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Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Illegal Alien Charged With Killing 19-Year-Old Lauryn Ni’Kole in Virginia

In what has become a depressingly common ocurrence, another illegal alien has been charged with killing an American citizen.

Elvis Jamir Cruz-Ferrera, an illegal alien from Honduras whose deportation had previously been ordered by authorities, was charged with killing 19-year-old college student Lauryn Ni’Kole Leonard through reckless driving.

Cruz-Ferrera, who himself is only 18, survived the crash with minor injuries. He is said to have been driving at 85mph in a 60mph zone.

According to ICE, Cruz-Ferrera first entered the U.S. aged 11 when he crossed the border into McAllen, Texas as an unaccompanied minor.

After being detained in an ICE facility, he was eventually released and has lived illegally in the United States ever since.

In 2018, Cruz-Ferrera missed his scheduled court hearing and a judge ordered his removal. Despite numerous run-ins with the law, his deportation has never taken place.

Ni’Kole’s brother, Erick Hargrove, told local media that the tragedy could have been avoided if authorities had done their job properly.

“I think it’s crazy,” Hargrove said. “Like, how come nobody looked into it? … She’s minding her own business and you come out of nowhere and just turned my life upside down.”

“I don’t want to say anything that sounds far-right or far-left,” he continued. “But I would just say that it’s a possibility that this wouldn’t have happened if the deportation happened when it was supposed to.”

Cruz-Ferrera has now been charged with involuntary manslaughter and driving without a license. If convicted, he faces up to a decade in prison.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Death Derivatives Emerge From Pension Risks of Living Too Long

By Oliver Suess, Carolyn Bandel and Kevin Crowley May 16, 2011 7:01 PM ET

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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), which bundled and sold billions of dollars of mortgage loans, now want to help investors bet on people’s deaths.
Pension funds sitting on more than $23 trillion of assets are buying insurance against the risk their members live longer than expected. Banks are looking to earn fees from packaging that risk into bonds and other securities to sell to investors. The hard part: Finding buyers willing to take the other side of bets that may take 20 years or more to play out.
“Banks are increasingly looking to offer derivative solutions,” said Nardeep Sangha, 43, chief executive officer of Abbey Life Assurance Co., a London-based Deutsche Bank unit that helps pension funds manage the risk of retirees living longer than expected. “Making the long maturity of the risks palatable for investors, including sovereign wealth funds, private-equity firms and specialist funds, is the challenge.”
As insurers reach the limit of how much pension-fund liability they’re willing to shoulder, companies such as JPMorgan and Prudential Plc (PRU) last year set up a trade group aimed at establishing and standardizing a secondary market for so- called longevity risks. They’re also developing indexes that measure mortality rates and securities to let pension funds pay fixed premiums to investors in return for coverage against major deviations from projections.
Swiss Reinsurance Co., the second-biggest reinsurer, sold the world’s first longevity bond in December in what it called a “test case” to sell risk to the capital markets.
‘Run Dry’
Goldman Sachs, based in New York, and Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt have set up insurance companies that promise to pay pensions if retirees live beyond a certain age. They typically receive a portion of the pension plan’s assets in return. The banks, along with Morgan Stanley (MS), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and UBS AG (UBSN), are looking for ways to offer this risk to investors.
“Ultimately, reinsurance capacity for longevity risks will run dry, and that’s why it’s imperative that as the market grows and develops it is able to bring in new types of risk-takers,” Sangha said. “The obvious channel is the capital markets.”
Medical advances and healthier lifestyles have made predicting life spans more difficult for pension funds. Life expectancy in the U.K. is increasing by one to three months every year, according to Dutch insurer Aegon NV. (AGN) Every year of additional life expectancy typically adds as much as 4 percent to future pension requirements, Aegon said in a report in March.

