HeiressofBickworth
HeiressofBickworth's JournalBefore I retired (corporate paralegal)
I was the one in the office designated to handle this kind of communication. Some of our engineers worked in other countries and were somehow subject to these emails. Not wanting to spend any time on them, they sent the emails to me. I made a study of what they were, the different iterations, how they worked and what to do with them. For the first year, I duly reported them to (don't remember, FBI? Secret Service?). I happened to have a conversation with a Nigerian friend of mine about the efficacy of reporting. He said that individual reports aren't acted upon but that the numbers of reported scams allowed the US to put pressure on Nigeria to pursue prosecution of offenders. Usually, offenders just pay off the authorities and continue with their crimes. The result was that the 419 (the code section of Nigerian law which prohibits this scam) criminals simply moved to other countries and continued on. As time went on, I stopped reporting them and advised the engineers to just delete them without responding.
If you want some really entertaining reading check 419eaters dot com. There are some very creative people (with rules protecting their privacy) who engage these criminals in lengthy email exchanges that are quite amusing. The idea is that if they waste the time of the scammer, they have less time to target real victims.
But I'm sure YOU received the real thing.... right?
I hate to break it to you average Mormons
but your church includes YOU in the "lying for the lord" thing.
"Lying for the lord" is part of Mormonism's larger deceptive mainstreaming tactics, and conversion numbers would drastically lower if important Mormon beliefs were fully disclosed to investigators."
"Many have argued, often under the guise of 'milk before meat,' that we must not disillusion the new or weak with all-too-human history or the questioning of the Lord’s anointed–questioning being by definition under this theory, criticism, even heresy. Better the lie."
http://www.mormonwiki.org/Lying_for_the_Lord#Milk_before_meat_,_and_then_some_dessert
So, the fact that you haven't heard about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It means you haven't reached the level of the church when it is divulged to you -- just practiced ON YOU.
The difference is in what is required to get the photo ID
In some states, a drivers license or DOL non-driver ID is obtained easily -- no onerous backup documentation required just a signed affidavit of citizenship and residency. In the Republican states, the requirements to get that ID are difficult...
Your original Social Security Card (who still has that?) Obtaining it from a social security office can be impossible for someone who is house-bound, for example. Social Security offices are only open M-F during business hours which means many working people aren't able to get there to get a new SS card. There is a fee for a replacement card.
Your birth certificate (no, not the one issued from the hospital with your foot prints on it). If you were born out of state there is the cost and time involved in obtaining a certified copy of your birth certificate. If you are an older person, born at home, there will be no state certificate available for you. Whatever documentation you used to sign up for Social Security will not be acceptable -- only a certified birth certificate will do. If you were born in-state, but live somewhere other than the location in which your birth certificate might be registered, you would have to spend the time and money to get there or rely on the mail.
If you are a naturalized citizen, your certificate of naturalization but not one more than 2 years old. Another fee.
The fact that you may have been registered to vote for the last 30 years has no bearing on this. Your old voter registration card is of no use.
In Florida, people have been deprived of their voting rights by letters from the state saying so. Under the US constitution, one is not supposed to lose one's rights without due process of law. Florida requires people to PROVE their citizenship. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
The number of Department of Licensing offices has been reduced and the hours have been shortened so even if you are able to jump through the other hoops, your opportunity to go to the DOL is reduced.
So who does this particularly effect: the poor -- they may have to make the choice between feeding the kids or spending the money on the documents necessary to register to vote. They may not have the transportation necessary to appear in a DOL office in order to obtain registration. The elderly: they may not have the mobility, money or other resources to obtain the documents required. Students: not able to use Student ID cards to obtain voting registration as the registration laws require an expiration date which most student ID's don't have.
Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been blocked twice in court, but the state would have some of the strictest ID requirements in the country if injunctions are lifted. After the law was passed, the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire provided new, optional student IDs including the necessary information. To offset the cost of the new IDs, the university will charge $2 for each, a cost that Democratic state Rep. Gary Hebl calls unconstitutional. “It’s a poll tax, obviously,” Hebl said. “The purpose of the card is to vote with it.” And Hebl said the low cost of the IDs didn’t make a difference. “To charge people to vote is unconstitutional,” he said. “If it costs a nickel, it’s unconstitutional; $2 could be the difference between buying a loaf of bread or voting.” http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/ _news/2012/08/17/
Any requirement that costs money is considered a "poll tax". Poll taxes were specifically banned by the Twenty Fourth Amendment, ratified in 1964 and literacy tests were banned by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
I'm old enough to remember the civil rights marches
and the voter registration events. James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been working to register black voters in Mississippi -- they died. After all that was accomplished with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, are we really going to go back to discriminatory laws preventing certain people from voting? SHAME, SHAME, SHAME.
