Category: You Can’t Make This Up

Meanwhile in the UK

Biden to hike payments for good-credit homebuyers to subsidize high-risk mortgages

Homebuyers with good credit scores will soon encounter a costly surprise: a new federal rule forcing them to pay higher mortgage rates and fees to subsidize people with riskier credit ratings who are also in the market to buy houses.

The fee changes will go into effect May 1 as part of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s push for affordable housing, and they will affect mortgages originating at private banks across the country. The federally backed home mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will enact the loan-level price adjustments, or LLPAs.

Mortgage industry specialists say homebuyers with credit scores of 680 or higher will pay, for example, about $40 per month more on a home loan of $400,000. Homebuyers who make down payments of 15% to 20% will get socked with the largest fees.

The new fees will apply only to Americans buying houses or refinancing after May 1.

Lenders and real estate agents say the changes will frustrate homebuyers with high credit scores and homeowners seeking to refinance because the rule punishes them for their relatively strong financial positions.

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The Climate Lunatics Have a New Food Target

Climate change lunatics who want to ban beef and force everyone to eat bugs have a new target.

According to AFP news, climate “scientists” are targeting rice farming as a “dangerous,” emissions heavy practice. They say flooded rice fields, which then naturally ferment hay and other plants, produce too much methane.

According to National Geographic, rice is a main and key food source for 3.5 billion people.

“Rice is a food staple for more than 3.5 billion people around the world, particularly in Asia, Latin America, and parts of Africa. Rice has been cultivated in Asia for thousands of years. Scientists believe people first domesticated rice in India or Southeast Asia. Rice arrived in Japan in about 3,000 years ago. The Portuguese most likely introduced it into South America in the 16th century,” the magazine reports. “Today, the world’s largest rice producers are China, India, and Indonesia. Outside of Asia, Brazil is the largest rice producer. Rice grows in warm, wet climates. It thrives in waterlogged soil, such as in the flood plains of Asian rivers like the Ganges and the Mekong. “Deepwater rice” is a variety of rice that is adapted to deep flooding, and is grown in eastern Pakistan, Vietnam, and Burma.”

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka recently adopted a number of climate change policies on reducing fertilizer and caused a major food crisis.

“In April 2021, then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced an abrupt ban on the import of chemical fertilisers to force the country of 22mn to embrace organic farming. The prohibition lasted only about six months, but analysts said the ill-fated policy not only stoked an economic crisis, it would leave Sri Lanka’s agricultural sector hobbled for years,” the Financial Times reports. “Over the past 18 months, the country has become a cautionary tale for global agriculture. Vital inputs such as fuel and fertilisers are in short supply, with prices soaring. Yields from rice and other staples have halved in many areas and the once largely self-sufficient Indian Ocean island now depends on international aid to combat a hunger crisis.”

There’s no doubt a new climate attack on rice will have a catastrophic impact.

Manhattan DA Bragg Sues Jim Jordan, House Judiciary Committee to Block GOP Oversight of Trump Prosecution

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday sued the House Judiciary Committee and chairman Jim Jordan in an attempt to stop them from subpoenaing a lawyer involved in the progressive prosecutor’s probe of former president Trump.

Last week, Jordan summoned for Mark Pomerantz, a former senior attorney in Bragg’s office, to testify on Capitol Hill following public statements he made pressuring his old boss to prosecute Trump. The subpoena came two days after Bragg unsealed an indictment revealing that Trump had been charged with 34 felonies stemming from falsified business records related to hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election.

“Congress has a specific and manifestly important interest in preventing politically motivated prosecutions of current and former Presidents by elected state and local prosecutors, particularly in jurisdictions — like New York County — where the prosecutor is popularly elected and trial-level judges lack life tenure,” Jordan wrote in a Thursday letter.

After spending three years working on the Trump investigation, Pomerantz acrimoniously left the office because of Bragg’s earlier hesitancy to prosecute the former president.

“Chairman Jordan’s demands, including his subpoena to Mr. Pomerantz, seek highly sensitive and confidential local prosecutorial information that belongs to the Office of the District Attorney and the People of New York,” reads Bragg’s lawsuit, obtained by CNN. “Basic principles of federalism and common sense, as well as binding Supreme Court precedent, forbid Congress from demanding it.”

Bragg accused Jordan and the committee of launching an “intimidation, retaliation, and obstruction” campaign against a state prosecution process in violation of federalism. The subpoena, the lawsuit said, was an “unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress.”

