More Transparency In Real Estate

 

Good-To-Know:

Justice Department Sues Realtor Group To Enforce Transparency Rules

By Heather van Blokland

Published: Friday, November 27, 2020 - 5:05am

"Realtors will have to disclose commissions and change listing practices to be more transparent. The move is in response to a lawsuit filed last week by the U.S. Department of Justice against the National Association of Realtors. 

The lawsuit claims anti-competitive practices by traditional real estate agents in the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS. The U.S. DOJ says the system now is anti-competitive. In the terms, the NAR and related MLS organizations are no longer allowed to prohibit non-members from using lockboxes that prevent non-members from seeing a property. 

“Real Estate Agents, residential real estate agents in particular, control the information, and that’s the single biggest advantage that they have is their ability to control what is on the market and all of the information about that property including what they will get paid,” said Mark Stapp, executive director of the Real Estate Master’s Program at the WP Carey School of Business. 

Stapp said this ruling has particular interest to the Phoenix metro because Zilliow, Offerpad and other non-MLS based companies started in the Valley. 

Zillow and Redfin are essentially MLS services of their own, Stapp said, noting the only major difference being that to list on MLS, an agent must be a paying member of the service to use it and also have a real estate license. He said that means real estate agents who are not part of an MLS group and brokers who are not part of the NAR couldn’t use lockboxes to see houses unless they became members and paid dues. "

Horror Of America’s New Breadlines! We Haven’t Seen This Much Suffering ...

Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward > Dropping A Few More Eggs To Feather Trump's "Cuckoo Nest"

"Chemo-Trail Kelli" has a new perch, but this time she's out-on-a-limb joined by some of the state's political fringe (Gosar, Biggs to name only two) with one more 'loco'- lawsuit to get filed by November 30th.

Here's just one story on the ballot re-count

AZGOP chair eyes nullification of presidential election in new lawsuit

Arizona Mirror | 2020-11-25T17:07:22+00:00

Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward wants a judge to allow her to examine ballots to determine if any were improperly counted in an effort to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, though she hasn’t shown any evidence of the theoretical problems she’s alleging.

". . .Ward plans to bring suit under a state law permitting any voter in the state to challenge election results on grounds of misconduct by election officials, illegal votes or if the loser is declared the winner through an “erroneous count of votes.” She is suing in her capacity as an individual and as an elector for President Donald Trump.

It is the latest challenge from state Republicans to the results of the election, which Biden won by about 10,500 votes. This is the fifth lawsuit involving Arizona’s election results and the second involving Ward. 

According to the proposed complaint, the chairwoman will request that “the Court declare that the certificate of election of the Biden electors is of no further legal force or effect,” and “that the election is annulled and set aside” in accordance with a state law permitting a judge to reject the outcome of an election if a lawsuit shows that result to be improper. If an inspection of ballots proves Trump got the highest number of votes, Ward wants the judge to declare his electors as the winners.

But before a judge can nullify the results of the presidential election in Arizona, Ward must show that enough votes were improper to warrant such a drastic result. And in order to help her show that, she’s asking a judge to allow her to examine ballots while she prepares to file her lawsuit after the state canvass of the 2020 general election is certified on Monday.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner will hold a hearing in the matter on Monday at 10:30 a.m.

 

. . .

Fraud involving ballot signatures is rare, according to election officials in Arizona, where the majority of people vote by early ballot, as well as in other states that conduct all-mail elections, a list that includes Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

The lawsuit also alleges that there could have been problems with “duplicate” ballots in the East Valley-based 5th Congressional District and the suburb of Queen Creek, which is part of the district.

. . . several Republican elected officials raised questions after Garrett Archer, an elections data analyst with ABC15 and former Secretary of State’s Office employee, reported that in one precinct of Queen Creek with more than 1,000 voters, Trump won 67.4 percent of the vote in 2016 but only 58.5 percent in 2020.

 

 

. . .

It’s unclear who will defend against the lawsuit. Hobbs isn’t named as a defendant, nor is Maricopa County or any county officials. The only defendants are the 11 Democratic electors who are committed to Biden, a list that includes Arizona Democratic Party Chair Felecia Rotellini, Tohono O’odham Chairman Ned Norris, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, Corporation Commissioner Sandra Kennedy, Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis and Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Gallardo.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors met in executive session to receive legal advice about the lawsuit on Wednesday. A spokesman for the county wouldn’t comment on whether the board plans to intervene as a defendant.

This is the second lawsuit that Ward and Wilenchik have brought since Election Day. The Arizona Republican Party sued Maricopa County, alleging that it improperly conducted its post-election hand count of ballots. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge dismissed the suit and took the rare move of inviting the Secretary of State’s Office to seek attorney’s fees under a statute pertaining to frivolous or bad-faith lawsuits.

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In an article today, published in the New York Times, it had this to say about Kelli Ward:

"The election’s results are also showing just how much the state party is tied to Mr. Trump. Kelli Ward, the chairman of the state’s Republican Party, has refused to accept Mr. Trump’s defeat and repeatedly raised the possibility that cheating took place, without evidence, and has received support from two of the state’s congressmen, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs.