Photographer: Linda Davidson/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Aegon reported last week that first-quarter profit fell 12 percent as the company set aside money to cover the risk of policyholders in the Netherlands living longer than expected.
Glaxo Transfer
Pension funds can hedge against life-expectancy risk by transferring assets to an insurer or other counterparty that promises to pay some or all of the future liabilities. Last year, GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK), the U.K.’s biggest drugmaker, became the 10th FTSE 100 firm to buy insurance on about 900 million pounds ($1.5 billion), or 15 percent, of its U.K. obligations.
That means Prudential, the U.K.’s largest insurer, rather than the pension fund, will pay some GlaxoSmithKline pensioners should they live longer than expected. Most longevity risk transferred from pension funds is held by insurers.
Regulators are just beginning to focus on the new products.
“We’re seeing more and more sophisticated mechanisms being offered,” said Bill Galvin, CEO of the U.K.’s Pensions Regulator. “From a regulatory perspective, we are concerned to ensure that trustees understand the extent to which longevity risk has been passed from their scheme and the precise shape of any residual risk.”
‘Early Days’
The Frankfurt-based European Insurance & Occupational Pensions Authority isn’t reviewing longevity transfers, said Sybille Reitz, a spokeswoman for the organization, because “the market is still in its early days.”
The U.K. is the world’s biggest market for insuring pension liabilities after a change in accounting rules in 2004 forced companies to include pension plans on their balance sheets, increasing the volatility of earnings. Since then, 30 billion pounds of liabilities have been insured, about 3 percent of the total outstanding, according to estimates by Hymans Robertson LLP., a London-based pension consultant.
Banks and insurers completed a record 8.2 billion pounds in longevity-risk transfers last year. Goldman Sachs-owned Rothesay Life Ltd. sold the most pension-plan insurance in 2010, while Deutsche Bank’s Abbey Life completed the biggest swaps deal.
Longevity Risks
With $17 trillion of the $23 trillion in pension-fund assets worldwide exposed to longevity risks, according to Zurich-based Swiss Re, investment banks see this as an opportunity to create a new market for those willing to bet on life-expectancy rates. If pensioners die sooner than expected, investors profit. If they live longer, investors must compensate the pension fund for the additional costs it faces.
Investors may be attracted to such bets because longevity trends aren’t linked to movements in equities, bonds or commodity markets, said David Blake, director of the pensions institute at Cass Business School in London, who has worked with JPMorgan on the derivatives.
The complexity and risk involved in longevity assets with timelines of more than 20 years means banks are looking to create bonds that offer 5 percent to 9 percent in annual returns, according to Guy Coughlan, former head of longevity structuring at JPMorgan. Returns as high as the “mid-teens” are possible, he said.
‘Structural Problems’
Investors remain unconvinced. Not knowing whether a bet on a group of pensioners’ life spans is correct for decades prevents hedge funds such as London-based Leadenhall Capital Partners LLP from entering the marketplace.
“There are big structural problems with the longevity market,” said Luca Albertini, CEO of Leadenhall, which has $120 million under management and invests in insurance-linked securities such as catastrophe bonds used to help cover hurricanes and other extreme risks. With clients able to withdraw investments only every month or quarter, “the only way I can invest is if the market is truly liquid,” he said. “No one has proven that to me yet.”
Subprime mortgages sold in the past decade were the genesis of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. Investment banks passed the risk of borrowers defaulting to the capital markets by packaging, or securitizing, the loans into bonds and selling them to investors and one another.
‘Fully Collateralized’
Collateralized debt obligations were created and sold in such volume that when mortgage holders defaulted, governments in the U.S. and Europe had to bail out the financial system. Banks are now looking to investors in much the same way to securitize the risk of pensioners living longer than expected.
Securities based on life expectancy don’t hold the same risks as those linked to subprime mortgages because they are “fully collateralized,” minimizing the risk from a counterparty failing to meet its obligations, Coughlan said.
Cass Business School’s Blake said it’s unfair to compare the securitization of mortality expectations to the subprime- mortgage market.
“Subprime was highly leveraged,” Blake said. “This is different.”
Still, longevity transfers expose investors to the credit risk of issuers for many years. Once a pension fund agrees to transfer its assets in return for protection against pensioners living longer than expected, they are tied into a long-term contract that can be difficult to unwind, said David McCourt, senior policy adviser at the U.K.’s National Association of Pension Funds. That means the insurer, bank or hedge fund that a pension plan chooses to deal with is important, he said.
‘No Going Back’
