Monday, October 26, 2015

Bernie Sanders smacks down Martin Shkreli: Rejects meeting and donation from hated drug CEO

martin shkreli

Twitter shreds drug profiteer for increasing cost of common treatment of parasitic infections by 5,455 percent

“It really doesn’t make sense to get any criticism for this," Martin Shkreli said, unaware that it really does
Monday, Sep 21, 2015 01:39 PM EST 355
Business martin shkreli, Big Pharma
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Sunday, October 25, 2015

Russell Simmons Slapped With Class Action Lawsuit For Fraud After RushCard Accounts Locked

By Meaghan Ellis

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

Russell Simmons is the latest face of controversy following a fiasco involving a RushCard glitch that prohibited thousands of customers from accessing their accounts. According to The Grio, it all started when a number of RushCard customers did not receive their scheduled direct deposits, consisting of paychecks, government benefit checks, and electronic funds transfers.

Many customers reported that their accounts reflected zero balances as if their deposits were never received, but the employers who sent deposits made it clear that the problem wasn’t on their end. As expected, Russell Simmons and the RushCard company – which markets to low-income Americans unable to obtain accounts with regular banking institutions – have received a flood of complaints via Facebook, and quickly attempted to resolve the staggering number of complaints.

Many frustrated cardholders have taken to social media to voice their concerns. Some news outlets have even slammed Russell Simmons and RushCard for exploiting the poor. The card debacle has placed emphasis on the number fees required to get and obtain a RushCard.
The situation is so catastrophic, Russell is personally responding to frustrated customers hoping to resolve these issues.
According to the Daily Mail, thousands of RushCard cardholders were unable to access their funds for more than a week. One couple even insists they were “forced to choose between feeding their children or paying their electric bill.” Although funds are now available to most customers, some of the calculations are reportedly still inaccurate.

According to The Root, the prepaid card company recently released a public statement addressing the issue, detailing its efforts to rectify the financial problems customers are facing. In the statement, RushCard CEO Rick Savard stated that the problem began when the company transitioned from an older processor to a new one. The transition led to the glitch that has prompted numerous problems for cardholders.
The hip-hop mogul has also took to Twitter with a brief statement and a number of updates about the card fiasco. “We have a handful of people left who are still not able to access correct information about their accounts,” the statement reads, according to Rolling Stone. “Their funds are there but their information is still inaccurate. We are working to contact them individually to assist them with their needs.”
According to Rolling Stone, the credit card debacle has led to an investigative probe of Russell Simmons’ company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has stepped in to conduct the investigation. On Friday, October 23, CFPB director Richard Cordray stated that he has been in contact with Savard and the federal agency “will make sure that action is being taken to address harm that has occurred, the harm that may still be occurring, and the cascading financial effects of consumers not having access to their funds for more than a week,” reports Yahoo News.
However, the RushCard announcements haven’t been enough to please those who are still suffering drawbacks from the card confusion. Due to the financial hardships, limited answers, and partial resolutions, impatient customers have already moved forward to resolve the mater with legal recourse. It has been reported that the 58 year old business magnate has been hit with a class action lawsuit. The suit slams the card company, accusing it of fraudulent induction practices.
“Plaintiff’s and class members were fraudulently induced into purchasing RushCards and depositing money into their RushCard accounts because they were led to believe their funds would be ‘safe and protected’ with unhindered access to these monies.”
The unfortunate situation has already prompted a number of customers to cancel their RushCard accounts as the uncertainties lead many to believe the card now comes with a number drawbacks. Hopefully, the situation can be resolved and that the company can regain the trust of its customers.
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Noam Chomsky blasts modern GOP as extremists whose only policy is ‘don’t do anything or bomb’


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Saturday, October 24, 2015

Whole Foods Recalls Salads In Northeast Over Listeria Contamination

By News Desk

No illnesses have yet been associated with a recall of bulk and packaged Curry Chicken Salad and Classic Deli Pasta Salad for possible Listeria contamination. The recall was issued by Whole Market of Cambridge Massachusetts. The recall involves Whole Foods in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

chickencurrysalad_406x250

A sampling of the products tested positive for Listeria Monocytogenes during a routine inspection of Whole Foods Market’s North Atlantic Kitchen facility.

The recall notice said the recalled products have “the potential to be contaminated with Listeria Monocytogenes” Listeria is a pathogen that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, especially in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems.

Others may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women. Anyone with symptoms should seek immediate medical care if they develop these symptoms.

The salads were sold prepackaged, in salad bars, in store’s chef’s cases and in sandwiches and wraps prepared in the stores. The effected products were sold in stores between October 18 and October 22, 2015 and have a “sell by” date of October 23, 2015. The recalled items include:

The recall list with UPC Codes and product descriptions includes these products:

285551–Curry Chicken Salad, Our Chef’s Own, sold by weight
263144–Curry Chicken Salad Wrap, Made Right Here, sold by weight
263126–Single Curry Chicken Salad Wrap,
261068–Curry Chicken Salad CC, sold by weight
263142–PPK Salad Chicken Curry, sold by weight
265325–Curry Chicken Salad Rollup, 7oz
260976–Classic Deli Pasta Salad, Sold by weight
270742– Pasta Salad Classic Deli, sold by weight
0 36406 30001 7–Classic Deli Pasta Salad, 6oz
0 36406 30264 6–Classic Deli Pasta Salad, 14 oz
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Republican Trey Gowdy Caught Using Private Email Server

By

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Republicans across the country have been obsessing over former Secretary of State and current Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time, determined to use it to find some evidence of negligence or wrongdoing that could be used to frame her and derail her presidential ambitions.