The voter suppression efforts in Republican states
are in clear violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
"Section 2 contains a general prohibition on voting discrimination, enforced through federal district court litigation. Congress amended this section in 1982, prohibiting any voting practice or procedure that has a discriminatory result. The 1982 amendment provided that proof of intentional discrimination is not required. The provision focused instead on whether the electoral processes are equally accessible to minority voters. This section is permanent and does not require renewal." (wikipedia)
Don't expect Holder's Justice Department to hop right on that. 1) Holder is notoriously reluctant to take on civil rights issues and 2) the Republicans have succeeded in tying him up in legal maneuvering over Fast & Furious.
(jumping into the way-back machine) Reminds me of an office I once worked in
There was one employee (non-attorney) who simply got away with everything. She made more than the rest of us, came in late, left early, took 2 hour lunches, and was supposed to be a full-time employee and technically was my supervisor. It was a small office, 2 attorneys and 4 paralegals and 2 secretaries. The non-attorneys got plenty sick of it. I decided to take it to the head attorney. I told him all that she was doing, how offended the rest of the staff was and what was he going to do about it. He was a real wishy-washy kinda guy. He said well, there wasn't much he could do. So I dropped the bomb on him -- I told him that the staff thought that if she continued to get away with it, it must be because he was sleeping with her. It shocked him, but to tell you the truth, nothing ever changed. Other than one by one, the staff left. Last I heard, the office closed.
The moral of this story is this: your new supervisor may have 8x10 glossy photos of the boss doing unmentionables with farm animals or is a relative of a friend of the boss. Anyway, there is probably nothing you can do other than start looking for a different job. Yes, it could take a while in this economic climate, but you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you were trying.
When Romney went to Israel
I had the feeling that there was something not right about that. It seems inappropriate for a CANDIDATE to be meeting with other heads of state. The candidate does not represent the US government in any way and therefore should have nothing to say. Given the Reagan deal with Iran regarding hostages and other subversive activities listed in another post, there should be some LAW that forbids this kind of contact. Romney undoubtedly made some outlandish promises (about issues he knows nothing about) in order to curry financial support from Israel. If we were able to see who the donors are to the 501(c)(4) organizations supporting him, no doubt there would be such financial support. Why else would he have gone there -- Israelis can't vote in our elections so he wasn't there to charm them. So my suspicion is that Romney said something like give me the money and I'll back your attack on Iran. You cast the first stone and Daddy will clean up after you. It's frightening to have a power-hungry, soul-less individual having discussions with a war hawk. Doesn't bode well for anyone on this earth.
An analogy:
When I was working in the legal department of an engineering company, we applied for a license to do business in the City of New York because we were going to work on a project there. The questions asked by NY were extensive and intrusive. They wanted to know everything about each corporate officer including what other boards they served on or offices held in other corporations. Not only our main corporation but all the officers and directors of our subsidiaries. For example, our corporate president had to disclose his position on the board at his kid's elementary school eight years before!! Previous addresses for 10 years, stocks owned, law suits, even down to traffic tickets and the disposition of the charges! And financial statements for the corporations for 10 years. When our attorney asked the city's attorney why such detail the answer was "we want to make sure you aren't mobbed up".
My point: If the City of New York required sufficient details to be sure our mid-sized engineering firm wasn't dishonest, don't we, as voters, have a similar right to sufficient information to determine the honesty of the person running for the Presidency of the United States and therefore leader of the free world? He's not running for the board of an elementary school.
MITT (and Queen Anne) RELEASE THE TAX RETURNS, DISPEL THE IDEA THAT YOU HAVE DONE SOMETHING DISHONEST OR IMMORAL.
Ok, I'm willing to put this in real-life numbers
My social security benefits are $17,832 a year (which is what's left after Medicare takes out its premium). An additional $6,500 a year would leave me $11,332 to live on for the year. My yearly real estate taxes are $2,500 (or so) which leaves $8,832. My yearly social security supplement insurance is another $816 a year, leaving $8,016. Then there's car insurance, heat, lights, water, sewer, garbage removal, and we still haven't gotten to the ESSENTIALS like food and medicines. So from which portion of my ASS do they think I'll come up with another $6,500????????
And, compared to a lot of other seniors, I'm doing ok on what I get now. What will others do?
People must be made aware that RR means a one-two punch
First, repeal Obamacare which bans insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
Second, vouchers issued for care that can't be bought at any price due to denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Immediate result: seniors with no medical coverage at all.
End result: deaths of millions whose lives could have been extended with proper medical care.
The same theory for Social Security and food stamps: seniors would not have proper nutrition and could become homeless, therefore becoming high risk of developing life-threatening conditions for which there would be no medical assistance. End result: deaths of millions.
I firmly believe the Republican goal is to cull the herd. Whittle the general population down to just the workers. They can't do it like Hitler, just killing them outright, so, they will create a "natural" cull of the herd through their policies.
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Snohomish County, WA
Member since: Wed May 18, 2011, 02:12 AM
Number of posts: 2,682
