluate the fitness of her research. I can only say that her writing is heavy on the kind of equivocation (“and” ... “but” ... “furthermore”) that, in academic texts, can reflect broad-mindedness—or insecurity. After the Medium post was published, excerpts from “Fugitive Modernities” circulated on Twitter. Seasoned authors like to joke about the length of the acknowledgements section in books by début authors, who tend to thank everyone they’ve ever encountered, down to their kindergarten teachers. But Krug is light on thanks, and takes a combative tone. The only person acknowledged by name is the late rapper Biggie Smalls; Krug is tempted, she writes, to just “crib” her comments from him, “to stunt on every institution and person who has ever stood in my way.”

Black studies, a collaborative and multidisciplinary field, is whiter than anyone who hasn’t been in a room with us might assume. Here I’m referring not to the white scholars, though they are plentiful, but to the rest of us: gather us in a group and you’ll be hard pressed to find a tenure-track scholar darker than the proverbial paper bag. There’s a familiar story that accounts for the prevalence of lighter-complected folk in America, the post-bellum legacy of rape—the same narrative that Krug latched onto in making the myth of her “lightskin” presentation, wielding it as a cudgel to protect her against those who might try to pry into the finer points of her background. (According to the junior scholar, during grad school Krug called herself “high yella,” a playfully derogatory term for the fairer African-American set.) But then there is another story that helps account for how someone who looks like Krug can blend in, so to speak: the story of how the lightest among us have a way of perpetuating their lightness over generations, prizing it as it is prized by the institutions they move within. This presents an odd paradox among the scholars presumably best poised to confront white supremacy from inside the university: all of this light skin is not incidental to how Black studies sees itself—to who is promoted, professionally and ideologically, within the field, and to who is extended, as Krug was extended, so much benefit of the doubt.
These things are known but rarely acknowledged in such mixed company. There may be a shift in the air, though. The unravelling of Krug’s charade began with a whisper network of sorts, as so many of these things do. The whispering continues. I am aware of at least one scholar, known for playing with the color line, who quietly modified her institutional bio recently. The self-description now specifies “white.”
(

The Layered Deceptions of Jessica Krug, the Black-Studies Professor Who Hid That She Is White

By Lauren Michele Jackson

September 12, 2020)

Concerning The China Virus From Wuhan, I Have An Opinion

2020-09-14T23:43:00.004-07:00

Bill O’Reilly didn’t go home to pout after his ejection from Fox News. He’s still one of the best commentators on current news topics. This is an interesting piece.

Please keep an open mind… I know, it’s not that easy when someone like O’Reilly is throwing butcher knives.

This is one of the most concise narratives of what this Covid-19 pandemic is all about. It is written by Bill O’Reilly. Don’t refuse to read just because you may not like him. He is a true student of history and a rabid researcher. He gets the facts before he speaks. He is not a big fan of President Trump, so this is not written in support of him, but an attempt to get the truth out to all of us.

Please read it with an open mind, absorb it, do your own research if you don’t trust his. But do not just accept what the media is spitting at you endlessly from behind their partisan platforms - Democratic or Republican, Libertarian, or Socialist. READ IT, PLEASE! It is eye-opening.

An amazing story that explains everything and China’s role in it.

Written by Bill O'Reilly

China’s Bioweapon, and Pelosi...

My wife Angie will tell you that I study history and world events fluently every day. I have studied China for many years. To get answers I need to questions, I call many I know in Washington on Capitol Hill (from my tenure on two Presidential campaigns and Presidential talks) and I ask them for straight-up answers to better understand what affects us as a nation.

Well, in 2016 America elected a new Sheriff: Donald J Trump.

For decades the Chinese walked all over America but the new President said “not anymore”. Trump literally strangled China’s economy to the point their economy was in its worst free fall ever. Trump negotiated a new 50 billion trade agreement. He had Xi by the proverbial balls. America’s economy was on fire and unstoppable. President Xi Jinping knew he could not beat the USA militarily and he knew any domesticated economic attack would fail as our economy was too strong. He had to act. But how?

Enter the USA democrats led by Pelosi and Schiff. Impeachment. A hoax. A distraction for our people and President. Xi Jinping and his thugs see this. They aren’t stupid. They have very intelligent intellectual thinkers in their government. Now you must understand, the Chinese regime is truly Barbarians. Notice I did not say ALL CHINESE. Chinese people are good people. I enjoy my interactions with them.

The communist regime has millions of its own citizens slaving in gulags simply for speaking against the government or openly practicing Christianity. Knowing they could not attack us openly they needed to be coy, like a deceptive fox. In my opinion, I believe the regime released a biological weapon upon the world that doesn’t kill everyone but kills “enough,” especially the elderly and in-firmed. Back in WW 2, Hitler thought the same way. He got rid of what he considered the useless and rejects of society.

Trump's task force uses models to figure out things. Xi used and uses “models” too. China's president figured that if he killed a few of his own (a few hundred thousand to them would be a few out of 1.4 billion people) and spread the virus to other nations (especially to the USA) they would “level the economic playing field” and not have fired a shot.

Losses of his own people were acceptable costs of a new war. When China’s own doctors attempted to sound the warning, they were immediately silenced. In fact one died and another has simply disappeared. Trump and the other allied leaders indeed KNOW this is what happened. They have under-reported their own deaths. Trump knows he cannot outrightly seek retribution. His news conference today showed me this when he balked publicly about no outright retribution over Xi’s handling of this and he immediately brought up the “trade deal”.

However, Trump wasn’t being weak, he too was now being coy. We know this was a biological weapon. The food market story is bullshit.

Xi knows we know it. Trump also today announced he sent two battle groups of destroyers and other ships to sea several days ago to fight drugs and rogue actors like Iran should they try anything.

I say he did this to show Xi he knows what has transpired (we have the greatest intelligence assets) and that they (the Chinese) should rethink further action. Politics is premier. We cannot overtly attack China for what they have done as we would also suffer greatly We all know this.

But China has temporarily achieved its goal. America was literally consumed by Trump's phony impeachment brought by the ultra-left democrats (supported by democrat rank and file and one Republican Mitt Romney) and Xi Jinping saw an opening.

He took it. Xi did what Trump usually does...he walked onto the world stage and threw a grenade into the “room” and left. It exploded in the form of this worldwide pandemic. It brought the USA and the rest of the world to its knees and leveled the economic playing field.

Our economy is now near depression Xi didn’t fire one bullet. Trump needed to up his game of chess and putting our Naval ships to sea was his next move. He said he is a “war” President. He is.

But now on not one but two fronts. One front is the virus and the other front is the Chinese. While the Saudi’s and Russians are screwing with oil prices they aren’t overtly doing what this pandemic is doing. The drug smuggling story for dispatching the Naval Force is bullshit and the world knows it. I am of the opinion Trump can indeed bring us back from this catastrophe albeit with a changed playing field.

But Trump is a genius in chess and financial matters. He’s become a champ at international politics too. I am sure Trump can once again lead the economy to even stronger strength and greatness than it was. He can do it quickly I’m sure of it. He has proved it. Xi Jinping needs to be sent a message loud and clear. NEVER AGAIN. We need to bring all of our critical manufacturing back from China beginning with our medicines they were recently threatening to withhold. We can do it immediately. Again, another reason for Trump putting to sea such a sizable Naval Force. Sending a clear message.

We all must ride out the next few weeks. Then we and the world pick up the pieces and move on. The democrats who have given Xi this opening wrapped in a bow must pay a heavy price in November as they (the democrats) truly have cost and continue to cost America precious lives by the phony scandals. Nancy Pelosi continues to help the Chinese by her daily shameless attacks upon the President and meddling in stimulus packages as she did this last weekend. Yesterday’s statements she made were truly appalling and the lowest of low. I didn’t think she could go any lower. What a disgrace she is to our nation.

But, Pelosi aside, make no mistake, China must and will be taught a lesson the likes they have never seen before and Trump is the man to pull the trigger.

We the people must teach the democrats the same lesson at the polls. They (the radical wing of the party) are the enemy of a free America. I am certain of it. The entire democrat party of our forefathers is dead. Remember people, Trump indeed tried to warn us all of the Coronavirus in his State of the Union Speech. He spoke of it. He said he was on top of it. After he spoke, Nancy Pelosi ripped up the speech calling Trump's words “a manifesto of lies”. She disgraced the country and all of our fellow honored citizens present in the House Chamber. Well, she now has American blood on her hands. She is very majorly responsible for these needless deaths as well as the Chinese. She and Adam Schiff.

The left and democrats laughed as she tore up his speech. Well, as they laughed the disease he just spoke of in that speech came to our shores. Republicans and Democrats alike are now dying. Your family members and mine. Our grandparents and middle-aged citizens alike. Our liberty is for the most part suspended. As we bury our dead (without proper funerals) from this calamity let’s drive the nails into the coffin of the Democrat party as well in November.

It’s time people. Stand up for your rights and your country! Our Liberty and survival are at stake!

I am praying for God’s blessing on our nation. But, God also gave us the ability to think for ourselves and it’s time we placed blame for all this death where it belongs: on the doorsteps of Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and Xi Jinping directly. Wake Up America WAKE UP!

Professional Athletes And Social Protesting, Biting The Hands That Feed Them

2020-09-14T23:11:00.004-07:00

Open Letter To The NFL PLAYERS. The Boycott is coming.
You graduated high school in 2011. Your teenage years were a struggle. You grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Your mother was the leader of the family and worked tirelessly to keep a roof over your head and food on your plate.

Academics were a struggle for you and your grades were mediocre at best. The only thing that made you stand out is you weighed 225 lbs and could run 40 yards in 4.2 seconds while carrying a football. Your best friend was just like you, except he didn’t play football. Instead of going to football practice after school, he went to work at McDonald’s for minimum wage.
You were recruited by all the big colleges and spent every weekend of your senior year making visits to universities where coaches and boosters tried to convince you their school was best. They laid out the red carpet for you. Your best friend worked double shifts at Mickey D’s. College was not an option for him. On the day you signed with Big State University, your best friend signed paperwork with his Army recruiter. You went to summer workouts. He went to basic training.

You spent the next four years living in the athletic dorm, eating at the training table. You spent your Saturdays on the football field, cheered on by adoring fans.

Tutors attended to your every academic need. You attended class when you felt like it. Sure, you worked hard. You lifted weights, ran sprints, studied plays, and soon became one of the top football players in the country. Your best friend was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. While you were in college, he deployed to Iraq once and Afghanistan twice. He became a Sergeant and led a squad of 19-year-old soldiers who grew up just like he did. He shed his blood in Afghanistan and watched young American's give their lives, limbs, and innocence for the US.

You went to the NFL combine and scored off the charts. You hired an agent and waited for draft day. You were drafted in the first round and your agent immediately went to work, ensuring that you received the most money possible. You signed for $16 million although you had never played a single down of professional football. Your best friend re-enlisted in the Army for four more years. As a combat tested sergeant, he will be paid $32,000 per year.

You will drive a Ferrari on the streets of South Beach. He will ride in the back of a Blackhawk helicopter with 10 other combat loaded soldiers. You will sleep at the Ritz. He will dig a hole in the ground and try to sleep. You will “make it rain” in the club. He will pray for rain as the temperature reaches 120 degrees.

On Sunday, you will run into a stadium as tens of thousands of fans cheer and yell your name. For your best friend, there is little difference between Sunday or any other day of the week. There are no adoring fans. There are only people trying to kill him and his soldiers. Every now and then, he and his soldiers leave the front lines and “go to the rear” to rest.

When the National Anthem plays and you take a knee, he will jump to his feet and salute the television. While you protest the unfairness of life in the United States, he will give thanks to God that he has the honor of defending his great country.

To the players of the NFL: We are the people who buy your tickets, watch you on TV, and wear your jerseys. We anxiously wait for Sundays so we can cheer for you and marvel at your athleticism. Although we love to watch you play, we care little about your opinions until you offend us. You have the absolute right to express yourselves, but we have the absolute right to boycott you. We have tolerated your drug use and DUIs, your domestic violence, and your vulgar displays of wealth. We should be ashamed for putting our admiration of your physical skills before what is morally right. But now you have gone too far. You have insulted our flag, our country, our soldiers, our police officers, and our veterans. You are living the American dream, yet you disparage our great country. I encourage all like-minded Americans to boycott the NFL.
National boycott of the NFL is November 8th & 15th in honor of Veteran’s Day, November 11. Boycott all football telecast, all fans, all ticket holders, stay away from attending any games, let them play to empty stadiums. Pass this post along to all your friends and family. Honor our military - some of whom come home with the American flag draped over their coffin.
Add MLB, NBA, and any other sport that kneels to this

#BoycottNFL #BoycottTheNFL #NFLBoycott
#BoycottNBA #BoycottTheNBA #NBABoycott
#BoycottMLB #MLBBoycott
#USA #Veterans #backtheblue #StandForTheFlag

Kamala Harris Not Eligible To Become President, Is She Eligible To Be Vice President?