“There’s a massive counterparty risk,” McCourt said. “People say insurance companies don’t go bust, but they do. We’ve seen AIG and investment banks going under like Lehman. There’s a lot of pressure on the trustees to make sure they’re comfortable the deal is right because there’s no going back.”
Pension funds outside the U.K. also remain hesitant.
APG Algemene Pensioen Groep NV in Amsterdam, which manages 277 billion euros ($396 billion) of assets for seven pension funds, “will not do transactions to actively hedge longevity risk,” according to Harmen Geers, a spokesman for the firm.
“The market is unbalanced, since there are no natural counterparties to take up a risk of that size in absolute terms,” Geers said.
Life Settlements
There has been less interest in the U.S. because regulatory pressure on pension funds hasn’t been as intense as in the U.K., said Pretty Sagoo, director of structuring at Deutsche Bank in London. In the U.S., investors can bet instead on life expectancy through so-called life settlements.
Rather than exchanging assets and liabilities with a pension plan, the life-settlement market allows investors to buy insurance policies from individuals and pay the premiums until that person dies. Investors then receive the death benefits.
The secondary market for U.S. life settlements began in the 1980s when the AIDS epidemic led some patients to sell their insurance policies to pay for treatment. The industry was valued at $2 billion in 2001 and, once it became regulated, quickly grew to a maturity value of $35 billion by 2009, according to Conning & Co., a Hartford, Connecticut-based research firm.
Goldman Sachs-owned Rothesay Life, started in 2007, was the biggest pension liability insurer in the U.K. last year after insuring 1.3 billion pounds of liabilities from the British Airways Plc pension plan. The largest swaps deal was completed between Deutsche Bank’s Abbey Life unit and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s U.K. pension plan.
Q-Forward Swaps
Rothesay Life CEO Addy Loudiadis was the architect of a Goldman Sachs deal in 2001 that allowed Greece to mask its indebtedness, according to London-based Risk magazine. Sophie Bullock, a spokeswoman for the firm in London, declined to comment on Loudiadis’s involvement in Greece and said she was unavailable to comment.
Goldman Sachs isn’t part of the new industry group, the London-based Life & Longevity Markets Association, preferring to develop the market alone, according to Tom Pearce, managing director of Rothesay Life. Pearce said it won’t be easy trading a security linked to life expectancy.
“Clearly, if there was a capital market solution that would be helpful for the market generally, but there are some challenges,” he said. “The biggest challenge is selling these very long-term risks to shorter-dated investors.”
Mortality Indexes
Unlike Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, New York-based JPMorgan doesn’t carry any of the risk of pensioners living longer than expected. Instead, it arranges swaps, called q- Forwards, which allow a pension fund to pay a fixed premium to a counterparty based on its members living to a specified age. If members live longer than expected, the counterparty reimburses the fund; if they die sooner, the counterparty profits.
Credit Suisse and JPMorgan have developed indexes that measure mortality rates and life expectancy for the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, England and Wales. The indexes act as a basis for pricing individual swaps and bonds, according to Cass Business School’s Blake, who helped develop them with JPMorgan in 2007. They will help buyers and sellers price derivatives more accurately and give them confidence to trade them, creating a liquid market, Blake said.
Swiss Re sold the world’s first longevity bond in December, passing the risk from its own balance sheet to investors. The $50 million bond, named Kortis, was a “test case,” said Alison McKie, head of life and health products at the firm.
The bond pays investors a fixed sum from reinsurers for taking the risk that people live longer than projected. If there is a large divergence in mortality improvements between British men aged 75 to 85 and U.S. males aged 55 to 65, investors risk losing some or all of their money, Swiss Re said in December. The bond is rated BB+ by Standard & Poor’s.
BNP, Munich Re
Previously, Paris-based BNP Paribas SA and the European Investment Bank, the European Union’s financing institution in Luxembourg, created a longevity bond in 2004. A year later they withdrew the notes, which had a maturity of 25 years, after they didn’t find a buyer.
Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, hasn’t participated in longevity transfers “as the deals we’ve seen haven’t met our profitability requirements,” said Joachim Wenning, the management board member responsible for life reinsurance. “The future longevity trend is not easy to predict. If your assumptions are wrong, the cost is high.”
Nevertheless, the Munich-based reinsurer recently became the 12th member of the Life & Longevity Markets Association.
To contact the reporters on this story: Oliver Suess in Munich at osuess@bloomberg.net; Carolyn Bandel in Zurich at cbandel@bloomberg.net; Kevin Crowley in London at kcrowley1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at fconnelly@bloomberg.net; Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net

