Conservator Seeks To Overturn Court’s Ruling That Man Can Keep His Own House
March 6, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
A San Bernardino probate judge recently denied a highly unusual petition to revoke a 28 year- old notarized and recorded deed of sale and to return the property into the estate of the seller. In a stunningly bold move, the petitioner, conservator Melodie Scott, has moved for another trial on this matter.
This case potentially redefines the very concept of property ownership and as such may be seen as a precedent setting case.
The revocation of the deed of sale was sought by the conservator of an elderly woman, Lois Risse, who nearly three decades sold her home to a friend of hers, Glenn Neff, with the understanding that she could live in the house—rent free—for the rest of her life. Lois Risse was in her early seventies at the time of the sale.
Fast forward to 2012. Risse, then 101 years old, was being preyed on financially by a bevy of individuals who were accessing her bank accounts, buying vehicles with her money and apparently even living in her house, robbing her under the pretext of caring for her.
When Melodie Scott was appointed Risse’s guardian by Judge Michael Welch in San Bernardino Superior Court, she inherited a Pandora’s Box of predation and financial abuse which had greatly reduced the size of Risse’s estate.
At that point, Scott made some legally questionable decisions. Rather than filing police reports against the people who appear to have taken off with over $70,000 of Risse’s assets, she chose to try to persuade a judge to revoke the deed of sale to Risse’s friend, Glenn Neff. Neff, who now lives in Northern California, has been maintaining the property and paying the taxes and insurance on the Yucaipa home. Scott has made it clear that she wishes to get a reverse mortgage on the property in order to pay for her services as Risse’s guardian.
This reporter has reviewed papers from Melodie Scott’s own files which indicate that several individuals withdrew tens of thousands of dollars from Risse’s bank accounts in fall of 2011 as well as cashed checks from her accounts for thousands of dollars for inexplicable expenses. Apparently, one of these individuals purchased a couple of vehicles with Risse’s money.
In her quest to make a case that Neff had committed financial elder abuse, Scott had to go back nearly thirty years. She found some checks that Risse had written to Neff back in the early eighties and ponied up these checks as evidence that three decades ago, Neff financially abused Lois Risse.
Neff has claimed that he took these checks to the bank and cashed them for Lois. Scott also claims that, nearly thirty years ago, Neff stole a gun collection belonging to Lois Risse. Both Risse and Neff have asserted that Risse sold her guns to someone else years ago.
In January, after depositions and a trial, Judge Raymond Haight decided that the deed of sale was legal and that Neff would be allowed to keep his house.
In an odd misattribution of responsibility, a distraught Melodie Scott subsequently emailed this reporter:
“Hey you have another notch for your belt. We lost our trial to keep Mrs. Risse’s home and she has to go to a convalescent home. And no I was never paid in this file. Go see who else’s life you can ruin.”
After the judge ruled against giving Melodie Scott the house belonging to Glenn Neff, an outburst from Melodie Scott was overheard in the courtroom in which she cried, “What am I gonna do now? She’s out of money and she’s gotta go! She’s gotta go!”
It was unclear to those overhearing this where exactly Lois Risse had to go. Glenn Neff is honoring his promise that Lois can live in the house and is still carrying the financial burden of the insurance and taxes on the property. Given Melodie Scott’s propensity to withhold medical care from her clients when they run out of money, one might wonder if Risse might soon be scheduled for a trip to the Big Retirement Home in the sky.
Not content with the judge’s ruling, Scott turned around and has filed for a new trial. In her application for this trial, she alleges that the initial agreement between Neff and Risse stated that the deed would not be recorded until Risse died and therefore when Neff recorded the deed in 2012 he breached the contract and thus de facto nullified the original deed of sale. The crux of her motion for a new trial lies in a legal dispute as to whether the early recording of this document is an incidental or material breach of contract.
Neff has stated that when he realized that Lois’s assets were under attack, he recorded the deed.
“My lawyers are already into me for thirty thousand dollars,” states a battle-weary Glenn Neff. According to Neff, he asked attorney Jack Osborn, who is the lawyer he initially hired to defend his house against conservator Scott’s petition, whether he could redeem his attorney’s fees if he is successful in derailing Scott’s efforts to take the house away from him. Curiously, Neff reports that Osborn has told him he will be stuck with the bill no matter who wins in court. In fact, this is not necessarily true.
Osborn’s affiliations have already been questioned in this matter. When Neff learned that Osborn had previously represented Melodie Scott, he confronted the lawyer with this potential conflict of interest. At that point, a new lawyer was substituted in from the same firm of Brown, White and Newhouse. Neff states that Osborn never explained the change of lawyers to him and he suspects that Osborn’s failure to disclose the conflict of interest resulted in Osborn bolting from the case.
Oddly, his lawyers are also billing Mr. Neff for reading the articles being published about this case. An entry on the attorney’s bill for December 10, 2012, notes that Neff was charged for the following: “received and analyzed article …regarding conservatorship of Lois Risse.”
“I think I am getting screwed every time I turn around here,” stated Neff in a recent interview. His lawyers have also billed him over $1500 for a deposition of Lois Risse. There is scant legal precedent which allows for deposing a mentally incapacitated party and the centenarian Risse has been medically deemed to be what us normal folks would call “deeply confused.”
On March 6, the motion for a new trial will be heard at 9 a.m. in Dept. S15P of San Bernardino Superior court. The underlying implications of this protracted effort to reverse a decades- old deed of sale has reverberations for the whole concept of property ownership and levitates the common understanding of “who owns what” into a stratospheric legal grey zone. Conservatorships constitute a Constitutional loophole whereby simply the assertion made before a judge that someone has mental incapacity may result in his losing most of his civil rights and all access to his property and funds.
Janet Phelan is an investigative journalist whose articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The San Bernardino County Sentinel, The Santa Monica Daily Press, The Long Beach Press Telegram, Oui Magazine and other regional and national publications. Janet specializes in issues pertaining to legal corruption and addresses the heated subject of adult conservatorship, revealing shocking information about the relationships between courts and shady financial consultants. She also covers issues relating to bioweapons. Her poetry has been published in Gambit, Libera, Applezaba Review, Nausea One and other magazines. Her first book, The Hitler Poems, was published in 2005. She currently resides abroad. You may browse through her articles (and poetry) at janetphelan.com
Janet Phelan is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Does Religion Use People Or Do People Use Religion
March 3, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
God’s Role In The World…
In an interview about his book “Suicide of a Superpower” Dr. Kevin Barrett confronted Pat Buchanan with evidence of a manipulation involving the tragedy of 9/11. Buchanan said he would never consider a false flag operation involving his friend former Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? Isaiah 2:22.
Quoting this scripture, R. J. Rushdoony writes, “It is God the Lord who alone is infallible, omnipotent, and all wise. He alone should command our trust and our faith. The generations of old looked to Him, and they were strengthened and made blessed, God has not grown old since the days of Moses and David, nor has His arm grown short with the years. As far as our feet will stretch and as far as our feet will carry us, He is there.” R. J. Rushdoony, “A Word in Season”
“Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” – Psalm 146:3
Using this scripture in a Blog entitled “The Fallibility of All Men” Christine Smith writes, “There is turmoil among some Catholics due to the announced resignation of Pope Benedict. It reminds me of the sadness, dismay, disappointment and sometimes shock I saw in many a Christian following the 2012 presidential election. Yet both reactions, from those who profess a faith in God, demonstrates not the strength of God within them but the weakness of men who, though claiming God as almighty, actually behave as if man on earth is the most powerful.” (Emphasis mine)
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 2 Timothy 3:5
America is being prepared for a system of control that will make feudalism look like freedom. We watch helplessly as our government uses questionable events to destroy our freedom under the aegis of protecting us from terrorism Over eight years ago I wrote an article comparing our government with the government of Nazi Germany, “America – The Fatherland”. Today there are many comparisons being made between the rise of the Third Reich and Twenty First Century United States of America. Technology that was not available in Hitler’s Germany is now commonplace and offers tyrants the ability to impose ever more frightening controls.
My Merriam Webster dictionary defines “religion” as “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith”. That definition describes religion but does not define religious practice. There is a link to “Rely” which is defined as “to be dependent”,” to have confidence based on experience” a better definition of religion as it is practiced.
For many years I believed that people who said they were atheists or agnostics had rejected religion by denying or rejecting the existence of god. I thought of them as devoid of religion. I also believed that the First Amendment to our constitution created a religiously neutral government. This was my belief until in the latter third of my life I was disabused from the Charismatic Movement and confronted with R. J. Rushdoony’s “Institutes of Biblical Law”, a book that matured my theology and filled the gaping hole that had plagued my Christian outlook from the beginning.
Dr. Rushdoony’s Institutes begins by establishing all law as religious because it sets the meaning of justice and righteousness in society. The source of law is the god of a society. Any change in law is a change of religion. He writes that, “—no disestablishment of religion as such is possible in any society. A church can be disestablished, and a particular religion can be supplanted by another, but the change is simply to another religion. Since the foundations of law are inescapably religious, no society exists without a religious foundation or without a law system that codifies the morality of its religion.”
There cannot be a religious void! Every person and every society places ultimate confidence in someone or something.
A nation that wishes to be Christian must zealously guard its legal codes. Reverend Rushdoony writes, “—there cannot be tolerance in a law system for another religion. Toleration is a device used to introduce a new law-system as a prelude to a new intolerance.
The United States began with at least a passing regard for Biblical Law. For several decades the Puritans and Pilgrims lived under Biblical mandates. Blackstone’s Commentaries retained a modified dependence on the Laws God gave to Moses. For instance the description of marriage made a husband and wife one and suspended a woman’s legal existence during marriage. He modified the parent child relationship but retained some obligation of a child to a parent. His writings are still used but have been replaced in the classroom with Black’s Law Dictionary a more secular document. .
Up into the 1930s some states still enforced the Blue Laws which among other sinful practices prohibited fornication, adultery, and sodomy. Blasphemy against God was also listed as a crime as was defiling the Sabbath. These laws provided our country with a palpable Christian flavor. They are now forgotten. A list of these statues is difficult to find on the internet; any reference to them is filled with mocking and jeering. Many of these Biblical standards remained in state statutes long after they were ignored.
Now, we are witnessing the accelerated introduction of a new legal system. President Obama is following in the steps of President George W. Bush in writing Executive orders that allow the state to exert divine control over citizens. Feminism successfully defied Biblical law and now homosexuality is being imposed. States have murdered millions of their own citizens but Christians become more aroused at the idea that a single reprobate should be stoned to death than they do over the cruel and useless deaths of millions of innocent civilians by their own governments.
Our President is urging California to approve homosexual marriage which would amount to a state sanction of sodomy a practice condemned by the God of the Bible. We are being returned to the days of Rex Lex with Obama, whose religious affiliation is as cloudy as his background, as the king.
Pat Buchanan’s needs to revise his priorities; esteem for Dick Cheney makes it impossible for him to entertain the possibility Cheney might be involved in nefarious activities. Friendship and loyalty are important virtues but they should never hold truth and righteousness hostage. The tendency of people to think well of their friends and of their government is often used for evil purposes. Human beings are fragile, sinful, and unreliable, placing ultimate faith in their performance and behavior will end in regret.
Christine Smith points to a pivotal flaw: Christians talk the talk but fail to walk the walk. While claiming God is still on His throne and in control of His creation they behave as if man is more powerful than God.
As our government becomes more aberrant and dangerous to its citizens Christians, not noticing their continual failure, continue to work as if the government is outside God’s control.
The State has become a major idol that draws the primary dependence of the majority of American Christians and their leaders. We attribute tyrannical laws and dissolute government to political parties instead of realizing that a sovereign God is allowing these evils to come upon us in response to our own evil actions..
Yesterday I listened to a YouTube video of a well-known leader of the truth telling movement interviewing a highly intelligent, Christian, women with a Doctor’s degree from our highest rated Ivy League school. She claimed that the end times are coming and there is nothing we can do about it. She could be right; but I don’t think she is. Such talk is anathema to proper role of God’s people in these evil times. This influential lady is nullifying her effectiveness by promoting a theology that paralyzes Christians and defies God’s exclusive right to such actions.
Arminianism and Dispensationalism are not only heretical theologies but they are insidious forces against the effectiveness of the Christian religion. Arminianism injects humanism into Christianity and Dispensationalism created an entirely new system of theology that distorts the Biblical narrative and promotes heretical doctrines.
By predicting the end times this influential Christian lady usurps God’s sovereignty and attempts to occupy His throne. Because Dispensationalism has robbed her of her God given Christian mission her entire testimony consists of her healing and warning about the end times. What if she is entirely wrong? What if it is not the end times but God’s judgment? What if our sins have found us out? What if there are numerous other grievous sins besides the millions of babies that we have murdered? What if these sins involve our people, our fathers, and our nation? What is we have distorted the Christian religion so that we are no different than the Pharisees? What if the same judgment that Jesus made toward the Pharisees He has made toward us as Christians? What if we are hypocrites? What if?
Instead of urging repentance which is the Biblical antidote to captivity she commits the disastrous error of blaming it on the end times leaving Christians helpless in the face of Satanic darkness. We are often urged to pray for our leaders. Over the years I have often prayed for our nation and its leaders. Those prayers and the prayers of thousands of other Christians have gone unanswered, God answers prayers that conform to His Will but He ignores those that do not. We are missing the mark!
It is time for Christians to stop using religion and allow religion to use them. God is not our servant! We are His servants and it is our role to obey His Commandments and work to bring about His peace and order in His creation. Instead of blaming our present dilemma on the end times we need to understand that these events might be God’s response to our sins and what is needed is repentance and proper behavior. We need to scrutinize our lives and the actions of our nation and repent from our sins so that if He does come again soon we will be ready.
God will not be mocked. We cannot ignore His Law, falsely profess His Will, destroy His creation, murder His creatures, elect and obey a pagan government, and arrogantly claim His blessing on our sin. When we do these things we can expect to suffer His wrath.
Al Cronkrite is a writer living in Florida, reach him at: trueword13@yahoo.com
Visit his website at:http://www.verigospel.com/
Al Cronkrite is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Gun Rights: Are There Any Peaceful Solutions Left?
February 17, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment

Throughout history, citizen disarmament generally leads to one of two inevitable outcomes: Government tyranny and genocide, or, revolution and civil war. Anti-gun statists would, of course, argue that countries like the UK and Australia have not suffered such a result. My response would be – just give them time. You may believe that gun control efforts are part and parcel of a totalitarian agenda (as they usually are), or, you may believe that gun registration and confiscation are a natural extension of the government’s concern for our “safety and well-being”. Either way, the temptation of power that comes after a populace is made defenseless is almost always too great for any political entity to dismiss. One way or another, for one reason or another, they WILL take advantage of the fact that the people have no leverage to determine their own cultural future beyond a twisted system of law and governance which is, in the end, easily corrupted.
The unawake and the unaware among us will also argue that revolution or extreme dissent against the establishment is not practical or necessary, because the government “is made of regular people like us, who can be elected or removed at any time”.
This is the way a Republic is supposed to function, yes. However, the system we have today has strayed far from the methods of a Free Republic and towards the machinations of a single party system. Our government does NOT represent the common American anymore. It has become a centralized and Sovietized monstrosity. A seething hydra with two poisonous heads; one Democrat in name, one Republican in name. Both heads feed the same bottomless stomach; the predatory and cannibalistic pit of socialized oligarchy.
On the Republican side, we are offered Neo-Con sharks like George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, who argue for “conservative” policies such as limited government interference and reduced spending, all while introducing legislation which does the exact opposite. The recent passage of the “Safe Act” in New York with extensive Republican support proves that Republicans cannot be counted on to defend true conservative values.