2020-08-18T12:22:00.002-07:00

The $64 Thousand Question begins with this,

The 14th Amendment has two requirements to become a citizen of the U.S..
1) born in the U.S. and
2) subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
The Supreme Court has yet to address the significance of #2. Those most interested in the subject have gone back to the intent of the drafters, as expressed before Congress, to determine that the drafters expressly stated that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" excluded the birth of babies of foreign nationals such as diplomatic representatives of foreign countries and persons of foreign nations here legally or illegally.
https://cgalightbearer.blogspot.com/2020/08/kamala-harris-is-not-eligible-for.html
The discussions centered around the term "inhabitants" and the concept of inhabitants owing their allegiance to the U.S. To understand the importance of this term one must remember the backdrop of events surrounding the 14th Amendment.
(The Year 1868) This was just after the end of the Civil War. Most of the Southern states had yet to be admitted back into the Union. Take Texas, for example and states to come within the territory of the U.S. such as AZ and NM. These "inhabitants" owed their allegiance to the U.S. and were not yet part of the Union. Because of the allegiance to the U.S. they became citizens having been born and subject to the jurisdiction thereof of the U.S. Noteworthy, because of either systemic bias against American Indians or simply because American Indians owned their allegiance to their independent tribe or nation, they were not considered citizens of the U.S. at that time.

So, with the above in mind, people here legally or illegally, from a foreign nation, with a passport and allegiance to that nation, do not fit within the definition of "inhabitants" as that term was used by the framers of the 14th.Amendment. Their children would have the same allegiance the parents. For example, John McCain was born in a foreign country to U.S. citizen parents. He was deemed to have the same allegiance as that of his parents. I do not recall the circumstances of having a birth certificate of say Spain to U.S. citizens who happen to be there for one reason or another but in that gray area of memory I recall that McCain, when he reached the age of maturity, had to apply for and go through the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag to obtain a U.S. passport and vote.

So, with the above in mind, after receiving the an email from an astute City Attorney friend of mine and being somewhat intrigued by the questions it raises, I decided to do a Google search to see what I could find.
Do you recall Google, Facebook and the lot being placed on the carpet by Senate hearings regarding their control over what comes up on your research screen when you do a search? When I plugged in my research criteria I was shocked to see how many articles from all of the alphabet media, newspapers and liberal organizations there were saying, in the headline of the article, "fake", so one reading the result of the research would immediately feel the above email was fake. I had to go to page 9 to find my first article discussing the subject and revealing questions I have.

What I found is that Kamala's parents were not U.S. citizens. Her mother was scheduled to go to India for an arranged marriage but, instead, she married Harris. Both were students at the UniversityCalifornia. They appear to have been here legally. Then, the stories split on circumstance. One, Peggy Noonan of t he Waall Street Journal, related a wonderful experience of Kamila growing up with the classic American experience. Others address the fact that Kamila's mother divorced and she and Kamala moved to Canada- suggesting no allegiance to the U.S.- where Kamala was raised without the American experience (OK, Canada is pretty close).

(Above, Former Senator and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and Kamala Harris.)

The story goes that Kamala then returned to the U.S. for her college education, thereafter she met California Senator Willie Brown, 15 years the Speaker of the Assembly, and we know what happened thereafter. She worked for his Law Firm, became his Mistress, and he appointed he r to several influencial Boards of Directors on a salary of $73,000/year each. Eventually with his recommendations she eventually became the Attorney General of California.

Questions I have, beyond the fact that Kamala's parents were not U.S. citizens, include what citizenship did she declare when she was in Canada ( if this is accurate), and how and when did she become a U.S. citizen. As they say, "prove it"

So, these questions that should not be swept under the rug as they were with Barack Hussein Obama. Qualification for president is a serious Issue. If one party, with the ability and money to hide the past or fake the past of a candidate can look to how it worked once will continue to ignore the Constitution and try fix the history of their candidates. This conduct makes the Constitution meaningless.
Where there are questions, the public should have the freedom to raise the question and the person running for President or Vice President of the United States should automatically have the obligation to prove their citizenship.

San Francisco Named Part Of Street For First Black Fireman

2020-08-03T10:50:00.001-07:00

Street named after San Francisco’s first Black Fireman

He was a convert who tried to see the best in people.

Earl Gage Jr. in San Francisco Independent newspaper (Photo courtesy of Blondell Chism via Catholic San Francisco)

The board of supervisors voted unanimously June 14, 2020 to name a portion of Willow Street between Buchanan and Laguna after Earl Gage Jr. The street runs through the Western Addition neighborhood of the city where the Gage family — longtime St. Emydius parishioners — lived.“He was a man who kept his strong faith,” said his daughter Blondell Chism on July 24. “No matter what happened, all was good and he was blessed.”Gage was already a Christian but converted to Catholicism to marry his wife.While the department of public works readies the new street sign for an as-yet-unscheduled installation date, San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston has commissioned a mural of Gage to accompany it.

Gage was hired by the San Francisco Fire Department in 1955 at age 28 and was the sole Black firefighter for the next 12 years. He retired in 1983 and died in 2017 at age 90.His hire was a progressive move for the times and not embraced by all members of the department, said Sherman Tillman, president of the Black Firefighters Association.

There were the fellow firefighters who refused to sleep on any mattress Gage had occupied in the communal firehouse, he said. His mattress was urinated on so repeatedly that the young firefighter took to carrying his own with him from station to station.
“When you think about the discrimination he saw toward himself you’d think a person would be disillusioned and hateful toward the people who did those things,” said Tillman, a longtime parishioner of Star of the Sea Parish on Geary Blvd. “He wasn’t.”
Threats to his safety eventually led Gage away from field work and to a role as the SFFD’s director of community services. There he helped create a new training course for the firefighter’s exam after seeing it was a hurdle for many aspiring firefighters. He was also part of a federal court consent degree that pushed for diversity in the predominantly white, male department.
Tillman called Gage a “man of God who tried to see the best in people despite their flaws….”
The above comes from a July 30 story from Catholic San Francisco via Catholic News Agency.

PARLER, or Twitter, or Facebook, or GAB? You be the Judge.

2020-06-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

The Right’s New Favorite Social Media Platform Parler Is Just as Restrictive as Twitter

The platform bans ‘fisticuffs’ but allows ‘buttock’

Sarah Emerson

Jun 26 , 2020

Conservative internet personalities are migrating to Parler, a social media app created in 2018 that bills itself as a “non-biased free speech” platform. The wave of support follows Twitter’s recent decision to permanently suspend Logan Cook, a pro-Trump meme creator who goes by the moniker “CarpeDonktum” and was removed from the platform on Tuesday over repeated copyright violations.

But while Parler claims to promote “free expression,” a closer look at its guidelines reveals a set of rules that in many ways is just as restrictive, or even more so, than Twitter’s own terms of service.

Parler (pronounced “par-lay,” as in the French word meaning “to speak”) was founded by John Matze, a libertarian software developer in Nevada who briefly worked at Amazon, according to LinkedIn. It is functionally similar to Twitter, allowing people to follow other users and access a news feed akin to Twitter Moments but overwhelmingly populated by conservative pundits, politicians, and outlets like Zero Hedge and Epoch Times. Posts can be upvoted or downvoted and “echoed” rather than retweeted. Parler also features a built-in meme maker containing filters such as a “Breaking News” chyron. Matze claims the platform has roughly 1 million users, up from an estimated 100,000 last year.

Parler’s surges in popularity over the past two years have been mostly linked to the moderation of conservative figures on Twitter. Several months after its launch in August, Parler experienced a bump in users after far-right activist Laura Loomer and pro-Trump commentator Candace Owens were respectively banned and suspended by Twitter. Both Owens and Loomer joined Parler in 2018, along with other figures such as YouTube host Paul Joseph Watson, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, and Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. Matze has appeared on Fox News describing Parler as a haven for people who felt censored online. He added that only content containing “some sort of constitutional violation” would be moderated by the platform.

But a review of Parler’s community guidelines shows the platform has more in common with Twitter than its marketing implies.

Parler’s rules were updated sometime between 2019 and this year. As of July 2019, Parler’s community guidelines protected “offensive speech,” “hate speech ([that] is not considered obscene by the FCC),” and “fake news,” according to a previous version of its rules accessible on the Internet Archive. A vague chart comparing protected and prohibited content allows “dark humor” but discourages “fighting words.” Satire is permitted but not impersonation.

“We want to uphold the rights of free speech according to the U.S. Constitution; however, we also do not want user content to be so obscene that it undermines the core purpose of Parler as a platform for meaningful discussion,” these guidelines state. Parler cites the Federal Communications Commission’s definition of “obscenity,” which regulates on-air programming and has been invoked in recent complaints about mild nudity and profanity, drawing criticism from some First Amendment experts over the scope of its use.

Unlike Gab, another conservative platform that has attracted white supremacists in the wake of events like Charlottesville, Parler has kept a fairly low profile.

Parler’s current community guidelines are more specific and less permissive, and it’s unclear why the company’s rules were changed. Whereas it once allowed “fake news,” it now advises users to “not purposefully share rumors about other users/people you know are false.” Parler previously discouraged fighting words; it now clarifies that rule as “a personal assault with the intention of inviting the other party to fisticuffs.” (Fisticuffs being a somewhat outdated word for fistfight.) The platform prohibits nudity, including female nipples, specifically, and any form of genitalia. Parler does note, however, that “buttock is acceptable.”

For comparison, Twitter forbids images of female breasts, with the exception of breastfeeding. Twitter allows parody or satire accounts but similarly draws the line at impersonation. Much like Twitter’s policy that resulted in the labeling of President Trump’s tweet last month — “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Trump wrote of protests in Minneapolis — Parler also discourages content that incites violence or produces a clear and present danger.

So far, none of these rules have been tested to the extent of Twitter’s guidelines. And unlike Gab, another conservative platform that has attracted white supremacists in the wake of events like Charlottesville, Parler has kept a fairly low profile. (All of this could change, however, if Parler manages to court President Trump, for whom Matze has preemptively reserved a handle.) But despite its free speech veneer and anti-moderation promises, Parler is, at present, merely a haven for Twitter social media castoffs.

Parler did not immediately respond to OneZero’s questions about its community guidelines.

Parler’s Founder Explains Why He Built Trump’s New Favorite Social Media App

Abram BrownForbes Staff

Business

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 31: U.S. President Donald Trump shouts answers to reporters after Vietnamese ... [+]

Getty Images

“I hope you don’t mind that I’m eating: I haven’t eaten all day,” says Parler founder John Matze, devouring a late lunch. His social media app—a new favorite of President Trump’s and other GOP leaders—has been under siege for the past few hours. “I’m sitting here like, banning trolls.”
By trolls he means teenage leftists who’ve flooded onto Parler after the Trump campaign publicly declared on Wednesday that it might decamp from Facebook and Twitter and refocus its efforts through Parler. Matze knows the leftists’ ages of the trolls, as he calls them, because some verified their accounts, coughing up selfies and driver’s licenses or passports (a set of highly unusual requirements for proving identity and registering for an online account). They’re comment-raiding Parler posts—swamping them with messages that make it unpleasant for the app’s conservative users to post and interact with each other. “They’re trying to get people to have a bad experience and leave,” he says. “We've got a big army of volunteers to help take care of this. It's going to be handled within 48 hours.”
Parler—as in, a parlor room where a chat might happen—is a two-year-old app dedicated, Matze says, to the promulgation of free speech: “The best thing is for everyone to engage with a bad idea and shut it down through public discourse.” Right now, Parler is hosting a very one-sided conversation. It is almost entirely made up of Republican leaders, officials, thinkers and publications. (Liberals account for a “very minute share of the population,” Matze says.) The Trump campaign, of course, is on Parler. Likewise, Trump’s son Eric, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale. Alongside them: senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, the National Rife Association and The Washington Times. Listening to what they say are 1.7 million users, almost double the amount of people on the app in April.

Presumably many have arrived in the days following Trump’s announcement. This moment in the sun for Parler comes courtesy of the president’s on-going feud with Facebook and, especially, Twitter over what he and other conservatives see as censorship and unfair treatment. That tension has grown recently after Twitter applied fact check and explanatory labels on several of Trump’s tweets; Facebook now appears poised to do something similar. Trump has already threatened the social media industry with increased regulation. And he may go a step further than that and move his own digital presence—a key factor in his 2016 victory—over to an app like Parler. It has been a home for the right since its beginning, and it’s an ideal spot for the president’s fiery words given Matze’s devoutly laissez faire attitude toward speech.