As Bank Deaths Continue to Shock, Documents Reveal JPMorgan Has Been Patenting Death Derivatives

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 17, 2014

The probability of two vibrant young men in their 30s who are employed by the same global bank but separated by an ocean dying within six days of each other is remote. And few companies are in as good a position to understand just how remote as is JPMorgan: since 2010, it has received four patents on quantifying longevity risks and structuring wagers via death derivatives.
The two deaths at JPMorgan remain unexplained. Gabriel Magee, a 39-year old technology Vice President was found dead on the 9^th level rooftop of JPMorgan’s European headquarters at 25 Bank Street in the Canary Wharf section of London on January 28 of this year. A London coroner’s inquest is scheduled for May 15 to determine the cause of death. Six days later, Ryan Crane, a 37-year old Executive Director involved in trading at JPMorgan’s New York office was found dead at his Stamford, Connecticut home. Wall Street On Parade spoke with the Chief Medical Examiner’s office in Connecticut and was told the cause of death is “pending,” with final results expected in a few weeks.
Magee’s death was originally reported by London newspapers as a jump from the 33^rd level rooftop of JPMorgan’s building with the strong implication that eyewitnesses had observed the jump. The London Evening Standard tweeted: “Bankers watch JP Morgan IT exec fall to his death from roof of London HQ,” which then linked to their article which said in its opening sentence that “A man plunged to his death from a Canary Wharf tower in front of thousands of horrified commuters today.”
When Wall Street On Parade contacted the Metropolitan Police in London a few days later, there was no assurance that even one eyewitness was on record as having seen Magee jump from the building.
Crane’s death is equally problematic. The death occurred on February 3 but the first major media to report it was Bloomberg News on February 13, ten days after the fact, and making no mention of Magee’s unexplained death just six days prior.
According to information available at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, JPMorgan created the LifeMetrics Index in March 2007 as an “international index designed to benchmark and trade longevity risk.” The index was said to enable pension plans to hedge the risk of payments to retirees and incorporated “historical and current statistics on mortality rates and life expectancy, across genders, ages, and nationalities.” From 2010 through 2013, JPMorgan has received patent approval on four longevity related patents.
Reuters reported on August 26, 2013 that the long-term longevity bets taken on by the big banks have now started to cause pain as international capital rules known as Basel III require more capital to be set aside for longer-dated positions. The article noted that “JPMorgan likely has the biggest holdings of long-dated swaps because it is the biggest swaps trader on Wall Street, responsible for about 30 percent of the market by some measures, traders at rival firms said.”
One extremely long longevity bet taken on by JPMorgan was reported by Insurance Risk on October 1, 2008. According to the publication, JPMorgan entered into a 40-year £500 million notional longevity swap with Canada Life whereby Canada Life would make a fixed annual payment in return for a floating liability-matching payment that would increase if the annuitants lived longer than expected. JPMorgan was believed to have passed on some of the risk to hedge fund investors but retained the counterparty risk. Because many of these deals are private, the full extent of JPMorgan’s exposure in this area is not known.
Wall Street veterans have also commented on the fact that JPMorgan may actually stand to profit from the early deaths of the two young men in their 30s. As we reported in March of last year, when the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released its report on JPMorgan’s high risk bets known as the London Whale debacle, its Exhibit 81 showed that JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office was also overseeing Bank Owned Life Insurance (BOLI) and Corporate Owned Life Insurance (COLI) plans which allow the corporation to reap huge tax benefits by taking out life insurance policies on workers – even low wage workers – and naming the corporation the beneficiary of the death benefit. Both the buildup in the policy and the benefit at death are received tax free to the corporation.
According to the exhibit, the Chief Investment Office was tasked with “Maximization of tax-advantaged investments of life insurance premiums” for the BOLI/COLI plans. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal in 2009, JPMorgan had $12 billion in BOLI, noting that a JPMorgan spokesperson had confirmed the figure. Other insurance industry experts put the total for both BOLI and COLI at JPMorgan significantly higher.
In September of last year, Risk Magazine reported that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors had published a report in August warning regulators that longevity swaps may expose banks to longevity tail risk – meaning, for example, that actual death rates in a given portfolio may vary dramatically from a large population index.
One advisor is quoted as follows in the article: “You can see from the position paper that this market has a lot of characteristics that regulators don’t like in terms of banks getting involved in it. It’s based on long-dated risks, upfront payments and a serious element of hubris in assuming that the banks can model these risks better than the people who originated them. It’s potentially a market big enough to cause serious problems if it caught on and went wrong.”
That things are starting to go seriously wrong was evident in a Bloomberg News report that emerged last Friday. AIG reported that it was taking a $971 million impairment charge before taxes for 2013 on its holdings of life settlement contracts because people were living longer than expected. AIG is the company that was bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer to the tune of $182 billion during the financial crisis because of bets gone wrong.
Related Article:
A Rash of Deaths and a Missing Reporter — With Ties to Wall Street Investigations

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CDC Caught Hiding Data Showing Mercury in Vaccines Linked to Autism

Posted by Eric Barlow on February 24, 2014

www.healthimpactnews.com

Dr. Coleen Boyle of the CDC testifies under oath before Congress in November 2012 that the body of evidence shows there is no connection between mercury in vaccines and autism.
In a press release issued this week, one that so far no mainstream media sources have bothered to report, it was announced that Dr. Brian Hooker had finally received documents from the CDC through a Freedom of Information Act that revealed the CDC had access to data linking Thimerosal in vaccines to autism, non-organic sleep disorders, and speech disorders.
Two members of Congress helped Dr. Hooker draft his letter to the CDC, after having spent nearly 10 years submitting over 100 Freedom of Information Acts to no avail.