Ignoring the fact that no classified information was found within the emails and that there were no regulations against the use of the private server at the time, Republicans have turned the very existence of the email server into a talking point, using it a launching point for all sorts of outlandish allegations which have no basis in fact.

Which makes it all the more hypocritical to learn that Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has been exposed for having his own personal email server at treygowdy.com. 

 AlterNet remarks that “while it’s not unusual to maintain such a thing particularly for campaign work, it’s not clear that Gowdy utilizes this email solely for political campaign work and not congressional tasks.”

Requests for comment by both Alternet and Correct The Record‘s David Brock were both ignored by the Gowdy camp, which is highly indicative that he does use his personal email for Congressional work- if he had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t he just say so? Especially with the integrity of his failed committee under such harsh scrutiny by the rest of the nation, demanding answers for the colossal misuse of public funds and time. If Gowdy wants to push the fabricated email scandal, he’d better be ready to put his own actions under the microscope.

Here is the full text of David Brock’s inquiry:
Dear Chairman Gowdy:
I noted with interest your public demand that Secretary Clinton turn over her personal email server, presumably so that the committee can access some 30,000 Clinton emails deemed to be strictly private and beyond the reach of the government.
This Orwellian demand has no basis in law or precedent. Every government employee decides for themselves what email is work-related and what is strictly private. There is no reason to hold Secretary Clinton to a different standard— except partisan politics.
But since you insist that Clinton’s private email be accessed, I’m writing today to ask you and your staff to abide by the same standard you seek to hold the Secretary to by releasing your own work-related and private email and that of your staff to the public.
While I realize that Congress regularly exempts itself from laws that apply to the executive branch, I believe this action is necessary to ensure public confidence in the fairness and  impartiality of your investigation.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
David Brock
Correct The Record
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Friday, October 23, 2015

Firefox Find My Device Service Lets Hackers Wipe or Lock Phones, Change PINs

A variation on an older Samsung Find My Mobile attack

Vulnerabilities in Mozilla's Find My Device service enabled hackers to carry out attacks that locked the screens of smartphones running Firefox OS, change PINs, make the devices ring, and even wipe all data with only a few clicks.

The Firefox Find My Device service allows users who've lost their Firefox OS phone to lock it or see its location on a map and retrieve it or direct law enforcement to the thief's location. The service is extremely usable and is a similar feature to what Apple has been offering for years for iPhone users.

A variation of CVE-2014-8346 that affected the Samsung Find My Mobile service

Egyptian security researcher Mohamed A. Baset is "guilty" of discovering this flaw, which seems to be a variation (but it's not) of CVE-2014-8346, a security vulnerability that affected the Samsung Find My Mobile service.

For that vulnerability, also revealed by Mr. Baset, the National Institute of Standards and Technology gave a CSVV (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) score of 7.8 out of 10, but got a 10 for exploitability, meaning it was quite easy to carry out, without too many technical skills being needed by an attacker.

According to Mr. Baset's findings, by loading the Firefox Find My Device website inside a hidden iframe on other sites, via basic clickjacking techniques, a hacker would have been able to carry out attacks that would lock or unlock the phone's screen, set a new PIN only known by the attacker, or make the phone ring at maximum volume for one minute, even if set in vibrate or silent mode.

While these actions seem more like bad pranks, they would allow criminals who stole phones to craft a Web interface through which they could unlock PIN-protected phones with the push of a button.

Some differences exist, attackers can wipe phones clean of their data

As Mr. Basat told Softpedia, despite having similar outcomes, "the two vulnerabilities are not related. Even the vulnerabilities themselves are different, Samsung's was vulnerable to a CSRF attack but Mozilla's is vulnerable to a ClickJacking attack."

Unlike the Samsung Find My Mobile vulnerability, the one affecting Firefox's service also allowed attackers to wipe the phones clean, which poses more risk since valuable data can be lost if not properly backed up.

The good news is that this attack needs users to be logged in on the service with their Firefox account, which very few people use. Additionally, more clicks are needed to perform the attacks, ranging from 2 to 4, based on the desired malicious action.

The vulnerability was reported to Mozilla back in March, and it was patched yesterday.

Below is a YouTube video of the Samsung Find My Mobile hack. The Mozilla Find My Device attack should work in a similar fashion.


UPDATE: The article was updated with Mr. Basat statement, which clarified how the two attacks were different.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/firefox-findmydevice-service-lets-hackers-wipe-or-lock-phones-change-pins-495003.shtml
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Thursday, October 22, 2015

How the Brewing Revolt Of Working Americans Is Driving Sanders' Rise (And Fueling Trump's Dangerous Success)

Sanders' backers want a government that works. Trump's backers want a government that gets even.