"I've been talking about free speech for a while before it was cool," says John Matze, 27, the ... [+]

The Epoch Times

“There are going to be no fact checkers. You're not going to be told what to think and what to say. A police officer isn't going to arrest you if you say the wrong opinion,” says Matze, 27. “I think that's all people want. That's what they like.”
Matze has been weighing these thoughts for some time, stretching back to his time as a University of Denver undergrad, where he studied math, German and business. He found himself leaning a lot toward the conservative economist Thomas Sowell (“very logical”), and he also digs the classic libertarian lodestar Ayn Rand (“very interesting”). Matze describes himself as an arguer. “I don't have too many friends, but the ones I do have, we just talk amongst ourselves about ideas—crazy ones, easy ones, whatever.”
After graduating in 2014, he took shorts gigs as a software developer at number of companies, including a few months at Amazon AMZN . Matze was never into “big central points of authority,” and this included bosses. So he struck out on his own in 2018, raising some angel round money from friends to begin Parler (he won’t say exactly how much).
At the start, the app got a number of lucky boosts. During a networking lunch in 2018, Matze struck up a conversation with Candace Owens, the conservative activist, who promptly began encouraging people to join Parler. By the following June, it had about 200,00 users, a figure that doubled almost overnight when hundreds of thousands of Saudi Arabian dissidents deserted Twitter for Parler, unhappy with what they saw as Twitter protecting the Saudi government. Media outlets including Reuters, Slate and The Daily Beast reported on the exodus, helping Parler keep growing.
Parler functions like a barebones Twitter with users (such as the Trumps and Giuliani) to follow and a feed to see their posts. True to Matze’s hands-off stance, the feed flows chronologically—unlike Twitter’s algorithm-based one. As for the exact rules, Matze is still figuring out which ones should apply, setting up an uncertain landscape that could be stampeded over if Trump carries through on his threat and switches to Parler. For instance, when asked if there ever might be an instance when the N-word would be appropriate, Matze has this answer: “It depends on the context. If they just said that word alone, I don't think we would touch it.” He thinks a couple minutes longer, then restates his opinion. “If somebody came on there and said the N-word to somebody, and they got very upset as a result of that, then it would get taken down.”
Matze is also just initially considering how Parler might make money. His plan: lure conservative influencers onto the platform, then help match them up with advertisers, taking a cut of the what the influencers charge the advertisers to shill their products. To encourage ads, he hopes to be able to offer up a legion of super engaged users—ones like himself. “I've been kind of on my own island on Parler for a while. I don't watch TV. I don't do anything. I get everything off Parler.”

Follow me on Twitter. Send me a secure tip.

Abram Brown

Abram Brown is a senior editor at Forbes, where he covers social media,

There’s a new social media app trying to give Facebook and Twitter a run for their money -- without the censorship.

Instead of using fact-checkers or a “third party editorial board,” Parler moderates posts based on FCC guidelines and Supreme Court rulings, Parler CEO John Matze told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on Friday.

“It’ll feel very similar to Twitter, which I’m sure many people are accustomed to,” Matze said. “However ... we take a really firm stance that we want to be unbiased.”
CONSERVATIVES USE TWITTER TO PUSH ALTERNATIVE PARLER APP AFTER TRUMP TWEET FLAGGED
If someone does post something inaccurate on Parler, Matze said the app would not fact-check it. Instead, other users would be able to comment.
“They can make any claim they’d like, but they’re going to be met with a lot of commenters, a lot of people who are going to disagree with them,” Matze said. “That’s how society works, right? If you make a claim, people are going to come and fact check you organically.”

“You don’t need an editorial board of experts to determine what’s true and what’s not,” he added. “The First Amendment was given to us so that we could all talk about issues, not have a single point of authority to determine what is correct and what’s not.”
WILL TRUMP SWITCH FROM TWITTER TO PARLER?
So far, Matze said Parler has gotten a lot of attention from conservatives -- because “they seem to be the ones that are most affected by Twitter censorship or Facebook censorship” -- but the website is for people from all places on the political spectrum.
“We’re a town square,” Matze said. “That’s how I view us. So everyone’s welcome, any kind of discussion.”
“We want people to actually have conversations again,” he added. “The country’s too partisan right now. And when you go on these sites, it feels like a battleground. And so the idea is that you’re going to get on Parler and have discussions with people.”
AG BARR ON TECH COMPANIES CENSORING VIEWPOINTS: ‘THERE’S SOMETHING VERY DISTURBING ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON’
But it’s not just conservatives who are getting on Parler, Matze said.
“You’re going to see a lot of people on the other side of the aisle coming over very soon,” he said. “In fact, we’re seeing them in waves now. Not to the extent that they’re high-profile individuals, but you’re seeing a lot of people on the left who are actually curious.”
“They will come in bigger numbers and we’re going to see some bigger names come over, too, when they don’t want to miss out on the conversation,” he added. “They can’t resist.”

However, the app is particularly important for conservatives to have a place where their voices can be heard, Matze said.
“Right now, conservatives need this kind of place, right?” he said. “This is something that they need in an election year, when they’re experiencing censorship or some kind of bias against them, whether it’s perceived or real … People want a place that they can feel like they’re appreciated and their voice matters and they can speak.”
Several Republican lawmakers have already joined the app including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.

COMMENTS:

Won’t take long for liberal progressives to migrate over to the new format and begin to contaminate it. It’s what they do for live. They are a cancer upon society.

Nothing free about it and these platforms are collective endeavors, designed to stifle opinion- every time.

PARLER, MINDS, & GAB = the future of social media ..... FREE SPEECH always prevails..... censorship kills!! just like communism!

PUNITIVE DAMAGES FOR VICTIMS OF EMBASSY BOMBINGS

2020-05-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

18 May 2020 PUNITIVE DAMAGES FOR VICTIMS OF EMBASSY BOMBINGS from Supreme Court.

Unanimous ruling for plaintiffs on punitive damages for embassy bombings
It has been over two decades since al Qaeda operatives detonated bombs outside the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing over 200 people and injuring thousands more. The victims and their family members later filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking to hold Sudan responsible for its role in providing support for al Qaeda. The trial court awarded them billions of dollars, but a federal appeals court cut that award in half. It ruled that the plaintiffs could not recover punitive damages from Sudan because Congress did not authorize such damages until 10 years after the bombings. Today the Supreme Court unanimously (with Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused) threw out that ruling, setting the stage for billions of dollars in punitive damages to be reinstated.
Although foreign governments normally cannot be sued in U.S. courts, the plaintiffs brought their lawsuit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which governs immunity for foreign countries and includes several exceptions to the general bar on lawsuits. One such exception is the “terrorism exception,” enacted in 1996, which allows foreign countries that have been identified as “state sponsors” of terrorism to be sued in U.S. courts for supporting terrorists.
Congress passed another amendment to the FSIA in 2008, to make clear that victims of terrorism can sue a state sponsor of terrorism in federal court and that they can seek punitive damages, which the FSIA otherwise prohibits. The dispute between the plaintiffs and Sudan hinges largely on the interpretation of this 2008 amendment.
In an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court began by acknowledging that, as a general rule, laws only apply prospectively. But even so, the court continued, Congress could not have been clearer in authorizing plaintiffs to seek punitive damages for conduct that occurred before it amended the FSIA in 2008. The court explained that Congress “expressly authorized punitive damages under a new cause of action” and then it “explicitly made that new cause of action available to remedy certain past acts of terrorism.” “Neither step,” the court concluded, “presents any ambiguity, nor is the” 2008 amendment “fairly susceptible to any competing interpretation.”
The court rejected Sudan’s suggestion that it should “create and apply a new rule requiring Congress to provide a super-clear statement” before allowing punitive damages for conduct that predates the law at issue. The court conceded that “applying new punishment to completed conduct can raise serious constitutional questions.” “But,” the court added, “if Congress clearly authorizes retroactive punitive damages in a manner the litigant thinks unconstitutional, the better course is for the litigant to challenge the law’s constitutionality,” rather than ask a court to ignore the plain text of the law. In any event, the court reasoned, when it creates rules for interpreting statutes, it tries to come up with workable ones, and “Sudan’s proposal promises more nearly the opposite: How much clearer-than-clear should we require Congress to be when authorizing the retroactive use of punitive damages?”
The court declined to weigh in on a separate question in the litigation – whether punitive damages are available for claims brought under state law by family members who are not U.S. citizens (and therefore could not rely on the new federal cause of action at the heart of this case). Because the plaintiffs did not raise this question in their petition for review, the court explained, “we think it best not to stray into new terrain on the basis of such a meager invitation and with such little assistance.” Having said that, however, the justices noted that the court of appeals had thrown out the punitive damages award to the foreign-national family members who brought their claims under state law “for ‘the same reason’” it relied on to rule against the plaintiffs proceeding under the new federal cause of action. Because “punitive damages are permissible for federal claims,” and “the reasons the court of appeals offered for its contrary decision were mistaken,” the Supreme Court instructed, “the court of appeals must also reconsider its decision concerning the availability of punitive damages for claims proceeding under state law.”
The case will now return to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for further proceedings. But for the plaintiffs, today’s ruling was nonetheless a significant victory.

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Coronavirus-relief Payments Scams and Social Security Fraud

2020-05-19T10:59:00.002-07:00

With coronavirus-relief payments circulating and many Americans in isolation amid the pandemic, scammers are seizing on the moment to exploit the fear and uncertainty the outbreak is creating.
Seniors are among the most vulnerable as scammers often target them because they may have more assets or regular income and because they’re often more trusting than other age groups, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warns.

Among the myriad coronavirus-related schemes circulating: sending queries on stimulus checks in an attempt to pry financial information from vulnerable targets; offering unproven coronavirus test kits; and setting up bogus charities.

The Federal Trade Commission received 45,623 coronavirus-related consumer and small-business complaints through May 14, representing reported fraud loss of more than $33.84 million, with a median individual loss of nearly $500.

Social Security Scams

The Social Security Administration recently warned about fraudulent letters threatening beneficiaries that their payments would be suspended or discontinued due to coronavirus-related office closures unless they called a phone number referenced in the letter. Scammers could then encourage those who called in to provide personal information or payment via retail gift cards, wire transfers, internet currency, or cash to maintain their benefits, the administration warned.
The agency said it won’t suspend or discontinue benefits due to the pandemic. Anyone who receives any communication about an alleged problem with their Social Security number, account, or payments that they believe to be suspicious should hang up or not respond, it advises.
Beneficiaries shouldn’t trust their caller ID as scam calls may show up on caller ID as the Social Security Administration, the FTC warns.
The agency says to report Social Security scams online.

Stimulus Scams

The Internal Revenue Service is warning of scams to intercept the economic-impact payments that have been mailed to taxpayers. Taxpayers will likely encounter official-looking web pages or social media-based communications or receive phishing email, text messages, or other communications that request sensitive personal information or payments in order to receive an economic-impact payment, the agency warns. Taxpayers shouldn’t follow any embedded links or open any attached files, it says.
Scammers may offer to help seniors get their stimulus check if they first verify their Social Security or bank routing number, says Colleen Tressler, a consumer education specialist with the FTC. They may also try to get you to sign your check over to them or they may send you a bogus check that requires you to verify it online or by calling a number.
No one from the IRS will reach out by telephone, email, or in person asking for information to complete economic-impact payments, the agency says.
The Better Business Bureau offers more information on coronavirus-related scams that target economic-impact checks on its website. The Treasury Department also has websites for reporting IRS-related coronavirus scams and scams specifically targeting economic-impact payments.
Imposters are also trying to take advantage of the growing anxieties around the pandemic to tap into seniors’ Medicare benefits. Common themes among Medicare scams are unsolicited phone calls to beneficiaries offering items and services related to coronavirus, such as Covid-19 testing and protective equipment, with no intent of delivery, according to a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The scams are designed to obtain Medicare beneficiary numbers to enable fraudsters to submit false claims for unrelated, unnecessary, or never-performed testing or services, as well as to steal the beneficiary’s identity.

Beneficiaries should share their Medicare number only with their doctor, pharmacist, hospital, health insurer, or other trusted health-care provider. Those who receive a call from someone claiming to represent Medicare, asking for their Medicare number or other personal information should hang up, the spokesman says. If a beneficiary needs to be tested for Covid-19, he or she should call his or her health-care provider directly.
Beneficiaries should also monitor their quarterly Medicare summary notice for any services for which they were billed but which they didn’t receive or request.
Those who suspect Medicare fraud can report it by calling Medicare’s toll-free customer service center at 1-800-633-4227

The novel coronavirus has the world firmly in its grip. Images from northern Italy, Madrid, and New York City have shown that the threat of the virus should not be underestimated. Tens of thousands of people have died because of it. Most countries now face a dilemma: If drastic shutdowns continue, serious economic and social problems will arise, but going back to normal life is very dangerous and will risk tens of thousands of additional deaths. The final return to normalcy will be possible only if there is a vaccine or an effective medicine against Covid-19.
The European Union is on the front line of developing this vaccine. Some companies and laboratories that cooperate with experts from other parts of the world are already conducting human clinical trials. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen led a worldwide virtual summit on cooperation in this area.
While public and private stakeholders from all over the world—including Israel, Canada, Saudi Arabia, the United States.