The Democrats get candidates like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, who claim to be anti-war and against government abuse of civil liberties, and yet, these same “progressive and compassionate” politicians now froth at the mouth like rabid dogs sinking their teeth into the flesh of the citizenry, expanding on every tyrannical initiative the Republicans began, and are bombing more civilian targets in more foreign countries than anyone with a conscience should be able to bear.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the government is not our buddy. It is not our ally or friend. It is not a “part of us”. It is now a separate and dangerous entity. A parasite feeding off the masses. It has become a clear threat to the freedoms of average Americans. It is time for the public to grow up, snap out of its childish delusions, and accept that there is no solace or justice to be found anymore in Washington D.C.
Once we understand this fact, a question then arises – What do we do about it? If we cannot redress our grievances through the election process because both parties favor the same authoritarian direction, and if our street protests are utterly ignored by the mainstream media and the establishment, and if civil suits do nothing but drag on for years with little to no benefit, then what is left for us? Is the way of the gun the only answer left for the American people at this crossroads?
I cannot deny that we are very close to such a conclusion. Anyone who does deny it is living in a candy coated fantasy land. However, there are still certain options that have not been exhausted, and we should utilize them if for no other reason than to maintain the moral high ground while the power elite continue to expose their own despotic innards.
State And County Nullification
The assertion of local authority in opposition to federal tyranny is already being applied across the country. Multiple states, counties, and municipalities are issuing declarations of defiance and passing legislation which nullifies any future federal incursions against 2nd Amendment protections. For instance, the Gilberton Borough Council in PA in conjunction with Police Chief Mark Kessler has recently adopted a resolution defending all 2nd Amendment rights within their municipal borders up to and including the denial of operations by federal officers:
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2013/02/03/first-molon-labe-town-in-america/
Approximately 283 county Sheriffs and multiple police officers have taken a hard stand, stating that they will either not aid federal enforcement officials with gun control related activities, or, that they will not allow such activities within their county, period:
http://cspoa.org/sheriffs-gun-rights/
This trend of dissent amongst law enforcement officials debunks the nihilistic view promoted by disinformation agents that “no one in law enforcement will have the guts to stand up to the government no matter how sour it turns”. It has also shaken the Obama Administration enough that the White House is struggling to counter it by wining and dining police unions and sheriffs departments in order to form their own “coalition of the willing”. Obama seems to believe that holding press conferences using children or police as background props will somehow earn him political capital in the battle for gun rights, but I have my doubts:
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-asks-police-help-pass-183056466.html
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/55716645-90/com-congress-doing-enforcement.html.csp
Multiple states have legislation on the table to nullify as well, and it would seem that the violent push by the establishment to extinguish the 2nd Amendment has actually sharply rekindled the public’s interest in States Rights and the 10th Amendment.
This does not mean, though, that we should rely on nullification alone. While the gun grabbers are stumbling into severe resistance at the national level, some representatives are attempting to supplant gun rights at the state level, including New York, California, Washington State, and Missouri. The goal here is obvious; counter states rights arguments by using anti-gun legislators to impose federal controls through the back door of state legislation.
They will claim that if we support states rights, then we have to abide by the decisions of regions like New York when they ban and confiscate firearms. It’s sad how gun grabbers lose track of reality. Neither federal authority, nor state authority, supplants the legal barriers of the Constitution itself, meaning, no federal or local authority has the right or power to remove our freedom of speech, our freedom of assembly, our freedom of privacy, OR our freedom to own firearms (including firearms of military utility). The Constitution and the Bill of Rights supersede all other legal and political entities (including treaties, as ruled by the Supreme Court). At least, that’s what the Founding Fathers intended when they established this nation. The point is, a state is well within its rights to defy the Federal Government if it is enacting unconstitutional abuses, and the people are well within their rights to defy a state when it does the same.
Economic Nullification
There is actually a fantastic economic opportunity to be had by states and counties that nullify gun control legislation. Many gun manufacturers and retail businesses are facing financial oblivion if the establishment has its way, and moving operations outside the U.S. is not necessarily practical for most of them (gun manufacturing is one of the last business models we still do better than the rest of the world). Municipalities could offer safe haven to these businesses, allowing them to continue producing firearms and high capacity magazines, fulfill expanding public demand, and create a surging cash flow into their area while at the same time giving the federal government the finger.
This strategy does not come without dangers, though. Many states and counties are addicted to federal funding, and some would go bankrupt without it. The obvious first response by the feds to protesting local governments will be to cut off the river of cash and starve them into subservience.
This brand of internal financial warfare can be countered by local governments by nullifying a few other unconstitutional regulations, including those issued by the EPA and the BLM. States and counties could easily disable federal land development restrictions and begin using resource development as a means to generate supplemental income. North Dakota is essentially doing this right now in the Bakken Oil Fields, becoming one of the few states in America that is actually creating legitimate high paying jobs (instead of part time wage slave jobs), and growing more prosperous every year.
This tactic is not limited to state governments either. Counties also have the ability, with the right officials involved, to regain control of their economic destinies anytime they want. All it takes is the courage to rock the establishment boat.
Refuse All Registration Schemes
National firearms registration and gun databases are almost always followed by full gun confiscation. The process is usually done in a standardized manner: First demand extensive registration and cataloging of gun owners. Second, ban more effective styles of weaponry, including semi-automatics and high capacity rifles (Let the sport hunters keep their bolt actions for a time, and lure them onto your side with the promise that they will get to keep their .270 or their 30-06). Then take all semi-auto handguns. Then, ban high powered magnum style bolt actions by labeling them “sniper rifles”. Then demand that the gun owners that still remain allow official “inspections” of their home by law enforcement to ensure that they are “storing their weapons properly”. Then, force them to move those weapons to a designated “warehouse or range”, locked away for any use other than recreational shooting. Then, when the public is thoroughly disconnected from their original right to bear arms, take everything that’s left.
Keep in mind that the federal government and certain state governments are acting as if they would like to skip ALL of the preliminary steps and go straight to full confiscation. I am not discounting that possibility. But, they may feign certain concessions in the near term in order to get the one thing they really want – full registration.
Registration must be the line in the sand for every single gun owner in this country, whether they own several semi-automatics, or one pump action shotgun. Once you give in to being registered, fingerprinted, photographed, and tracked wherever you decide to live like a convicted sexual predator, you have shown that you have no will or spirit. You have shown that you will submit to anything.
After a full registration has been enacted, every gun (and maybe every bullet) will be tracked. If confiscation is utilized, they know exactly what you have and what you should not have, and exactly where you are. Criminals will still acquire weapons illegally, as they always have. The only people who will suffer are law abiding citizens. It’s a recipe for dictatorship and nothing more.
Gun Barter Networks
The retail firearms and ammo markets are Sahara dry right now, and will probably remain that way in the foreseeable future. Anything that is available for purchase is usually twice the price it was last year. Extremely high demand is removing retail from the picture before any legislation is even passed. Enter barter…
Cash will remain a bargaining tool for as long as the dollar remains the world reserve currency and holds at least some semblance of value (this will end sooner than most people think). That said, as gun items become scarce, the allure of cash may be supplanted. The signs of this are already evident.
Gun owners are now looking more to trade firearms and accessories for OTHER firearms and accessories, because they know that once they sell an item, they may never see it again, and the usefulness of cash is fleeting. Gun Barter is not only a way for firearms enthusiasts to get what they need, it is also a way for them to move around any future gun sale restrictions that may arise. Private gun sales are legal in some states, but do not count on this to last. Barter leaves no paper trail, and thus, no traceable evidence of transaction. For those who fear this idea as “legally questionable”, all I can do is remind them that an unconstitutional law is no law at all. If it does not adhere to the guidelines of our founding principles, our founding documents, and our natural rights, then it is just a bunch of meaningless words on a meaningless piece of paper signed by a meaningless political puppet.
3D Printing And Home Manufacturing
3D Printing is now available to the public and for those with the money, I recommend they invest quickly. Unless the establishment wants to make the possession of these printers illegal, as well as shut down the internet, there will be no way to stop data streamers from supplying the software needed to make molds for every conceivable gun part, including high capacity mags. This technology has been effectively promoted by the Wiki Weapons Project:
http://defensedistributed.com/
According to current ATF law, the home manufacture of gun parts is not technically illegal, as long as they are not being produced for sale. But in a state or county where federal gun laws have been nullified, what the ATF says is irrelevant.
Home manufacturing of gun parts and ammo would be a highly lucrative business in such safe haven areas. And, the ability to build one’s own self defense platform is a vital skill in a sparse market environment. The ultimate freedom is being able to supply your own needs without having to ask for materials or permission from others. It should be the goal of every pro-gun activist to reach this independence.
Force The Establishment To Show Its True Colors
While some in the general public may be incensed by the trampling of our freedoms by government, many (including myself) would view direct action and aimless French Revolution-style violence as distasteful and disastrous. The moral high ground is all that any dissenting movement has. It will be hard enough to keep this ground with the constant demonization of liberty minded people that is being espoused by propaganda peddlers like the SPLC and numerous media outlets. We do not need to help them do their jobs.
Now, to be clear, I have NO illusions that the above strategies will defuse a confrontation between those who value freedom, and those who desire power. The hope is that enough people within our population will refuse to comply, and that this will make any future despotism impossible to construct. However, it is far more likely that these acts of defiance will elicit a brutal response from the government. And in a way, that is exactly what we want…
The Founding Fathers went through steps very similar to those I listed above and more to counter the tightening grip of the British Empire during the first American Revolution. The idea is simple:
Peacefully deny the corrupt system’s authority over your life by supplying your own needs and your own security, rather than lashing out blindly. Force them to show their true colors. Expose their dishonor and maliciousness. Make them come after you like the predators they are, and then, once they can no longer play the role of the “defending hero” in the eyes of the public, use your right to self defense to send them a message they won’t forget.
Skeptics will claim that physical defense is useless against a technologically advanced enemy. They will claim that we need a “majority” we do not have in order to prevail. These are usually people who have never fought for anything in their lives. They do not understand that the “odds” are unimportant. They mean nothing. No revolution for good ever begins with “majority support”. Each is fought by a minority of strong willed and aware individuals. When all other methods of protest have been dismantled, the system leaves us with only two options: stand and fight, or kneel and beg for mercy. All you need to know is what YOU would do when faced with that choice.
There is no other culture on earth that has the capacity, like Americans currently do, to defeat centralists, defend individual liberty, and end the pursuit of total global power in this lifetime. We are the first and last line. If freedom is undone here, it is undone everywhere for generations to come. This is our responsibility. This is our providence. There can be no complacency. There can be no compromise. There can be no fear. It ends on this ground. One way, or another.
Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market
More Austerity Cuts Coming To The States
February 9, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
The Great Recession has quietly devastated public services on a state-by-state basis, with Republican and Democratic governors taking turns leading the charge. Public education has been decimated, as well as health care, welfare, and the wages and benefits of public sector workers. The public sector itself is being smashed. Since the recession began, states have made combined austerity cuts of at least $337 billion, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities
The 2012-2013 budget deficits for 34 states resulted in $55 billion in cuts, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. The coming budgets for 2013-2014 that begins on July 1st is becoming clear as well, and the deficits are rolling in by the billions: Connecticut, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Washington, and many others have large deficits projected.
You’d expect after years of austerity cuts to public services, state politicians would think of new ways to raise revenue from those who can afford it — the wealthy and corporations. Not so. The cuts that began as a consequence of the 2008 recession are set to continue; raising revenue from the wealthy is “off the table” for Republicans and Democrats alike.
The pattern of budget cuts has revealed that the age-old distinction between Republican and Democrat has evaporated on the state level. The state budget trends — what’s getting funded and what’s not — are similarly aligned across the country. Both parties have merged their state-level agendas into a singular focus on “economic growth,” a bi-partisan euphemism meaning “corporate profits.”
Below is the bi-partisan funding trends for the states that began with the 2008 recession and continue to this day:
1) The Attack on Public Employees and Pension “Reform”
It wasn’t long ago that everyone understood that the states’ budget crises was caused in part by the recession, itself caused by the big banks and greedy corporations, and in part by the politicians continuing willingness to lower taxes on the rich. Now the corporate media and politicians have re-written history: suddenly it’s “greedy” public workers and their “lavish” pensions that are bankrupting the states. Two years ago it was the health care of public employees that was bankrupting the states, which resulted in large cuts to workers in many states.
The pre-recession pension system was working fine, but it, too, suffered under the bank-caused financial crisis; pension returns sank and right-wing economists projected ruin for the states in the future (they conveniently assumed that recession era rates would continue forever, thus under-funding the system).
Democratic governors are now as eager as their Republican counterparts to destroy the pensions of public employees. Democratic politicians in Oregon, Washington, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maryland, Massachusetts, and several other states are leading the charge to erode the last bastion of retirement security for working people, while continuing to lay off public employees by the thousands. This national shrinkage of state governments is a long-standing right-wing dream: the smaller the state, the greater the “growth opportunities” for corporations that take over privatized public services and the lower their taxes since a smaller state requires less revenue for operating expenses.
2) Education Reform
The National Governors Association (NGA) spoke for both political parties when announcing a renewed focus on education funding for the states during the annual “state of the states” address. The funding is necessary because schools across the country are expecting an influx of students, while school districts everywhere have been starved funds by the ongoing austerity cuts; the system has been literally crumbling. But the new funding is to be used for the undermining and destruction of public education, since it is based on Obama’s pro-corporate Race to the Top education “reform” where charter schools replace public schools.
Democrats and Republicans are in complete agreement over Obama’s education policy, which closes “failing schools,” (those in poor neighborhoods), opens privately run, non-union charter schools, and fires “bad teachers,” (typically those who teach poor students). The whole system is based on standardized testing, which poorer students will spend most of their education preparing for, (those who don’t drop out from sheer boredom). Bi-partisan education reform targets teacher unions while privatizing education — the Democrats have adopted the ideas from the right-wing think tanks of the 1990′s.
3) Raising Revenue – But Not From the Wealthy or Corporations
Many states have implemented — or are planning to implement — a variety of taxes that disproportionally affect working and poor people, including increased sales taxes, alcohol, tobacco and other “sin” taxes, not to mention increases in different fees, from state parks to driver registration.
At the same time that these taxes have been upped, a consistent clamor has been raised by the media and politicians to lower the taxes for corporations, give them new subsidies or “freeze” their already-low taxes so that future tax increases will be impossible. In Oregon the Democratic governor declared a “special session” emergency in order to ensure that NIKE’s super low tax status would be frozen in place for decades, outside the reach of the public, which might want to raise corporate taxes to fund public services.
Democrat and Republican controlled states are equally competing for the adoration of corporations by lavishing a never-ending flow of taxpayer money on them, while “guaranteeing” them “investment security,” i.e., promising low taxes and an open spigot of taxpayer money. This is the basis for several states implementing “right to work” laws that target unions for destruction, while also attempting to “revamp the tax code,” which is a euphemism for lowering corporate taxes.
4) Welfare Reform: Attacking the Safety Net
Waging war against the safety net is like picking a fight with road kill — the states’ safety net is already disfigured beyond recognition, but the bi-partisan assault nevertheless continues. Bill Clinton started welfare “reform” as president, and the 2008 Great Recession accelerated the attack on those in poverty. The year 2011 was a devastating one for welfare, now called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
In 2011, states implemented some of the harshest cuts in recent history for many of the nation’s most vulnerable families with children who are receiving assistance through [TANF] … The cuts affect 700,000 low-income families that include 1.3 million children; these families represent over one-third of all low-income families receiving TANF nationwide.
But these TANF “reforms” continue, to the detriment of the neediest. Newly released budgets in several states — including California and Oregon — further tighten the program, a relentless boa-like constriction that’s already suffocated millions of the country’s poorest citizens. Typically TANF reform either lowers the monthly payment, shortens the time one can receive benefits, or raises the standards for staying in the program.
