Category Archives: Colorado

Screw Christmas!

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If you want any proof that Americans are living in a post-Christian era, you need look no further than Highlands Ranch, Colorado, one of the largest Homeowners Associations in America. Almost 100,000 people live here, and tonight I am dying in shame over the gutlessness of this community.

For years, Highlands Ranch has collected Christmas toys for needy children across the world. Among those organizations sponsoring the toy drive are Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Christmas Child.

But the American Humanist Association, an atheist group, has sent a cease and desist letter to the school district saying that allowing Christmas toys to be collected on its properties is unconstitutional and if it doesn’t stop immediately the atheists will file a lawsuit. It seems that donations are being left at a curbside which may or may not be on school property.

The schools, fearful of the cost of litigation with the atheists, are shutting down the toy drive.

As I sit here at my desk, my blood pressure high as a kite, I’m devestated by the reality that the same threatening letter would not have been sent if the toys were being collected by al Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood, al Fatah, or for that matter the Yakusa. I couldn’t care less if donations were collected at that curbside for tsunami or earthquake-hit areas by the Salvation Army, the Mormon Church, Scientology, or the Purple People Eater Society.

Atheist organizations, of course, have the right to threaten lawsuits because they’re offended by the revolting thought of a Christian organization collecting toys for kids. But to see one of the richest homeowners associations in the country cowering over the thought of challenging this group in court just nauseates me.

The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…..” That’s all! There’s no question the court, in recent years, has interpreted that wording to ban certain expressions of religion on public property.

But if the gutless Highlands Ranch Homeowners Association and this even more gutless school district asked for ten bucks per household to fight this tiny atheist organization, and sued for damages against this group for trying to stifle their rights to collect toys for needy kids, at least we’d get a clearer reading from the Court on what the First Amendment really says.

Highlands Ranch is not a place where I’d like to live.

(click here for toy donation story)

 

More On The Colorado Flood

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Now that I’m out of and away from the Colorado flood I’m watching aerial video of the damage. I’ve seen some bad disasters in my life, but nothing like this one. This single cloudburst caused damage across Eastern Colorado from the Wyoming border to the New Mexico border.

Colorado has about 8000 Homeowners Associations, many of them in eastern Colorado, right in the flood ravaged areas. At some point, all those HOA members are going to be told they don’t qualify for disaster relief since the federal government considers Homeowners Associations and co-ops to be non-profit private associations where ‘homeowners’ are actually shareholders or groups of investors in a neighborhood and its common areas. They can still apply for federal loans, but by living in an HOA they have removed themselves from the ability to get federal aid. 

Congress could change that, of course, but with the country facing sixteen trillion dollars of debt there’s a huge question as to whether the feds would change the rules. Perhaps China would help us? After all, we’re their biggest customer. All those COSCO container trucks and ships you see on the roads and the seas are owned by the Chinese government. The acronym stands for “China Ocean Shipping Company,” owned by the People’s Republic Of China.

Well, I’m going back to watching video feeds. A pretty good one is being hosted right now by the New York Times.

(click here for flood video feed)

 

Whistle-Blowing Lawyer Rats Off Foreclosure Firm

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Two of Colorado’s largest housing foreclosure law firms are now in the cross hairs of the State Attorney General for allegedly fraudulent billing practices.

Attorney Susan Hendrick used to work for the law firm, Aronowitz & Mecklenberg. She has testified under oath that her former employer made millions of dollars by padding its legal bills on housing foreclosures. Those bloated bills that weren’t paid by homeowners ended up being charged off to the taxpayers. Hendrick also alleged that the law firm destroyed evidence subpoenaed by prosecutors during their investigation of the law firm’s practices.

Attorney Robert Aronowitz and his attorney daughter and son-in-law own a private firm which posts foreclosure notices. State investigators say they believe the law firm and the private posting firm were used to inflate foreclosure fees many times above the customary amounts.

Hendrick also testified about the second firm, The Castle Law Group. The two firms have handled 90% of the state’s foreclosures over the past few years. Among other allegations being made are that the two law firms manipulated State Legislators into passing legislation that ended up more than doubling the law firms’ already artificially inflated legal fees.

The Denver Post has been aggressively investigating and reporting details of this story.
Their latest revelations are posted here…. and here.

 

 

 

Are Texans Stoopid?

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What’s difficult to understand about the word ‘accountability’? Texas is one of a number of states where legislation is pending which would reign in the massive power of private HOA management companies. Homeowners in Texas, and elsewhere, are tired of being ripped off by arbitrary fines, punitive social controls, predatory towing of vehicles, confiscatory debt collection practices, abusive lawsuits, and massive embezzlement from the budgets of Homeowners Associations.  This is not a hard problem to understand. Your home is your castle. Isn’t it?

But on the other side of the accountability aisle are State Representatives and Senators who’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars for supposedly ‘managing’ planned communities. They hover like birds-of-prey over the neighborhoods they supervise, and the moment any weakness is spotted they swoop down and make a kill strike on a beleaguered homeowner, liening his home and selling it at auction before the homeowner can even catch his breath.

As good as this pending bill is, it doesn’t have a ghost of a chance of passage. The powers that be rake in too much money. An accountability bill would murder their profit margins.

I used to live in Texas. I never thought Texans were stupid.

Maybe they are.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/09/hoa-accountability-bill-stirs-debate-capitol/

 

“Though the Wheels of God Grind slowly,yet they grind exceeding small,

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The whole quote is:

“Though the Mills of God Grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small,

            Though With Patience He stands waiting, With Exactness Grinds He All.”

                                                        Friedrich Von Lougou

That’s one of my favorite quotes from The Retribution, and it’s been pasted on my computer since my first blue and gray Kaypro, purchased in 1985.

Yes, Heaven’s grinding mills are as vast as they are slow, but sooner or later every full circle comes about. Not soon enough, we mortal humans cry, but they do come around.

Comes now news that the Department of Justice is going to free up 39 million dollars for Overseas Service members who were shafted and ruined by Bank of America. It’s illegal to file civil actions against our military fighting on foreign battlefields, but that knowledge didn’t slow down Bank of America one whit.

No, when the Mortgage Crash and the Housing Bubble hit, Bank of America just played taps on the spines of our fighting men and women, while they forclosed on service members and kicked their families into the streets. Capt. Matt Clauer was a famous case that comes to mind, but there were many, many others.

Yeah, the Big Bank is going to refund some money, a little here, a little there. But by what means are they going to repair the many divorces, the shattered families and repair the misery of families who lost love and trust.

Bank of America, your fund is too low, your response is too weak, and you’re only doing this because you’d otherwise be facing contempt of court charges and a huge public black eye.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/April/13-crt-383.html