The Wise Guys Good Fellas and The Democrats Solve Coronavirus

2020-04-16T09:34:00.002-07:00

I wanna get to the bottom of the Corovirus thing. Call The Boys. All of 'em.
Call Fat Tuna Provenzano, Little Tony "The Lip" Fauci, Franky Five Angels, Salvatore "Sammy The BULL" Gravano, Berni "The Tractor" Provenzano, Lefty "Two Guns" Pacino, Dapper John "Teflon Don" Gotti, Lucky Luciano, Albert "Little Augie" Anastasia, Big Jim Colosimo, Sammy "The Plummer: Cavalcante, Salvatore Giuliano, Tommaso Buscetta, Don "The Leopard" Fabrizio, Don Calogero Vizzini, Giuseppe "The Prince" Tomasi, Paul Castellano, Tomas Billotti, Thomas Gambino, Gino Falcone, Giullio Andreotti, Luca Brotzsy, and all The Wise Guys, Good Fellas, Democrat Congressmen, Nancy Di Lorenzo Pelosi, Pencil Neck Schiff, Chuck "The Schmuck" Shummer, Fredo Cuomo, and Jerry "the Penguin" Nadler.

Cuban Political Machine Eclipses Mexican Machine In Downey California, New Mayor Cuban Female

2019-12-16T10:23:00.003-08:00

Downey, California Elects First Cuban Female Mayor

f/leslie Berestein Rojas, Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter

"On Tuesday I was sworn in as the Mayor of Downey. It was a historic night for our city as I became the first Latina to be sworn in as Mayor for our great city of Downey. Equally historical is that this is the first time in the history of Downey that two females serve together as Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem. Claudia Marroquin- Frometa is our Mayor Pro Tem and I look forward to serving with her in our new roles.
I am truly blessed and honored to serve as Mayor. Thank you to all the residents who voted me into office in 2016, and have given me this opportunity to serve our city.
To everyone that posted on my Facebook page, thank you for your congratulatory messages. To everyone that came to my swearing in, thank you for attending. It was nice to see everyone!!" (Blanco Pacheco)
❤️💕 #downey #Mayor2020

(Above, Mayor Blanco Pacheco, center, with Miss Teen Downey 2019-2020, Sarah and her brother, Sam,)

From Red Neck to Red Beans and Rice. Downey, California in 30 Years.

Downey, California: A new kind of suburban idyll

The etched-glass door of the Downey Brewing Company still reads "Foxy's" -- all that's left of the restaurant that occupied the space for decades, catering to a long-gone crowd.

Pub co-owner Sergio Vasquez remembers the place as "a coffee shop which served Scandinavian food." But, he says, as the city's demographics changed, "The population didn’t catch up with it. The only people that really attended were elderly people. They decided to shut it down. And that’s where we came in.”
Today, the five-year-old boutique brewpub buzzes with the sounds of craft beer pouring out of taps, clanking glasses and dishes, and a crowd of patrons that - like the population on the outside - is mostly Latino.

(Jessica Haro and Eric Ibarra sit at a fountain on the corner of Firestone Blvd and Downey Ave on November 9th, 2013.) Photo by Mae Ryan/KPCC

In some ways, the pub's story reflects the story of Downey, a onetime aerospace hub which, like nearby Whittier and a cluster of other Southern California communities, embodies the latest chapter in the evolution of Latino L.A.

Back in 1980, Downey was mostly non-Latino white, with Latinos representing less than 17 percent of the population.

It was an earlier era's picture of the suburban idyll: wide green lawns, tidy ranch-style homes,

a Stonewood Shopping mall, a golf course,

an iconic McDonald's with golden arches that's still the chain's oldest surviving outlet.

(Karen and Richard Carpenter grew up in this house in Downey)

The Carpenters, the soft-pop singing duo, once attended Downey High School, the home of the Vikings..

Thousands of residents held good jobs at the sprawling Rockwell aerospace plant, which in its heyday produced Apollo capsules and the Space Shuttle.

But defense cuts began taking their toll in the 1990s.

By the time the plant closed in 1999, the city's white suburban identity was in a state of flux, with many families moving out.

(Above, Russel Epson, a member of the Downey Seventh-Day Adventist Church, take his daily walk down Downey Avenue.)
Left behind was a mix of retirees, languishing businesses,

and - for some Latinos who had been saving their pennies in more modest communities nearby – opportunity.

Like Vasquez, who grew up a short distance to the west in Bell, Latin American immigrants and their descendants gradually began transforming the city.

They started buying up the ranch-style homes and investing in businesses.

Today Downey is 71 percent Latino – and like their predecessors – these newer residents are mostly middle class.

University of Southern California sociologist Jody Vallejo says they represent a growing group of upwardly mobile (Yuppies) Latinos who have chosen to settle in Latino-majority communities that reflect their economic reality. These include Whittier, West Covina, pockets of Orange County, and Downey,

"Which is often referred to by Mexican Americans themselves as the Mexican American Beverly Hills," Vallejo says.

Okay, so it's not quite Beverly Hills.

Downey has a mix of more and less affluent neighborhoods, with property values generally higher on the north end of town.

But with a median annual household income of more than $60,000 - and close to 40 percent of its households earning $75,000 or more, according to a Cal State Long Beach analysis - it’s earned its reputation as a middle class Latino stronghold.

The Latino version of the middle-class "ethnoburb" - a term typically associated with Asian American suburbs - is a phenomenon that Vallejo says began in the 1990s but took off in earnest during the last decade.

It coincides with slow but steady gains in educational and career attainment among Latinos as the great, post-1965 wave of immigration from Latin American settles into its second and third generations.

For those who succeed, moving into communities once perceived as out of reach is part of "making it," Vallejo says.

"Many Latinos who are moving to places like Downey did grow up in places like South Gate or Lynwood, and really saw, or see, Downey as the next step," Vallejo says.

"Growing up, you thought that's where all the wealthy or the middle class people lived.”

(Reeves Mansion on Paramount Boulevard, across from the Nordic Fox restaurant.)
Mexico City transplant Elsa Valdez once lived in Maywood. But for her, Downey was the always the place to go.

(The Krikorian Theater)
“This is the city that we were coming to the mall, to the theaters," Valdez said. "I see the city that it was cleaner than the city that I was living. It is also really close to my community, that is, Latin people in Huntington Park, Maywood, Cudahy and all those cities.”
Valdez bought in Downey in 1995. Now she sells real estate in the area, and says most of her clients are the children of immigrants - entrepreneurs and professionals who can afford homes costing half a million or more.
This latest wave of residents has spawned a new wave of businesses, including upscale Latino-owned ones.

Recently, Valdez took her mother to lunch at Porto's, L.A.’s famous bakery begun decades ago by a Cuban immigrant family. The $14 million Downey location opened three years ago, drawing long lines of customers who line up at gleaming glass counters to order flawless guava pastries and steaming cups of café con leche brewed on on luxe equipment.

City officials have drawn several chain restaurants and other businesses catering to middle-class tastes, but there's a homegrown element, too: an art gallery that opened last year and highlights the work of local artists, for example, and a soon-to-open upscale independent steakhouse whose chef has promised a signature mac and cheese spiked with chorizo.

"All one needs to do is look around to see the effects of gentefication," says Vallejo,

using a coined term that refers to gentrification by Latinos.

There are still a few wants: For example, a specialty grocer. A Facebook campaign by residents to lure a much-coveted Trader Joe's (Whittier has the nearest) has not yet done so.

(Above, JHONNIE"S BROILER, partially demolished,)

Making room for progress, JOHNNIE’s BROILER was destroyed. It was a favorite Hollywood shooting site, featured in Ike and Tina Turner movie, What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Outgoing Downey mayor Mario Guerra says that in some cases, a majority Latino population can still be a hard sell for some retailers.

(New Downey Mayor, Vernando Vasquez was sworn in December 2013)
“There’s certain businesses that look at a certain demographic, and don’t take in the reality and look at the buying power of Latinos," Guerra says. "And it’s sad for them, because they are missing out on opportunities.”

(At Sambi's of Tokyo for a Sister City Association Christmas Party with former Mayors Barbara Riley and Joyce Lawrence of Downey.)

(Above, Former Mayor Rick Lopez and Judge London Steverson at City Hall. circa 2003.)

But there are others willing to cash in on that buying power.

(The Abortion Clinic on Firestone was open six days a week. Right-to-Lifers were picketing out front)

Guerra and other city officials broke ground recently at the old Rockwell site, making way for a new development that will host theaters, restaurants and a pedestrian shopping village.

(As we drive out of Downey on Firestone Boulevard, we wish you well.)
Leslie Berestein Rojas | December 10th, 2013, 6:05am

14 comments:

AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:46 PM

Sara said:
The City of Downey has turned into an overpopulated suburban version of Tijuana. I have lived in this city since 1982 and it is nothing like it used to be. Each year there are more and more people, mostly Spanish speaking. The streets are always full of traffic and everyone you encounter when you are out are rude; cashiers, tellers, people in retail, etc. Forget the mall! Stonewood is horrible. Its overcrowded, filthy and disgusting. People that used to live in surrounding ghettos have infiltrated this once nice city. Despite everyone from surrounding cities coming to Downey because they feel they are 'moving up', they are actually all 'bringing down' the town. Residents have steadily left over the years and the remaining older people, of all races I might add, are sick and tired of the way the city is. They want out and they are all moving. Give this city 5 years and it will be just like Lynwood. More gangs, drugs, crime, and overpopulation.
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:47 PM

Estela Salas-Sarmiento said to Sara:
Well my previous comment was blocked, so let me try to be as offensive as you without "crossing the line". Downey in the 70s was a xenophobic community. I experienced first hand being racially profiled as soon as I crossed the bridge on Florence ave. Sara, let go of the past and accept it's no longer reasonable to "ghettoize" groups based on ethnicity. Also, I find it hard to believe that you ever ventured into the mean streets of Tijuana. If you had, you would have seen that "people in retail" are typically quite pleasant and hard working; I don't think Latinos have monopolized that market to the extent your comment suggests.

I wish you could teach us Latinos how not to use drugs, commit crimes, and join gangs--oh wait a minute! I don't do any of that. You know why? It's not ethnicity, it's SES, SARA!
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:48 PM

Ernesto said to Sara:
Maybe the reason they are rude to you is because people treat you as a reflection of who you are. If you are an bitter, hateful person, you will receive the same treatment in return. I have been here since the late 70's and I think the city is finally getting an identity of its own. The only thing that matters are the people that are here now trying to make it better. The residents that leave, good riddance.

The way you speak about spanish speaking people is so hateful, it's almost like you resent people who are different that you or what you are accustomed to. You are a scary person that, as the most said below, should consider moving away to somewhere you can have a better attitude. good luck Sara
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:50 PM

Sara to Sara:
Oh, and those huge "McMansion" houses that these people are building. They look ridiculous and out of place. Some even have ridiculous looking statues of lions. What is that all about. Yes, I have to speak up here. It is sad to see Downey the way it is and its even worse to read an article like the one above that almost glamorized this 'new' Downey. Horrible, just horrible.
ReplyDelete
ichbinaljDecember 13, 2013 at 2:52 PM

We used to call them "Taj Mahals". This is the first time I have heard the term "McMansion". I am curious as to its derivation.
I spent twenty of the best years of my life in Downey, on Downey Avenue.
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:53 PM

Adele to Sara:
McMansions aren't new. I saw them going up in the 70s. So what? And statues? Haven't you seen the house at 7th and Wiley-burke? That house went up in the 60s. Again, so what? Diversity is great. Do you want everything in Downey to be ticky-tacky?
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:53 PM

Downey DAD to Sara:
Sara , you are exactly the type of person that NEEDS to leave. Please do us all a favor and move out.
ReplyDelete
ichbinaljDecember 13, 2013 at 2:54 PM

Downey DAD to Sara:
So you have a problem with people that are culturally different and value different things than you. It is all very clear Sara,
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:55 PM

JDiaz said:
Great article, and yes, there are some great improvements, some of which I personally disagree with. Its nice to see businesses opening up, however, this town needs more than just fast food chains, eateries, and bars to flourish. I think a convention center where the new shopping center is being built would have been a better choice. The residents in this city need FULL TIME JOBS with benefits and good pay to flourish here. Fast food chains and bars aren't going to offer that. I understand that the city may benefit greatly from new alcohol and liquor licenses, but the Downey City Council should be working harder to attract BIG businesses to establish themselves here in this once conservative community.

Also, I like to give Stay Gallery BIG kudos for bringing culture and creative education to the city. We need more places like that around here.