By Steven Rosenfeld

Lost in the tumult of covering the 2016 presidential campaign trail is a striking reality that’s largely gone unacknowledged: the brewing revolt at the grassroots by working- and middle-class Americans who feel left behind by the system.

This discontent and its insecurities are fueling the surges of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, who offer different responses to it, and whose candidacies haven’t faded despite predictions from party insiders and many pundits. It’s also underscored by the fact that the GOP’s two leading candidates—Trump and Ben Carson—have never held elective office, unlike the senators and governors trailing them.

Sanders and Trump, in very different ways, are highlighting the failure of status-quo politics to address concerns that hit home with non-wealthy Americans. But while Sanders is running a campaign based on a positive vision of government doing more for these Americans, Trump is striking a cord with people who feel other slices of society need to be put down so they can rise up.

Despite the stark differences in these visions, both suggest that political business as usual cannot hold. That sentiment also accounts for the lackluster appeal of candidates who are pandering to wealthy elites, such as Jeb Bush.

But if we want to understand what’s driving much of the energy on the ground in the 2016 race so far—as opposed to the wealth-driven super PACs—it is the realization by many working- and middle-class people that government does not have their back.

Sanders’ Optimistic Appeal

Sanders, as many people who have watched his rise know, speaks to a range of Americans who feel left behind or abandoned in an age of deepening economic inequality and predatory corporate greed.

His agenda is built on reviving government’s ability to help people with basics and live with more dignity, whether it’s ending college debt, accessing health care, fortifying retirements or other necessities. The wealthy can afford to pay more in taxes for a fairer, more balanced, more secure society, Sanders says, while acknowledging that this won’t come to pass unless an unprecedented number of Americans vote and oust the right wingers in Congress who just want to serve the rich and ignore everyone else.

Sanders’ message is not just echoing in the country’s lefty epicenters and Midwestern university towns. As the Washington Spectator’s Rick Perlstein has written, recently covering Sanders in Texas and Indiana, his message is also appealing to red staters who are used to voting for conservatives—if they vote at all. He begins his latest report by talking about a construction sales executive he sat next to on the plane to Texas to cover a Sanders rally who praised Sanders’ “middle of the road” messages, adding, “I like what I’ve heard.”

In some respects, that is the same response depicted by the Dallas Morning News when it interviewed attendees of Sanders’ first big Texas rally this summer, such as a 36-year-old man who never before voted for president. “The biggest reason why I support Bernie is that he knows the economy is rigged in favor of the 1 percent," he said. "No one else is really saying that, and it’s a huge problem.”

Moving on with the Sanders campaign to Indiana’s rust belt, Perlstein noticed that many supporters—white and black—also were motivated for the first time in many years to get involved. At a house party on a night when the campaign was hoping for 30,000 participants nationwide and 100,000 came out, Perlstein reported how many people introduced themselves by saying they played by the rules but couldn’t get a decent job and were drowning in education-reletd debt. That prompted standing ovations and the recognition that they weren’t alone. The next day in another northwestern Indiana town, he met an African-American retiree who just opened a storefront campaign office for Sanders and praised him for following up with Black Lives Matter activists—after floundering at the NetRoots Nation conference. “I’m okay with that,” she said. “He’s learning.”

It's rare when presidential campaigns spark such grassroots excitement and when it does it’s often dismissed by the cynics in the media. “Something is happening here,” Perlstein wrote, "something that reminds us that our existing models for predicting winners and losers in politics need always be subject to revision.”

That something is people whose voices and concerns have been downplayed by the governing class are finding candidates who are speaking for them—but their rhetoric and remedies are not as positive as Sanders’.

Trump’s Dark Triumph

On the GOP side of the aisle, the biggest mystery is not why the establishment’s presumed frontrunner, Jeb Bush, is failing to excite. Nor it is why other high-ranking elected officials—governors and senators—have not risen to the top, when they present themselves as reincarnations of Ronald Reagan, or defenders of the right to get rich and keep it all, or pose as ideological purists.

The biggest mystery is why Trump has maintained his lead for months, with positions no establishment candidate would take in public.

The best explanation is there’s a major slice of America’s working- and middle-class who look at the political system and don’t just feel left out, but are angry that others—people who are poorer and richer than they are—seem to be beneficiaries of a government that’s forgotten them. Hence, Trump’s anti-immigrant bigotry, his smears of the politically correct, his male-defending misogyny, and vision of being a strongman president—ie, taking down competitors at home and abroad—appeals to those who feel overlooked and aggrieved.  

That’s the conclusion of an insightful article by John B. Judis, a senior writer for the National Journal, who makes a convincing case that Trump supporters are not very different than the alienated middle Americans who backed George Wallace for president in 1968, and backed Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan in 1992 (and 1996 and 2000). In 1992, Perot got 19 percent of the November vote, effectively electing Bill Clinton.