Truth In Media: Vaccine Court and Autism: http://youtu.be/wfqpZqEP6gg via @youtube
This information, so far, has been completely blacked out of the mainstream media.
This information is very damaging to the CDC, which has stated for years that there are no studies linking the mercury of Thimerosal in vaccines to autism. You can watch for yourself in the link below the most recent testimony given by the CDC in the November 2012 Congressional Hearing on Autism, where they claim there are no studies linking Thimerosal to autism. Thimerosal is still used today in the flu shot that is administered to pregnant women and infants.
Watch video highlights of this Congressional hearing on Autism here. Other than C-SPAN, it was mostly ignored in the mainstream media.
The mainstream media’s official position regarding vaccines and autism has been that it has been “proven that there is no link”, and Dr. Andrew Wakefield is used as the standard scapegoat being presented as a “disgraced doctor” who supposedly got caught fabricating his study. Of course, Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s study has been replicated in at least 28 other studies, and no case has ever been won against Dr. Wakefield in a court of law. Litigation is still pending, and one of the doctors who was a co-author in the study has been completely exonerated in the U.K.
Yet, the man who supposedly conducted studies for the CDC proving that vaccines do not cause autism, is a wanted criminal for stealing millions of dollars from the CDC, and is still on the run from the law. But that story is seldom, if ever, reported in the mainstream media. (See: CDC Vaccine Link to Autism Scandal: The Wrong Man was Condemned)
To understand the autism-vaccine debate one must look outside of the heavily Big Pharma funded mainstream media, such as this report by Emmy Award winning journalist Ben Swann:
The Canary Party has also produced an excellent video, narrated by Rob Schnieder:

Vaccine Industry Watchdog Obtains CDC Documents That Show Statistically Significant Risks of Autism Associated with Vaccine Preservative Thimerosal

Do Vaccines Cause Autism?: http://youtu.be/6S1-LgYyjQg via @youtube

Biochemist Brian Hooker, scientific advisor to A Shot of Truth, reveals CDC knew of risks for over a decade.

by A Shot of Truth PRWeb
For nearly ten years, Brian Hooker has been requesting documents that are kept under tight wraps by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). His more than 100 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have resulted in copious evidence that the vaccine preservative Thimerosal, which is still used in the flu shot that is administered to pregnant women and infants, can cause autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Dr. Hooker, a PhD scientist, worked with two members of Congress to craft the letter to the CDC that recently resulted in his obtaining long-awaited data from the CDC, the significance of which is historic. According to Hooker, the data on over 400,000 infants born between 1991 and 1997, which was analyzed by CDC epidemiologist Thomas Verstraeten, MD, “proves unequivocally that in 2000, CDC officials were informed internally of the very high risk of autism, non-organic sleep disorder and speech disorder associated with Thimerosal exposure.”
When the results of the Verstraeten study were first reported outside the CDC in 2005, there was no evidence that anyone but Dr. Verstraeten within the CDC had known of the very high 7.6-fold elevated relative risk of autism from exposure to Thimerosal during infancy. But now, clear evidence exists. A newly-acquired abstract from 1999 titled, “Increased risk of developmental neurologic impairment after high exposure to Thimerosal containing vaccine in first month of life” required the approval of top CDC officials prior to its presentation at the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) conference. Thimerosal, which is 50% mercury by weight, was used in most childhood vaccines and in the RhoGAM® shot for pregnant women prior to the early 2000s.
The CDC maintains there is “no relationship between Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism rates in children,” even though the data from the CDC’s own Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database shows a very high risk. There are a number of public records to back this up, including this Congressional Record from May 1, 2003. The CDC’s refusal to acknowledge thimerosal’s risks is exemplified by a leaked statement from Dr. Marie McCormick, chair of the CDC/NIH-sponsored Immunization Safety Review at IOM. Regarding vaccination, she said in 2001, “…we are not ever going to come down that it [autism] is a true side effect….” Also of note, the former director of the CDC, which purchases $4 billion worth of vaccines annually, is now president of Merck’s vaccine division.
Dr. Hooker’s fervent hope for the future: “We must ensure that this and other evidence of CDC malfeasance are presented to Congress and the public as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence. Children’s futures are at stake.” A divide within the autism community has led to some activists demanding that compensation to those with vaccine-injury claims be the top priority before Congress. Dr. Hooker maintains that prevention, “protecting our most precious resource – children’s minds,” must come first. “Our elected officials must be informed about government corruption that keeps doctors and patients in the dark about vaccine risks.”
Referring to an organization that has seen its share of controversy this past year, Dr. Hooker remarked, “It is unfortunate that SafeMinds issued a press release on my information, is accepting credit for my work and has not supported a worldwide ban on Thimerosal.”
Brian Hooker, PhD, PE, has 15 years experience in the field of bioengineering and is an associate professor at Simpson University where he specializes in biology and chemistry. His over 50 science and engineering papers have been published in internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Hooker has a son, aged 16, who developed normally but then regressed into autism after receiving Thimerosal-containing vaccines.
Dr. Brian Hooker’s investigative research is sponsored by the Focus Autism Foundation.
The Focus Autism Foundation is dedicated to providing information to the public that exposes the cause or causes of the autism epidemic and the rise of chronic illnesses – focusing specifically on the role of vaccinations. To learn more, visit focusautisminc.org.
A Shot of Truth is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and educational website sponsored by Focus Autism.
AutismOne is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that provides education and supports advocacy efforts for children and families touched by an autism diagnosis. To learn more, visit autismone.org.
Read the Full Press Release Here.