Although bars are great, the destructive consequences of these sprawling businesses in this town seem to be overlooked. I live next to The Palms restaurant, which attracts riff-raff and trouble from other cities, including prostitution, drug deals, and drunkards who stumble around the neighborhood, even on Sunday nights. I once viewed Downey as being "the land of milk and honey" and now, I see this fine town decaying. I notice things going down hill mostly in neighborhoods that are heavily concentrated with apartments. I understand the communal living culture of the evolving demographics, but seriously, people need to take pride of ownership around here, even if they rent. I'll close with this: Inglewood, in it's heyday, was just as clean, crisp, and conservative as Downey was pre-1999. Huntington Park used to be just as nice. Let's see where this town stands in a few years.
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:58 PM

Mike in Whittier said:
I'd have to live pretty far on the west side to consider Whittier near Downey. And the Trader Joes in Cerritos is closer to Downey than Whittier. I actually liked the article, though.
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 2:59 PM

Adele said to Mike in Whittier:
Whittier's not as far as you think. Go back - way back - to the early 30s. My Dad lived on Studebaker Rd, in the Triangle area (far east side) of Downey, which was outside the Downey School District. He graduated from Whittier High School.
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 3:00 PM

DowneyDad said:
great article… a region on the rise for sure.
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 3:01 PM

Sara said to DowneyDad:
Not exactly, but I guess it depends on who you ask.
ReplyDelete
AnonymousDecember 13, 2013 at 8:12 PM

Mayor Fernando Vasquez said : Only in America can a son of immigrant parents with a 1st grade education earn a college education and become the Mayor of Downey. Thank you Downey for allowing me to serve as your 46th Mayor!
ReplyDelete

Posted 11 minutes

Black Billionaire Vows To Pay Off Student Loans For Morehouse College Class of 2019

2019-05-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

Rich Graduation Speaker at Morehouse College vows to pay off Student Loans for entire 2019 Class, EXCEPT for women, and those who worked their way through college. The Liberal Social Justice Warriors in the Democratic Party will find it hard to challenge the All American Spirit in that gesture. Morehouse College is an all male college. There were no women in the Class of 2019.

The average Student Loan Debt for Class Of 2019 estimated to be between $35,000 and $45,000.

Robert Frederick Smith is an African-American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. A former chemical engineer and investment banker, he is the founder, chairman, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. In 2018, Smith was ranked by Forbes as the 163rd richest person in America. This 8th Generation African American, Robert F. Smith, is from Denver, CO. His family has been in America for 8 Generations. They lived through and worked through America’s Slavery Period and overcame. Slavery and Segregation slowed them down, but did not stop them from overcoming the Democratic Liberal Political Practices.

He is not a Fresh Of The Boat (FOB) Silicon Valley Instant Millionaire from some Muslim Country with a good Colonial Education System.

Robert F. Smith was giving the commencement address to the graduating class of Morehouse College when he made a surprise announcement: He would be paying off the student loans of the roughly 400 graduates.

It was just the latest substantial gesture from Mr. Smith, the richest black man in America, who until just a few years ago was practically unknown.

Mr. Smith grew up in a mostly black, middle-class neighborhood in Denver. Both of his parents had Ph.D.s in education, and he was ambitious from an early age. He applied for an internship at Bell Labs in high school, but was told he was too young. Mr. Smith called every Monday for five months and finally got the position.

He went to college at Cornell, studying chemical engineering, then took a job at Kraft General Foods. He got a master’s degree in business administration from Columbia, then worked at Goldman Sachs in San Francisco, advising companies including Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.

■ Mr. Smith has a passion for music. In 2016, he was named chairman of the board of Carnegie Hall, the nation’s most prestigious concert stage. He bought and restored a storied resort, Lincoln Hills, outside Denver, where black jazz musicians like Duke Ellington once played. And he has founded programs to support music education and minority entrepreneurship in Austin, Tex., where he lives, and Chicago, where Vista has an office.

Here’s what you need to know about him:

■ Mr. Smith has amassed a fortune that Forbes estimates to be worth $5 billion by founding Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm that focuses on buying and selling software firms.

■ Vista has about $46 billion in assets under management, according to Forbes. The company is privately held and does not publicly report its results, but it is believed to be one of the best-performing firms in the country, with annualized returns of more than 20 percent since its founding.

Mr. Smith has a flamboyant side as well. He favors three-piece suits, owns one of Elton John’s old pianos and hired John Legend and Seal — and a youth orchestra — to perform at his wedding on the Amalfi Coast. He named two of his sons, Hendrix and Legend, after Jimi Hendrix and Mr. Legend. He is married to Hope Dworaczyk, an actress and former Playboy model. (See FOOTNOTE)

Though he shunned the spotlight for many years, he has recently embraced a more public role, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and making major charitable contributions. Cornell renamed its School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering after Mr. Smith, and he has made major gifts to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture and other cultural institutions. In January, Mr. Smith donated $1.5 million to Morehouse to fund student scholarships and a new park on campus.

A TALE OF TWO COMMENCEMENTS!
THE BATTLE OF THE BILLIONAIRES!!

Tim Cook tells grads, “We failed you”!
Robert F. Smith says, “I declare you Debt Free”!
Robert F Smith, a Billionaire, vowed to pay off the Student Loan Debt for the 400 Morehouse graduates in the Class Of 2019.
Apple CEO, Tim Cook, a Billionaire told Tulane University grads, “My Generation failed you on Climate Change”!

FOOTNOTE:

Playboy centerfold appearance
Hope Dworaczyk at the Playboy Mansion in May 2009
April 2009
Preceded by	Jennifer Pershing
Succeeded by	Crystal McCahill
Playboy Playmate of the Year
2010
Preceded by	Ida Ljungqvist
Succeeded by	Claire Sinclair
Personal details
Born	November 21, 1984 (age 34) Port Lavaca, Texas, U.S.^[1]
Measurements	Bust: 34C^[1] Waist: 23 Hips: 35
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)^[1]
Weight	126 lb (57 kg)

Big Win At Supreme Court For Social Security Practicioners

2019-05-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

Since 1956, the Social Security Administration(SSA) has made disability benefits available to people whose long-term medical conditions make completing their jobs impossible.

Lawyers who want to maximize their earning capacity don’t do Social Security law. They would be crazy to do Social Security law.

Recognizing that many Social Security disability claimants are in poor financial health, the federal government devised a payment scheme whereby lawyers receive a portion of their client's judgment if they win and nothing if they don't.

Since 1956, the Social Security Administration has made disability benefits available to people whose long-term medical conditions make completing their jobs impossible.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year created a uniform method for allocating fees across judicial jurisdictions, ensuring attorneys will have access to higher fees regardless of where they practice.

Considering that just 22% of workers receive disability benefits on the first try, the attorneys who help these workers often don't see payment for years, if ever.

Without attorneys, disability benefit applicants can get lost in the confusing maze of the claim process. They must first take their case before an administrative law judge(ALJ), and if the judge rejects the claim or makes a mistake — which attorneys say is fairly common — they then must go to federal court to dispute the decision.

In some Federal Circuits, judges interpreted separate limits the Social Security Act placed on fees for legal work before the SSA and the federal court as a single limit, capping the overall fees at an amount equivalent to 25% of the client's benefit award.

As an example, Lawyers in the Third Circuit, were not affected by the fee cap that plagued disability attorneys in the Fourth, Fifth and Eleventh circuits before the recent Supreme Court decision.

In those circuits, judges interpreted separate limits the Social Security Act placed on fees for legal work before the SSA and the federal court as a single limit, capping the overall fees at an amount equivalent to 25% of the client's benefit award.

In other circuits, like the Third, judges allowed attorneys to collect an amount equivalent to 25% of the client's benefit award for court-level work. For agency-level work, attorneys could collect either $6,000 or an amount equivalent to 25% of the benefit award, whichever is less. Fees could come from both the benefit award and the federal government, which offers a pool of money to disability attorneys under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

The ruling's main impact could be to encourage Social Security attorneys who already practice in federal court to continue doing so, rather than abandon cases at the appeal stage because the money isn't good.

In the past, Social Security claimants' probability of successfully going up against the SSA varied depending on where they were. Now, claimants should have an easier time across the country.

SocialSecurity Defrauds Another Widow(er)

2019-02-01T16:22:00.001-08:00

Richter

7:20 PM (0 minutes ago)

to L.

Social Security Defrauds Yet Another Widow(er) -This Could Be You!

Laurence Kotlikoff Contributor

Taxes

A bunch of American dollars in denominations of 100 dollars notes rolled up and held together with a simple rubber band with two stack of american dollars in denominations of 100 dollars isolated on a white background.Getty

Social Security just defrauded Seattle-based William Shimeall of tens of thousands of dollars in widower benefits based on a decision by Social Security's Administrative Law Judge Glenn G. Myers.

Bill's story is instructive. It teaches us a lesson we all should already know - You can't trust anything the Social Security staff tells you. Nor can you rely on them to keep you from doing something that can only lower, potentially dramatically, your future benefits.
It also teaches us a new lesson. Social Security's self-appointed "judges" aren't, apparently, sworn to uphold justice. Instead, they appear sworn to uphold Social Security's patently fraudulent decisions no matter the size of the swindle.
Here are the facts. Judge for yourself.
Bill Shimeall turned full retirement age on August 3, 2015. Around that time much was written, including by me and my co-authors in our book, Get What's Yours - the Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security, about the file and suspend option which let eligible disabled children and spouses collect child and spousal benefits without forcing the primary earner to file before age 70 and accept permanently reduced benefits.

Some high-earning spouses were also able to use this mechanism to collect spousal benefits while waiting to collect their own highest retirement benefit. People in the Obama Administration decided, with no hearings or actual evidence, that this was, on balance, a boondoggle for the rich. So in November 2015, the Democrats in the House let House Republicans rewrite the law and hide the changes inside the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015.
I saw a draft of the bill on a Sunday. The vote was scheduled for later that week. The next morning I posted a Forbes column pointing out that the new Social Security provisions would mean benefit cuts in six months for lots of people. Within a few hours of the appearance of the column, there were two highly complex amendments passed by Congress that included grandfathering clauses, some of which still pertain to millions of people, by the way.

After Reconsidering The Reconsideration Step, SSA Added It Again To The 5-Step Process

2019-02-01T16:07:00.002-08:00

Changes in Social Security disability application process affect Louisianans

Administration has recently implemented changes to their Social Security Disability Income application process, including the reinstatement of the reconsideration step in the claim application process in five states, with Louisiana among them.

The SSA removed the reconsideration step from the claim application process in ten states in 1999, and is adding it back now as part of an effort to save money. Some filing for disability may benefit from reconsideration, but others will see longer delays in claim processing.
“What people basically need to know is that starting January 1, Louisiana applicants see a new step in the process of filing for SSDI,” said Mike Stein, assistant vice president of Operations Strategy and Planning with Allsup, an organization that helps claim applicants navigate the process.
“Reconsideration takes places after an initial application has been denied, which happens in two out of every three claims. For the 13 percent of people who get accepted after reconsideration, this step saves them time and saves the government money. The other 87 percent of applicants will continue to the appeal process, so reconsideration effectively adds three to six months processing time to their claim,” Stein said.
Part of FICA taxes workers pay each year funds SSDI benefits, as sort of a long term insurance program for workers who become injured beyond their ability to continue working.
“There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about the program,” Stein said. “People think it’s easy to get on and the government just gives away money, but it’s actually a very stringent program. It’s only open to people who have paid in through their taxes and have been injured in a serious and long term way. So, most of our clients are people who have been dealt some of the worst hands anyone can be dealt, from a medical standpoint.”
After a worker is injured and files a claim with the SSA, an initial determination is made after four to six months, with about 34 percent of claims approved on average. For nearly twenty years, Louisiana claimants moved from an initial rejection into an appeal process, held before a judge, with wait times that currently average around 450 days. Rejected claims filed after January 1 will now move into the reconsideration phase prior to an appeal process.
“Back in the late 90s, the SSA looked at the reality that only 13 percent of applications were accepted following reconsideration and decided to see if they could save money, or speed things up, by eliminating that step,” Stein said. “The Trump Administration now says it has research indicating it could result in a net savings to keep reconsideration.”
SSDI appeal hearings are expensive, requiring judges, vocational and medical experts and travel budgets.
“The Trump Administration says that 13 percent less appeal hearings could save money,” Stein said. “For the people who see their application granted during reconsideration, this will also save time. The vast majority of people will see additional time and paperwork as part of their SSDI claim process.”
There has been some controversy surrounding the introduction of the SSA’s new policy. During a congressional meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee last summer, several members objected to the reinstatement of the reconciliation process, and acting SSA commissioner Nancy Berryhill signed a letter along with eleven members of Congress arguing that “there is little evidence to show that reconsideration is a meaningful step in the disability appeals process.”
Despite some resistance to recent changes, the Trump Administration has nominated a new commissioner to head the agency – Andrew Saul – and plans to move forward.
“They have a roll out schedule in place and we can expect to see more changes in April and October, and well as early next year. These changes can make an already complex situation more confusing, and we just encourage people to hire someone knowledgeable to try and shorten what will already be a long time without income after an injury,” Stein said.
28th January 2019

By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer
The Social Security

Who Is Robert W. Patterson and Why Do Homosexuals Hate Him?