Before the giant TANF cuts in 2011, the program was already shrunken such that TANF only assisted 28 families for every 100 in poverty — the ludicrous definition of “poverty” being a family of four that makes only $22,000 or less.
There is a direct link between the assault on TANF and the rising poverty levels in the United States. Cutting TANF in a time of mass unemployment means consciously consigning millions of families to grinding poverty, hunger, homelessness, and the many other barbarisms associated with extreme poverty.
Conclusion:
It wasn’t long ago that the Democrats understood that the government can and should create jobs, especially during a recession. But now the Democratic Party has fully adopted the economics of Reaganism. As a result, the only “job creators” now recognized are the corporations. This bi-partisan agreement not to tax the rich and use the revenue for public spending to create jobs — hiring more teachers, firefighters, roads and parks workers, etc. — is unnecessarily prolonging the job crisis, ensuring more years of deficits and a deeper gouging of the public sector.
These cuts are having a devastating effect on public sector unions, the last bastion of union strength in the country. These unions are being weakened to such an extent that stripping them of their right to collectively bargain — the nail in the coffin — becomes a real possibility. No state is safe from this threat.
If unions don’t unite with community groups to demand that public services be fully funded by taxing the wealthy and corporations, the cuts will continue, communities will feel helpless, inequality will continue to spiral out of control, and working people will be further subjected to the policies of the 1%, now implemented in chorus by Republicans and Democrats alike. But, of course, this means that the unions will have to break with the suicidal strategy of relying on the Democrats for handouts. Time and again the Democrats have demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice the needs of working people in order to curry favor with the rich and corporations, their greatest benefactors when it comes to election campaign contributions.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.
http://www.nga.org/cms/
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.
Shamus Cooke is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com
Legalizing Illegality: Americans Too Stupid To Realize Their Fate
February 7, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
The current mass legalization of 20 million illegal aliens portends the onward march of displacing American citizens from their own language, their own culture and most certainly, their way of life.
A reader told me that we face “cosmic payback” or “cosmic karma” for doing the same thing to the aborigines of America when we slaughtered them by the hundreds of thousands. We moved them into permanent internment camps called “Reservations.” We introduced them to alcohol which addled their brains to this day as hundreds of thousands of them suffer permanent alcoholism. Instead of teepees, they now live in broken down trailers or track housing and watch American TV, which diametrically opposes everything in their ancient cultures.
We subverted their religion. We stomped out their “Great Spirit” and forced the Bible upon them and our God-fearing ideas of the Creator. We forced their kids into our schools and we obliterated their languages and cultures. While savaging some 522 tribes in North America, we called them “savages.”
Read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Sand Creek Massacre and Trail of Tears for a gut wrenching history of the white man’s slaughter of Indians on his march across America and Manifest Destiny.
However, as we Americans race into the 21st century, we see the march other tribes invading not from Europe, but from Mexico, Brazil, Honduras, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, China, India, Africa and other disparate locations across the planet. They vacate their failed societies to come to America for a “better life.” They flee starvation, misery, conflict and suffering.
But they bring everything they fled into America. We see our English language changing to fit their needs such as, “Push 1 for Arabic” in Detroit, Michigan. Push “2” for Spanish in most cities in America. Push “3” for English. Menus run in Spanish/English. All Home Depot and Lowe’s stores feature everything in Spanish and English. Banks serve in Spanish and English. Soon, Arabic.
We now suffer “Black flash mobs” beating up on American citizens. We see Mexicans gangs killing Blacks in Los Angeles. We see honor killings, arranged marriages and female genital mutilation growing in America via our Muslim immigrants.
Yet, no one lifts a finger to stand up and speak out about English being our national language. No one defends the American way of life, our culture or language. Exactly the same displacement steamrolls over us as we steamrolled over the Indians. (Same as Canada, Europe and Australia.)
Americans do not realize their fate because they remain asleep at the wheel. They remain mesmerized by the indolent television and its mindless presentations 24/7.
Reader Mary Boyle wrote, “Again we have our leader(s) destroying our nation and the people are too stupid to realize it. I will enjoy seeing what happens in the end of this unread-written novel as things are moving so fast. We are being dismantled so quickly and the people are too stupid to realize what is happening to them.”
As the Mexicans become legalized and their numbers become the dominate tribe in 2040, they will change most television and radio into Spanish, just like we forced the Indians out of their own languages and religions. Immigrants of every stripe grow their power to force their languages and cultures upon us.
Amazingly, whether legal or illegal migrants into America, they stick one foot into The United States and keep one foot via cell phone, glued to their mother country. In other words, they never become “Americans.” Hyphenated-Americans, yes! Americans, no!
Does anyone possess any clue as to what will happen when seven million Muslims in America become 20, 30 even 40 million Muslims? They will use our U.S. Constitution to institute Sharia Law into the foundation of America. I can see it coming as surely as the dawn.
Yet, our U.S. Congress and our citizens stagger on the side of stupid-street. We ignore our fate. We blithely continue in blissful ignorance. Once Sharia Law takes hold, watch what happens to women’s, children’s and gay rights. Watch what happens to free speech. Watch what happens to the foundation of our culture and language.
If I am the only American who sees this “thing” coming, I can say that I spoke up, I wrote up and I yelled loud and clear. I think very few Americans understand the enormity of adding 100 million, that’s 100,000,000 people to this country from hundreds of cultures and languages from around the world. That’s like creating three more California’s or fifty cities the size of Denver, Colorado. We face total cultural, sociological and linguistic breakdown of America. As to quality of life and standard of living, shot to hell! As to environment: water, energy, resources—exhausted beyond solving.
These two quotes may be the most important of my career:
“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.” Gandhi
And the most important quote:
“Most Western elites continue urging the wealthy West not to stem the migrant tide [that adds 80 million net gain annually to the planet], but to absorb our global brothers and sisters until their horrid ordeal has been endured and shared by all—ten billion humans packed onto an ecologically devastated planet.” Dr. Otis Graham, Unguarded Gates
Dear reader, within the next 37 years, our Congress will import 100 million immigrants from the third world into America. Do you think we stand a chance of maintain what it means to be an American?
If you want to stop it, you may join these organizations to create collective power to stop the forthcoming amnesty: www.CapsWeb.org ; www.NumbersUSA.org ; www.TheSocialContract.com ; www.Fairus.org
Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.
He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at his website: www.frostywooldridge.com
Frosty Wooldridge is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
The Linchpin Lie: How Global Collapse Will Be Sold To The Masses
February 2, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
In our modern world there exist certain institutions of power. Not government committees, alphabet agencies, corporate lobbies, or even standard military organizations; no, these are the mere “middle-men” of power. The errand boys. The well paid hitmen of the global mafia. They are not the strategists or the decision makers.
Instead, I speak of institutions which introduce the newest paradigms. Who write the propaganda. Who issue the orders from on high. I speak of the hubs of elitism which have initiated nearly every policy mechanism of our government for the past several decades. I am talking about the Council On Foreign Relations, the Tavistock Institute, the Heritage Foundation (a socialist organization posing as conservative), the Bilderberg Group, as well as the corporate foils that they use to enact globalization, such as Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Carlyle Group, etc.
Many of these organizations and corporations operate a revolving door within the U.S. government. Monsanto has champions, like Donald Rumsfeld who was on the board of directors of its Searle Pharmaceuticals branch, who later went on to help the company force numerous dangerous products including Aspartame through the FDA. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have a veritable merry-go-round of corrupt banking agents which are appointed to important White House and Treasury positions on a regular basis REGARDLESS of which party happens to be in office. Most prominent politicians are all members of the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization which has openly admitted on multiple occasions that their goal is the destruction of U.S. sovereignty and the formation of a “one world government” or “supranational union” (their words, not mine).
However, one organization seems to rear its ugly head at the forefront of the most sweeping mass propaganda operations of our time, and has been linked to the creation of the most atrocious military methodologies, including the use of false flag events. I am of course referring to the Rand Corporation, a California based “think tank” whose influence reaches into nearly every sphere of our society, from politics, to war, to entertainment.
The Rand Corporation deals in what I would call “absolute gray”. The goal of the group from its very inception was to promote a social atmosphere of moral ambiguity in the name of personal and national priority. They did this first through the creation of “Rational Choice Theory”; a theory which prescribes that when making any choice, an individual (or government) must act as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at an action that maximizes personal advantage. Basically, the ends justify the means, and moral conscience is not a factor to be taken seriously if one wishes to be successful.
Hilariously, rational choice theory has been attacked in the past by pro-socialist (collectivist) critics as “extreme individualism”; a philosophy which gives us license to be as “self serving” as possible while feeling patriotic at the same time. In reality, the socialists should have been applauding Rand Corporation all along.
What Rand had done through its propaganda war against the American people was to infuse the exact culture of selfishness needed to push the U.S. towards the socialist ideal. At the onset of any communist or national socialist society (sorry socialists, but they do indeed come from the same collectivist mindset), the masses are first convinced to hand over ultimate power to the establishment in order to safeguard THEMSELVES, not others. That is to say, the common collectivist man chooses to hand over his freedoms and participate in totalitarianism not because he wants what is best for the world, but because he wants what is best for himself, and he believes servitude to the system will get him what he wants with as little private sacrifice as possible (you know, except for his soul…).
The psychologist Carl Jung notes in his observations of collectivism in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia that most citizens of those nations did not necessarily want the formation of a tyrannical oligarchy, but, they went along with it anyway because they feared for their own comfort and livelihoods. Many a German supported the Third Reich simply because they did not want to lose a cushy job, or a steady paycheck, or they liked that the “trains ran on time”. Socialism is by far the most selfish movement in history, despite the fact that they claim to do what they do “for the greater good of the greater number”.
Rand also used Rational Choice Theory as a means to remove questions of principle from the debate over social progress. Rational Choice propaganda commonly presents the target audience with a false conundrum. A perfect example would be the hardcore propaganda based television show ‘24’ starring Kiefer Sutherland, in which a government “anti-terrorism” agent is faced with a controlled choice scenario in nearly every episode. This choice almost always ends with the agent being forced to set aside his morals and conscience to torture, kill, and destroy without mercy, or, allow millions of innocents to die if he does not.
Of course, the real world does not work this way. Life is not a chess game. Avenues to resolution of any crisis are limited only by our imagination and intelligence, not to mention the immense number of choices that could be made to defuse a crisis before it develops. Yet, Rand would like you to believe that we (and those in government) are required to become monstrous in order to survive. That we should be willing to forgo conscience and justice now for the promise of peace and tranquility later.
This is the age old strategy of Centralization; to remove all choices within a system, by force or manipulation, until the masses think they have nothing left but the choices the elites give them. It is the bread and butter of elitist institutions like Rand Corporation, and is at the core of the push for globalization.
In my studies on the developing economic disaster (or economic recovery depending on who you talk to) I have come across a particular methodology many times which set off my analyst alarm (or spidey-sense, if you will). This latest methodology, called “Linchpin Theory”, revolves around the work of John Casti, a Ph.D. from USC, “complexity scientist” and “systems theorist”, a Futurist, and most notably, a former employee of Rand Corporation:
Casti introduces his idea of “Linchpin Theory” in his book “X-Events: The Collapse Of Everything”, and what I found most immediately striking about the idea of “Linchpin Events” was how they offered perfect scapegoat scenarios for catastrophes that are engineered by the establishment.
Linchpin Theory argues that overt social, political, and technological “complexity” is to blame for the most destructive events in modern human history, and it is indeed an enticing suggestion for those who are uneducated and unaware of the behind the scenes mechanics of world events. Casti would like you to believe that political and social tides are unguided and chaotic; that all is random, and disaster is a product of “chance” trigger events that occur at the height of a malfunctioning and over-complicated system.
What he fails to mention, and what he should well know being a member of Rand, is that global events do not evolve in a vacuum. There have always been those groups who see themselves as the “select”, and who aspire to mold the future to their personal vision of Utopia. It has been openly admitted in myriad official observations on historical events that such groups have had a direct hand in the advent of particular conflicts.
For instance, Casti would call the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria an “X-event”, or linchpin, leading to the outbreak of WWI, when historical fact recalls that particular crisis was carefully constructed with the specific mind to involve the U.S.
Norman Dodd, former director of the Committee to Investigate Tax Exempt Foundations of the U.S. House of Representatives, testified that the Committee was invited to study the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as part of the Committee’s investigation. The Committee stated:
“The trustees of the Foundation brought up a single question. If it is desirable to alter the life of an entire people, is there any means more efficient than war…. They discussed this question… for a year and came up with an answer: There are no known means more efficient than war, assuming the objective is altering the life of an entire people. That leads them to a question: How do we involve the United States in a war. This was in 1909.”
So, long before the advent of Ferdinand’s assassination, plans were being set in motion by globalist interests to draw the U.S. into a large scale conflict in order to “alter the life, or thinking, of the entire culture”. When a group of people set out to direct thinking and opportunity towards a particular outcome, and the end result is a culmination of that outcome, it is obviously not coincidence, and it is definitely not providence. It can only be called subversive design.
In the economic arena, one might say that the collapse of Lehman Bros. was the “linchpin” that triggered the landslide in the derivatives market which is still going on to this day. However, the derivatives market bubble was a carefully constructed house of cards, deliberately created with the help of multiple agencies and institutions. The private Federal Reserve had to artificially lower interest rates and inject trillions upon trillions into the housing market, the international banks had to invest those trillions into mortgages that they KNEW were toxic and likely never to be repaid. The Federal Government had to allow those mortgages to then be chopped up into derivatives and resold on the open market. The ratings agencies had to examine those derivatives and obviously defunct mortgages and then stamp them AAA. The SEC had to ignore the massive fraud being done in broad daylight while sweeping thousands of formal complaints and whistle blowers under the rug.
This was not some “random” event caused by uncontrolled “complexity”. This was engineered complexity with a devious purpose. The creation of the derivatives collapse was done with foreknowledge, at least by some. Goldman Sachs was caught red handed betting against their OWN derivatives instruments! Meaning they knew exactly what was about to happen in the market they helped build! This is called Conspiracy…
One might attribute Casti’s idea to a sincere belief in chaos, and a lack of insight into the nature of globalism as a brand of religion. However, in his first and as far as I can tell only interview with Coast To Coast Radio, Casti promotes catastrophic “X-Events” as a “good thing” for humanity, right in line with the Rand Corporation ideology. Casti, being a futurist and elitist, sees the ideas of the past as obsolete when confronted with the technological advancements of the modern world, and so, describes X-event moments as a kind of evolutionary “kickstart”, knocking us out of our old and barbaric philosophies of living and forcing us, through trial by fire, to adapt to a more streamlined culture. The linchpin event is, to summarize Casti’s position, a culture’s way of “punishing itself” for settling too comfortably into its own heritage and traditions. In other words, WE will supposedly be to blame for the next great apocalypse, not the elites…
I might suggest that Casti’s attitude seems to be one of general indifference to human suffering in the wake of his “X-Events”, and that he would not necessarily be opposed to the deaths of millions if it caused the “advancement” of humanity towards a particular ideology. His concept of “advancement” and ours are likely very different, though. I suspect that he is well aware that X-Events are actually tools at the disposal of elitists to generate the “evolution” he so desires, and that evolution includes a collectivist result.
With almost every major economy on the globe on the verge of collapse and most now desperately inflating, taxing, or outright stealing in order to hide their situation, with multiple tinderbox environments being facilitated in the Pacific with China, North Korea, and Japan, and in the Middle East and Africa with Egypt, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Mali, etc., there is no doubt that we are living in a linchpin-rich era. It is inevitable that one or more of these explosive tension points will erupt and cause a chain reaction around the planet. The linchpin and the chain reaction will become the focus of our epoch, rather than the men who made them possible in the first place.