Judis’ analysis is thorough, compelling, and thoroughly troubling. It shows that there is a very dark streak running through the electorate, as indeed has been the case through much of American history.

He starts by citing an overlooked 1976 book by Donald Warren, a sociologist from Michigan’s Oakland University, The Radical Center: Middle Americans and the Politics of Alienation, which identifies this slice of the electorate and according to Warren contains one-quarter of the nation’s voters.

These working- and middle-class people, Warren said, see “government favoring the rich and the poor simultaneously,” are suspicious of big business, are not college educated but favor government programs that give them stability—such as Medicare, Social Security and possibly national health insurance—and hold “very conservative positions on poverty and race.”

“If these voters are beginning to sound familiar, they should: Warren’s MARS [Middle American Radicals] of the 1970s are the Donald Trump supporters of today," Judis writes. "Since at least the late 1960s, these voters have periodically coalesced to become a force in presidential politics, just as they did this past summer... Over the years, some of their issues have changed—illegal immigration has replaced explicitly racist appeals—and many of them now have junior college degrees and are as likely to hold white-collar jobs. But the basic MARS worldview that Warren has outlined has remained surprisingly intact.”

What makes Judis’ explanation noteworthy is it goes beyond the mainstream media line, such as from the New York Times’ “Upshot” page, that Trump’s appeal is only based on his strong personality or because he’s a political outsider.

“What has truly sustained Trump thus far is he does, in fact, articulate a coherent set of ideological positions, even if those positions are not exactly conservative or liberal,” Judis writes. “The key to figuring out the Trump phenomenon—why it arose now and where it might be headed next—lies in understanding this worldview.”

Americans are correct to compare Trump’s demagoguery on behalf of “a silent majority” to the worst of the George Wallace-Pat Buchanan tradition of grievance politics, from attacking immigrants for taking away jobs, to smearing Obamacare because the insurance industry keeps getting rich, to encouraging government to excise the purported cancer in our midst.

“The essential worldview of these Middle American Radicals was captured in a 1993 post-election survey by [Democratic pollster] Stanley Greenberg, which found that Perot supporters were more likely than Clinton’s or Bush’s to believe that ‘it’s the middle class, not the poor who really get a raw deal today’ and that ‘people who work for a living and don’t make a lot of noise never seem to get a break,’” Judis wrote, saying there “has been no similar polling of Trump’s supporters.”

Where the 2016 Race Goes From Here

Judis' last observation is that beating the nationalist drum is the final hallmark of this dark campaign legacy, which Trump is also doing. His most recent attack on Jeb Bush—blasting his brother George W. Bush for the 9/11 attacks in New York City—are a perfect example of that thread. Just how Trump's bullying nationalism will play out in a race where Sanders just said Americans ought to look to Scandinavia for the level of governmental supports that could be possible in America is anyone’s guess. But that particular thread of nationalism can get very ugly, and surely there’s more of it to come.

If Judis is correct that Trump has revived some of the nastiest reflexes in the American electorate, from the same slice of overlooked America that Sanders is engaging with his more hopeful appeals, then it is time to take a hard look at what status quo-defending candidates, their political parties and mainstream media pundits are saying.

It sure looks like the Americans who are paying attention to the political system and are getting involved with 2016’s candidates are deeply concerned, frustrated and on the political right, angry and vengeful. That’s a dicey mix. At least Sanders is offering specifics about what he would do and how he'd get results, not just taunts, boasts and attitude. But Trump’s backers may not care much for specifics, as long as someone else is fingered, blamed and attacked on their behalf.

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).
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Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Just how bad would Joe Biden be as President? Really fucking bad

By Mark Frauenfelder

Joe_Biden_and_Dick_Cheney_at_VP_residence

Nick Gillespie of The Daily Beast offers up a list of compelling reasons to fear for a Biden presidency. Biden is a military hawk, a willfully-ignorant drug warrior, an academic cheater, and a plagiarizer. "On top of that," says Nick, "he's been silent on the issue of domestic surveillance, torture, and other niceties of today's modern warfare."
Biden was instrumental in creating the office of the drug czar and called for nothing short of total war on pot and pills. “Mr. President,” he raged, outdoing even Ronald Reagan in just-say-no bellicosity, “you say you want a war on drugs, but if that’s what you want we need another D-Day. Instead you’re giving us another Vietnam — a limited war fought on the cheap, financed on the sly, with no clear objectives, and ultimately destined for stalemate and human tragedy.”
Give Biden bonus credit for chutzpah in invoking Vietnam—like Dick Cheney, he managed to snag five deferments from the military draft his college days.
Here's the best Biden photo to go along with this, but we don't have a licensing arrangement with AP.
Image: Wikipedia
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Never Mind The Civilian Casualties


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Why You Might Not Want To Be Pregnant In Pennsylvania

Or anywhere else where fracking is prevalent.

By Reynard Loki, AlterNet


The health issues associated with fracking just keep piling up. The unconventional gas drilling method, officially known as hydraulic fracturing, not only damages the environment by injecting toxic chemicals into the ground, which poisons groundwater, interrupts natural water cycles, releases radon gas and causes earthquakes, but it has also been connected to numerous health conditions, including asthma, headaches, high blood pressure, anemia, neurological illness, heart attacks and cancer.

