Barry Goldwater's son defends commemorative coin ripoffs

The Arizona Republic reports today that Barry Goldwater, Jr., son of the famed Arizona Senator and himself a former California Congressman, is a director of a company that sells "non-monetary" commemorative coins. Goldwater is a director at National Collector's Mint, Inc., and allows his name and likeness to be used to promote their coins.

Last year, the company paid over $2 million in restitution to customers who purchased its "Freedom Tower Silver Dollar," after being sued by NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. They also paid $370,000 in civil penalties. The company had claimed that it was a "government issued" silver dollar and a "U.S. territorial minting" from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The islands use U.S. currency and are not authorized to mint their own. Perhaps not by coincidence, these islands were a client of Jack Abramoff which brought out Tom Delay on junkets to play golf. Congressman George Miller (D-CA) has said this about the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands:

“Let’s remember what they paid for: a protection racket that sheltered a sweatshop industry that systematically exploited tens of thousands of impoverished foreign workers -- mostly Asian women -- who were little better than indentured servants; a sweatshop industry that earned some of the heaviest fines in U.S. history for violating labor laws; an industry repeatedly cited by the Departments of Justice, Interior and other federal agencies. They were defending a corrupt immigration system that regularly approved visas for non-existent jobs, resulting in hundreds of women being forced into the sex trade, including prostitution.

“They killed my reform bills year after year. And even when an immigration reform by Senator Frank Murkowski, a Republican, was approved by the full Senate, they blocked it repeatedly in the House. Abramoff took credit and was paid handsomely for that, too.

“This corrupt system existed because the CNMI slipped under federal labor and immigration laws. Abramoff, his lobbying colleagues, and some powerful friends in Congress are proud they prevented bipartisan reforms from being implemented.

“The outstanding investigations by the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Associated Press and others confirm the depravity of this protection racquet: the sweatshop industry, past CNMI administrations, Washington lobbyists and House Republican leaders who washed each others’ hands.

“Everyone seems to have made a lot of money, except the poor and disenfranchised women who toiled in the sweatshops and the brothels. These people have so much to be ‘proud’ of.

“And still, no congressional committee is investigating this aspect of Abramoff’s work, even though information indicates that Congress played a pivotal role in this protection scheme. This operation is beginning to look more and more like criminal activity and Congress must immediately launch a thorough investigation of this issue. The House Committee on Resources has jurisdiction over the Mariana Islands and I have already called on the Chairman, Representative Richard Pombo, to investigate this matter."

The Arizona Republic fails to comment on these other scandals related to the Mariana Islands and the Republican Party.

It does, however, go on to challenge some of the company's claims about their coins. Their new "Fifth Anniversary World Trade Center Commemorative" coin, which sells for $29.95, is advertised as "non-monetary" (wording likely chosen for its likelihood to not be understood) and claims to be made from silver from "a bank vault found under tons of debris at ground zero." The Republic points out that the company claims it can verify this claim, but would not provide any evidence to support it.

The coin is made out of 15 mg of 24-karat gold (worth 33 cents yesterday) and being 0.999 pure silver (worth 1/6 of a cent yesterday). The Republic quotes Michael Higdon of the American Bullion & Coin Co. in Flagstaff: "There's not enough silver or gold in it to make it valuable, and it never will be valuable. Ever."

The National Collector's Mint claims to have given more than $1 million of proceeds from its 9/11-related coin sales to charity (including $5 from each sale of the "Fifth Anniversary" coins), of which the Republic was able to confirm $30,000 given to Tuesday's Children, one of the charities named.

If they're giving away $5 of each sale, the materials are worth 34 cents, and the manufacturing, shipping, and overhead costs another $5 per coin, they're still pulling in $19.61 in profit per sale. If they've given away $1 million to charity, then at $5 per coin they've sold 200,000 coins, which would generate $3.9 million in profit.

Goldwater says he believes the company is complying with the law, and that "the people involved are very good people, and they're solid citizens who are out there working hard to make a living and provide a product and a service."

Seems to me a lot closer to a scam than a service.

AT&T sues data brokers selling phone call records

AT&T has filed a lawsuit against 25 unnamed data brokers for using "pretexting" to obtain customer call data records. These data brokers would pose as the legitimate customers in order to obtain billing records for third parties for a fee. Data brokers selling this data over the Internet got some negative public attention last summer and in January of this year, but Congress has not made pretexting illegal for phone records the way it is for financial records. It came out in June of this year that law enforcement and federal agencies were active customers of these data brokers, using them to obtain data without having to go through the process of getting warrants.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center already filed an FTC complaint against one data broker, Bestpeoplesearch.com.