Strangely, Casti’s theory was even recently featured in an episode of the ABC mystery/drama show “Castle”, called “Linchpin” (what else?), in which a writer turned detective uncovers a plot by a “shadow group” to use the research of the innocent Dr. Nelson Blakely (apparently based on Casti) to initiate a collapse of the U.S. economy by assassinating the ten-year-old daughter of a prominent Chinese businessman, triggering a dump of U.S. Treasuries by China and fomenting WWIII:
http://www.alterna-tv.com/castle/xevents.htm
Now, I think anyone with any sense can see where this is going. Casti and Rand Corporation are giving us a glimpse into the future of propaganda. This is what will be written in our children’s history books if the globalists have their way. The fact that Linchpin Theory is featured in a primetime television show at all is a testament to Rand Corporation’s influence in the media. But, as for the wider picture, are the trigger points around us really just a product of complex coincidence?
Not a chance.
Each major global hot-spot today can easily be linked back to the designs of international corporate and banking interests and the puppet governments they use as messengers. Casti claims that “X-events” and “linchpins” cannot be accurately predicted, but it would seem that they can certainly be purposely instigated.
The globalists have stretched the whole of the world thin. They have removed almost every pillar of support from the edifice around us, and like a giant game of Jenga, are waiting for the final piece to be removed, causing the teetering structure to crumble. Once this calamity occurs, they will call it a random act of fate, or a mathematical inevitability of an overly complex system. They will say that they are not to blame. That we were in the midst of “recovery”. That they could not have seen it coming.
Their solution will be predictable. They will state that in order to avoid such future destruction, the global framework must be “simplified”, and what better way to simplify the world than to end national sovereignty, dissolve all borders, and centralize nation states under a single economic and political ideal?
Is it the Hegelian Dialectic all over again? Yes. Is it old hat feudalism and distraction? Yes. But, I have to hand it to Casti and Rand Corporation; they certainly have refined the argument for collectivism, centralization, technocracy, slavery, moral relativism, and false-flag dupery down to a near science.
Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market
The State-owned Bank of North Dakota
January 25, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
Fiscal conservatives often are blind when it comes to alternatives to the “so called” commercial banking system. Many conventional Republicans are ignorant or simply carrying the water for the crony capitalist banking establishment. The fractional reserve banking monopoly that operates under the auspices of the privately owned Federal Reserve System, despises any trace of competition. The bondage from debt created money has doomed Main Street to the fate of contrite beggars in search of securing loans. Useful purposes for business financing are not sufficient reason for the qualifying for commercial credit.
Is there an alternative to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and centralized banking dominated by Wall Street investment banksters? Can state chartered commercial banks compete separate from the favoritism shown to the “Not Too Big To Fail” money centered banks? Well, Ellen Hodjson Brown JD, has popularized the subject of the state-owned bank and believes there is a better model for community banking.
“The secret of its success seems to be the state-owned Bank of North Dakota, which was established by the state legislature in 1919 specifically to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. By law, the state must deposit all its funds in the bank, and the state guarantees its deposits. The bank’s stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota. The bank operates as a bankers’ bank, partnering with private banks to loan money to farmers, real estate developers, schools and small businesses. It loans money to students (over 184,000 outstanding loans), and it purchases municipal bonds from public institutions.”
The informative video, Bank of North Dakota provides a comprehensive overview, well worth viewing.Such a departure from the normal coordinated federal regulation and Federal Reserve prescribes, gives pause to the plutocrats that despise any departure from the top down banking model that is based upon special treatment for the schemes of investment banking.
Bloomberg News points out the banking industry opposition to the state-own charter in the article, North Dakota’s State-Run Bank Adds Millions to Treasury, Spurs Imitators.
“The U.S. banking industry opposes the idea and is lobbying against it, saying a state-run bank would compete with commercial banks for business and politicize a state’s lending decisions.
“A state-owned bank? Why don’t we just re-label the state capitols the Kremlin?” Camden Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America, a Washington-based trade group that represents more than 5,000 community banks, said in a telephone interview.
“It’s a socialistic idea,” Fine said. “If you get a state-owned bank that is allocating credit, it can slide very quickly into a situation where those in favor get credit and those not in favor don’t get credit.”
How ironic the false claim that a sparsely populated state like, North Dakota could be such a citadel of collectivist enterprise when the titans of cartel-controlled crony capitalism were the financiers of the Russian communist revolution. The new generation of algorithmic traders has no more interest in writing business commercial loans then the banker funded Lenin investment of mercy shown to the Czar.
Even more sardonic is the viewpoint that the only banking monopoly acceptable is the one designated by the barons of usury. The slogan – no small business loans, is their operative policy.
Mother Jones examines what Republicans might call an idiosyncratic bastion of socialism in their interview with Bank of North Dakota’s president; Eric Hardmeyer, How the Nation’s Only State-Owned Bank Became the Envy of Wall Street. Mr. Hardmeyer explains the operation of their system thusly.
“Our funding model, our deposit model is really what is unique as the engine that drives that bank. And that is we are the depository for all state tax collections and fees. And so we have a captive deposit base, we pay a competitive rate to the state treasurer. And I would bet that that would be one of the most difficult things to wrestle away from the private sector—those opportunities to bid on public funds. But that’s only one portion of it. We take those funds and then, really what separates us is that we plow those deposits back into the state of North Dakota in the form of loans. We invest back into the state in economic development type of activities. We grow our state through that mechanism.”
The significance of the North Dakota experiment is that the dominance and control of the State/Capital cabal can be broken. Sensible banking is based upon making loans for productive enterprises, not derivative speculation. The customer of any bank is a person. Financing business growth and development is the core purpose and function of a bank.
The populist underpinnings of the independent method of funding the Bank of North Dakota provide an alternative model for depository transactions. Prosperity for local economies is an integral objective for any community interest bank. Those who profess free market enterprise principles need to adopt practical partner relationships with proponents of state charted banks.
ABC News reports the inconceivable, State-Owned Banks: The Future of Banking?
“Bank of North Dakota officials said that at least 10 states have turned to them for guidance, including some states, like Michigan, hardest hit by the financial crisis. They include California, Florida and Illinois, where a bill to create a state bank already is under consideration by the state legislature.”
Success is the best substitute to the stagnation of Wall Street greed and corporatism. Credit unions and associations provide another option for the depositor to conduct business. Loans are a way of life to most wage earners. Applying with an institution committed to their customer is rare in the era of national banking conglomerates. Trust is the basis of banking and the record of the Bank of North Dakota, compared to Bank America, demonstrates a stark difference. Register your discontent with your money stop doing business with national money-centered banks.
Sartre is the publisher, editor, and writer for Breaking All The Rules. He can be reached at: BATR
Sartre is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Gun Confiscation – Last Refuge of The Tyrant
January 15, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
Few polarizing subjects are more hotly debated than gun control. Usually lost in the fray of emotional diatribes to ban guns, are the historic empirical foundations of our forefathers who fought a revolution to escape from imperial tyranny. The true reality in today’s AmeriKa is that individual liberty is the most despised activity that any citizen can exert in their lives. Both the popular state worship culture and the authoritarian hoodlums that run the government are so fearful of armed independent citizens, that they are eager to burn the Bill of Rights. Face it, the government is committed to force you to be a ward of the state and will kill you if you resist.
Because of government school propaganda, those indoctrinated during the last several decades are woefully lacking in the knowledge of their own heritage. Phyllis Schlafly writes in, The Founding Fathers On Right To Bear Arms, and reminds of the essence in the Second Amendment.
James Madison: Americans have “the advantage of being armed” — unlike the citizens of other countries where “the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
Patrick Henry: “The great objective is that every man be armed. . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun.”
George Mason: “To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”
Samuel Adams: “The Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
Alexander Hamilton: “The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”
Richard Henry Lee: “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
“The chief reason America has remained a free country is the widespread private ownership of firearms. Individual ownership of guns made the American Revolution possible. The principal purpose of the Second Amendment was to maintain our freedom from government. It is an insult to our heritage to imply that the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment just to protect deer hunters.”
End of story, but the beginning of the gulag. Before bleeding hearts start their vicious attacks on the gun toting culture, a critical examination of your own national allegiance must be questioned. Do you freely give your loyalty to the principles upon which the nation was founded or do you simply pledge your obedience to an imperium empire?
Consider that public officials are terrified of an armed citizenry because they are well aware that their personal safety might someday be confronted. Their outlaw edicts and coercive submission is recognized as a dictatorship. However, an armed insurrection is so remote, based upon the overwhelming lack of character and courage of most populace denizens. Facing an enemy on a battlefield would be more an exercise of genuflection and public remorse for daring to oppose the institutional establishment.
The current state of the art of weaponry, as any viewer of the TV military channel knows, is so advanced that open conflict against the Federal Stasi would result is suicide by cop. Homeland Security is designed to be the domestic Gestapo. Any thinking and liberty-loving person must conclude that President Barack Obama acts as if he is a potentate.
Rule by executive orders is a formula for tyrannical governance. Gun registration builds the database for constabulary confiscation. An organized knock at the door means that abolition of banned munitions from the “Cold Dead Hands” will look more like a visit from an IRS tax auditor than an assault from the nearest SWAT team.
Too many people accept that subjects must be intimidated into compliance of surrender. The threat of armed defiance is less likely than meek regimentation for transport to a FEMA camp. All those body bags will be used more effectively, when people’s opposition to being re-educated fails, than for dragging out your remains from your own house.
The practical prospects to use violence against a well funded and equipped force of government storm troopers is problematic at best. The solution to marital law thuggery is to repatriate the military legions stationed globally in the expansion of the empire. Somewhere within the ranks of the active military, the means to confront Emperor Obama exists. The military oath states:
“I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
Careerist politicians, a tenured judiciary and an entrenched and escalating bureaucracy that consolidates the central government monster have systematically dismantled the Constitution. The repressive regime would have you believe that the Bradley Manning’s in the military machine are traitors just as much as Benedict Arnold. Hitherto, the certainty that going it alone resistance allows for the enormous capacities of the Intelligence Community apparatus to target any lone individual.
Remember the predictive example of the American crypto-anarchist, James Dalton Bell. “He created the idea of arranging for anonymously sponsored assassination payments via the Internet, which he called “assassination politics”. Since the publication of the “Assassination Politics” essay, Bell was targeted by the federal government of the United States. He was imprisoned on felony charges of tax evasion in 1997.”

Folks, let’s get real. Violent subversion just provides an excuse for even greater levels of repression. Likewise, gun confiscation has more to do with instilling universal fear in the minds of ordinary law abiding; translate – valid constitutional laws, than removing firepower out of your home.
Since the system dreads an armed citizenry, the criminal syndicates that divvy up their ruling fiefdoms, fear an informed population even more. Knowledge is required, but action must accompany an awakening that the totalitarian government thrives because civil society obeys the despotism of their feudal master.
Per the pernicious mass media, civil conduct is defined as surrendering your guns in order to repent out of a fictitious guilt or a bogus empathy for innocent victims. Insultingly, the pressitute media professes to be the purveyor of altruism. Never will you hear one utterance about the foundations of individual natural rights that underpins rightful authority for personal and community liberty.
The Second Amendment of the Constitution was written to protect society from the instinctual tendencies of a tyrannical government. Where is the outrage from a horror-struck public? The laundry list of dictatorial politicians from California to Illinois and in New York has identified themselves as enemies of the people.
The disgusting “Gabby Gifford’s” executive order that is being engineered by the Biden comrades will prohibit the manufacture and sale of a comprehensive range and types of weapons and accessories. Administrative fiat out of the barrel of a government regulation is more dangerous than a Glock pistol pointed at your head from a FBI agent. Many civil servants still restrain their oppressive actions to the appearance of legal conduct. However, the tyrants that make policy are bent on destroying the will of the public to oppose the transformation of America into a total police state.
The system will implode when enough genuine patriotic resistors organize a modern day Committee of Correspondence. The Tree of Liberty requires heroes. Unfortunately, most compliant citizens are cowards.
The rush to purchase guns demonstrates that a groundswell of public awareness is growing. The hoops designed to make gun ownership burdensome or personal carry permits nearly impossible to obtain, need to be endured and applied for in greater numbers.
By sending a loud and clear message to the establishment elitists, the righteous citizen militia will undertake the legitimate role of the Minute Men. Treason against the people has been official policy for decades. Now is the time to revolt against the TSA mindset that is calculated to condition the acquiescent and the timid from exercising their basic rights.
A countrywide day of protest leading up to a national strike of civil disobedience is the inherent response to government tyranny. Engage in a public dialogue at your local assembly. Organize events that demonstrate the resolve and bravery of our ancestors. Stand up to oppressive authority and defy the illicit tactics of the goon squads.
The system is playing a bluff. Push back now will spare bloodshed later. Never initiate any action that can be construed as violent behavior. Public political speech is the most skillful weapon to use, when exposing the oppressors.
The “War on Liberty” needs to be fought for the minds and hearts of all judicious thinking citizens. Guns are not the issue, recapturing your heritage and exercising your God given rights is the struggle. The state of war is on. Fight it with fervor, while maintaining your dignity. Nothing less would dishonor your defiant forebearers.
Sartre is the publisher, editor, and writer for Breaking All The Rules. He can be reached at: BATR
Sartre is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Vote-Stealing Dem Pleads Guilty To Beating Up Girlfriend
January 6, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
If you’re a Democrat operative forced to resign for facilitating vote fraud, what do you do for a follow-up?
If you said brutally attack your girlfriend, cracking her skull, your name just might be Patrick Moran.
And if you’ve skated on both counts, your father just might be Jim Moran, Democrat congressman from Virginia.
Patrick Moran was the field director for his father’s campaign before the election — that is, until a sting operation caught him on video coaching an undercover reporter on how to commit vote fraud. He sounded as if he’d already achieved semi-pro status, too. But since undermining our republic is obviously right up there with jaywalking, he didn’t have to spend any quality time basket-weaving with one of his father’s most reliable constituencies. And now we learn that Moran’s relational conflict resolution is morally congruent with his philosophy on electoral success. Writes Washington’s City Paper:
Moran and his girlfriend were fighting outside 14th Street bar The Getaway [in Columbia Heights, DC] around 1:23 a.m. on Dec. 1, according to a police report, over Moran talking to another woman at the bar. Suddenly, Moran allegedly slammed his girlfriend’s head into the bar’s metal trash can cage.
After the attack, police described Moran’s girlfriend as “bleeding heavily from her nose and also observed that her nose and right eye were extremely swollen.” One of the ambulance technicians who transported her to Howard University Hospital told police that Moran appeared to have broken her nose and given her a skull fracture under her right eye.
Moran subsequently pled guilty to assaulting his girlfriend. This would seem to have been for good reason, as the police report “describes both a Metropolitan Police Department sergeant and an Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration investigator seeing Moran slam his girlfriend’s head into a trash can cage outside the Getaway[,]” writes the City Paper.
But it seems that “Getaway” describes more than just the crime’s location in this tale.
Both Moran and his girlfriend now say that the incident was an “accident,” with the latter blaming it on a “broken high heel.” Well, I am quite sure a heel was involved.
And while Moran was originally charged with felony domestic violence assault, he ultimately got off on simple assault. And the punishment?
Probation.
So let’s get this straight. According to police, Moran the Younger was observed slamming his girlfriend’s head into a metal object by two law-enforcement officials, an impact that caused a broken nose and fractured skull. And he walks?
It’s nice when daddy has power, money, and influence.
…And, it seems, a warped moral compass.
Note that Moran the Elder (D-VA) said in an official statement that he hoped his son’s and the victim’s “privacy will be respected,” described the situation as “embarrassing” and said that the two were “good kids.”
But “good” clearly has a different meaning in Jim Moran’s (leftist) culture. Just consider his response to his kid’s vote-fraud facilitation: he didn’t say anything about ethics, but simply called it “outright stupidity.” I guess he was disappointed in his son — that the boy got caught. He surely taught the lad better than that.