Ms. Ward said in an interview that more lawsuits are on the horizon, and that the president has other options available to him even if his lawsuits continue to fail, though she declined to specify what those could be. . ."

SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/us/politics/arizona-settles-in-to-life-as-a-magenta-state.html

“There are more coming, and you don’t always have to have a lawsuit to get to the bottom of election fraud. There are a lot of irregularities, those are going to continue to come out,” she said.

 

 

 

The New Abnormal: "In The Beginning Was The Word" - tsela’ —the Hebrew word that is usually translated as ‘side’ or ‘rib’ has been misunderstood

According to a recent story published in The Daily Beast, it actually refers to Adam’s os baculum or penis bone . . .O Lordy!

For those of this who believe in evolution this is all something of a moot point, but chances are that you’ll never think of the euphemism “boner” in quite the same way.

Was Eve Made From Adam’s Missing Penis Bone?

Candida Moss

The Daily Beast |                        

According to the Bible, God fashioned Adam out of dirt while Eve, who was created as a companion for Adam, was made out of one of Adam’s ribs. Or was she?

Candida Moss

Updated Nov. 23, 2020 11:20AM ET / Published Nov. 22, 2020 5:06AM ET 

"The Bible starts, as most people know, with the creation of the universe, animals, and human beings. According to the Bible, God fashioned Adam out of dirt while Eve, who was created as a companion for Adam, was made out of one of Adam’s ribs. Or was she? A shocking academic theory proposes that rather than being whittled out of a rib, Eve was actually formed out of Adam’s os baculum or, to put this much more directly, man’s now-missing penis bone. As you might imagine, the theory has caused something of a stir.

Even from an ancient perspective, the idea that Eve was created out of a rib has some problems. Though ancient understandings of the machinations of the body were limited, death, decay, and ancient burial rituals meant that knowledge of the human skeleton was hardly out of reach. Moreover, as anyone who has taken an elementary class in human anatomy knows, the ribcage is not asymmetrical: generally speaking there doesn’t appear to be a rib missing on one side: most people have 12 pairs. Given that ancient people are as likely to have known this as we moderns, it’s worth asking what ancient readers thought was happening when God “caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and… took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh” (Gen. 2:21). Explanations for what this strange ancient organ transplant involved is where things take a turn for the scandalous . . .

Even when they argue for a meaning other than “rib,” later interpreters wonder if perhaps the tsela’ is a tail. Perhaps the most compelling evidence of all is the fact that God takes “one of [Adam’s] ribs” to make Eve. The expression assumes that there was more than one of whatever bone Eve was made and there’s no evidence at all that Adam had more than one penis.

In evaluating these theories, Dr. Robert Cargill, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review,told The Daily Beast that “Both arguments have merit. Creating womankind out of a spare rib taken from the first man is certainly in keeping with the low view of women present in Genesis 2–3. Then again, creating a woman from the male sexual organ, and simultaneously explaining why men don’t possess a bone that so many other animals possess, including most primates, offers an etiology that is in keeping with the overall sexual nature of this myth.”

What the story exposes is how difficult and uncertain the project of translating ancient texts is. It is difficult to get inside the idioms, euphemisms, and colloquialisms of an ancient culture in which none of us can actually be enculturated. We have a history of interpreting words in a specific ways but even then we might be using powers of deduction. The jury is certainly out about what ancient people thought was happening in the Garden of Eden. . ."

 

Controversial ‘virginity tests’ offered at UK medical clinics

Just in case there are uncertainties, they also offer Hymen Repair Kits

Georgia On-Our-Minds: Thanks to Robin Kemp - A "One-Woman Newsroom"

Her story is the right stuff to high-five and highlight hyperlocal journalism. Like your MesaZona blogger she believes,  “It is in every community’s interest to have a strong, healthy accountability journalism operation going on."

Kemp said pushing for transparency in local government is the sort of work she wants her own new newsroom online to do.

Robin Kemp, an independent reporter who operates the news website Claytoncrescent.com, at her home in Forest Park, Ga. (Kevin D. Liles/for The Washington Post)

Robin Kemp lost her news job in Clayton County, Ga. — but she kept reporting the news. It paid off on election week.

 

By Reis Thebault Reis ThebaultNational and breaking news reporterEmail BioFollow

Washington Post |

Robin Kemp was 12 hours into the longest day of her journalism career when she got a call from a funny number. A British radio station wanted her on air to talk about the presidential election in Clayton County, Ga., where she lives and works. Could she be ready in, oh, 30 seconds?

That was Kemp’s first clue that her county, a suburban community south of Atlanta, had become the center of the political world. It was late on Thursday, nearly two full days after polls had closed, and Joe Biden was suddenly on the precipice of overtaking President Trump in Georgia and turning the state blue for the first time in nearly three decades.

It took her even longer to realize that the world wasn’t just watching her state. It was watching her.

Kemp, an indefatigable 56-year-old reporter who started her news site after the local paper laid her off in April, was the only journalist to watch all 21 hours of Clayton County’s marathon tabulation of absentee votes, from about 9 a.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday. . . "

Iraq: Thousands of Sadrist Movement supporters demonstrate in Baghdad's ...

Thousands of people are demonstrating all over the world - this is one that has been going strong in Iraq for many years over corruption in the U.S.-installed government