But perhaps most heartbreaking is the effect that fracking may have on babies. Studies have linked fracking to increased infant mortality and low birth babies. Now researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found that expectant mothers who reside near active fracking sites in Pennsylvania have a higher risk of giving birth prematurely and having high-risk pregnancies.

The retrospective cohort study, which was published online on September 30 in the journal Epidemiology, analyzed electronic health record data on 9,384 mothers living in northern and central Pennsylvania linked to 10,946 neonates from January 2009 to January 2013. The researchers found that expectant mothers living in the most active fracking areas were 40 percent more likely to give birth prematurely, i.e., a gestation period of less than 37 weeks. In addition, those pregnant women are 30 percent more likely to have a high-risk pregnancy, a label that refers to a variety of factors that include excessive weight gain and high blood pressure.

"Prenatal residential exposure to unconventional natural gas development activity was associated with two pregnancy outcomes," write the researchers in the study's abstract, "adding to evidence that unconventional natural gas development may impact health."

Today, Pennsylvania is one the most heavily fracked states, and the rapid development of the practice has occurred in just a few years: In 2005, there were no producing wells. In 2013, there were 3,689.

Now, there are more than 8,000.

"The growth in the fracking industry has gotten way out ahead of our ability to assess what the environmental and, just as importantly, public health impacts are," said study leader Brian S. Schwartz, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Bloomberg School.

"Our research adds evidence to the very few studies that have been done showing adverse health outcomes associated with the fracking industry."

It should be noted that while the study shows a correlation between fracking and negative maternal issues, it does not establish any causation as to why pregnant women who live near active wells experienced worse outcomes. However, Schwartz points out that there is some kind of environmental impact associated with every facet of the fracking process, from increased noise and traffic to poor air quality — all of which can increase maternal stress.

"Now that we know this is happening, we'd like to figure out why," Schwartz said. "Is it air quality? Is it the stress? They're the two leading candidates in our minds at this point."

While the impacts of fracking on public health are far from fully understood, early research should be incorporated in policy decisions about how best to regulate the industry.

"The first few studies have all shown health impacts," said Schwartz. "Policymakers need to consider findings like these in thinking about how they allow this industry to go forward."

RELATED STORIES
8 Dangerous Side Effects of Fracking That the Industry Doesn't Want You to Hear About
Fracking Has Now Been Linked to Low Birth Weight Babies
Fracking Pollutes Drinking Water, Says Long-Awaited EPA Study
Earthquakes Tied to Fracking Boom, Two New Studies Confirm
Fracking Linked to Heart Conditions and Neurological Illness
Radioactivity Found in Pennsylvania Creek, Illegal Fracking Waste Dumping Suspected

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Saturday, October 17, 2015

Mike Huckabee Suggests Poor People Should Be Sold Into Slavery For Stealing

The United States criminal justice system could be improved if we sell poor people convicted of crimes into slavery, according to Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

The former Arkansas governor weighed in on our nation’s current criminal justice system during an appearance yesterday on Mickelson in the Morning, a leading Iowa radio program.

Host Jan Mickelson began by bemoaning that the “criminal justice system has been taken over by progressives.” In order to fight back, he argued, conservatives should look to the biblical Book of Exodus. “It says, if a person steals, they have to pay it back two-fold, four-fold,” Mickelson explained. “If they don’t have anything, we’re supposed to take them down and sell them.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/15/3712684/mike-huckabee-slavery/

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Thursday, October 15, 2015

Sovereign Citizen 'Doctor' Accused Of Performing Abortions, Circumcisions And Treating Cancer

By Bill Morlin


Before becoming an antigovernment “sovereign citizen,” Rick Van Thiel worked as a porn star, male escort and sex toy inventor in Las Vegas.

Now Van Thiel is in jail there, accused of practicing medicine without a license and claiming to have performed dozens of abortions, circumcisions, castrations, root canals, even cancer treatments.

Meanwhile, the FBI, the Southern Nevada Health District and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department are attempting to locate more than 100 former “patients” of the sovereign citizen-physician who calls himself “Dr. Rick.”

Rick Van Thiel

His patients — treated in a ramshackle trailer described as a scene from a horror movie — likely were drawn in by his ads promoting holistic medicine and natural remedies and denouncing conventional medicine, vaccinations, the pharmaceutical industry, GMO's and government interference with health care.

One of Van Thiel’s former patients, ABC News reports, is Devon Campbell Newman, who was arrested in August 2013 as part of an alleged sovereign citizen plot to kidnap and kill police officers.

As reported then by Hatewatch, Newman, 67, was arrested with convicted sex offender David Allen Brutsche, 42, who said he was willing to kill police or “anyone that tries to stop the cause of liberty.”

Newman pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge and received probation after agreeing to talk with investigators about receiving cancer treatment from Van Thiel. That now seems to suggest Van Thiel has been on investigators’ radar for at least two years, apparently while they worked to build a strong criminal case against him.