Congress does not have the authority to conduct oversight of state criminal prosecutions, Bragg argued. Jordan’s request for the district attorney’s former special assistant’s testimony and warnings that the GOP majority will hold Bragg accountable is an “affront to state sovereignty,” the lawsuit said.

Jordan and Trump’s characterization of Bragg as a district attorney who’s been bankrolled by progressive financier George Soros, whose money is behind many left-wing organizations and initiatives, is threatening, the lawsuit claimed.

Bragg asked the court to block enforcement of the subpoena of Pomerantz. The legal filing reiterated that Trump has legal recourse, therefore making Jordan’s intervention unwarranted.

“Like any other defendant, Mr. Trump is entitled to challenge these charges in court. He can avail himself of all the processes and protections that New York State’s robust criminal procedure affords,” the lawsuit said.

Lawyer Of Pulse Victim Claims Semi-Auto Rifles More Dangerous Than Machine Guns

A Texas attorney retained by the family of one of the 49 victims of the Islamic terrorist attack at Pulse nightclub will attempt to claim that semi-automatic (one shot per trigger pull) firearms are more deadly than machine guns as he attempts to sue the manufacturers of the firearms used in the attack:

Let’s go over his fantastical claims point-by-point:

In the wake of the horrific massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Bob Hilliard, Founding Partner at Hilliard Muñoz Gonzales, LLP, has announced that he has been asked to represent the family of a victim of the Orlando shooting. Mr. Hilliard intends to file a lawsuit against Sig Sauer, Inc. and Glock Inc., the gun makers that manufacture and market the military-style weapons used by shooter O___ M___* in what is believed to be the deadliest mass slaughter in U.S. history.

Mr. Hilliard may want to invest in a history book, because as horrible as the terrorist attack was, it doesn’t even rate in the top ten massacres in our nation’s history. The Oklahoma City Bomber killed 168 in 1995, and wounded more than 680 other people. The “Red Summer” race riots of 1919 killed hundreds and wounded thousands, with somewhere between 100-250 killed near Elaine, Arkansas alone. The Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa two years later saw up to 300 killed and 800 wounded. This isn’t even the deadliest Islamic terrorist attack in the United States this century.

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They actually did make a movie about this

Comatose People to be Declared Dead for Use as Organ Donors

The law that redefined death in 1981, referred to as the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA), is being revised.  The UDDA states that death by neurologic criteria must consist of “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brainstem.”  However, in actual practice, doctors examine only the brainstem.  The result is that people are being declared dead even though some still have detectable brainwaves, and others still have a part of the brain that functions, the hypothalamus.

Lawyers have caught on, pointing out in lawsuits that the whole brain standard was not met for their clients.  As a result, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) is working on updates to the UDDA based on proposals from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).

In the interest of preventing lawsuits, the AAN is asking that the neurologic criteria of death be loosened even further and standardized across the United States.  The revised UDDA is referred to as the RUDDA.  Below is the proposal drafted at the February session of the ULC, which will be debated this summer:

Section § 1. [Determination of Death]

An individual who has sustained either (a) permanent cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or; (b) permanent coma, permanent cessation of spontaneous respiratory functions, and permanent loss of brainstem reflexes, is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards.

Notice that the new neurological standard under (b) does not use the term “irreversible,” nor does it include the loss of whole-brain function.  The term “permanent” is being defined to mean that physicians do not intend to act to reverse the patient’s condition.  Thus, people in a coma whose prognosis is death will be declared dead under this new standard.  An unresponsive person with a beating heart on a ventilator is not well, but he is certainly not dead!  The Catholic Medical Association and the Christian Medical and Dental Association have written letters to the ULC protesting these changes.

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DOJ Finally Finds a Church Attack It Doesn’t Like

After years of virtually ignoring attacks on churches, synagogues, and pro-life pregnancy centers, the DOJ has finally found a case worth prosecuting—a Molotov cocktail attack on a so-called “church” preparing to host a drag queen story hour.

From the criminal complaint:

On Saturday, March 25, 2023, the Community Church of Chesterland (“CCC”), located at 11984 Caves Road, Chesterland, Ohio, reported to Chester Township Police that the church had been damaged by what appeared to be Molotov cocktails during the night.

During the same time, a sign on CCC’s property was damaged. CCC believes the acts were perpetrated in response to the church’s planned hosting of two drag show events on April 1, 2023.