Obama administration target Catherine Engelbrecht turns tables on bully Congressman Elijah Cummings

By Michael Gaynor

It's time for Cummings to walk the plank for abusing the privilege of the frank.

David dared to take on Goliath, and won.

St. George slayed the dragon.

Now Texan Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote and King Street Patriots, is taking on Congressman Elijah Cummings instead of standing down and quietly returning to her family business and home.

Cummings picked the wrong target when he chose to pursue his own War on a Woman.

Cummings is not the prophet Elijah returned.

He's a bully who used his office to try to intimidate Catherine and distract True the Vote before the 2012 elections on it and Catherine called him on it, publicly, by announcing during her recent testimony before Congress that she would file an ethics complaint with Congress calling for investigation of Cummings and following through instead of folding under pressure.

That letter is available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/208347055/2-6-14-OCE-Complaint.

On October 18, 2012, Politico reported that Cummings had "sent two letters to [True the Vote] seeking 'specific documents about the manner in which True the Vote and its affiliated organizations have been challenging the registration of thousands of voters across the country based on insufficient, inaccurate and faulty evidence'" (www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82584.html#ixzz2WQ81dtuR).

What did Cummings and Politico apparently consider a request for "specific documents"?

Cummings closed his letter of October 4, 2012 to True the Vote founder and president Catherine Engelbrecht this way:

"I request that you provide the following information and documents:

1. a list of all individual voter registration challenges by state, county, and precinct submitted to governmental election entities, including correspondence and determinations by election officials relating to each challenge;

2. copies of all letters sent to states, counties, or other entities alleging non-compliance with the National Voter Registration Act for failing to conduct voter registration list maintenance prior to the November elections;

3. a list of voter registration rolls by state, county, and precinct that True the Vote is currently reviewing for potential challenges;

4. copies of all training materials used for volunteers, affiliates, or other entities;

5. copies of computer programs, research software, and databases used by True the Vote to review voter registration;

6. all contracts, agreements, and memoranda of understanding between True the Vote and affiliates or other entities relating to the terms of use of True the Vote research software and databases;

7. a list all organizations and volunteer groups that currently have access to True the Vote computer programs, research software, and databases; and 8. a list of vendors of voter information, voter registration lists, and other databases used by True the Vote, its volunteers, and its affiliates.

"Please provide these documents by October 14, 2012. Thank you for your attention to this matter."

An impossible and expensive task to be completed in less than 10 days, but a clever way to grind True the Vote activities to a halt if it had tried to comply with Cummings' personal wish list.

Was Cummings coordinating with the IRS minions who sent onerous and improper information and document requests to True the Vote in an attempt to justify delaying decision on True the Vote's application, thereby hampering True the Vote's fund raising efforts (for example, it had to return a $35,000 contribution because it had not received application approval), and to keep it so busy with such requests that it did not have time to pursue its purposes before Election Day 2012?

Now THAT merits investigating!

Catherine wisely and hopefully responded to Cummings' request by offering to meet with him in Washington D.C. to explain the mission of True the Vote and to address his concerns, stating:

"I believe we agree on many common goals, such as the right of every American to have the opportunity to participate in a fair and legal electoral process. It was of great concern to me that you had suddenly requested a considerable amount of documentation on the basis of news reports which offered limited balance and an over-simplification of the facts. I find it regrettable that your office did not reach out to True The Vote directly before launching a personal ad-hoc investigation. Election integrity is a serious concern across the nation – the state of Maryland is no exception. In this year alone, as reported by The Washington Post, a federal congressional candidate seeking to join Maryland's Congressional Delegation was forced to resign from her race by Democratic Party officials after alleged felony double voting was uncovered in her voting history."

Catherine wryly added: "It is both obvious and unfortunate that you are not familiar with all of the details of the mission or methods of True the Vote. This letter serves as an effort to coordinate a convenient meeting time in your Washington, D.C. office, during which I can brief you and your staff about our program and help dispel any misconceptions you may have. In the interim, if you anticipate making any future comments about True the Vote, please do not hesitate to contact me directly so that I may provide you with accurate information. As always, you are welcome to join an upcoming training session before Election Day."