Speaking of which, the origin of P. Moran’s conflict-resolution skills may be no mystery. As Jenny Erikson at Café Mom tells us, “[I]n 1995, Capitol Hill Police had to pull [Rep. Jim Moran] off California Republican Randy Cunningham on the House floor, and he once told Washingtonian magazine, ‘I like to hit people.’”
Rep. Moran also has a history of making anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic statements, and once, after attending a Mass in which the priest criticized Catholic politicians who ignore Church teaching, approached the priest red-faced and shouted, “You priests don’t know anything about abortion!” (For more of Rep. Moran’s “Morantics,” click here.)
As for Moran the Younger, I guess we have to ignore his latest (alleged) “stupidity” as everyone is now falling in line and saying that there’s nothing to see here; move on. It was just the attack of the killer DC trash-can cage. But I do have to wonder what kind of offer that you can’t refuse was made to the female victim.
Ah, abusing our electoral system and women — true liberal family values. Now all we have to do is see what Patrick Moran will do for the trifecta.
Selwyn Duke is a writer, columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show and has been a regular guest on the award-winning Michael Savage Show. His work has appeared in Pat Buchanan’s magazine The American Conservative and he writes regularly for The New American and Christian Music Perspective.
He can be reached at: SelwynDuke@optonline.net
Selwyn Duke is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
The “New Breed” of Christian Fashion
January 5, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
A couple of weeks ago, while I was surfing the net for articles to include in the Email Brigade News Report, I came across a piece entitled “Provocative Clothing Company Creates Tees to Help Christian Girls be ‘Playful’ for Jesus.” For obvious reasons the headline grabbed my attention.
Featured in the article is a picture of an attractive young woman in a sexy pose seated on a bed wearing a tank top with the words “God knows my secrets.”
From the Christian News Service story:
A California-based clothing company is targeting professing Christian girls who seek to be provocative and “playful” in the way that they dress, all in the name of Jesus Christ.
The company Heart OMG says that its line of clothing for girls is “heavenly inspired” and is “a delightful mix of fun, fashion, faith and love.”
“At Heart OMG, we believe in sharing our faith and love through fashion, while embracing our fun and characteristic lifestyle, as well as giving back to the ones in need,” the clothing company’s website states. “Every single irresistible Heart OMG piece is wonderfully made to complement those playful and fashion forward individuals who celebrate life, and are eager to make their faith and love a true influence to the world.”
If you visit Heart OMG’s website (although I don’t recommend it) you’ll discover the story of “New Love and True Love”:
Once upon a time three lovely girls found a new love in Jesus Christ.
God had gifted each girl with a special talent. They gathered their gifts and became the worship crew at church. Through music they expressed their faith & love. This love grows stronger every moment.
The girls soon realize that this new love is definitely the “True Love” they had been looking for.
It all starts on a sunny Sunday morning. Scroll down the page and you’ll see photos of the trio sitting in a convertible in front of a church. Two girls are wearing off the shoulder t-shirts and, it appears, nothing is worn underneath. On the front of one of the shirts is the graphic “Worship Crew.”
Another photo shows the titillating trio decked out in short shorts, four inch heels and a pound and a half of makeup on their faces as they stroll up the walk toward the church…looking like hookers.
Further down the page the girls are now lounging on a bed together in suggestive poses. One of them is sporting a pink night shirt with a large graphic of an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top. “Sweet Jesus” adorns a purple cup.
Under the heading “When New Love Becomes True Love” one of the girls is reading a Bible (hopefully 1 John). The shirt she’s wearing has a graphic of two large red apples. You can guess where the apples are purposely placed. What does this tell you about the creative minds that designed a whole collection of “Christian” t-shirts?
Another photo shows the trio in church perched on what appears to be the edge of the stage, hands clasped in prayer. The girl wearing the “Worship Crew” shirt has an open Bible on her lap. Two of the girls are wearing off the shoulder shirts that are, well, way off the shoulder…in church.
If the trashy apparel Heart OMG produces is “heavenly inspired” like they claim, I’m the Angel Gabriel.
As I investigated the website I discovered this tidbit in the “About” section:
EVERY SINGLE IRRESISTIBLE HEART OMG PIECE IS WONDERFULLY
MADE TO COMPLEMENT THOSE PLAYFUL & FASHION FORWARD
INDIVIDUALS WHO CELEBRATE LIFE, AND EAGER TO MAKE THEIR
FAITH & LOVE A TRUE INFLUENCE TO THE WORLD.
If the advertisements/photos on the site depict the fashion trend for the “new breed” of Christian women, then the visible Church is in far worse shape than I thought.
Before I move on I need to make something clear. I’m not saying that the girls in the photos are Christians. I came across an acknowledgment at the bottom of the page stating only that they’re models. But that’s neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that whoever owns Heart OMG has hired models who presumably are Christians. Certainly the girls who visit the site think they are! And let’s not forget that a photographer is involved and perhaps a marketing person as well. I’m going to presume these people are professing Christians. And if that’s indeed the case, my question to them is, why do you choose to participate in pushing a clothing line that dishonors God?
For years I’ve reported on the ways Hollywood and the liberal elite have made it their goal to sexualize young girls (here, here, here, here and here). However, this is the first time I’ve dedicated an entire article to so-called Christians who seem bent on sexualizing teens and tweens.
I first wrote about tawdry church attire in 2006 and conveyed how the pastor of my former church handled a sticky situation:
The church I attend once held outdoor services during the summer. Not anymore. The reason given by our pastor–with no apology–is the “inappropriate way people dress.” When it’s hot outside some folks show up pretty much undressed, and I am not prone to exaggeration. Women attend services dressed in short shorts, low-cut clingy tops, or crops. In some cases skintight low-rider jeans are worn as low as they go so that permanent artwork (tattoos) etched into backs and hips can be viewed by all. Excuse my bluntness, ladies, but exposing your butt crack in church is unacceptable, even if you’re sporting a Rembrandt across your back.
I also objected to the clothing worn by young guys, the ones who aren’t the least bit concerned with their grungy appearance. But my point here is that Bible believing, God honoring Christian females mustn’t wear flashy, flamboyant, tight fitting, low cut, sexually explicit clothing to church – or anywhere else! Being uninhibited and unreserved may be A-ok with “Sweet Jesus.” But being “too sexy for my shirt” is not A-ok with the Jesus of the Bible.
In 1Timothy 2:9, 10 Paul reminds women:
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness [modesty of appearance and manner] and sobriety [self-restraint].
Likewise, Peter had something to say to women in the early church:
But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. (1 Peter 3:4)
Jesus Christ gives His followers this command:
As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. (1 Peter 1:14-16)
Getting back to my’06 article, I pointed out that one of the problems with trying to be cool is that, followers of Jesus aren’t supposed to be cool; they’re supposed to be holy. But few pastors preach on holiness these days. Even though we serve a holy God and are called to be holy as He is holy, the message of sin and repentance has been diluted to appeal to the “felt needs” of today’s self-absorbed audience. People want to leave the church feeling good about themselves. No one wants to hear anything “negative” anymore. “That’s what liberalism is,” says Gene Edward Veith, “changing your theology to fit whatever the culture is.” (Source)
Our younger generation is being preyed upon by adults that will do anything for a buck. Adults are the ones who peddle the raunchy products that hyper-sexualize the culture. Young people, especially, are demeaned and exploited for profit. A word of warning to sleaze peddling “Christians”: God deems what you’re doing a grave sin. Repent!
Back in 2008 I penned a piece entitled “Hyper-sexualizing girls.” In it I described how even professing Christians are participating in this terrible offense against God. I asked,
And what, pray tell, is the Church doing to put a stop to the madness? The sad fact is that many Christians have yielded to the culture. And those that have are just as complicit in hyper-sexualizing youngsters as liberals are. So I pose this question to followers of Jesus Christ: Why do you suppose the world doesn’t believe what Christians have to say?
The answer is that Christians don’t live what they say they believe. Instead they live like the world.
“The Christian life,” says Warren Weirsbe, “is not a playground, but a battlefield.” [Read Eph. 6:11-12] Those who commit to follow Jesus Christ have got to get off the playground and make haste to the battlefield. Your children’s future is at stake. And I’m not talking to you nominal Christians. I’m talking to those who are serious about their commitment to Christ. Yes, fighting the culture is an uphill fight. But we can win some battles! “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). (Source)
In closing, I’ll restate what I said above. Bible believing Christians who really want to glorify God must steer clear of the “new breed” of Christian fashion and dress modestly. Believers must pray that so-called Christians who are promoting trashy clothing to impressionable girls will have a change of heart. What can change hearts and minds? The Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Recommended reading:
Should Christians “judge” others? You betcha!—By Marsha West
Marsha West is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
She can be reached at: embrigade@aol.com
The Highly Intelligent Psychopath – Achieving Deviant Goals
December 23, 2012 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
Understanding how psychopaths manipulate their victims, and even work together to prey on others, is a subject, about which, the public needs to be informed. Additionally, Americans need to understand the gravest threat to our personal autonomy and freedom, are highly intelligent psychopaths. While less intelligent psychopaths also exact monetary costs, more intelligent ones destroy our institutions, using these for their own ends. These are the ones who work their way up the corporate ladder and into Congress, after all.
Psychopaths were estimated by neuroscientist Kent Kiehl to cost Americans 460 billion every year.
The series of stories you are about to read move from the personal to the corporate and political, following the acts of individual psychopaths.
This is a story using my own, real life, experiences, and those related to me by other victims. This series of articles will examine the strategies and so illustrate how psychopaths think.
These stories illustrate how psychopaths operate together and how and why others tolerate what is happening, in business and personally.
The first two psychopathic individuals discussed in this series are Craig Franklin and Morgan Barteaux Gell (AKA Pillsbury). In this article we focus on Franklin. I was once married to Franklin.
I gave birth to Morgan, whose biological father was, I recently learned, a psychopath, when I was 18. When Morgan, then Carolyn Anne Barteaux, was born I had already left him. There is strong evidence psychopathy, or tendencies to the condition, are inheritable.
This specific story chronicles sexual deviancy tolerated by a major defense contractor, now providing drone technology to our government. Most Americans are horrified by the off shore use of drones, and even more so, at the idea these will be used by law enforcement in America.
We ask ourselves, how could those who provide the technologies have failed to see the use of drones as a gross violation of human decency? The short answer is they knew, quite well. The longer answer is that profits trump all other considerations all too often. The corporate toleration for shocking behavior, herein illustrated, makes their production of drone technology entirely understandable.
Individuals whose standards for acceptable behavior change due to their association with psychopaths, are known as ‘situational’ psychopaths. The shift toward behavior which harms others in politics and business is now believed, by many, to be related to the number of highly psychopathic individuals in these arenas.
This story begins with a document, already published to the Internet, written by my youngest daughter, Ayn Pillsbury which shows the strategy laid out by a psychopath intent on gaining sexual access to little girls who viewed him as a father.
Ayn’s Declaration, written for the court in Santa Barbara in 1999, outlines events which took place eleven years previously when she was around twelve, in the presence of her sister Dawn, her brothers, Arthur and Justin, and her step-brother, Scott. Morgan Barteaux (AKA Pillsbury),was not present, as was usual. She was, at the time, attempting to extract Eddy van Halen from his marriage.
The most relevant part of the Declaration is at the beginning, but reading it in its entirety adds further insights.
“The first episode of violence I recall was the year I was in eighth grade. That would have been in the autumn of 1988. Craig had taken us into the family room, just the kids. Mom wasn’t there. Craig wanted to talk to us about how incompetent Mom was. It was bad stuff about Mom. He was trying to win our loyalty. So then Mom came home and came into the room wanting to participate in the discussion. Craig was very angry and told her he was having a private discussion with the kids and that she wasn’t welcome.
Of course, being our mother, she believed the contrary. None of us objected to her being there. Then he became very loud and vituperative and became vocally and physically intimidating. He wrestled Mom to the ground and was on top of her holding her down and hitting her and so all of us kids were torn. We didn’t know what to do. We wanted to get him off of her, so I picked up a bar bell which was probably from 12 – 15 pounds and sort of tapped Craig with it on the back, not really wanting to hurt him but wanting him to realize that we didn’t approve of what he was doing. I don’t know how well it worked. Eventually he got off her.
There was some discussion for a while, Mom saying why she should be able to stay and Craig saying why she should leave. Then Craig again became very angry and punched Mom in the jaw, knocking her out cold. Of course she was standing so she fell over and I thought she might have struck her head on the hearth stones. So she hit the floor and we were all worried she was dead. She wasn’t responding. Craig left her there. We ran and got some water and someone felt her pulse. Then Scott and Edi (AKA Arthur) and Justin went to call the police. We stayed with Mom until she came around and the police came but Craig wasn’t arrested because Mom told them not to arrest him.
Mom did not hit Craig. Mom never hit Craig. Mom is the least violent person I know. Craig never scrupled to use physical intimidation to get what he wanted.”
I had asked Ayn to recall those times she remembered Craig battering me. In 1999 I did not understand really what Ayn’s declaration documented, if considered along with events taking place after 1999. Now, with more information from his multiple relationships, the answers are glaring.
Craig began to denigrate me to my children and others who knew us as soon as we were married. He constructed and spun stories to make me look incompetent, stupid, venal, and unworthy of the respect due to a mother. This was essential to his goal of gaining access to my daughters so he could live out his fantasies of violation and incest. Destroying the credibility of the victim is essential. This was present in each instance, my own and others.
For psychopaths the truth is irrelevant. The story which advances their goal is the story which is told.
Strategies such as these take forward planning, demonstrating one of the less understood aspects of intelligent psychopaths, the ability for strategic planning and patience, coupled with complete ruthlessness in the advancement of the goal.
Craig’s I. Q. is 180. Forward planning is as natural to him as breathing.
At the time, in 1988, I suffered a concussion and had no memories, for quite some time, of what had transpired. I did not, then remember Craig battering me or talking to the police. The children told me what had happened, but with no details. Now, officers responding to this kind of situation would have known not to listen to me. People with concussions are not capable of making informed decisions.
Additionally, I suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Craig should have been out of the home – not just because of what he did to me but because of what he was then just beginning to do to my children. I say, “my children,” because although he later went through a form of adopting them, naming them as his children in his will, this was, clearly, only a step in a process which was not about being a father, but rather living out his sexual fantasies. Eliminating my former husband, their father, from the equation, was part of his plan. Ron Foster, relinquishment of parental rights.
Ron relinquished his rights, June 21, 1989. Craig adopted the children June 26, 1989. The two events were clearly related. Craig would go into court and lie on this point ten years later, having conspired with his divorce attorney, Jacqueline Misho, to steal the records.
Denigrating one parent by another is known as Parental Alienation Syndrome. This technique is used to manipulate children and gain their trust. The same technique is used by sexual predators to alienate children from those who will protect them. Craig was not a parent in any terms we would accept because his goal was, in the first instance, sexually predatory.
Morgan also engaged in alienating my children from me, first for her own purposes, then to support Craig in his agenda. For the psychologically disordered, harm to others, is not a consideration.
While Legal Abuse Syndrome is now recognized as a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, abuse suffered at the hands of a psychopath is not seen as causing similar, and worse, symptoms. I have survived only because I began to study the symptoms and understand psychopathy, despite the emotional anguish suffered, which included the realization I had never had a relationship with either Craig or Morgan. No one has a relationship with a psychopath in any normal, human, sense.
I began to understand this when I retrospectively put together a time line, remembering what he had told me, and what he had done. Then, I understand his real motives. This year I did the same for Morgan.
The marriage I had entered into was a fraud used to gain access to my children, milk me for money, and use me in a variety of other ways. Craig’s intention was to accomplish his goal and leave me penniless. Keep this in mind, as the theme will reoccur.