Snakes in a theater

A 10-inch rattlesnake was found in a hallway at the AMC Desert Ridge 18 theaters at Tatum and Loop 101 in Scottsdale on Friday. This led to a rumor that "rattlesnakes were let loose during a showing of Snakes on a Plane."

A security guard swept the snake outside and trapped it in a Tupperware container until the Arizona Herpetological Association could come and get it.

Apparently the theater had earlier called about a rattlesnake outside the building.

This led to the wildly exaggerated claim that:

Two live rattlesnakes were released in an Arizona theater during a showing
of the new film, 'Snakes on a Plane.' The snakes were released after the
film began rolling in the dark theater at the AMC Desert Ridge multi-plex
at Tatum and the 101 in north Phoenix.

Good story, but it's not true.

Phoenix housing bubble deflation update

Phoenix's inventory of homes for sale continues to rise (continuing from where we left off on June 16). My first report, in October 2005, showed an inventory of 10,748 homes on July 20, 2005, rising to 19,254 on October 2. (Data comes from ziprealty.com, via posts to Ben Jones' Housing Bubble Blog.)

6/17/2006 49402
6/18/2006 49546
6/19/2006 49504
6/20/2006 49432
6/21/2006 49453
6/22/2006 49867
6/23/2006 50296
6/24/2006 50599
6/25/2006 50526
6/26/2006 50413
6/27/2006 50295
6/28/2006 50395
6/29/2006 50878
6/30/2006 50347
7/1/2006 50492
7/2/2006 50404
7/3/2006 50264
7/4/2006 50511
7/5/2006 50284
7/6/2006 50227
7/7/2006 50667
7/8/2006 50944
7/9/2006 50638
7/10/2006 50167
7/11/2006 51396
7/12/2006 51124
7/13/2006 50995
7/14/2006 51302
7/15/2006 51478
7/16/2006 51642
7/17/2006 51698
7/18/2006 51704
7/19/2006 51682
7/20/2006 51557
7/21/2006 51758
7/22/2006 52110
7/23/2006 52363
7/24/2006 52137
7/25/2006 52019
7/26/2006 52540
7/27/2006 52228
7/28/2006 52595
7/29/2006 52413
7/30/2006 52482
7/31/2006 52535
8/1/2006 52230
8/2/2006 52396
8/3/2006 52337
8/4/2006 52600
8/5/2006 52802
8/6/2006 52845
8/7/2006 52953
8/8/2006 52560
8/9/2006 52513
8/10/2006 52681
8/11/2006 52417
8/12/2006 52895
8/13/2006 53126
8/14/2006 52757
8/15/2006 52793
8/16/2006 52693
8/17/2006 53102
8/18/2006 52855
8/19/2006 53014
8/20/2006 53350

10,748 on July 20, 2005 to 53,350 on August 20, 2006--that's a 496% increase in inventory in 13 months.

Einzige--how about an update on trustee sales?

Drive with cash, you're presumed guilty

The U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit, ruled last week that if you are driving around with large amounts of cash, the government may presume that you are guilty of drug trafficking and seize that cash.

The case in question was United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency (forfeiture cases name the seized items as the defendant). Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez was pulled over for speeding in Nebraska in 2003 while driving a rented Ford Taurus. In the car was a cooler with $124,700 in cash, which was seized on suspicion of a drug crime. A drug-sniffing dog barked at the car and the cooler, which was taken as evidence.

Friends of Gonzolez testified that they had pooled their life savings to purchase a refrigerated truck in order to start a produce business. Gonzalez was sent on a one-way ticket to Chicago to buy the truck, but it had already sold. He had no credit card, so had a third party rent a car for him. He says he hid the money in a cooler to prevent it from being stolen.

The District Court had found for Gonzolez, saying that there was no evidence of drug activity. The Appeals court disagreed, with a strong dissent by Judge Donald Lay.

Forfeiture laws have long been heavily abused in the name of the war on drugs. In 1991, the Pittsburgh Press ran a six-part series on forfeiture abuse called Presumed Guilty: The Law's Victims in the War on Drugs which can be found in various places online.

UPDATE: Ed Brayton has also commented on this story at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Police laugh about shooting protester in the face

ABC News:

"The lady in the red dress," Kallman says on the tape, to cheers and laughter. "I don't know who got her, but it went right through the sign and hit her smack dab in the middle of the head."