Obviously frustrated, Cummings responded with an ultimatum in an October 18 letter agreeing to meet only if True the Vote turned over his requested documents to "Congress" and once again proceeded to demand even more documents.

Cummings: "On October 4, 2012, I sent you a letter requesting specific documents about the manner in which True the Vote and its affiliated organizations have been challenging the registration of thousands of legitimate voters across the country based on insufficient, inaccurate, and faulty evidence. I requested these documents by October 14, 2012. To date, you have not produced a single document. Instead, you responded by claiming that my request was based on 'an over-simplification of the facts' and 'second-hand knowledge or poor staff-researched understanding of our organization's activities.' Rather than providing any documents that would shed light on your organization's activities, you attacked election officials in Ohio and Wisconsin for not doing their jobs. Rather than providing any documents that would bring greater transparency to these efforts – a goal you claim you share – you offered only to meet with me to 'dispel any misconceptions.' I accept your offer to come to Washington to answer these allegations, but only after you provide the documents I requested."

Cummings added; "In addition to documents relating to your efforts to challenge legitimate voter registrations, today I am also requesting documents relating to your plan to deploy hundreds of thousands of personnel across the country on Election Day to challenge access to the polls for people you believe should not be allowed to vote."

Townhall's Katie Pavlich offered perspective: "Despite what Cummings implied in his letter, True the Vote doesn't have an obligation to 'produce a single document.' Cummings is in the minority, lacks subpoena power and has no authority to force True the Vote to hand over anything and therefore, he is resorting to intimidation tactics against True the Vote, its leadership and its members as a result. He is abusing his power on the Oversight Committee by using these tactics, implying he has more power on the Committee than he actually does and is misrepresenting the committee headed not by him, but Chairman Darrell Issa."

Cummings then went on MSNBC to attack True the Vote and True the Vote responded with this press release:

TRUE THE VOTE CHARGES REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS WITH DEFAMATION PER SE

Election integrity organization demands retraction about misstatements made by Rep. Cummings on national television

HOUSTON, TX. October 29, 2012 ¯ True the Vote (TTV), the nonpartisan election integrity organization, today formally demanded that Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings retract a series of false statements made about the group repeatedly by him last week on the cable news network, MSNBC.

The October 29, 2012 letter from True the Vote's attorney, Brock Akers stated, "We are shocked at your comments on 'The Ed Show' of MSNBC, which you either know not to be true or have done nothing to assure their accuracy. We had higher hopes for you as an otherwise respected Member of Congress."

Akers continued, "Each and every one of these allegations is categorically false, has no basis in truth, and is not anything...other than a conjured allegation of some individual seeking to distort reality. This defamation per se is shameful. Without so much as the common courtesy to meet with Ms. Engelbrecht, where you could have quickly learned how off track your allegations are and have been, you instead go on national television and call this group names and cast them in the most unflattering light possible."

True the Vote continues to offer to meet in order to brief Rep. Cummings and his staff, yet demands a full and public retraction of recent false statements on MSNBC.

The letter has been made available for viewing here.

True The Vote (TTV) a nonpartisan, nonprofit grassroots organization focused on preserving election integrity is operated by citizens for citizens, to inspire and equip volunteers for involvement at every stage of our electoral process. TTV empowers organizations and individuals across the nation to actively protect the rights of legitimate voters, regardless of their political party affiliation. For more information, please visit www.truethevote.org.

Since the targeting of True the Vote and Catherine is public knowledge – see, e.g., "Why You Should Care That The U.S. Government Has Targeted Catherine Engelbrecht And Her Organizations" (www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/30/why-you-should-care-that-the-u-s- government-has-targeted-catherine-engelbrecht-and-her-organizations/) and "Why did the Obama administration target Catherine Engelbrecht personally?" (www.renewamerica.com/columns/gaynor/130603), it was time for Cummings to dread the thought of Catherine testifying before the House Oversight Committee.

In "The Left's War on True the Vote and Catherine Engelbrecht: Where It All Began" (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/01/The-Left-s-War-on- True-the-Vote-and-Catherine-Engelbrecht-Where-It-All-Began), Brandon Darby reported that True the Vote's "crime" was "[finding]irregularities in Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee's turf and an ACORN affiliated group – and [telling] on them" and that "[t]he left-of-center effort to hide the irregularities of our nation's many 'ACORNs' and 'Sheila Jackson Lees' has grown into involving," among others named, Cummings, one of the 75 House Democrats who voted NOT to defund ACORN.

That makes perfect sense.