The psychologically disordered use familiar human institutions as avenues for carrying out their predatory behavior routinely. Marriage, parenthood, all familial relations, make us vulnerable when psychopaths are involved. We need to understand this, our courts need to be take this into account.
Those who benefit by enabling these behaviors for their own profit must be taught this is a form of fraud which will not be tolerated.
In public officials, for instance judges, either engaging in this behavior, or allowing it to take place by others, for profit, should be grounds for removal and incur liabilities. It can also be handled as a violation under color of law.
Craig’s Corporate Partner
In this instance Dan O’Dowd, who with his wife, Amy owns 97% of Green Hills Software, Inc. had little real experience with business when he partnered with Glenn Hightower, his boss, and founded GHS in 1982. Craig, who he hired as Senior Vice President for Advanced Products Development in 1986, prevented him from having to return to Hightower for more funding and diluting his holding by actually selling Green Hills products before he even knew Dan. Craig read the code and judged them simply on their merits, recommending their purchase to companies with which he was doing business.
Craig also provided the edge expertise which made Dan’s success possible from the late 1980s until he, Dan, was able to orchestrate a forced buy-out of Hightower in 1998 – 1999. This link, and the links which follow, tell the story through the court documents generated from the resulting law suit.
[b.] “Glenn Hightowervs. Daniel O’Dowd, Case No. BS 053127
[d.] “Glenn Hightowervs. Daniel O’Dowd, Case No. BS 053127,
[e.]AMERICAN ARBITRATION ASSOCIATION No. 72Y 180 0960 98,
The opinion expressed by the court in [d.] was that Hightower was likely to prevail if there is proof of unlawful action by O’Dowd. While there had, in fact, been a conspiracy to make it impossible for Hightower to exercise his option to buy O’Dowd out Hightower was unable to prove this at the time.
The deal struck between Craig and Dan was for Dan to recharacterize the stock and for Craig to run the ‘Green Hills Personnel Strike.’ Promises of lavish benefits were made by Craig to other key personnel. Morgan’s 2001 Deposition touches on the conspiracy in which Craig was paid to organize the strike by an exchange of favors. One of these was O’Dowd’s having a fraudulent stock option agreement written.
But it is very possible the manipulation went on in several directions. Dan and Craig saw a lot of each other and while Craig and I were still married Craig would come home shaking with rage because Dan passed on to him remarks, Dan said, were from Glenn, which were far less than complementary toward Craig.
Dan’ s own personal goal was to be richer than Bill Gates. To accomplish this he had to be rid of his partners. Stories of Dan’s belief he was smarter and better at computers than Gates traveled to me both from Craig and others at the company. I have considered the possibility Dan, too is psychopathic, but lacking more substantial evidence than his willingness to destroy me, my children, and suborn the court system, I have no opinion in the matter.
However, this interesting note should be considered. In 2003, according to Anne Fisher, who was eating dinner with Craig when he showed her an envelope and told her what was inside. The envelope enclosed a deposition from a law suit settled in 2001 given by Morgan Pillsbury. It was addressed to John Fund of the Wall Street Journal. It was Green Hills Software, stationary and postage was paid.
The deposition inside was uncertified, meaning Morgan had no chance to review and edit the document. Craig would have had to obtain it from the Green Hills attorney. Why would Dan Risk providing this to John Fund if there was no accrued benefit to himself?
Look at the graph below, from the GHS site, for how much Dan benefited, and when.

Craig joins GHS 1986 - Government Contracts 2003
Although it should not have been mailed, or placed on Fund’s website, the deposition is, in fact, revealing. In the deposition Morgan states she has had a borderline personality disorder all of her life. But she had never been diagnosed as having one by a competent professional. She admits Craig came on to her sexually and recalls having conversations with him where he insisted on discussing his sexual attraction to her and to my other daughters.
Morgan relates Craig’s goal of finding a blond haired, blue-eyed twenty-something woman who will cater to his every whim, as well and Craig’s insistence Morgan, who he is also approaching sexually, find him other women as well.
John immediately put it up on his website, started for him by intimate friend, Gail Heriot. The two had been intimate for over a year at this time. Email documenting their meetings in various hotel rooms, dated 1/13/02 10:05 PM. John’s only comment on the deposition was Morgan’s admission she had a borderline personality disorder. But Craig’s other reported activities coincide exactly with the same pattern exhibited later with Anne Fisher. When the deposition was given, in 2001, Anne and Craig were still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship.
Craig would prove himself to be a serial abuser, with the same patterns recurring with multiple women.
At about the same time, 2003, Fund put up his website Dan was struck with a moment of patriotic fervor and started the Fallen Heroes Last Wish Foundation. 2010 2011 2012
From this time on government contracts became very much part of Dan’s business. This suggests to me John Fund, through his friends Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, arranged government contracts as another exchange of favors.
Craig was very serious about leaving me destitute. In a phone recording made in 1999, Craig discussed stock options with Morgan. It is clear as you read, no matter what, Craig and Green Hills do not intend me to get even the tiny amount of stock the court awarded to me in the decision rendered in “Divorce Judgment, August 16,1999.” It was planned in advance.
Craig had agreed to assist with Dan’s take over of Green Hills to benefit himself. One of these ‘benefits’ was to destroy me financially, part by having a new stock option agreement written by Ruth Fisher, an attorney in Los Angeles, in late 1997 or very early 1998. Craig told this to Morgan at the time and, when we were again talking, she relayed this to me.
By 2003 John had his reasons for helping Craig. By then Morgan had stabbed Craig in the back and the war between Morgan and Fund had involved Fund’s friends, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Psychopaths routinely stab each other in the back.
Morgan had started talking to me again in 1999 because she needed me to provide support Craig had withdrawn and help her get Fund to the altar.
Until recently I did not realize what had actually transpired. I also had no idea I was being double-teamed by two psychopaths, Craig and Morgan.
I began to understand this when I retrospectively put together a time line, remembering what they had told me, done, and then understanding their real motives.
Craig’s Fixation on Incest
Each of us is impacted by what happens in our own lives and from the reflected memories of those who raise us. Craig’s first sexual arousal came when he was sixteen, while wrestling with his younger sister, Priscilla, then twelve. He did not molest her. But thereafter his focus would be young girls with whom he had a familial relationship, who were virgins, and who he was betraying. A life-time pattern was set.
Craig’s parents were rigid, highly domineering, and cold. Craig’s father, a double vice-president of the University of Southern California, was also an attorney. His reputation at USC was built on fundraising, and I was told, over and over again, he had raised over 100 million for the university.
Dr. Franklin’s communications with his children came in the form of a news bulletin, announcing in gloating language, how much he had raised by persuading elderly people, whom he and his wife paid assiduous attention to, to leave money to the university instead of their families. These potential donors were never invited to their home, instead, Dr. Franklin and his wife entertained them at the Los Angeles Country Club, membership paid for by the USC. Listening to them discuss these people, gloating over their success and the anticipated consternation of the donors children, was disgusting.
Craig and his siblings grew up seeing this as normal.
Anne Fisher, another woman abused by Franklin
Anne Fisher, whose relationship with Craig continued for many years, first contacted me in the beginning of 2003 by email. Our communications continued sporadically over the years.
Craig had told her a story about his childhood he had not shared with me. When Craig was around two he wandered into the hallway at night and his mother, dressed in a scanty negligee, saw him, became angry, and spanked him with a Bible. According to Craig, as reported by Anne, she then went into her bedroom and engaged in sexual intercourse with her husband. It is, naturally, impossible to know if this happened, but from Anne’s report it clearly had heavy significance for him.
Craig told me about his arousal with Priscilla, but I did not realize this was anything more than a single incident. Over the years we were together, however, I was occasionally uncomfortable at his insistence I have plastic surgery so I looked like his sister. I refused. Priscilla is blond, blue-eyed and her face is highly neotenous.
I took his peculiarities to be simple eccentricities of no real significance. I was obviously wrong on this point.
After Craig left me Ayn told me Craig had long been exposing himself to her when she walked past our room and I was not in the house. Further pieces of information seeped in through several sources, although I have never really been in contact with Craig again.
The same year I began talking to Anne a private detective I hired to get Craig’s address for service of papers found Incest Pornography and a receipt from the sex shop in his trash neatly contained in a gift bag. He had watched Craig deposit it there.
Anne Fisher did not initially tell me very much about her relations with Craig. It was a serious relationship in that Anne became financially dependent on Craig, who agreed to fund a business she was starting and buy ‘them’ a home. He even took her and her two children to look at houses and found one he agreed to buy. Declaration Time Line No. 1 Time Line No. 2
The relationship was highly traumatic for her, and the stories she told me directly, and through letters and other documents she sent, were chilling.
Her relations with Craig put her, and her two children, at real risk, disrupted her real relationships and left her, and her children, homeless.
This is reproduced from Time Line 2 , which Anne sent me in 2008. The events chronicled date from around 2005, taking place after Craig had enticed her into dependence on him and then raped and destroyed her ability to make a living. Craig reentered her life when she was mending matters.
Anne Fisher – “HE ASSURED ME THAT HE WOULD NEVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN… and that we would work together at this business, he with his business experience and my technical trade knowledge. I began to build the business.
At first it was great, until I was at the point of contracts and office space and equipment purchases. He became evil… during this time… That is the best way to describe it. He had me in his control again and he used me as anything but a business partner.
He held over my head that he would take the business, destroy the business… He used me as his own private escort service, making me meet with prostitutes, writing letters to his prostitutes and promoting him as a decent man so that possibly? He could get whatever he wanted. I found notes from other girls that he was investing in their company at the same time and sleeping with them and lies… to me… He gave one girl 30k, and he told me he could only give me 5500/month and had no money for the operating start up cash he had promised…. So, I had to pay my bills, around 3k and then take about 2k a month to push the company forward each and every month and in this time I was used like a butt wipe and was privy to the other arrangements that made me realize that I was being taken advantage of, however, I couldn’t step back or lose it all and I couldn’t really step up because? I felt I owed craig his share and would lose it all. In 2007 he paid my daughter 3k/month to help out and the halfway through the year, cut me off, and kept her on (to punish me or cause grief)… and my entire family saw me, my children, saw me homeless… after craig had promised me all this. I tried to commit suicide twice or more. Entered therapy I cannot afford and have terrible shame, guilt and embarrassment due to this being a small town and having craig not “not” have the money, but choosing not to continue me or help me until I can get a job. It’s like he enjoys seeing me lose it all and then he’ll be back… to offer me money since I am completely at a loss to keep things and not lose anymore, my self esteem is in the bucket and I have no friends because how can you tell anyone what you are going through like this?
Craig has basically destroyed my reputation and my ability to be seen my those in my town as anyone other than a “hustler or a gold digger or a stupid ho”. This is far from who I am and from who I came here to be…”
Over the years Anne and I talked on the phone and got to know each other, to some extent, though we never met in person. On the phone she also provided information. All of this information was provided for my use and at my discretion because she was frustrated with her inability to either extract herself from Craig’s circle or successfully find justice.
In a declaration Anne sent to me she states Craig raped her four times. Verbally, she had told me about two occasions involving herself and another audio tape she has of Craig admitting his rape of Ivory May Kabler.
Anne told me she attempted,twice, to report Craig to the police, who refused to listen. Craig was, after all, protected as the Senior Vice President of a seemingly respectable company, Green Hills Software, Inc. Those with wealth are protected by both law enforcement and our courts.
It was Anne who also told me Craig had been meeting women online and using frequent flyer miles, available through his travel for Green Hills Software, to bring them to Santa Barbara for the weekend where he would rape them and put them, traumatized, back on the return flight. This was pure aggression and a violation of the Mann Act. These women were not in his ‘target zone,’ for young girls, just lonely women who believed they had found someone who really cared about them.
Emotionally destroying, raping, and humiliating women was, clearly, a goal for Craig, an element of his continuously repeating pattern of abuse.
At one point Anne gave me a tour of one of the ‘Sugar Daddy’ sites she handled for Craig. It was horrifying to realize how she had been used as she took me through the site and showed me letters she had read for Craig from other women.
The betrayal theme, which is present in Craig’s core fantasy, was very much being fed, if what Anne told me was true. I have no reason to believe it was not, as I later heard from Morgan he had brought one of these women down to meet her while she was moving from her original apartment to a cheaper one down the street. These themes are also present in Morgan’s 2001 Deposition.
Craig continually returned to Anne through the time they knew each other, according to her time lines and declaration and from what she told me. This is a typical form of extended control used by psychopaths to destroy the self-confidence and integrity of the victim. Anne has survived, and started her own business, which was no easy thing. But she is very much the exception in these cases. Talking to her persuaded me of Craig’s ruthlessness and lack of conscience. Anne was treated like a utility to be picked up, enjoyed, and then again destroyed while Craig enjoyed every step of the process.
Craig lived out the same scenario with multiple women, whose names I have. Details will be provided in the book, now being prepared.
But Craig, while enjoying these interludes, also keeps his eye on the future with long on planning. A clear learning curve appears as he grows more and more ruthless in his pursuit of his goal.
During the years past he was also pursuing other lines of action. The long term planning for the goal of incest included seeking a woman young enough to have children, preferably girls. In parallel, Craig also attempted to get unsupervised visitation with his eight-year old granddaughter, the daughter of his oldest son, Jonathan Scott Franklin, when Scott was charged with paying a hit man to murder his estranged wife and her new boy friend. Craig entirely ignored the existence of his grandson, two years older.
Scott’s wife, Kathy, alarmed at this, resisted Craig having any such visitation and this was denied by the court, who put her and the two children in a victim protection program.
Craig and Scott had conspired to leave Kathy destitute, which doubtless suited Craig’s own ultimate goal, even if Scott had not tried to have Kathy murdered. Craig’s comment to Anne on being told was, “How could he (Scott) be so stupid? They always suspect the husband!” No shred of concern for Kathy was expressed.
When my youngest daughter, Ayn, had a little girl Craig refocused his attentions there and made plans to ‘become a part of his grand-daughter’s life.’
Craig is a danger to little girls, who he immediately begins to manipulate. This is true for his own relations and for others. His points of entry into relationships include music and the film industry.
Songs, especially ballads and country western music plays a part in Craig’s plans. Craig planned a children’s album and wrote a song for his grand-daughter, the lyrics for which appear here, and were produced for the album, “Celeste Sings for Kids,” The album was publicized professionally, and Craig thanked those who helped publicize it. Here is one of his thank yous which appears on a list of endorsers. The site is To Market Kid.
“Craig Franklin, President – Romantic Realist Records, LLC
“Words can’t begin to describe the difference Regina has made with my children’s music project and its visibility in the marketplace. Regina took my project from 0-100 in two months! She has made all the difference! Anyone who has the good fortune to work with Regina Kelland should jump at the chance!” “
It is not possible to know when you are dealing with the disordered, necessarily, especially when you never have the opportunity to know them more than professionally.
Note that the song, “Justin’s Lullaby” was not written by Janet Smith and Craig Franklin. It was written by Craig, tuned up by me in 1983. Justin is my son with Franklin. Psychopaths continually reinvent history to suit their purposes. On this site Craig features a song, “To Have and to Hold,” he wrote on the occasion of our formal wedding. I am, naturally, not mentioned.
Craig also positioned himself as being adversarial to sex offenders by funding a movie titled, “Barracuda,” a B sort of movie produced by Mercury Rising Films. Both of these ventures were well thought out to put him in place to form relationships allowing for access to young girls by simply spending money and continuing to play around with his guitar.
After Green Hills removed Craig from their management team last summer Craig moved on to another project, “Craig Franklin’s Tea Party,” a movie. The webmaster is an associate from Mercury Rising Films, which would produce the film.