Open source searches revealed that individuals plan to be present and armed en masse at the events to protest. Representatives of CCC reported that they received hate mail and messages containing non-specific threats of protest and violence against the drag events.

Before we continue, let me make a couple of things abundantly clear. First, I don’t condone violence from the left or right. At all. The attack on CCC was terrorism and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Protest peacefully all you want, but once you cross the line into violence, you deserve what you get and I have no sympathy for you.

Second, the CCC, affiliated with the United Church of Christ, is not a Christian church in any meaningful sense of the word. From a Q&A section of their website:

Are your services a Christian service?

While our church is aligned with the United Church of Christ denomination, we welcome people of all beliefs and traditions. Our worship services include traditions and practices you might not find in other churches, including dance, poetry, Broadway songs, and more. Christian hymns and spirituals are sung alongside blues, country, global, and pop music.

The website is littered with rainbow flags, language about inclusive worship and its commitment to social justice, and vague references to spirituality. It eschews the tenets of biblical Christianity in favor of “personal expression” and feelings.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, here’s some background on the story:

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Fuhgeddaboudit it’s NOO YAWK

Manhattan garage worker charged with attempted murder after shooting thief

A Manhattan parking garage attendant who was shot twice while confronting an alleged thief — then wrestled the gun away and opened fire on the suspect — has been charged with attempted murder, police said.

The overnight worker, identified by cops as Moussa Diarra, 57, was also hit with assault and criminal possession of a weapon charge in the Saturday incident, which unfolded around 5:30 a.m. as the attendant saw a man peering into cars on the second floor of the West 31st Street garage, the sources said.

Believing the man was stealing, the attendant brought him outside and asked what was inside his bag.

Instead of cooperating, the man pulled out a gun, the sources said.

Diarra tried to grab for the weapon, and it went off — leaving him shot in the stomach and grazed in the ear by a bullet before he turned the firearm on the would-be thief and shot him in the chest, sources said.

The suspected thief, identified as Charles Rhodie, 59, was also charged with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, as well as burglary, police said late Saturday.

While police hit Diarra with attempted murder, it wasn’t immediately clear if prosecutors would follow through with the charge.

The initial charges against Diarra sparked outrage — and recalled the case of Manhattan bodega clerk Jose Alba, who was charged with murder after a fatal July 1 confrontation in his store with an angry customer who came behind his counter and accosted him.

Family friend Mariame Diarra, who is not related to the attendant, slammed the decision to hit the married dad of two with charges.

“That’s self-defense. The guy tried to rob his business,” she told The Post. “He’s there for security. That’s literally his job, to defend his business. 
 He takes his job seriously. 
 Attempted murder charge has no place there. He [robber] came to find him at his job with his gun, he [Diarra] has to defend himself.”

An individual who works nearby the garage, which is across from Moynihan Train Station, was also incredulous.

“You are kidding. That’s an April Fool Day joke, right?” the worker asked of the charges against Diarra, adding, “How can a hardworking man get arrested for defending himself?”

Alba spent six days in Rikers before Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg dropped the controversial murder charge amid intense public pressure to do so.

One cop who heard of the attempted-murder charge against the parking garage worker snarled, “People like Alvin Bragg have made this city unsafe, and this worker is a victim defending himself.”

Moussa and Rhodie, who both live in Manhattan, were taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition after the incident, authorities said.

Well this sure puts a twist in the plot.

Nashville school shooter ‘was hunting pastor who was counselling her’

The Nashville school shooter, Audrey Hale, was reportedly hunting down the pastor she was receiving counselling from but instead killed his daughter when she could not find him.

Hale, 28, had been having private sessions with Pastor Chad Scruggs before she embarked on a shooting spree at the Covenant school, according to former pastor Jim Bachmann.

Pastor Scrugg’s nine-year-old daughter Hallie was shot dead along with two other children and three staff members during the attack.

Mr Bachmann told InsideEdition that Hale “appeared to be searching the school” for Pastor Scruggs.

Mr Scruggs is the lead pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church, which is associated with The Covenant School. He had been at a presbytery planning meeting at the time of the attack when he received a phone alert about an active shooter, according to a fellow church leader.

Mr Bachmann speculated that Hale, a former pupil at the private school, would have “left his daughter alone” had she been able to find the father-of-four.

Hale was born as a woman but had recently begun using male pronouns, leading police to speculate she may have been transgender.

Nashville’s police chief has said his officers are investigating if gender was a motive for the shooting, adding that Hale appeared to have a “resentment” towards the school she used to attend.

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