PENNSAUKEN, N.J. (AP) — Federal regulators say two investigations
have found that the snack foods company that makes SuperPretzels and
ICEE drinks cheated temporary production line workers out of wages.
The U.S. Department of Labor says Tuesday that J&J Snack Foods
Corp. paid more than $2.1 million in back wages and damages to nearly
700 temporary workers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The labor department found that the company and the temporary
staffing firms it used denied minimum wage and overtime pay to 677
workers.
A spokesman for J&J didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
The workers made products including frozen Minute Maid juice bars and
Country Home Bakers goods at facilities in Swedesboro, New Jersey, and
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
The Pennsauken-based company makes and distributes snack foods to food service and supermarket industries.
The pharmaceutical exec is trolling on social media like a bored teen instead of lowering drug costs Mary Elizabeth WilliamsTuesday, Oct 20, 2015 03:19 PM EST23 Life martin shkreli
"It exposed just how little the so-called Christians of the far right believe in what Jesus actually said." VIDEO Sarah BurrisSaturday, Oct 3, 2015 07:48 AM EST263 Entertainment Bill Maher
Martin Shkreli isn't the only executive shamelessly gouging consumers. Some of these drugs cost more than a house Larry Schwartz, AlterNetFriday, Oct 2, 2015 04:00 AM EST Politics AlterNet, martin shkreli
The Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO tried to jack up the price of an essential drug. This is shocking, but no surprise Conor LynchSaturday, Sep 26, 2015 09:29 AM EST86 News martin shkreli, Health Care
"There're a lot of altruistic properties" to raising cost of treating toxoplasmosis from $1,350 to $63,000, he said VIDEO Scott Eric KaufmanTuesday, Sep 22, 2015 10:26 AM EST95 Business turing pharmaceuticals
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.
I cut up my @rushcard, stepped on it, got in the car and drove over it, hit reverse to back over it again, then got out and spit on it! #BYE
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.
Russell Simmons' RushCard has tech error, users can't access their money: https://t.co/AkFNofwy4z
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.”
We are still working through all of @RushCard's problems. We have made progress, but see that there a number of people still affected.
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.
Customers who can least afford missing paychecks. — Rushcard issues leave customers short of funds http://t.co/Qt1re2WhDC (h/t @aminatou)
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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).
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
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.
"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."
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.”
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.”
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.”