He will be in court later this month in Las Vegas – acting as his own attorney, a frequent practice for sovereigns.

“We do NATURAL REMEDY RESEARCH for the purpose of increasing quality and span of life, one human being at a time,” Van Thiel claims on one of his websites. “Unlike the American medical industry's toxic drug-dealing doctors, we don't see you as your disease.”

Like other extremists, Van Thiel claims chemtrails are evidence the U.S. government is secretly poisoning its citizens.


Van Thiel claimed he performed abortions, removed sebaceous cysts, treated sexually transmitted and life-threatening diseases and provided ozone treatments at “unbeatable prices” in exchange for Bitcoins, gold and silver and firearms.

“I contract privately with people [and] do not contract with government employees of any kind,” he said in advertising his medical services.

“Prior to becoming a professional doctor, I was a sex machine inventor, swinger, BDSM master, porn actor and producer for 14 years, so I've seen it all,” Van Thiel wrote on his site. He claims the title “Dr. Rick” is a nickname, “not intended to infer state sanction or Rockefeller drug pushing training.”

“The purpose of this site is not to beg for FDA endorsement or to diagnose or treat disease, it is to help you make informed decisions necessary to take control of your own life and health, and now to care for it in the manor [sic] you decide is best for you,” a passage on the site reads.

The ongoing investigation of David “Rick” Van Thiel and his associates rekindled on Aug. 7 when the City of Las Vegas business licensing officials received a complaint about an unlicensed medical practice in a residential neighborhood located near the intersection of Owens Avenue and Nellis Boulevard.

FBI agents, armed with a federal search warrant, raided the property on Sept. 30 and shut down the illegal medical practice that day, the Las Vegas Journal-Review reported.

Van Thiel, 52, was arrested Oct. 2 and currently is being held in the Clark County Detention Center on state charges of practicing medicine without a license; possession of a firearm by a felon; possession of illegal drugs and illegally providing illegal drugs. He also may face federal charges.

At the site of his unlicensed clinic on Monroe Avenue, police located video surveillance towers outside a residence. They searched the home, a semi-truck container, three storage sheds, a motor home and a trailer where authorities said they believe illegal medical procedures were carried out.

Authorities have not divulged if they found evidence during the search linking Van Thiel to the sovereign citizen movement – labeled by the FBI as one of the most-significant domestic terrorism threats in the United States.

Names of people Van Thiel illegally treated and names of prospective patients reportedly were among more than 140 pieces of evidence, including computers and hard drives, seized during the search, the Las Vegas newspaper reported.

Investigators also seized a quantity of illegal steroids, about 10 vials of blood thinner, IV bags possibly containing blood and assorted medical equipment from the trailer.

The Las Vegas newspaper interviewed a former patient who said she sought holistic treatment for insomnia at Van Thiel’s clinic, but was shocked at what she discovered when she entered the gated compound.

“There were multiple trailers in the backyard and clutter everywhere,” the woman told the newspaper, describing “people sitting around, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, in what looked like a campground.”

“I was scared,” the former patient said. “A million things were crossing my mind. I'm like freaking out inside. It looked like something out of a horror movie.”

In a jailhouse interview, Van Thiel told the Las Vegas newspaper that, after serving four years in prison for battery, he intended to return to the porn film industry, where he was called “Rick Spindall.” But when he learned his porn video footage and equipment had been stolen, Van Thiel said he “decided to go into the medical field,” taking the name “Dr. Rick.”

Authorities say Van Thiel never went to medical school and certainly isn’t a physician. But he is an ex-con who’s served prison time in California and Nevada for battery, robbery, attempted robbery, burglary and assault.

He’s also been deeply involved in the sometimes violent sovereign citizens movement – which has deep roots in Nevada and Utah – since at least 2012, public court documents reveal.

In January 2012, court records show, Van Thiel was arrested for soliciting prostitution and being a felon who failed to register his address. That arrest came after an undercover Las Vegas police woman paid him $200 to have anal intercourse with a male escort at an upscale Las Vegas hotel resort and casino.

After that arrest, Van Thiel filed a federal civil damages suit against the arresting officer and other unnamed Las Vegas police defendants, acting as his own attorney, which is typical of sovereigns.

In language often invoked by sovereigns, he claimed in the lawsuit that Las Vegas police had violated his constitutional rights as a “natural born People of the United States of America.” Because natural born people are sovereign, Van Thiel said in court filings he had a constitutional right to make his living in any manner he chooses -- even as a male prostitute and escort.

Less than eight months later, however, he moved to dismiss the lawsuit he filed, opting apparently to be a self-styled doctor instead of a self-styled attorney.

On one of his medical websites, he said his nickname is “not intended to infer state sanction or Rockefeller drug pushing training.” The purpose of his Internet site, Van Thiel said, “is not to beg for FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] endorsement or to diagnose or treat disease.”

Since his arrest, Van Thiel has told reporters in jail interviews that he learned medical procedures by watching YouTube videos.