Another officer can be heard off-camera, asking, "Do I get a piece of her red dress?"

Sgt. Kallman, rather than reprimand officers who shot Miami protester Elizabeth Ritter four times with rubber bullets on November 20, 2003, including once in the face (through her sign, which read "Fear Totalitarianism"), complimented them.

A public apology was made by the department only after the videotape of officers laughing at the day's events became public.

As Ritter asks, "What type of training leads people to laugh about shooting an unarmed citizen for merely holding up a sign that says 'Fear Totalitarianism'?"

Here's the video:


Hat tip to Radley Balko at The Agitator.

Trying to file a complaint against a police officer in Missouri

In February, I commented on an undercover investigation in South Florida about what happens when you try to obtain a complaint form to file a complaint against a police officer. Many locations were aggressively uncooperative.

Things are much, much worse in Independence, Missouri.

Hat tip: Radley Balko at The Agitator.

UPDATE (January 8, 2007): Greg Slate, the individual in Missouri who had his head slammed into a plexiglass window for asking for a complaint form, was found not guilty of inciting a riot on November 8, 2006. The officer was not disciplined. (Via The Agitator.)

Killer runs for state legislature

I live in a heavily Democratic district of Arizona, in South Phoenix. Last election, the Republicans didn't even bother to field candidates. This year, however, Daniel Coleman of Laveen is seeking one of the two House seats as a Republican.

In 1997, Coleman was arrested for DUI and convicted. In 2003, he was living in the very tiny southeastern town of Portal, Arizona (the location of Crystal Cave--I've camped and done some spelunking there). He went with his date Gail Chalker, her two sisters Annette and Carol, and Annette's fiance, Colby Rawson to the nearby town of Rodeo, New Mexico, for an evening of drinking at the Rodeo Tavern. Annette and Gail got into an argument over an air compressor that Annette wanted to borrow. Coleman and Gail and Carol Chalker returned to Portal at 10:30 p.m., and Rawson and Annette Chalker and her two children drove up to Coleman's home shortly before midnight to pick up the air compressor that was kept on the porch. She opened the door and called to her sister, and when the screen door slammed shut, Coleman and Gail Chalker were awakened. Coleman grabbed his .38 pistol, and the two of them left the bedroom and saw Annette Chalker in the entryway. Gail Chalker says that Annette charged them and was trying to grab her by the throat, and Coleman's gun fired, shooting a bullet into Annette's face below her left eye, killing her. Coleman said it was an accident, and Gail Chalker corroborated his story.

Coleman was indicted on charges of first-degree murder but was never prosecuted for lack of evidence. He was sued by the Chalker family for wrongful death, which was settled.

When asked about Coleman, Arizona Republican Party chairman Matt Salmon said, "I've never met the guy. This is the first time I've even heard about this guy. ... The Republican Party did not recruit him to run. ... I'm very discouraged about anybody who has a DUI in their background."

Coleman is a 1993 Rutgers University graduate who has worked in the Phoenix area since 1997 as a computer contractor for the state Department of Economic Security. He runs a consulting company called Candia Systems Associates. He grew up in Cochise County, where his family had a ranch. His stepfather was Wyatt Earp researcher Glenn Boyer, an amateur historian who has been charged with fabricating material in the book I Married Wyatt Earp, which billed Josephine Earp as the author and Boyer as the editor. That scandal first came to public view as a result of investigation by Tony Ortega, then of Phoenix's weekly New Times. Ortega went on to work at the Los Angeles New Times (now defunct) and has written several in-depth investigative pieces about the Church of Scientology.

Coleman's mother (and Boyer's wife) is Western novelist Jane Candia Coleman.

(Most of the above is from the Arizona Republic story on Coleman.)

9/11 Myths debunked

I've just come across the 9/11 Myths site, which debunks a lot of the bogus claims made on the Internet by conspiracy theorists. It's well worth checking out along with the Popular Mechanics website and "Loose Change" debunking website referenced in this posting on the conspiracy-mongering Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

Also check out the Nyctohylophobia blog debunking 9/11 conspiracy claims, run by a bright Catholic high school student.

UPDATE September 1, 2006: The Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories site is also a good resource.

Abstinence-only sex education = 13% of female students pregnant in one year

Timken High School in Canton, Ohio has had an abstinence-only sex education program for the last 18 years. The program has not been updated during that time. In the last year, 65 of the 490 female students in the high school became pregnant. The school board has now voted to update the program and include safe sex information in the curriculum, while continuing to promote abstinence.

More at Salon.com.