2019-01-11T16:01:00.001-08:00

Robert W. Patterson, a right-wing commentator turned acting associate commissioner at the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Office of Strategic and Digital Communications, once railed against married women, homosexuality, and condoms, according to a series of clips gathered by liberal watchdog Media Matters for America.
In a 2011 since-removed Washington Examiner op-ed, Media Matters reports, Patterson wrote that the government “has facilitated the movement of mothers out of the home economy and into the market economy, undermining the family as an economic unit, marriage as a lifelong partnership, and the well-being of children.”
He has also reportedly worked for two anti-gay organizations, criticized the American Psychiatric Association for not listing homosexuality as a mental disorder, and advocated for conversion therapy, a practice that has been resoundingly debunked. Media Matters also cites a report from The Philadelphia Inquirer, which summarized a piece Patterson co-wrote for the conservative journal Family in America. The piece, the Inquirer notes, summarizes recent family-related studies—and covers one study which claims that condom use deprives women of the “remarkable” chemicals in semen. The study also claims that “semen-exposed women” performed better on cognitive tasks.

(Washington, DC, Jan 11, 2019) — The following is a statement from Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works, in reaction to a Media Matters exposé on the outrageous misogyny and homophobia of Robert W. Patterson, who Donald Trump appointed as an Associate Commissioner at the Social Security Administration:
“American workers earn their Social Security benefits with every paycheck. It is the responsibility of the federal government to competently and fairly administer those benefits.
Donald Trump has made a mockery of that responsibility by appointing a horrific bigot and crackpot, who seriously believes that condoms rob women of “remarkable chemicals” in semen, to a key leadership position at the Social Security Administration. Robert W. Patterson must resign immediately. ”

Part of the Trump administration’s numerous vacancies, the president claims, are by design. Trump has frequently decried the numerous White House staffing positions as government waste, saying in an October interview with Forbes that his administration “[doesn’t] need as many people.”
“I’m generally not going to make a lot of the appointments that would normally be — because you don’t need them. I mean, you look at some of these agencies, how massive they are, and it’s totally unnecessary. They have hundreds of thousands of people,” Trump told Forbes.

Experts, however, say that simply not staffing his administration doesn’t work the way Trump claims.
“There is a legitimate case to be made for de-layering government, for reducing the number of political employees, but you have to do that intentionally,” Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, told the Guardian. “Failing to nominate people in a reasonably quick fashion isn’t the same as intentionally deciding, saying that you want to remove certain jobs from government so that you can make it more streamlined. The latter would be, I think, welcomed.”
Many of the vacant positions, NPR noted in October, are temporarily filled by career civil servants, who experts said may be more tentative and risk-averse than political appointees.
These civil servants, Stier explained to NPR, are “the proverbial substitute teacher; everyone knows you’re not around for the long term. Whatever decisions you make aren’t going to necessarily stick. You’re not likely to take the long-term view or handle the most difficult issues.”
Furthermore, these interim employees’ tenures are now surpassing their legal limits. NPR reported in November that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act gives presidential administrations 300 days to fill political appointments, in order to prevent administrations from simply circumventing the Senate confirmation process by appointing someone to an acting role indefinitely. Trump’s administration has blown past the 300-day mark, meaning that decisions made by an employee in an acting capacity could be subject to a court challenge as being improperly made.

Well, I offer no apology for what I am posting, for this is truly how I feel. This is my opinion, not a debate. If you disagree, or find my position offensive, I'm perfectly fine with that.
I have lived through several United States Presidents prior to our current President Trump. In my lifetime, I have never seen nor heard of a President scrutinized over every word he speaks, humiliated by the public to the point of disgrace, slandered, ridiculed, insulted, lied to/about, threatened with death, had his wife and our First Lady disrespected, & his minor child insulted, threatened & harassed.
I am ashamed and saddened by the ruthless, meanspirited, hateful, cruel, biased people who display themselves as having no civic pride, morals, ethics, decency or respect for our country's traditions and values. My elders and teachers taught me many yrs ago to respect our President, whether I voted for them or not. All the news stations & reporters who feel they have the right to perpetuate blatent lies and fabricate "facts" for a "good story" are dividing our country beyond belief. Many only report the negative "news" and never the accomplishments of our President. If people do not research everything put out by the MSM, they are left to believe all the hate mongering news. This is leading to so much intolerance that I feel we are nearing the brink of a civil war! No other President that took the oath of office, has been on the news 24/7, scrutinized for their every word, facial expression, decision, handshake, what he eats... NO, he is not perfect, far from it! No President or person is, including you and I!!!!! Yes, he makes stupid comments and doesn't use the flowery language of a "professional politician". However, I believe he truly loves the United States of America and works tirelessly to make things better for us all. He is very different than what we've become accustomed to, thank goodness. The people who would rather see our country fail than help him do his job need to stop. I was always taught "If you can't be part of the solution then at least don't be part of the problem". I personally want our President Donald Trump, as I did his predecessors, to succeed. To hope for failure is INSANE. United we stand; divided we fall.

No Cap On Amount Of Fees Social Security Attorneys May Charge Clients

2019-01-11T14:39:00.002-08:00

Opinion analysis: Social Security cap on attorney’s fees applies separately to successful representation before a court

According to a unanimous opinion released today, Social Security law does not impose an aggregate cap of 25 percent on attorney’s fees for successful representation of a Social Security disability claimant before both the Social Security Administration and a court. Instead, a 25 percent cap applies separately to representation before the court. This is a win for attorney Richard Culbertson, who represented a disability claimant both before the Social Security Administration and in court. He may now collect separate attorney’s fees for his successful representation before the court.
The case turned on the meaning of “such representation” in 42 U.S.C. § 406(b), which provides in relevant part:

Whenever a court renders a judgment favorable to a claimant under [Title II of the Social Security Act] who was represented before the court by an attorney, the court may determine and allow as part of its judgment a reasonable fee for such representation, not in excess of 25 percent of the total of the past-due benefits to which the claimant is entitled by reason of such judgment.

The opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, first applied a plain-meaning approach. The court quoted the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English for the definition of “such”: “[o]f the kind or degree already described or implied,” and declared that “the only form of representation ‘already described’ in § 406(b) is ‘represent[ation] before the court by an attorney.’” Based on this statutory language, the court announced that “the 25% cap applies only to fees for representation before the court, not the agency.”

Although the court began its analysis by quoting an earlier opinion: “We begi[n] with the language of the statute itself, and that is also where the inquiry should end, for the statute’s language is plain,” the court did not end the inquiry with the dictionary definition of “such.” Instead, it also considered other provisions of the statute and found that the structure of the statute and its other provisions were consistent with its interpretation of the statute.
The court noted that two different provisions, 42 U.S.C. § 406(a) and 42 U.S.C. § 406(b), address different stages of representation and calculate fees differently. Section 406(b) applies to court representation and imposes a flat 25 percent cap on fees for court representation. Section 406(a) applies to representation before the agency and provides two methods for determining fees for agency representation. One method, Section 406(a)(2), applies to fee agreements and caps fees at the lesser of 25 percent of past-due benefits or $6,000. The second method, Section 406(a)(1), applies when there is no fee agreement and authorizes the agency to set any fee, including a fee that exceeds 25 percent of past-due benefits, as long as the fee is “reasonable.”
The Supreme Court concluded that it would make little sense to apply the Section 406(b) court-stage cap to agency-stage Section 406(a) fees or the aggregate of Sections 406(a) and 406(b) fees. First, because many claimants never litigate in court, it would be incongruous to impose a 25 percent cap on agency fees based on a statutory provision regulating representation before a court. Second, applying the 406(b) cap to agency representation without a fee agreement would impose a limitation that Congress did not include in the relevant statutory provision. According to the court, “[i]f Congress had wanted these fees to be capped at 25%, it presumably would have said so directly in subsection (a), instead of providing for a ‘reasonable fee’ in that subsection [§ 406(a)(1)] and adding a 25% cap in § 406(b) without even referencing subsection (a).”
The court then turned to amicus Amy Weil’s argument that, when the statute is read as a whole, it is evident that Congress intended to place a cumulative 25 percent cap on attorney’s fees. The court acknowledged that Weil was correct in noting that the Social Security Administration only withholds a single pool of 25 percent of past-due benefits from which to pay fees for both agency and court representation. The court, however, noted that the single pool was the result of agency policy and the statute itself authorizes two pools of money for direct payment of fees. More importantly, according to the court, “the amount of past-due benefits that the agency can withhold for direct payment does not delimit the amount of fees that can be approved for representation before the agency or the court.” Until 1968, the Social Security Act allowed fees for successful representation before the agency but did not provide for direct payment from past-due benefits. In addition, under current “§§ 406(a)(1) and (4), the agency can award a ‘reasonable fee’ that exceeds the 25% of past-due benefits it can withhold for direct payment.”
The outcome is not surprising in light of the clear text of the statute and the fact that neither party defended the judgment below. Although Weil “ably discharged her assigned responsibilities” as amicus, and “despite the force of [her] arguments,” the court ruled against her as it does in 75 percent of cases with court-appointed amici curiae.

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Attorneys Fees May Be Capped For Lawyers Representing SSA Claimants

2018-11-13T08:36:00.003-08:00

Argument preview: Justices consider cap on attorney’s fees for successful representation of Social Security disability claimants (Corrected)

Attorney Richard Culbertson successfully represented several Social Security disability claimants both before the Social Security Administration and in federal court. Prior to his representation, he entered into fee agreements that provided that the clients would pay him attorney’s fees equal to 25 percent of past-due benefits for successful representation before the court as well as separate attorney’s fees for successful representation before the agency. Following longstanding precedent of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, adopted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the court below capped his attorney’s fees at 25 percent of past-due benefits for representation before both the Social Security Administration and the court.
In granting certiorari, the Supreme Court agreed to resolve a split among the federal courts of appeals as to whether the Social Security Act imposes an aggregate cap on attorney’s fees of 25 percent of past-due benefits for representation before both the court and the Social Security Administration, or instead the 25 percent cap applies separately to representation before the court.

The Social Security Act regulates the amount and manner in which an attorney may collect fees from a disability claimant for successful representation before the agency and the court. 42 USC § 406(a) governs attorney’s fees for successful representation before the agency, while 42 USC § 406(b) governs attorney’s fees for successful representation before the court. The Equal Access to Justice Act also authorizes a court to order recovery of “reasonable attorney’s fees” from the government in certain cases in which the claimant is successful and the government’s position was not “substantially justified.” If attorney’s fees are awarded under the EAJA and under Section 406(b), the attorney must refund the lesser fee to the claimant. The Social Security Administration withholds a single pool of 25 percent of past-due benefits from which to certify for payment any and all attorney’s fees awarded under Section 406(a) and/or 406(b).
Section 406(a) authorizes two avenues for recovery of attorney’s fees from a claimant for successful representation before the agency. Under Section 406(a)(1), an attorney may file a “fee petition” with the Social Security Administration. Alternatively, under a more recent and more commonly used, streamlined process, an attorney may seek approval of a “fee agreement” with a claimant under Section 406(a)(2). No cap is imposed under Section 406(a)(1). Section 406(a)(2) limits attorney’s fees to the lesser of 25 percent of past-due benefits or a specified dollar amount, currently set at $6,000.
For successful representation before a court, Section 406(b)(1)(A) provides in relevant part:

Whenever a court renders a judgment favorable to a claimant under [Title II] who was represented before the court by an attorney, the court may determine and allow as part of its judgment a reasonable fee for such representation, not in excess of 25 percent of the total of the past-due benefits to which the claimant is entitled by reason of such judgment.