On another site, he admits to performing illegal abortions, explaining, “I didn't make the decision to perform abortions lightly,” but “was talked into it” by a woman who “actually begged me into doing an abortion for her by convincing me that she messed the baby up with drug and alcohol abuse.”

Women contemplating an abortion, he said, should ask themselves, “Is the baby you're about to have going to be your baby to love, raise as you see fit, and enjoy … or is this new life going to be born and immediately doomed to be another citizen, i.e. property of the people that call themselves ‘government?’”

The government, he claimed, is composed of “looting parasites” who will claim they have the legal right to “expropriate your child … because you refused to allow your child to be injected with toxic vaccines” or favor home schooling.

Van Thiel contends prostitution and practicing medicine shouldn't be regulated by the government because they involve “only consenting individuals.” He claims to have studied health and anatomy for 28 years, telling the Las Vegas paper he “has treated hundreds of patients.”

“When I work with people, it's a deal between me and them, not a deal between me, them and the government," Van Thiel told Las Vegas station KVVU-TV.

Van Thiel claims on his website that he treats “morgellons,” a delusional symptom in which patients claim they are infested with disease-causing agents. “Dr. Rick” says the ailment “should be called Genetically Modified Organism Disease” that is a secret government “bio-weapon that has been unleashed on humanity via genetically modified food and Geo-engineering (chemtrails).”

“The only way people will ever stop getting morgellons,” he claimed, is “when the [U.S. Air Force] stops attacking us with it and when people stop eating genetically modified food. That is unless you are just so spiritual that you move the chemtrails out of your path.”
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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

The secret surveillance of ‘suspicious’ blacks in one of the nation’s poshest neighborhoods


Pedestrians cross the street near the PNC Bank building in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood. (iStockphoto)
 

It was nearing closing time in March last year when a manager at Boffi Georgetown dispatched a series of alarmed messages. Observing two men yelling outside the luxury kitchen and bath showroom, Julia Walter reached for her phone and accessed a private messaging application that hundreds of residents, retailers and police in this overwhelmingly white, wealthy neighborhood use to discuss people they deem suspicious.

“2 black males screaming at each other in alley,” Walter wrote. “. . . Help needed.”

One minute later, a District police officer posted he would check it out, and Walter felt relieved. But as weeks gave way to months and the private group spawned hundreds of messages, Walter’s relief turned to unease. The overwhelming majority of the people the app’s users cited were black. Was the chatroom reducing crime along the high-end retail strip? Was it making people feel safer? Or was it racial profiling?

These are questions being asked across the country as people experiment with services that bill themselves as a way to prevent crime, but also expose latent biases. The application “SketchFactor,” which invited users to report “sketchy” people, faced allegations of racism in both the District and New York. Another social network roiled Oakland, Calif., when white residents used Nextdoor.com to cite “suspicious activity” about black neighbors. Taking it even further was GhettoTracker.com, which asked users to rate neighborhoods based on whether they thought they were “safe” or a “ghetto.”

Now “Operation GroupMe” is stirring controversy in Georgetown. In February of last year, the Georgetown Business Improvement District partnered with District police to launch the effort, which they call a “real-time mobile-based group-messaging app that connects Georgetown businesses, police officers and community members.” Since then, the app has attracted nearly 380 users who surreptitiously report on — and photograph — shoppers in an attempt to deter crime.

The correspondence has provided an unvarnished glimpse into Georgetown retailers’ latest effort to stop their oldest scourge: shoplifting. But while the goal is admirable, the result, critics say, has been less so, laying bare the racial fault lines that still define this cobblestoned enclave of tony boutiques and historic rowhouses that is home to many of Washington’s elite.

Since March of last year, Georgetown retailers have dispatched more than 6,000 messages that warn of suspicious shoppers. A review by the Business Improvement District of all the messages since January — more than 3,000 — revealed that nearly 70 percent of those patrons were black. The employees often allege shoplifting. But other times, retailers don’t accuse these shoppers of anything beyond seeming suspicious.

“Suspicious shoppers in store,” an American Apparel retailer said in April last year. “3 female. 1 male strong smell of weed. All African American. Help please.”

“What did they look like?” a True Religion employee in May last year asked an American Apparel retailer who had reported a theft. “Ratchet,” the American Apparel worker replied, using a slang term for trashy that often has a racial connotation. “Lol.”

“Suspicious tranny in store at Wear,” reported one worker at Hu’s Wear in May. “AA male as female. 6ft 2. Broad shoulders.” Tranny means transsexual in the app-users’ jargon.

The retailers have also uploaded hundreds of pictures to the chatroom, many of which they took clandestinely. Since March last year, the images have shown more than 230 shoppers, more than 90 percent of whom are African American. “Known thieves,” one retailer wrote beside pictures of three African American women, without specifying any evidence. “Look out.”

It’s unclear what effect, if any, such correspondence has had on crime in the area. Some retailers say the community feels safer and more connected. But it has precipitated “relatively few arrests,” said Joe Sternlieb, chief executive of the Georgetown Business Improvement District, which organized the group. He added: “It’s impossible to know what’s working and what’s not to deter crime.”