In "True Scandal: A tea-party group targeted by Democrats gets attention from the IRS – and the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF" at www.nationalreview.com/article/348756/true-scandal-jillian-kay-melchior, Jillian Kay Melchior concluded:

"...Catherine says the harassment [by federal government agencies] has forced her to seriously reconsider whether her political activity is worth the government harassment she's faced. 'I left a thriving family business with my husband that I loved, to do something I didn't necessarily love, but [which] I thought had to be done,' she says. 'But I really think if we don't do this, if we don't stand up and speak now, there might not [always] be that chance.'

"Her husband offers an additional observation: 'If you knew my wife, you'd know she doesn't back down from anybody. They picked on the wrong person when they started picking on her.'"

He's right!

As I ended an article titled "King Street Patriots are working for election integrity" and dated March 30, 2011 (www.renewamerica.com/columns/gaynor/110330):

"Fittingly, Catherine Engelbrecht, the mother/wife/businesswoman heading King Street Patriots, closed the National Summit by displaying a 'belt of truth' that had been sent to her as a supporter and referenced Ephesisans 6.

Ephesians 6:10-20 (http://bible.org/seriespage/spiritual-warfare-ephesians-610-20) states:

'10 Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

'14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.'

Catherine would not be cowed.

Catherine boldly wrote to the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the House Ethics Committee on behalf of her nonprofit organizations, True the Vote and King Street Patriots, her private business interests, her family and herself, seeking a formal investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics into "certain actions, pressures and unauthorized and improper inquiries initiated against [her] organizations, [her] family and [herself] by Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Catherine's letter stated:

"Specifically, I believe that Rep. Cummings misrepresented his authority as a Member of Congress in order to intimidate me and others associated with me, and further, that Rep. Cummings may have been involved in the organizing of a series of invasive inquisitions into my personal, organizational and business affairs by various federal agencies, agents and bureaucracies over the past four years.

"The rules of the U.S. House of Representatives impose basic standards of honesty, integrity and public service on all Members, Officers, employees and staff of the House, to-wit: 'A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House. [House Rule 23, clause 1.]

Did Cummings meet that standard?

Catherine doesn't think so,so she continued:

"One of the citizens' organizations that I founded, True the Vote, has been on the receiving end of abusive attacks from Rep. Cummings, which purportedly were on behalf of the House OGR Committee – but were not. We ask the OCE to determine whether the True the Vote | 7232 Wynnwood Lane | Houston, Texas 77008 communications to me and to my organization, True the Vote, constituted a violation of the rules of the House of Representatives.

"Further, in the last four years, both of my organizations, my family's businesses and our personal finances have been subjected to over 15 instances of audit or investigation by four separate federal agencies since 2010 – all of which immediately followed my founding of two citizens organizations in Texas and filing IRS Forms 1023 and 1024 seeking tax-exemption for those two entities.

"We therefore request that OCE investigate whether Rep. Cummings and/or any person on his staff or at his direction played any role whatsoever in causing or initiating any or all of the inquiries and actions of multiple federal agencies to descend upon my organizations, my family and our personal business(es) over the past four years.

"Appended here are letters from Rep. Cummings which can only be characterized as a concerted effort on his part to bully True the Vote. The letters represent that he is acting on behalf of the House OGR Committee; however, we have subsequently learned that this was not an official committee activity or inquiry, but rather Rep. Cummings – and his staff's – personal inquiry into the operations and activities of my grassroots citizens' organization.

"What possible interest can Rep. Cummings have in that grassroots organization, whose only objective is to protect the integrity and honesty of America's elections? We are a voters' rights organization and we have been maligned and mistreated by Rep. Cummings' attacks.

"We believe that Rep. Cummings' actions have violated the House rules, represent an abuse of power on his part and are unethical and arrogant. We want to know whether Rep. Cummings' attention to True the Vote played any role in the federal agency actions related to my family and me – including the three-plus years' delay in the granting of the tax exempt status of True the Vote and King Street Patriots."

Catherine's letter continued in detail.

Read it at http://www.scribd.com/doc/208347055/2-6-14-OCE-Complaint.

Especially notably, Catherine wrote:

"The letters that we received from Rep. Cummings attacking and oppressing True the Vote and me were sent through the franking privilege, and presented as seemingly official correspondence from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. We believe Rep. Cumming's actions, in using his official position to attack my organization, were and are improper. Therefore, we respectfully request that Rep. Cummings be investigated and a determination made as to the use and potential misuse of taxpayer funds to advance a personal, political vendetta against my organizations, my family and me.

"We request Rep. Cummings and his staff be required to respond under oath regarding their role in initiating or supporting the years of targeted government attacks on my family, my business and my organizations. We want the truth; nothing more, nothing less."

WOW!

DON'T MESS WITH CATHERINE!!!

At least the Government had Al Capone sent to prison for tax evasion. Now it's time for Cummings to walk the plank for abusing the privilege of the frank.

© Michael Gaynor