Section 406(b)(1)(A) further provides that “no other fee may be payable or certified for payment for such representation except as provided in this paragraph.”
Focusing on the “plain meaning” of Section 406(b), Culbertson argues that the term “such representation” in Section 406(b)(1)(A) clearly refers to the antecedent phrase “represented before the court,” and thus under the plain meaning of Section 406(b), the 25 percent cap applies to representation “before the court by an attorney” and does not include representation before the agency. Culbertson also argues that a separate cap on attorney’s fees for representation before the court is consistent with the structure of Section 406 as well as the purpose of the statute and its legislative history.
Almost 40 years ago, in the first circuit-court decision to address this issue, Dawson v. Finch, the 5th Circuit held that Section 406(b) imposes an aggregate cap on attorney’s fees for representation in the administrative proceedings as well as before the court. In reaching this result, the 5th Circuit looked to the legislative history of the provision in order to discern Congress’ intent. Specifically, the court focused on the fact that Congress added Section 406(b) to address two goals. First, Congress sought to encourage effective legal representation by “insuring lawyers that they will receive reasonable fees directly through certification by the Secretary.” Second, Congress sought to protect claimants against excessive attorneys’ fees, which in the past had reached one-third to one-half of claimants’ past-due benefits, by imposing the 25 percent cap on fees. In 1982, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit also looked to this legislative history to hold in Morris v. Social Security Administration that Section 406(b) imposes a cumulative 25 percent cap on attorney’s fees.
More recently, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 6th, 9th and 10th Circuits have focused on the text of section 406(b) to hold that the 25 percent cap only applies to representation before a court. See Horenstein v. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Clark v. Astrue; and Wrenn v. Astrue, respectively.
The commissioner’s position on this issue has flipflopped over the years. Almost 40 years ago, the commissioner sided with the 5th Circuit in interpreting Section 406(b) to impose an aggregate cap and opposed the grant of certiorari in Dawson. Then about 15 years later, the commissioner sought and obtained 6th Circuit en banc review of the panel’s decision in Horenstein v. Secretary of Health and Human Services based on arguments that were logically inconsistent with an aggregate 25 percent cap. Almost 15 years after that, the commissioner argued in briefs before the 9th and 10th Circuits that an aggregate cap honors congressional intent and it would be inappropriate to permit attorneys to potentially collect up to 25 percent of a disability claimant’s past-due benefits at both the agency and court levels.
In this case, the acting commissioner initially supported the 11th Circuit’s rule imposing an aggregate cap. Then, after requesting four extensions to file a response, the acting commissioner filed a response siding with Culbertson and arguing that the text of Section 406(b) unambiguously applies the 25 percent cap only to attorney’s fees for representation before a court. The acting commissioner further argues that a 25 percent cap would be inconsistent with other provisions of Section 406(a) and that the absence of an aggregate cap does not mean that the agency and courts should approve fees that in the aggregate are equal to or greater than 50 percent of a claimant’s past-due benefits.
Because the acting commissioner agrees with Culbertson, the Supreme Court appointed Amy Levin Weil, an experienced 11th Circuit appellate litigator, to serve as amicus curiae in support of the 11th Circuit’s decision. Weil argues that the statute itself does not specifically state whether combined attorney’s fees may exceed 25 percent, and that the text of Section 406(a) and Section 406(b), read together, supports the aggregate rule. She also points to the legislative history on which the 4th and 5th Circuits relied in support of an aggregate 25 percent cap. She contends that permitting attorney’s fees to exceed 25 percent in the aggregate could lead to attorneys suing their clients to collect fees out of their present or future Social Security benefits contrary to the Social Security Act’s purpose of ensuring beneficiaries a protected source of income. She also argues that rejecting the 25 percent aggregate rule would lead to absurd results, with fees of up to 75 percent of past-due benefits if a favorable district court opinion is appealed and the applicant is successful in the court of appeals. She contends that the aggregate cap allows a logical division of agency and court fees from the 25-percent-of-accrued-benefit pool in a manner that recognizes that a portion of the accrued benefits is attributable to the time that the case was pending before the agency while the other portion is attributable to the time the case was pending before the court.
The National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives filed an amicus brief in the case. The NOSSCR does not address the plain meaning of the statute. Instead, it contends that Section 406(b) cannot impose an aggregate 25 percent cap on attorney’s fees for representation before a court and the agency because Section 406(a)(1) does not impose a cap on fees before the agency. NOSSCR further argues that a court has no discretion to impose an aggregate cap. NOSSCR informs the court that in circuits without an aggregate cap, the prevailing market rate includes a cumulative cap either by contract or in practice.
Weil faces an uphill battle in convincing the Supreme Court to uphold the 11th Circuit’s decision. The plain-meaning approach to statutory interpretation currently favored by the court supports Culbertson’s position. Moreover, amici curiae appointed by the Supreme Court typically only win about 25 percent of their cases.
If, however, Weil can convince the court to look beyond the text of the Section 406(b) in isolation, it may, like Chief Judge Geoffrey Crawford of the District of Vermont, find that “it would be strange indeed to believe that Congress would in 1965 denounce 50% contingency fees as excessive and enact a statute to stop them, and then, in 1968, pass a law with the effect of permitting 50% contingency fees.”
A previous version of this post inadvertently implied that NOSSCR advocated a particular method for EAJA offsets.

Kathryn Moore Guest

Posted Wed, October 31st, 2018 11:04 am

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Eric Conn's Clients Locked Out

2018-09-18T07:16:00.001-07:00

Facing possible financial ruin, ex-Eric Conn clients still can’t get his files on them

Former clients of disbarred Eastern Kentucky attorney Eric C. Conn will have to wait a little longer to get access to files in his defunct office that might be of use in hearings on whether they’ll continue to receive disability benefits.

The Kentucky Bar Association refused to appoint a Receiver for the files earlier, a federal prosecutor said in a court motion.
Because of the “complete abdication of responsibility by the KBA” for the files, prosecutor Darren L. McCullough asked U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves to appoint someone to take charge of getting the records to Conn’s former clients.
There are 6,000 to 8,000 files at the office, McCullough said in the motion.

The issue is important because the Social Security Administration(SSA) last month began holding hearings on whether nearly 2,000 former clients of Conn will get to keep their disability benefits.
The hearings require people to show they were disabled at the time they originally were awarded benefits, which is more than a decade in some cases, said Ned Pillersdorf, a Prestonsburg attorney who has represented dozens of former Conn clients and helped line up volunteer lawyers for others.
Social Security (SSA) won’t consider evidence from several medical professionals Conn used to complete paperwork in clients’ cases because of the potential that the information was fraudulent.
Conn admitted he filled out evaluations that doctors and a psychologist signed without doing real examinations on the clients.
However, the files in Conn’s former office may contain evidence from other medical professionals not suspected of wrongdoing, meaning it could still be used in proving eligibility, Pillersdorf said.
Pillersdorf said he has learned that Conn did not file key medical evidence in many cases.
That may have been because he didn’t want to pay the extra cost to do so and didn’t need to,

because he was bribing a Social Security ALJ David Black Daugherty.
Pillersdorf said Social Security judges SSA ALJs have refused requests from him and other attorneys representing Conn’s former clients to delay making decisions in their cases.
Many of Conn’s one-time clients can’t remember which doctors treated them a decade or more ago, so without the files Conn kept on them, many of them will have to go through hearings without information that might help them, Pillersdorf said.
That despite the old files being stored 12 miles from where the hearings are being held.
“That’s scandalous,” Pillersdorf said. “The files are relevant in that they were likely generated from 2006-2009, which is the time frame the ongoing hearings are focused on.”
Conn, who lived in Pikeville and had an office in Floyd County, is serving a 27-year prison sentence after admitting using false information in clients’ cases;

paying ALJ David Daugherty, a Social Security judge, more than $600,000 in bribes; and other charges.
Conn had been one of the most prolific Social Security disability attorneys in the nation before he was indicted in 2016, representing thousands of people in Eastern Kentucky.
Social Security said it had to make a new determination of whether about 3,700 of those people deserved to continue getting disability benefits because of Conn’s fraud.
In the first round of about 1,800, the agency kept benefits in place for about 250 people without a hearing. Of the rest, nearly 800 lost benefits.
The files at Conn’s old office might have been useful in those hearings, Pillersdorf said.
Many people turned down for continued benefits in those hearings have appealed or re-applied, but the loss of income has caused financial hardship, and at least three people committed suicide over the prospect of losing checks, Pillersdorf said.
Disability benefits are an important piece of the economy in some Eastern Kentucky counties.
The 12 counties with the highest percentage of people receiving disability payments through Social Security in 2015 were all in Eastern Kentucky, according to a report issued last year from a division of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
Wolfe County led that list, with 24.92 percent of residents receiving disability.
Statewide, 11.2 percent of Kentuckians received disability benefits in 2015, the second-highest rate in the nation, the report said.
Pillersdorf said he and other lawyers representing Conn’s former clients only learned last spring that there were hundreds of boxes of files regarding them at the complex of five interconnected mobile homes Conn used as an office.
Conn has been away from the office since April 2016, either on home detention or jail, or outside the country when he absconded for six months last year.

Eric Conn was escorted by SWAT team agents prior to his extradition, at the Toncontin International Airport, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017. Conn, a fugitive Kentucky lawyer who escaped before facing sentencing for his central role in a massive Social Security fraud case, was captured Dec. 2 as he came out of a restaurant in the coastal city of La Ceiba.

Moises Castillo AP

Conn’s employees had told former clients their files were no longer available at the office, Pillersdorf said.
Pillersdorf sent the U.S. Department of Justice an email late last March asking the agency to preserve the files, which are the property of the clients.
In May, he asked the Kentucky Bar Association to appoint a special commissioner to take charge of the files.
Conn agreed to forfeit the office to the government so that it could be sold, with proceeds applied to a $5.7 million judgment imposed as part of his guilty plea.
The state bar association has a procedure in place to take control of records in the office of an attorney and distribute them to clients, such as when a lawyer dies or is disbarred, as Conn was.
However, McCullough said John D. Meyers, executive director of the bar association, notified prosecutors in June that the association would not appoint someone to take charge of Conn’s files.
Meyers said he had told a Justice Department attorney who contacted him in early April that the process for appointing a special commissioner is cumbersome and time-consuming.
Before appointing a special commissioner, the rule requires the bar association to first determine there is no one else who could wrap up matters at a defunct law office, Meyers said.
In Conn’s case, the bar association determined there was a former employee of his office who was qualified to do that, noting she is familiar with the location of the files and the filing system, he said.
Meyers said the KBA “will not speculate” on why the Justice Department and other parties decided not to let the former Conn employee do the job.
McCullough said the former employee did not have the resources for the “daunting project” of dealing with 6,000 to 8,000 abandoned files.
After the KBA decision, the Justice Department began looking for another option and decided to have Janet Stumbo, a former state Supreme Court and Appeals Court judge who is married to Pillersdorf, take control of the files and get them to Conn’s former clients.
The job, which is likely to be time consuming, would have included compensation.
The department asked Reeves to appoint Stumbo.
Reeves, however, ordered the government to submit the names of at least three potential receivers, and said they could not be family members or employees of firms involved in any matter related to claims arising from Conn’s former representation of claimants.
That would not allow Stumbo to do the job.
The effort to find another receiver could mean there wouldn’t be one in place until next year, Pillersdorf said.
“At this rate hundreds of former Conn clients either have or will have gone through hearings without their files,” he said.
The government also can’t sell Conn’s old office until the files are out of it.

DurationÂ 2:33

Becoming ‘Mr. Social Security’: The bizarre story of fugitive lawyer Eric Conn

Fugitive lawyer Eric C. Conn was convicted in a fraud scheme that could have cost the government more than $550 million in Social Security payments. Here's how the onetime king of Eastern Kentucky disability cases ended up on the FBI's most-wanted

By Nicole L. Cvetnic

By Bill Estep

September 17, 2018 02:37 PM

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article218390780.html#storylink=cpy

SSA Judge Commits Suicide

2018-09-07T19:07:00.001-07:00

'It Wasn't Pleasant': Retired Miami Judge Criticizes Social Security Judicial System After Former Colleague's Suicide

"If I had known about it, I would have driven down, gotten on a megaphone and said, ‘Tim, do you really want your son to grow up without a father?’ because he was very caring about the child," said retired judge Thomas Snook, former colleague of Social Security Judge Timothy Maher, who committed suicide after a 10-hour standoff with police.

Retired Social Security judge Thomas Snook, Miami. Courtesy photo.

A former colleague of Judge Timothy Maher, a federal jurist who shot himself with a rifle Aug. 24 after a prolonged standoff with police, is speaking out about events leading to the incident.
“He wasn’t some maniac running around,” retired Social Security Judge Thomas Snook said about Maher, who had been arrested days earlier on a charge of aggravated assault with a firearm after a domestic dispute at a home in El Portal. “I was very disappointed to read that he wasn’t Baker Acted.”
Snook, who was appointed to Miami’s Social Security office in 1997 and retired two years ago, took to social media, with a post on Facebook.

“I hope someone will investigate SSA culpability in this tragedy so it does not happen again,” he wrote. “Please share.”
“I am angry right now that a friend has needlessly died,” Snook’s post continued. “But I am more angry at how the Social Security Administration mishandled this tragic situation.”
The Social Security Administration did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.
“I felt helpless in seeing this turn from a tragic situation that could have been remedied into a death spiral,” Snook told the Daily Business Review.

Related: Federal Judge Kills Himself in Standoff With Police

Maher’s personal issues arose from beyond the courthouse, and it’s since been reported by the Miami Herald that he owned more than 50 guns and had a “hit list.”
But Snook said that wasn’t the side of the judge that he knew.

Miami-Dade County Administrative Law Judge Timothy Maher. Photo courtesy of Miami-Dade courts. “He was a decent, honorable, good judge, who needed some help and had some severe personal problems, so I was very sorry and angry to see that he died,” Snook said.
Snook’s anger is predominantly directed at the Social Security operation, which he feels ”is not a good model for a judicial system.”
He said the agency is home to a huge backlog of cases.
“That certainly played into my decision to retire,” Snook said.
When he left the bench, judges were “working toward” 50 hearings a month.
“The agency was putting more pressure on the judges to put out more cases,” Snook said. “Well, the judges aren’t the only person on the conveyor belt. But that’s unfortunately the way the agency looked at it, as a productivity issue, when you have to judge each case individually.”
Snook said he and Maher were among an “overwhelming number” of disability judges who weren’t able to retain staff because they were members of a union, the Association of Administrative Law Judges.
“In order to be a union member no one can work for you. It’s a very strange situation,” Snook said.

Click here to read a recent audit report from the Office of the Inspector General

Being a social security judge “wasn’t pleasant,” Snook said. That said, he doesn’t recall an instance when Maher said he felt stressed or pressured at work.
Back in 2014, Snook and Maher were featured in a Washington Post article, “The biggest backlog in the federal government,” along with Miami Social Security Judge Carol Pennock. It stated that the backlog at that time was over 900,000 cases.
“It’s more than a million now,” Snook said.
That article almost collapsed before it began, but “Judge Maher saved the whole plan,” Snook said.
The reporter, David Fahrenthold, had traveled to Miami to sit in on another judge’s hearing, but the claimant didn’t show up and the hearing was canceled.
According to Snook, “Judge Maher immediately said, ‘I have a hearing coming up in a few minutes and I don’t think the attorney would have any problem with somebody sitting in on the case. Why don’t you talk to the attorney?’”
But things took a turn in 2015, when the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, or ODAR, conducted an investigation into Maher over allegations of harassment.

Read ODAR’s letter at the conclusion of its investigation of Maher:

According to Snook, Maher was barred from the Miami office and told to conduct all hearings from Fort Lauderdale for the duration of the investigation. The Office of Disability Adjudication and Review also allegedly instructed Fort Lauderdale staff not to speak to him, according to Snook.
Snook met Maher before he became a judge, when Maher was an attorney with the Internal Revenue Service. He expressed interest in becoming a disability judge, so Snook guided him through the “competitive” application process.
“As an example of how kind-hearted he could be, I got a gift card in the mail for a couple hundred dollars to Morton’s Steakhouse from Judge Maher afterward,” Snook recalled. “He wrote a little note and thanked me for helping him.”

The Last Days of Judge Timothy Maher: What Led a Federal Jurist to End His Own Life?

“There was an allegation brought against Judge Maher. With the secrecy this agency has, I still don’t know exactly what the allegation is,” he said. ‘But in any event, they ordered Judge Maher to conduct his hearings from the Fort Lauderdale hearing office.”
Snook felt like “things weren’t handled well by the agency.” He remembers Maher as having a “good sense of humor” and being “very caring” to courthouse employees.
When an attorney Maher knew became involved in a domestic dispute situation, he offered a helping hand.
“(The attorney) actually called Judge Maher and he told her to come to his home, as, basically, a safe house, and she did,” Snook said.
Ironically, when Maher was arrested Aug. 14, it was after he allegedly pointing a rifle at his ex-girlfriend in her El Portal home when he came to pick up their 4-year-old son under a shared-custody arrangement.
“When this incident with his girlfriend occurred, my understanding was that Maher went to the office the next day. But he certainly expressed to some judges that, basically, his career was over, that the agency would go after him for this,” Snook said.
A week later, Maher held his in-laws hostage inside a house in Homestead, then ended his life.
“If I had known about it, I would have driven down, gotten on a megaphone and said, ‘Tim, do you really want your son to grow up without a father?’ because he was very caring about the child.”

Trump's Executive Order Concerning ALJs; Will It Eliminate The Back Log, Drain The Swamp, of Just Make ALJs Political?

2018-08-06T15:48:00.001-07:00

ALJs Could Get Political With New Executive Order

The new executive order (EO) granting agency chiefs the power to hire administrative law judges (ALJs) according to their own standards—and eliminating the exam and competitive hiring process formerly in place—could turn the position of ALJ into a politicized one, critics of the move argue.

The “Executive Order Excepting Administrative Law Judges from the Competitive Service,” signed by President Donald Trump on July 10, attempts to solve the problems raised by the Supreme Court’s decision this year in Lucia v. Securities & Exchange Commission. But critics worry about the unforeseen consequences to the regulatory process that this EO may cause.

What happened
In a closely watched case, the Supreme Court in Lucia held that the common practice of having ALJs appointed by the staffs of federal agencies was unconstitutional. ALJs, such as those used by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), are “Officers of the United States” who can be appointed only by the president, “Courts of Law” or “Heads of Departments” pursuant to the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, the Court held.
The opinion, authored by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by the five conservative-leaning justices (with a concurrence in part by Justice Breyer), has resulted in considerable uncertainty, not just for the SEC but for all federal agencies that use ALJs. ALJs are found throughout the federal system, from the National Labor Relations Board to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, with the bulk of the approximately 1,900 ALJs found in the Social Security Administration. Before the president’s July 10 EO, federal agencies had hired ALJs through a competitive merit selection process administered by the Office of Personnel Management. After Lucia, this practice might no longer pass constitutional scrutiny.
In an effort “to eliminate doubt regarding the constitutionality of the method of appointing officials who discharge such significant duties and exercise such significant discretion,” Trump issued the EO.
In the EO, the president explained: “I find that conditions of good administration make necessary an exception to the competitive hiring rules and examinations for the position of ALJ.
“These conditions include the need to provide agency heads with additional flexibility to assess prospective appointees without the limitations imposed by competitive examination and competitive selection procedures.”
The EO “will also give agencies greater ability and discretion to assess critical qualities in ALJ candidates, such as work ethic, judgment, and ability to meet the particular needs of the agency,” the president added. “These are all qualities individuals should have before wielding the significant authority conferred on ALJs, and each agency should be able to assess them without proceeding through complicated and elaborate examination processes or rating procedures that do not necessarily reflect the agency’s particular needs. This change will also promote confidence in, and the durability of, agency adjudications.”
Now, the sole requirement to be appointed an ALJ is a professional license to practice law and good standing to practice in one of the states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico or any territorial court. As a result, agency heads have broad discretion to appoint ALJs as they see fit, with very little oversight.
Critics of the EO expressed concern that this new process will lead to political appointments that lack the appearance of independence. “This change will politicize our courts, lead to cronyism and replace independent and impartial adjudicators with those who do the bidding of political appointees,” Marilyn Zahm, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, said in a statement, calling the EO “an assault on due process for the American people.”

Why it matters
While the White House touted the EO as a means to alleviate uncertainty in the wake of the Lucia decision and as a more efficient and less burdensome procedure than the former competitive examination and selection process, critics were not appeased. Forgoing the merit-based hiring process and putting the selection power into the hands of politically appointed agency heads will lead to politicized ALJs, opponents argued. Going forward, it will be important to watch and see how this new appointments process affects ALJ decisions throughout the federal agencies.

Fugitive Lawyer Eric Conn Pleads Guilty

2018-06-11T12:55:00.001-07:00

Attorney Eric Christopher Conn, 58, of Pikeville pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to escape and one count of conspiracy to retaliate against an informant. Sentencing is set for September 7, 2018.
http://cgacriticalthinkers.blogspot.com/2017/12/when-judge-breaks-law-when-judge-goes.html
According to the plea, from October 2004 to December 2017, Conn participated in a scheme with former SSA administrative law judge David Black Daugherty, multiple doctors, including clinical psychologist Alfred Bradley Adkins, and others to submit thousands of falsified medical documents to the SSA to fraudulently obtain disability benefits totaling more than $550 million for thousands of individuals.
According to the plea, of a former SSA employee discovering and providing information about the scheme to federal agents, Conn and former SSA administrative law judge Charlie Paul Andrus conspired and acted to have the former SSA employee terminated in an effort to discredit the employee.
Finally, Conn admitted that after pleading guilty in March 2017, and prior to being sentenced on June 2, 2017, he fled the country with the help of Curtis Lee Wyatt by severing the electronic monitoring device from his ankle and fleeing across the Mexican border.
Conn was originally charged in April 2016, along with Daugherty and Adkins, in an 18-count indictment with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and other related offenses in connection with the disability fraud scheme.
Conn subsequently pleaded guilty on March 24, 2017, to a two-count information charging him with theft of government money and paying illegal gratuities, and he was sentenced in absentia on July 14, 2017 to 12 years in prison on those charges.
After his flight from the United States, Conn was charged, along with Wyatt, in September 2017, in a seven-count indictment with conspiracy to escape, escape and other related offenses.
On Dec. 5, 2017, Conn was returned to the United States from Honduras after being apprehended by Honduran authorities.
Conn’s plea today resolves the outstanding charges against him.
In addition to the 12 years in prison Conn is currently serving, he now faces an additional 15 years in prison. As part of the plea agreement, Conn agreed to recommend to the Court at sentencing that the Court sentence him to the maximum possible sentence, a 15-year sentence, and run that sentence consecutive to the 12-year sentence previously imposed, for a total of 27 years in prison.
Andrus pleaded guilty in June 2016 to a one-count information charging him with conspiracy to retaliate against an informant, and was sentenced Aug. 7, 2017 to six months in prison.
Daugherty pleaded guilty in May 2017 to a two-count information charging him with receiving illegal gratuities, and was sentenced on Aug. 25, 2017, to four years in prison.
Adkins was found guilty following a six-day trial in June 2017 of one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, one count of mail fraud, one count of wire fraud and one count of making false statements, and was sentenced on Sept. 22, 2017, to 25 years in prison. Wyatt pleaded guilty in March 2018, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 29.
(June 6, 2018)

Another NY Cop, Fireman, Bouncer, Muscleman Arrested For Stealing Social Security Disability Benefits

2018-04-14T18:00:00.001-07:00

Scott Maraio, 53, was arrested and charged with theft of government funds, making false statements in connection with Social Security disability benefits.
In 2002, at age 37 Maraio claimed he could no longer work as a firefighter, suffering neck and back injuries. He stopped working for the FDNY, began receiving Social Security disability payments.
"I cannot stand or walk for more than a few minutes at a time. I cannot lift or carry more than five pounds," Maraio said in a 2002.
But from 2008 to 2018, he collected more than $364,000 in SS benefits while simultaneously earning over $450,000 as a bouncer, fire safety manager and fireguard.
A Staten Island man who was a cop and firefighter was caught side-gigging as a bouncer at a strip club and television actor while collecting hundreds of thousands on disability, authorities allege.
Scott Maraio, 53, was arrested Wednesday and charged with theft of government funds, making false statements and making false statements in connection with Social Security disability benefits, prosecutors said.
In 2002, a then 37-year-old Maraio claimed he could no longer work as a firefighter after suffering neck and back injuries while on the job. He stopped working for the FDNY, and then began receiving Social Security disability payments, said the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court.
"I cannot stand or walk for more than a few minutes at a time. I cannot lift or carry more than five pounds," Maraio said in a 2002 disability report, according to the court filing.
But from October 2008 to February 2018, the feds allege the defendant collected more than $364,000 in benefits for himself, his wife and children while simultaneously earning approximately $450,000 as a bouncer, fire safety manager and fireguard.
Maraio, who was a police officer for one year, allegedly did not report the extra income and arranged for the payments to be made to third-party companies, including one owned by his wife called Blondie Consultants.
He did report making about $2,000 working as an extra on television shows from 2007 to 2009, said the complaint.
While a security guard at the strip club from 2008 to 2014, he was in good shape, often on his feet and worked 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. shifts, the filing said. His duties included crowd control and checking patrons' identification.
The complaint claims the ex-cop made $110,000 as a security guard at the strip club, and earned around $11,000 in tips from "Beaver Bucks" -- the club's internal form of currency -- he redeemed for cash.
Beginning in 2012, he was working as an independent fire-related contactor at various constriction sites, including Madison Square Garden and Build it Back after Hurricane Sandy, said the complaint. His duties were to prevent fire issues and serving as a fireguard at various events.
Then, last February, Maraio was allegedly caught working full-time as a safety and loss control consultant at a department store construction site in Brooklyn.
Maraio, who public records indicate lives in Great Kills, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Two other defendants, former NYPD detective Kenneth Rubero and ex-officer Gerard Scparta, were charged in separate disability fraud schemes.
From about 1997 up to 2017, Scparta received approximately $638,000 in disability benefits for himself, his wife, and his children, during which time he earned approximately $1.6 million from his work at a strip club, the feds allege.
From about 2008 up to this February, Rubero received a total of approximately $396,000 in disability benefits for himself and his child, during which time Rubero had earned a total of over approximately $720,000 from his work with Baychester and Secure Logistics, authorities said.
"As alleged, these three defendants, all former law enforcement officers, told lie after lie to obtain a total of over one million dollars in disability benefits through fraud," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman. "In doing so, they allegedly took money from truly disabled individuals who are dependent on this important source of public support. Scparta and Maraio also allegedly concealed their employment and income from the Social Security Administration by hiding behind corporate entities purportedly owned by their wives."