People who know about the group are nervous to talk about it. District police declined numerous requests for comment. Some retailers wouldn’t discuss the group. Others would, but only on the condition of anonymity.

“It’s such a volatile issue that it’s not a good idea to be on the record,” explained one man who requested that he only be identified as a Georgetown retailer. “Every headline in the country is about officers and the race issue, and it’s a terrible issue and [this] is a delicate balance. . . . Shoplifting has always been an issue and as long as there’s stores, lower-income people are going to have a higher tendency to steal.”

The price of security
 
On any given weekend, the shops and restaurants of Georgetown hum with a sense of commerce.

Established as a port town, Georgetown once marked an important stop in Mid-Atlantic shipping routes for transporting slaves. Eventually, those freed slaves founded a thriving community of 4,000 black Georgetown residents — before economic, social and legislative forces ushered their exodus.

By 1972, only around 250 black people lived in Georgetown. According to 2010 Census data, 3.7 percent — or roughly 800 — of the 20,464 residents of the Georgetown, Burleigh and Hillandale neighborhoods are African American. Whites account for 81 percent.

When Georgetown University senior Liv Holmes first moved to the neighborhood, the racial disparity made her feel especially conspicuous.

Other students, she said, would sometimes ask her if she went to Howard University, a historically black university. Or, she said, M Street retailers would suggest she couldn’t afford their merchandise.

“We are racially profiled, for sure,” said Holmes, who grew up in Upper Marlboro, Md., where blacks outnumber whites 2 to 1. “As I walk into a store, the assumption is to follow me around. . . . When you feel that person is over the top of your shoulder, you do feel like you’re being racially profiled, and you will leave the store and say, ‘I won’t give you any of my sales.’ ”

But then, in 2012, she took a job at one of those M Street stores. Within months of working at Sunglass Hut, she saw her first shoplifter. It happened so fast, Holmes said, there was little she could do. And in those moments, she said, she would have liked to have had some way to tell the other stores what had happened. “Sometimes, letting others know, ‘Hey, we just got jacked’ is a good thing,” Holmes said.

The Georgetown business community has long tried to broaden communication among stores and enable what Holmes had wanted. But nothing ever seemed to work. Phone trees. E-mail lists. Block captains. All failures. Every store fended for itself.

“We were looking for ways to share information as quickly as possible,” said John Wiebenson, a Georgetown Business Improvement District official. And nothing was quicker than the GroupMe application, which he calls a “valuable tool” in preventing shoplifting.

But 18 months in, some residents wonder: Is the price this new tool exacts too high?
 
Self-policing the postings

That was a question Leslie Hinkson, a Georgetown sociology professor who studies race and inequality, tried to answer on a recent afternoon. She had known about the group for months and had scrolled through most of the messages. It’s almost like an sociology experiment, she said.

The group has codified its own language and operating culture. African Americans are referred to as “aa.” Hundreds of images of unaware African Americans circulate in the group.

“We should be honest here,” Hinkson said. “Crime does occur in Georgetown. And quite often when people describe the perpetrators of those crimes, they’re usually young men of color. But that doesn’t mean every person of color is an automatic suspect.”

To be fair, police officers and others frequently press each other for more details, or correct users who veer into stereotyping. One person in July reported that “3 aa males currently in zara smelling of weed.” One officer advised him to “call 911.” But then another replied, “That’s not a crime.”

Or initial assumptions would turn out wrong. In February, an employee at Hu’s Wear surreptitiously snapped a photograph of a tall, elegantly dressed African American man wearing distressed jeans, a gray scarf and a long brown coat. “AA male,” the retailer said. “He just left. Headed towards 29th St. About 6 foot. Tats on neck and hand. Very suspicious, looking everywhere.”

An employee at Suitsupply saw the message. He recognized the man. But he was no shoplifter. “He was just in Suitsupply,” the employee wrote. “Made a purchase of several suits and some gloves.”

Another time, a black American Apparel employee wearing orange took a selfie in which she smiled, framing a shopper in the background. “Look out for these girls,” she said in an accompanying message. “Known thefts.”

“Good job on the pics!” said a Benetton employee. “Only known thieves would smile for the camera.”

“Yea,” an American Apparel manager said. “Not to be confused, girl in orange is our employee.”

Officials with the Georgetown Business Improvement District said they’re aware of what they call “questionable postings.” So they have passed out brochures establishing guidelines on how to use the application to communicate concern without offending. Retailers may panic when they see suspicious behavior and dispatch messages bereft of details, Wiebenson said.

The group ultimately got to be too much for Julia Walter, the showroom manager at Boffi. She was one of the first people to post that March evening last year, but has since turned off the application.

Too many messages, she said, too much “racial profiling.”

“Not every African American person who comes to the showroom is suspicious,” she said. “And it made me super uncomfortable that [the messages] made me sometimes look differently at African Americans when they come here — and I don’t want to do that. I hate profiling just because they’re a certain ethnicity, but unfortunately, it’s the reality of what’s happened."

Terrence McCoy covers poverty, inequality and social justice. He also writes about solutions to social problems.
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