Over the last several years I have been outing both Craig Franklin and Green Hills Software. My most recent website, Craig Franklin and Green Hills Software, went up within 45 minutes of reading this email, which I published on the site.
Craig is a sexually deviant psychopath whose focus is seduction, sexual violence, betrayal, and leaving the victim homeless. One of these scenarios plays out as raping little girls, preferably daughters, or grand-daughters now, when they are around twelve years old. Here, he also begins with seduction, moves to building trust and thereafter devolves into a series of betrayals, sexual and financial, intended to leave both the mother and daughter completely traumatized and financially destitute.
It is impossible to know how many women and girls he has traumatized or what he has cost these individuals in peace of mind, financially, and so many other ways. But, in retrospect, it is very easy to see what he will continue to do.
Green Hills Software, Inc., enabled this behavior, conspiring with Craig to destroy both myself and my children. They, Dan and others in the company, did this to secure Craig’s cooperation when it was needed. They removed him from their ‘team’ when the risk of exposure finally became to high. They profited enormously over the years and now are repositioning themselves with absolutely no show of conscience.
Craig’s website, Romantic Realist, is now down, as is the Romantic Realist My Space. But his Ivory May My Space site is still up.
Anne expressed a wish to ensure Craig’s sexually predatory behavior would be brought to an end. These articles, and the book, are being written, in part, to accomplish this goal.
Next: Morgan and Craig, a relationship.
Dan O’Dowd, Green Hills Software, Inc., Green Hills Software, LLC, and Integrity, missing from the equation.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster will soon begin her new weekly radio program on Surviving Meltdown. The program examines how government can be brought into alignment with the spiritual goal of decentralizing power and localizing control and links also to America Goes Home americagoeshome.org, a site dedicated to providing information and resources.
She is also the author of GREED: The NeoConning of America and A Tour of Old Yosemite. The former is a novel about the lives of the NeoCons with a strong autobiographical component. The latter is a non-fiction book about her father and grandfather.
Her blog is at: http://howtheneoconsstolefreedom.blogspot.com/ She is the founder of the Arthur C. Pillsbury Foundation. She is the mother of five children and three grandchildren.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Society Is Crumbling Right In Front Of Our Eyes And Banning Guns Won’t Help
December 18, 2012 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
What in the world is happening to America? I have written many articles about how society is crumbling right in front of our eyes, but now it is getting to the point where people are going to be afraid to go to school or go shopping at the mall. Just consider what has happened over the past week. Adam Lanza savagely murdered 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. 42-year-old Marcus Gurrola threatened to shoot innocent shoppers and fired off more than 50 rounds in the parking lot of Fashion Island Mall in Newport Beach, California. After police apprehended him, he told them that he “was unhappy with life”. Earlier in the week, a crazy man wearing a hockey mask and armed with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire on the second floor of a mall in Happy Valley, Oregon. He killed two people and injured a third. On Saturday morning, a lone gunman walked into a hospital in Alabama and opened fire. He killed one police officer and two hospital employees before being gunned down by another police officer. So have we now reached the point where every school, every mall and every hospital is going to need armed security? How will society function efficiently if everyone is constantly worried about mass murderers?
In response to the horrible tragedy in Connecticut, many in the mainstream media are suggesting that much stricter gun laws are the obvious solution.
After all, if we get rid of all the guns these crazy people won’t be able to commit these kinds of crimes, right?
Unfortunately, that is not how it works. The criminals don’t obey gun control laws. Banning guns will just take them out of the hands of law-abiding American citizens that just want to protect their own families.
Adam Lanza didn’t let the strict gun control laws up in Connecticut stop him from what he wanted to do. Connecticut already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, and Adam Lanza broke at least three of them.
However, if there had been some armed security officers or some armed teachers at that school, they may have had a chance to protect those dear little children from being brutally gunned down.
If gun control was really the solution to our problems, then cities that have implemented strict gun control laws should be some of the safest in the entire country.
But sadly, just the opposite is true.
For example, Chicago has very strict gun laws. But 10 people were shot in the city of Chicago on Friday alone. Chicago is now considered to be “the deadliest global city“, and the murder rate in Chicago is about 25 percenthigher than it was last year.
So has gun control turned Chicago into a utopia?
Of course not.
And it won’t solve our problems on a national level either.
You can find more statistics about the futility of gun control right here.
Well, how would things be if we did just the opposite and everyone had a gun?
Would gun crime go through the roof?
That is what liberals were warning of when the city of Kennesaw, Georgia passed a law requiring every home to have a gun. But instead of disaster, the results turned out to be very impressive…
In March 1982, 25 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw – responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. – unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun. Since then, despite dire predictions of “Wild West” showdowns and increased violence and accidents, not a single resident has been involved in a fatal shooting – as a victim, attacker or defender.
The crime rate initially plummeted for several years after the passage of the ordinance, with the 2005 per capita crime rate actually significantly lower than it was in 1981, the year before passage of the law.
Prior to enactment of the law, Kennesaw had a population of just 5,242 but a crime rate significantly higher (4,332 per 100,000) than the national average (3,899 per 100,000). The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – show the rate at 2,027 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the population has skyrocketed to 28,189.
When criminals know that everyone has guns, they are much less likely to try something. And often armed citizens are able to prevent potential mass murderers from doing more damage. You can find several examples of this right here.
But of course most of our politicians are not interested in common sense. Instead, they are obsessed with the idea that gun control will make our country “safe” again.
Senator Diane Feinstein says that she is ready to introduce a strict gun control bill in January that will “ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession” of many types of firearms.
Will such a law keep the criminals from getting guns?
No way. Just look at what is happening with the cartels down in Mexico. The criminals are always able to get guns.
If our “leaders” were really interested in stopping these mass murders, they would take a look at the role that mind-altering pharmaceutical drugs play in these incidents. If you look at the mass murders that have occurred over the past several decades, in the vast majority of them the murderer had been using mind-altering pharmaceutical drugs…
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has raised concerns about severe acts of violence as side effects of anti-psychotic and antidepressant drugs not only on individuals but on society as well.
Just a month ago PRWeb described drug induced violence as ”medicine’s best kept secret.”
And the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHRI) is calling for a federal investigation on its web page which links no less than 14 mass killings to the use of psychiatric drugs such as Prozac and Paxil.
And guess what?
According to the Washington Post, one neighbor says that Adam Lanza was “on medication”.
But will our politicians ever consider a law against such drugs?
Of course not. The big corporations that produce those drugs give mountains of money to the campaign funds of our politicians.
So the focus of the debate will remain on guns.
And a lot of liberals would have us believe that our society could be transformed into some type of “utopia” if we could just get rid of all the guns.
Unfortunately, that is simply not true. Our society is in an advanced state of moral decay, and this moral decay is manifesting in our society in thousands of different ways. The corruption runs from the highest levels of society all the way down to the lowest.
For those that believe that gun control would somehow “fix America”, I have some questions for you…
Down in Texas, one set of parents kept their 10-year-old son locked in a bedroom and only fed him bread and water for months. Eventually he died of starvation and they dumped his body in a creek.
Would banning guns have kept that from happening?
A pastor in north Texas was recently assaulted by an enraged man who beat him to death with an electric guitar.
Would banning guns have kept that from happening?
Police up in New Jersey say that a man kept his girlfriend padlocked in a bedroom for most of the last 10 years.
Would banning guns have kept that from happening?
A 31-year-old man up in Canada was found guilty of raping an 8-year-old girl, breaking 16 of her bones and smashing her in the face with a hammer.
Would banning guns have kept that from happening?
According to the FBI, a New York City police officer is being accused of “planning the kidnap, rape, torture and cannibilization of a number of women”.
Would banning guns have kept that from happening?
A Secret Service officer that had been assigned to protect Joe Biden’s residence has been charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
Would banning guns have kept that from happening?
Over in Texas, a very sick 29-year-old man stabbed his girlfriend to death and then burned his one-year-old baby alive because she had gone to court and filed for child support.
Would banning guns have kept that from happening?
Over in Utah, a 21-year-old man is accused of stabbing his grandmother 111 times and then removing her organs with a knife.
Would banning guns have kept that from happening?
There are more than 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States every single year.
Would banning guns keep that from happening?
An average of five children die as a result of child abuse in the United States every single day.
Would banning guns keep that from happening?
The United States has the highest child abuse death rate on the entire globe.
Would banning guns keep that from happening?
It is estimated that 500,000 Americans that will be born this year will be sexually abused before they turn 18.
Would banning guns keep that from happening?
In the United States today, it is estimated that one out of every four girls is sexually abused before they become adults.
Would banning guns keep that from happening?
If there was a way to take all of the guns away from all of the criminals, I would be all in favor of it. Unfortunately, no government on the planet has been able to do that.
Instead, we have seen that criminals thrive whenever gun bans are instituted and the guns are taken away from law-abiding citizens.
But the bottom line is that our social decay will not be solved either by more guns or less guns.
Our social decay is the result of decades of bad decisions. We have pushed morality out of our schools, out of government and out of almost every aspect of public life. Now we are experiencing the bitter fruit of those decisions.
And this is not a problem that our government is going to be able to fix. Violent crime increased by 18 percent in 2011, and this is just the beginning.
As our economy gets even worse, the rot and decay that have been eating away the foundations of America are going to become even more evident. The number of Americans living in poverty grows with each passing day, and millions upon millions of people are becoming very desperate.
Desperate people do desperate things, and crime, rioting and looting are going to become commonplace in the United States in the years ahead.
So you can pretend that the government is going to be able to keep our society from crumbling all you want, but that is not going to help you when a gang of desperate criminals has invaded your home and is attacking your family.
We definitely should mourn for the victims in Connecticut. It was a horrible national tragedy.
But this is just the beginning. The fabric of our society is coming apart at the seams. The feeling of safety and security that we all used to take for granted has been shattered, and the streets of America are going to steadily become much more dangerous.
I hope that you are ready.
Source: The Economic Collapse
Paul Krugman Discovers Marx (And Misses The Point)
December 12, 2012 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
In his recent New York Times op-ed piece, Princeton professor and regular columnist for The New York Times Paul Krugman observed:
“The American economy is still, by most measures, deeply depressed. But corporate profits are at record high. It’s simple: profits have surged as a share of national income, while wages and other labor compensation are down. The pie isn’t growing the way it should — but capital is doing fine by grabbing an ever-larger slice, at labor’s expense.”
And then he adds with almost shocked incredulity: “Wait – are we really back to talking about capital versus labor? Isn’t that an old-fashioned, almost Marxist sort of discussion, out of date in our modern information economy?”
This is exactly the conflict that Marx identified as the fundamental, inescapable contradiction of the capitalist system that would eventually create the conditions of its downfall: there is a tendency for the owners of businesses, the capitalists, to accumulate ever-vaster wealth while the people who work for them experience a declining standard of living.
Marx supported this conclusion by offering a description of the fundamental operating mechanism of capitalism. Capitalism is based on the principle of private ownership and competition. Private businesses compete with one another for customers, and those who fail to attract a sufficient number eventually perish. But in order to attract customers, businesses must maximize the quality of their product while minimizing its price. If two products embody the same quality but one is cheaper, customers, in pursuit of their self-interest, will purchase the cheaper version, all other factors being equal.
This means that capitalists must constantly attempt to minimize the price of their product simply for the sake of their own survival. If a business devises a way to lower costs, it can capture the market. But, as Marx pointed out, labor costs are a huge factor in determining the price of a product. So those businesses that minimize labor costs can prevail in the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism. For this reason, a downward pressure on wages and benefits is always operating to one degree or another.
But Krugman made no reference to this aspect of Marx’s analysis and instead identified two other factors that contribute to the growing inequality in wealth between capitalists and workers, both of which are discussed by Marx.
The first factor involves the introduction of technology into the labor process, i.e. “labor-saving” technology. In other words, machines replace workers or reduce the amount of skill required in the labor process. To give a current example, software has been developed that analyzes legal documents at a fraction of the time it takes lawyers while costing much less. Accordingly, many well-paid lawyers lose their jobs to such software. Living during the industrial age, Marx supplied many such examples.
Krugman referred to his second explanatory factor that increases inequality between capitalists and labor as the “monopoly power” of large corporations where “increasing business concentration could be an important factor in stagnating demand for labor, as corporations use their growing monopoly power to raise prices without passing the gains on to their employees.” Here Krugman is approaching the heart of Marxist theory.
Krugman is basically arguing that large corporations use their power to override purely economic trends and simply demand that their employees work for less. But this is precisely the point of Marxism, although from the other direction. Marx persistently argued that capitalism could not function without the willingness of the working class to perform the work. When workers organize and engage in collective action by withholding their labor, the balance of power shifts in favor of the workers who can then demand higher wages as a condition for their return to work, as the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) recently did on the West Coast and the teachers did in Chicago.
Amazingly, Krugman never mentions the decline of organized labor as a huge factor explaining the decline of the standard of living of working people, adding that there has been so little discussion of these developments. But others, especially former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, have discussed these trends and identified the decline of labor as a major factor.
In the 1930s when labor unions were tenaciously fighting for working people, huge gains were made in terms of salaries and benefits. They conducted militant sit-down strikes and mobilized tens of thousands of people from the community to support labor’s struggles. Their successes were to a large degree responsible for the emergence of the so-called middle class that thrived in the 1950s and 1960s.
Workers who are organized, acting both collectively and forcefully, can change the economic landscape. But once organized labor becomes complacent and relaxes its guard and ceases to struggle, the laws of capitalism ineluctably grind down their gains and the growing inequality returns until workers again rise up.
Marx argued that eventually workers would see the futility of this repeating cycle, reject capitalism altogether, and begin to construct a socialist society built on entirely humanistic and democratic principles.
In a recent New York Times article on unionizing workers at the bottom of the pay scale, a union organizer was quoted as saying, “We must go back to the strategies of nonviolent disruption of the 1930s.” Currently organized labor is all but dying out. Strikes are like an endangered species. Rather than engaging in militant struggles, union members are urged to elect Democrats who then call on workers to accept sacrifices.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has called on working people “to fight like hell” to resist cuts to Social Security and Medicare. But these are just words. To this date, the unions have failed to mobilize their members to stage massive demonstrations across the country against cuts to these popular social programs – demonstrations that could culminate in hundreds of thousands of working people descending on Washington, D.C. to make their demands clear to the Obama administration and the rest of the politicians. Without the unions taking the lead in this struggle, there is little individual workers will be able to accomplish. And if the unions refuse to return to their more militant roots but remain invisible, economists like Paul Krugman will continue to ignore their existence and overlook their current historic failure to defend working people.
Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer are regular columnists for Veracity Voice
Ann Robertson is a Lecturer at San Francisco State University and a member the California Faculty Association. Bill Leumer is a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 853 (ret.). Both are writers for Workers Action and may be reached at sanfrancisco@workerscompass.org
Bob Costas: Just Another Mindless Gun Control Nut
December 7, 2012 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
While watching the halftime show for the Sunday night NFL game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys this past Sunday evening, I was stunned to hear NBC sportscaster Bob Costas drift from his sports commentary into using the tragedy of the murder-suicide committed by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher as a platform to promote yet another mindless assault against the Second Amendment.
Belcher had earlier shot and killed his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins and then himself. Costas used the tragic killings as an excuse to launch his assault against the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Costas quoted from a column written by sportscaster Jason Whitlock, saying, “Our current gun culture ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy, and that more convenience store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead. Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it…If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”
See the report at:
Let’s see. It seems to me that people have been murdering their fellow man ever since Cain murdered Abel. And would you know it: Cain had zero access to a .357 magnum revolver or .45 ACP pistol. And since when would a 240-pound linebacker need any help killing a woman half his size and strength? Does one really believe if someone is intent on murder, the lack of a firearm would deter him or her? How many people are killed with knives, clubs, axes, “blunt objects,” or even bare hands? Countless! And the fact is, firearms are used a minimum of 50 times more often in the protection of life against a violent attack than they are in the taking of a life.
My friend, Larry Pratt at Gun Owners of America, writes, “Perhaps Mr. Costas would have been disappointed if Ms. Perkins had had access to a gun and shot Belcher first? Would he then have thought there were too many guns? Actually, he might not have even heard about a self-defense shooting. Outside of the local press, self-defense shootings rarely make national news.
“To be sure, there are so many self-defense shootings each year that the national news would be carrying several accounts a day. Guns are used over 4,000 times a day (using conservative research findings) in self-defense. In fact, using those conservative figures given us by the Clinton Justice Department, guns are used 50 times more often in self-defense than to illegitimately take life.”
See Pratt’s column at:
http://gunowners.org/news1232012.htm
Unlike Costas, who spouted out a sophomoric tirade of uneducated gibberish against the Second Amendment, a report in the New York Post more accurately describes the causes of this tragedy: “Kansas City Chiefs linebacker and former Long Island high-school star Jovan Belcher was allegedly battling football-related head injuries and booze, painkiller and domestic problems when he snapped and murdered his girlfriend before killing himself in front of two coaches Saturday.”
See the report at:
So, why didn’t Costas use the precious air-time he was given at NBC to call attention to the real causes of this tragedy? Why didn’t he talk about the on-going problem of chronic concussions being sustained by so many NFL players? It is well documented that too many head injuries are often speculated to be a cause of the rampant number of suicides among active and former NFL players–including the celebrated former superstar linebacker, Junior Seau? ABC News concluded its report about Seau’s suicide saying:
“Multiple former NFL players have committed suicide in recent years possibly as a result of brain injuries, including former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson, who also shot himself in the chest, ex-Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Terry Long, and Philadelphia Eagles defensive back Andre Waters.”
See the report at:
Why didn’t Costas talk about Jovan’s obvious alcohol and drug abuse? The only answer is because Costas has a personal anti-gun bias and used the air-time granted him by NBC to vent his paranoia. Well, now at least we know what Bob Costas is all about: he is just another mindless gun-control nut.
If Bob is reading this column, he might want to read this news report out of San Bernardino, California. According to the local CBS affiliate, “The city attorney of San Bernardino is under scrutiny for telling residents to ‘lock their doors and load their guns’ during a city council meeting.
“The official explained that because the city is bankrupt and slashing public safety budgets people will need to start protecting themselves.
“City Attorney Jim Penman said he doesn’t regret what he said.”
The CBS report continued saying, “The city attorney said it’s important for people to be smart about protecting themselves and their families.”
See the report at:
Instead of advocating the disarmament of honest, law-abiding citizens, Costas would have been better off advising people such as Kasandra Perkins who are mixed up with violence-prone individuals to arms themselves for their own protection. Obviously, the city attorney of San Bernardino is a much more reasoned and rational public figure than Bob Costas. That’s because, Mr. Penman probably has better real-world experience than Mr. Costas, who obviously has lived in the insulated, plastic world of the media elite for much too long.
As for me, I will continue to watch Sunday Night Football, but I will never again listen to another word that Bob Costas has to say about anything. The mute button on my remote control was made for nincompoops like Bob Costas. Beyond that, if Costas is really serious about his anti-gun position and not a hypocrite, like so many other gun-control nuts, I suggest he move out from behind his barricaded mansion and post a large sign outside his personal residence that reads, “This house proudly has no guns in it.” Anyone think that will happen?
Chuck Baldwin is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
You can reach him at: chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com
Please visit Chuck’s web site at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com
California Dreaming: Bankruptcy, Pensions And Taxes
December 5, 2012 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System lives in the rarified air where financial magic somehow materializes to pay for their irrational exuberant pensions. When the drug high is over, the real world requires a harsh penalty for ebullient irresponsibility. The Chicago Tribune reports:
“San Bernardino, a city of 210,000 about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, filed for bankruptcy protection on August 1. Since then, it has halted its bi-weekly, $1.2 million payment to Calpers, saying it wants to defer any payments to the fund until fiscal year 2013-2014. Calpers says the city is already $6.9 million in arrears since August 1.
The San Bernardino bankruptcy is fast emerging as a precedent-setting case over how creditors, especially Wall Street bondholders and insurers, are treated in a municipal bankruptcy, because never before has a city seeking bankruptcy halted payments to Calpers or threatened its historical primacy as a creditor.
Under Californian state law, the contract between Calpers and debtor cities is viewed as inviolate and has been treated as such by state courts. Unlike Calpers, other creditors have historically been forced to renegotiate or forgive debt to debtor cities.”
The concept of an inviolate obligation tied to public employee retirement payouts is asacred cow that needs purging from law and, more importantly from populace endorsement.
Notwithstanding, expressing such supportive government orthodoxy, that bastion of objective news as reported by the Sacramento Bee, writes on the pro taxation argument of Jerry Brown: California tax vote start of national tax hike sweep.
“Revenue means taxes, and certainly those who have been blessed the most, who have disproportionately extracted, by whatever skill, more and more from the national wealth, they’re going to have to share more of that.”
The Democratic governor’s remarks follow passage last week of Proposition 30, his initiative to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California’s highest earners.
According to Governor Brown the expanded role for government programs and, by inference, public employee unions, is never ending. Just ask the taxpayers who live in San Bernardino if they are paying enough. Next, ask the municipal bond creditors, who stand to lose significant capital from the forthcoming bankruptcy.
Defining the extent of the self-inflicted injury, California: Anatomy of an exploding government obligation, reveals an alarming example of the cold hard truth why the state is financially broke.
“A promise to pay a retiree’s health care coverage is essentially a kind of defined benefit plan, in which government pledges to cover a certain percentage of the cost of health insurance regardless of how much money it has actually set aside for this benefit. As the State Budget Task Force’s recent report on California explains, right now workers covered in California by this retirement benefit are earning credits that should be financed to the tune of $4.7 billion a year, if California is going to have enough money to pay off this obligation over the years.
But instead of pre-funding the benefit, California has chosen to pay for it on a pay-as-you-go basis, taking the cash for the health insurance premiums of retirees right out of its annual budget. Right now that’s only costing the state $1.7 billion annually because of the limited number of retirees who qualify for the benefit. But over time more and more workers will qualify, and those workers will live on average decades in retirement, swelling the rolls of those whom California must provide health coverage for.”
Where in the present distressed economy are there new corporate employment contacts that include defined benefit plans? The old name is a pension. In the corporate world, IRAs and 401 K are common. The dinosaur companies that accepted union contracts with future defined benefit obligations are out of business, either escaped offshore or are hanging on by their fingernails.
Why should government employees have a privileged position, when the realities of further municipal bankruptcies are growing daily? It seems that Governor Brown forgets his own rhetoric.
“Several unions have agreed to larger employee contributions for their members. Taxpayers are living with cuts and making sacrifices to deal with the reality of California’s budget crisis, state workers are going to have to do the same.” Jerry Brown
Another quote referenced in a Public Employee Unions Guarantee National Bankruptcy article, also confronts the unrealistic mindset that exists in “The Golden State”. Someone needs to explain to public officials that the state has used up their precious metal riches and their union members are not willing to do the hard labor of mining new veins of revenue benefit reductions that will balance their budgets.
“The Assembly Public Safety Committee today is considering one of the most noxious, special-interest pieces of legislation we’ve seen in a while—one that will endanger public safety, tread on the California constitution and reinforce the perception that some government workers are part of a special, coddled group that’s exempt from the normal legal and ethical standards that are applied to other Californians.” The Registry
In this same BATR essay the Steven Greenhut’s critique in the WSJ, Public Employee Unions Are Sinking California, is emphasized. California legislators inhabit the same psychotropic mental escapism, exemplified with the double dippers that create the public employee entitlement culture. Financial reality never hits the retirement paychecks of the civil service sector, while the tormented taxpayer is told they must pay more.
The rush to leave the state has Californians perplexed for solutions as long as the Sacramento progressive ‘pols’ refuse to challenge the public union mafia. Those who remain will bear an even higher tax burden to feather the nests of the most unproductive elements in society, namely government.Governor Brown preaches. “And everyone is going to have to realize that building roads is important, investing in schools is important, paying for the national defense is important, biomedical research is important, the space program is an indicator of the world leader – all that takes money”. Just maybe a bankrupt state and municipalities needs to reduce the size and scope of government itself.
Sartre is the publisher, editor, and writer for Breaking All The Rules. He can be reached at: BATR
Sartre is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Landmark Asset Seizure Case To Be Heard In California Court
December 5, 2012 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
A San Bernardino County judge will preside over a case this coming January which has massive implications for the future of property rights.
On January 24th, a petition will be heard which was filed by a conservator requesting the court to revoke a twenty- eight year old deed of sale, notarized and recorded, in order to return the property into the name of the person who sold the property. Lois Risse of Yucaipa, California, is now under a conservatorship and the conservator, Melodie Scott, seeks to get a reverse mortgage on the property to pay for her fees as conservator of Risse.
Twenty eight years ago, Risse sold her house to her friend, Glenn Neff, with the provision she could live in it for the rest of her life. Risse is now 101 years old and was put under a conservatorship a year ago in a hearing in San Bernardino Court, a hearing at which she was not present. Neff has been paying the taxes and insurance on the property while Risse lives in the house, rent free.
In pleadings filed in support of her petition to take Neff’s house away from him, Scott cited a number of checks that were written to Neff by Risse over twenty five years ago. Neff has stated that there is nothing improper with the checks, most of which constitute checks which he took to the bank and cashed for his friend, Lois.
Scott alleges that Risse did not know that she was selling the property to Neff, an allegation belied by the notarized deed of sale, signed by Lois Risse. Melodie Scott also alleges that Neff took from the house other property, including a gun and pewter collection.
Curiously, Melodie Scott has virtually ignored the evidence that someone did indeed prey on Lois Risse. This reporter has reviewed documents from Scott’s own files that list a number of withdrawals from Risse’s accounts made by a neighbor from August/ September to December of 2011. The neighbor’s name is being withheld from publication at this time per legal advice.
According to Scott’s records, “Mr. X” made over thirty thousand dollars of ATM cash withdrawals from Risse’s account and also received thousands of dollars in questionable payments via check.
MISSING POLICE REPORTS
Last year, at least two of Risse’s friends and neighbors reported to Adult Protective Services concerns that the elderly woman was being taken advantage of by a neighbor, prior to the imposition of the conservatorship. According to a party close to the case, Melodie Scott has also stated she reported this to the police.
However, the San Bernardino County Sheriff drew a blank when asked if Mr. X’s name came up as a suspect in any reports. In fact, he does not come up on any report whatsoever in over twenty years, according to the media relations representative with the Sheriff.
Some of these allegations of fraud are alluded to by attorney Mel Friedland, who is representing Risse in the conservatorship case. In a report filed with the court on March 7, 2012, Friedland states that he was contacted by a former caretaker who had concerns about Lois Risse. Friedland writes:
“The informant further indicated that there had been two referrals to Adult Protective Service… On February 16 2012 I contacted Adult Protective Services and asked for information regarding the two alleged referrals and told I would be contacted. To date, I have had no contact from Adult Protective Services.”
IGNORING THE EVIDENCE OF ELDER ABUSE
Melodie Scott’s records clearly indicate heavy third person withdrawals from Risse’s accounts during the period of Fall through Winter of 2011, none of which involve Glenn Neff. The lack of any concomitant report in the Sheriff’s files raises some serious questions as to the functioning of the SB County APS.
Another conservatorship matter raised alarm recently when it was revealed that a report made to SB County APS was drastically altered by the time it got into the hands of the police agency to which it was referred. The initial report going into APS had alleged that conservatee Charles Castle had been deprived of his rights to due process in the initiation of the conservatorship and had also been represented by the same counsel, Bryan Hartnell, who was also representing the conservator in this same case.
However, by the time the Pomona Police went out to investigate APS’s allegations, the report had been strangely altered. The documents that Pomona P.D. Officer Catanese had in hand only stated that the conservator had misappropriated a social security check in July of 2011. As conservators take control over the finances of their wards, a report of this nature would be considered a non-issue and would result in a quick “case closed.”
A second report on the Castle matter was subsequently made to San Bernardino County, due to the fact that the first report had been tampered with. Apparently, that report was buried and no one ever went out to visit Mr. Castle from San Bernardino County APS. That agency has declined to discuss their dispensation of either Castle report.
A series of articles on the Castle case resulted in the resignation of both attorney Hartnell and the conservator.
The response from the County as to queries of a possible cover up going on within the ranks of San Bernardino County APS workers met with a stiff reply from County media rep David Wert, who called the allegations of a cover up “ridiculous, insulting, and childish.”
The Risse case is particularly troubling due to the plethora of documentation that the elderly woman was heavily preyed upon by others in the past year. The fact that no police report exists, in the face of multiple contacts with the authorities, coupled with the persistence of the conservator in attempting to seize the property Risse legally sold to her friend decades earlier, ramps up alarm that government agencies may be working hand in hand with private conservators in order to obscure bona fide instances of abuse and bleed money out of whomever may have it.
DEPOSING THE INCAPACITATED
To add to the nutty mix, Lois Risse has now been deposed by the counsel for Glenn Neff, Jack Osborn. Risse has been deemed incapacitated and had trouble remembering much of anything during the deposition. Elder attorney Marc Hankin has called relying on the memory of an incapacitated person to substantiate a claim of this nature : “irrational.”
Osborne has represented Melodie Scott in the past and has filed questionable documents in this case, including a response to the petition to return assets which was not even legally executed , lacking a date and place on the verification. Calls to SB Court questioning how the clerks could have possibly accepted such a document into the file have not been answered. Attorney Osborn has not returned calls from this reporter.
While the devil is in the details, and the details of the Risse case are individual and therefore unique to this case, a larger issue remains. If a conservator or anyone else with a power of attorney over an elder can revoke a decades- old deed of sale simply because they wish to drain the money off the property now, then no deed of sale can be considered final and no one’s property is safe from seizure by a court of law.
COURT GONE WILD
Court watchers have cited numerous irregularities in cases heard in San Bernardino probate court. In one instance, a man was permanently restrained from his own father without a hearing when he took photographs of his father which allegedly revealed that the father was being physically neglected by the conservator. Sitting probate Judge Michael Welch ordered the photographs destroyed and issued a permanent restraining order against the conservatee’s son, William Horspool, without ever calling the matter to hearing, a clear violation of due process.
In another instance, Welch approved the actions of a conservator who had “pulled the plug” on a mental health conservatee who had come down with pneumonia. The conservator decided—over the protests of the family– not to give the woman any treatment for the lung infection and instead to ply her with morphine. The woman quickly succumbed.
The Risse case may be considered a precedent setting case. During a time when foreclosures are rampant and allegations of mortgage fraud are escalating, we now must be concerned that our deeds of sale may, in fact, prove to be worthless.
History will be made in this hearing, which is open to the public and will take place at 1:30 pm in department S 15 on January 24, 2013 in San Bernardino Superior Court, located at 351 N. Arrowhead in San Bernardino, California.
Janet Phelan is an investigative journalist whose articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The San Bernardino County Sentinel, The Santa Monica Daily Press, The Long Beach Press Telegram, Oui Magazine and other regional and national publications. Janet specializes in issues pertaining to legal corruption and addresses the heated subject of adult conservatorship, revealing shocking information about the relationships between courts and shady financial consultants. She also covers issues relating to bioweapons. Her poetry has been published in Gambit, Libera, Applezaba Review, Nausea One and other magazines. Her first book, The Hitler Poems, was published in 2005. She currently resides abroad. You may browse through her articles (and poetry) at janetphelan.com
Janet Phelan is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice





