TONYATKO DELETES HER DISPLACEMENT DIARIES VIDEOS; HIDES HER SCAM

TONYA TKO DELETES HER DISPLACEMENT DIARIES VIDEOS; HIDING HER SCAM

Sources:  Stupidity Exodus, YouTube

After apparently scamming her YouTube Channel supporters out of $12,000 via an GoFundMe account, Vlogger TONYA TKO has removed all "Displacement Diaries" videos and marked them as PRIVATE.

Is this a further indication of Guilt?

I think so.

What TONYA TKO did out of blatant Selfishness, will no doubt make it more difficult for other BLACK YouTube Vloggers who wish to raise money online for LEGITIMATE causes.

TONYATKO IS A SCAM ARTIST OR NO? YOU BE THE JUDGE

TONYA TKO IS A SCAM ARTIST OR NO? YOU BE THE JUDGE

RAISES $12,000 VIA GOFUND ACCOUNT BUT STILL LIVES IN HER CAR.

Sources: Madame Noire, Huffpost, Tommy Sotomayor, YouTube

Just one month ago I uploaded a video encouraging all the Haters to stop harassing Vlogger & former NYC Businesswoman Tonya TKO who used a GoFundMe account to garner donations after losing her business and profits to the IRS. 

She communicated to her viewers that she re-located to California to start over and not give up on her Dreams.

Since moving to California and securing more than $12,000 in donations,  Tonya TKO is currently still living in her Vehicle.

I initially thought  Tonya was seeking a permanent place to lay her head at night.

However it now appears she may indeed be running a SCAM.

I hope I'm wrong. 

You be the judge!

***** Tonya TKO Talks Living In Her Car; The Blessing And Curse Of Asking For Help

Tonya TKO is not a household name but she has amassed quite a following on YouTube, particularly among Black women.

Since 2007, over 100,000 subscribers, or “love birds” as she calls them, have flocked to The Tonya TKO Show, to receive their bi-weekly fix of dating and relationship advice, self-esteem boosts, travel tales and good old fashioned wisdom.

Part-radiant personality and part-savvy business woman, Tonya was able to use her platform to not only launch her successful TKO Skin skincare line but also establish herself as a trusted lifestyle brand. She even began using the moniker, “Media’s #1 “Big Sister.”

In spite of her online success, the prominent Youtube vlogger (and New York resident) would earlier this year shock the online community when she announced, via her YouTube channel, that she was homeless and living in her car in Los Angeles.

Through her desperate plea, Tonya TKO raised nearly twelve thousand dollars via aGoFundMe campaign, which was supposed to cover the cost of shelter as well as production costs associated with her new webseries entitled The Displacement Diaries. But after weeks of updates and little change, some folks began to question the validity of her claims. This included other YouTube vloggers who have accused TKO of lying about her homelessness, being mentally ill and bilking her followers out of both money and attention (for a quick primer on the criticisms and allegations, check out this Huffington Post article).

Over the weekend, I had a chance to speak to Tonya TKO about her Displacement Diaries, the criticism and online harassment she received and living through the expectation versus the reality of Internet celebrity. This is what she had to say.

Yeah I know it’s a long piece. But we talk about homelessness. We talk about reaching our dreams. We never talk about the intersection of both. So for those who want to know what it is like, and for those in the midst of the struggle, this is an interview you will want to read to the end.

Charing Ball: The last video I saw, you were looking for a house, how close are you to making that happen? 

Tonya TKO: Well, The Displacement Diaries is a little bit behind real life. There are some episodes that had three or four days in it and published one day after another. And then I wasn’t publishing on Sunday. So actually we are a few weeks behind and what you seen actually happened about a month ago.

CB: Okay, that’s interesting. So to clarify: you are publishing these videos a month after everything in real life was already recorded?

Tonya TKO: Yeah…when you are doing a daily blog, if you miss a day you are pushed behind by a day. If you miss two or three days, you are pushed behind by half a week.

 And if a few weekends go by without you publishing every single day, than you start getting pushed behind by like a week. Because I first started getting pushed behind right in the very beginning. 

I actually started publishing every day when I started to get the criticized after I got the money. Once I got the money, I started looking for a place feverishly and I was concentrating all of my efforts on that. 

So people were like, “oh look. Now she got the money; now she’s not making videos anymore.” Anyway, originally I lost two or three days in the very beginning. 

And then I went to a red carpet event and I lost three days there. So when you miss two days here and three days here, that becomes a week.

Another thing, and I haven’t told anyone this, but there was a Youtuber who told people to flag my channel. 

And so I had gotten several flags on my channel in the very beginning [of filming] and because of this I had several strikes. I was in the process of appealing. And since I didn’t want any more strikes while in the process of appealing, I limited my videos so they weren’t longer than 15 minutes.

 If you look at the beginning of The Displacement Diaries, the videos were 20 to 25 minutes but after I got that strike, I had to limit my videos. So at first, people were complaining, like why are you making these short videos. 

But I really couldn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want the people who were making these strikes, to know that they were having an effect on my account.

So that’s how The Displacement Diariesended up behind schedule… And now that I’m only publishing three days a week, it is making it spread out even more. I don’t know how people do daily blogs. Daily blogs are very difficult. Before I used to do videos that were taped and it would take about three to four hours to chop it up. Now with the music and the video clips and cuts, it takes about six hours.

CB: I will say that the production value on the videos is fantastic. So does that mean you have a house now or is that something you are kinda teasing out for the viewers?

Tonya TKO: Yeah…[laughing]…Stay tuned. Everything becomes revealed. But I will say that the way things unfold is a way that I didn’t even expect. And that everything, whether it seems like a curse, actually turned into a blessing.

CB: So let’s talk about that. Just to recap: You had this really successful skin care line. You decided to quit that to travel the world for a couple of years and write a book. You got home and then what happened?

Tonya TKO: Well, I only traveled eight months. I went out of the country in 2015 to write the book. I went to Latin America and the trip was difficult. So I came back and the book wasn’t written. I stayed in New York for about three months.

 I was just going to the YouTube space in New York; just making videos and really trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the Tonya TKO show. 

And my spirit told me to go back to Los Angeles. So I took care of all of the things I needed to take care of in New York and then I headed out to Los Angeles. When I got to Los Angeles – I don’t know how much of this story you want – I was supposed to be staying in one of the bedrooms in the home of an associate. 

And when I got there, the situation was a lot different than I thought it was going to be. And I was actually sleeping on the couch…

Just to be totally transparent, four days before I was supposed to rent the room in her apartment, she told me her daughter was going to be renting the room instead and offered the couch. 

And when I got out there, I started getting all of these emails from my different banking institutions that my accounts had been levied.

And so I had a few thousand dollars left over after that long, extensive trip. And you know, I hear criticisms from people. But I also hear that the average American can’t go sixty days without a paycheck. And I went July 2014 to January 2015 on the money I had saved after I closed by business. And all of that was taken.

CB: From the government. The Man got you. 

Tonya TKO: [laughing] Yeah, you are so funny. But it is my fault. When I was out of the country, I was not getting the corespondents informing me that there was a problem. And I didn’t close the business down properly. And when you don’t close your business and you’re collecting sales tax, they will average what they feel that you owe.

CB: And it happens. It’s not really unusual for small business owners to mess up with the paperwork. But is the tax troubles – combined with the couch situation – how you ended up in your car? 

Tonya TKO: Okay this is how it happened: The couch situation was just not working out. 

At the same time that was happening, I was at an three-day seminar at YouTube and when I left, I was looking for an [alternative] place to stay because I had to be right back there in the morning. In Los Angeles, it costs about $100 to $125 to stay for a night – to stay at the Motel 8 is like $99 a night. So when I was looking for a place, I figured I would just get some sleep in the car and come right back in the morning.

 So the first night, I went to a construction site and they had all-night security over there. I told the night security that I would be in my car and the security guy looked out for me all night. 

Unfortunately, construction started at 4 a.m., so I had to find another place.

 But yeah, it started out with me just looking for a place to sleep for one night. And then one night turned into two and two days turned into a week and a week turned into almost three. 

And when I got to the 18th day, that’s when I made my first video.

Okay so what happened on that 18thday that made you realize that you should be documenting this? 

Tonya TKO: You know, the original video wasn’t even a documentation. The original video was a plea for help. I was going to the Starbucks daily to make videos and stay in the realm of creative people – because I was in my car. And I didn’t have anywhere to go during the day. 

So it was like, where do you go, when you have no place to go? I was in a new city; I didn’t have a place to chill. I didn’t want to chill in the car because it’s hot out there and during the day. 

And the only place I knew that had free wifi, a bathroom and food was Starbucks.

So, I met a guy at Starbucks and we get to talking. And he tells me that he too was displaced and living in his car. 

And at the time, I really didn’t know where to sleep with the car because I was new to it. 

And I was staying in residential areas and people were going to school in the morning. And I felt kind of weird in my car, parked outside of people’s houses. 

So this guy said that he was parking on the roof of this big box store. So the first night, I parked up there. It was a really quiet night; he was in his car and I was in my car. 

So I felt a little safer. So the next night, he told me that he was going to be spending a few nights some place else. So was by myself for a few days. 

One night, the motion sensors on the street lamps kept coming on. And I heard some stuff outside of the car. And I was frightened. 

That’s when I said, “I can’t do this.”

I tried making a video the day before [that incident happened], asking for help. This was in January and I hadn’t uploaded a video since Christmas. Matter of fact, I hadn’t actually made a video a month before that; I just uploaded on Christmas. And I usually post a video once or twice a week. And this one particular subscriber named Kim who had been following me since 2007, tapped me on the [Internet] shoulder and said, “where are you?” And I opened up to hear to let her know what was going on. I was really embarrassed at first. It’s embarrassing sleeping in your car. 

It’s embarrassing not having money. It’s embarrassing being grown and not being able to take care of yourself. And I opened up to her and told her what was going on and she told me to make a video about it; that I always shared the ups and downs with people. And after she said that, I started thinking she was right; that I should at least let people know what’s going on. I tried to make the video and I couldn’t. And I ended up making the video the very next night, which was the night I was frightened.

I just couldn’t find anyway out of the situation. I don’t make that much money from YouTube ad sense. I just don’t. 

And you’re caught in this weird conundrum where you’re Internet famous because you have all of the down parts of celebrity. 

You know: you have the living in a fish bowl; you have the people who know your face; and followers and people criticizing you. So you have all of the down parts of celebrity and none of the upsides. 

YouTube just don’t pay. Like I seen people writing, “oh I may quit my job and go do YouTube” and I’m like, “no.” YouTube does not pay you enough to make money.

 Because of the [YouTube’s] terms of fairness, I can’t talk about the actual break down of pay but I will say this, you need to make millions of views per month to just barely make it. So if you are getting tens of thousands of views, or even hundreds of thousands of views, that’s not enough to live off of. That’s barely enough to buy groceries with -not rent, not clothes and not take care of your children.

CB: I’m glad you brought that up. Technology has kind of altered how we view people. But going back to the first night that you did the video, was that before or after the GoFundMe? 

Tonya TKO: No, the first video was the GoFundMe video.

North Carolina's Employee State Income Tax Fraud Scam: Job Piracy! Corporate Welfare!

Taxed by the boss


Across the United States more than 2,700 companies are collecting state income taxes from hundreds of thousands of workers – and are keeping the money with the states’ approval, says an eye-opening report published on Thursday.

The report from Good Jobs First, a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog organization funded by Ford, Surdna and other major foundations, identifies 16 states that let companies divert some or all of the state income taxes deducted from workers’ paychecks. None of the states requires notifying the workers, whose withholdings are treated as taxes they paid.

General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and AMC Theatres enjoy deals to keep state taxes deducted from their workers’ paychecks, the report shows. Foreign companies also enjoy such arrangements, including Electrolux, Nissan, Toyota and a host of Canadian, Japanese and European banks, Good Jobs First says.

Why do state governments do this? Public records show that large companies often pay little or no state income tax in states where they have large operations, as this column has documented. Some companies get discounts on property, sales and other taxes. So how to provide even more subsidies without writing a check? Simple. Let corporations keep the state income taxes deducted from their workers’ paychecks for up to 25 years.

It was not always this way. Letting companies keep their workers’ state taxes apparently began in Kentucky two decades ago as a way to retain jobs.

Last July when I wrote about six big companies that pocket Illinois state taxes I knew there was more to this. But I had no idea how pervasive these diversions were until I read an advance copy of the 39-page report by Good Jobs First.

CORPORATE SOCIALISM

Deals cut with the states over the past two decades diverted $5.5 billion from public purposes to private gain, the report says. Close to $700 million more was diverted last year, Good Jobs First estimates.

New Jersey approved $73.2 million in new deals in 2011 on top of $178 million diverted that year alone under previous deals. I calculate that at nearly $80 per household in corporate welfare based on New Jersey’s 3.1 million households.

These deals typify corporate socialism, in which business gains are privatized and costs socialized. They also mean government picks winners and losers, interfering with competitive markets. Leaders in both parties embrace these giveaways because they draw campaign donations from corporate interests and votes from people who do not understand that they are subsidizing huge companies.

Michael Press, a Connecticut consultant on tax incentives, says such deals, however troubling, are an inevitable result of the U.S. Constitution setting up competition between the states.

“In an ideal world we would not provide any corporate subsidies,” Press told me. “It looks like corruption. But if you do it right, if you only target those companies whose behavior you change to create jobs or keep jobs in your state then these targeted temporary arrangements are cheaper – much cheaper – and can be more effective than an overall reduction in tax rates.”

The mission of Good Jobs First is making economic development subsidies accountable and effective. In years of working with their data I have always found it sound. While Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First’s founder, has rooted out all sorts of hidden subsidies over the years, he emphasizes that he is not inherently hostile to them, only to secrecy, waste and what he calls job piracy and job blackmail.

“Job piracy” occurs when one state diverts taxes to lure an employer across state lines. AMC Entertainmentannounced a deal last year to move its corporate headquarters from Kansas City, Mo., to a nearby Kansas suburb. In return, Good Jobs First said, Kansas will let the multiplex chain keep $47 million of state income taxes withheld from its workers’ paychecks, a drain on public finances that did not create any jobs, but does enrich the Wall Street firms that own AMC including arms of J. P. Morgan, Apollo Management, Bain Capital and the Carlyle Group. AMC declined to answer my questions.

“Job blackmail” occurs when a company threatens to close a plant unless it gets tax money.

In Illinois, the law requires companies to threaten to leave before they can keep taxes withheld from paychecks. Motorola Mobility, now being acquired by Google; the truck maker Navistar; the German manufacturer Continental Tire, and three auto makers – Chrysler, Ford and Mitsubishi – get to keep $346.8 in taxes over 10 years because they threatened to leave Illinois. Navistar can pocket $62.1 million even if it fires a quarter of its Illinois workforce, its contract shows. A recent deal gives Sears $150 million, Good Jobs First reported.

PROMISES OF JOBS

Promising to retain jobs can be lucrative. General Electric invested $126 million updating part of its Ohio operations. In return, GE gets a tax credit equal to $115.3 million of its worker taxes, recovering 92 percent of its investment. A sweet deal for GE, but not its competitors.

Gary Sheffer, GE’s top spokesman, said the company told its workers about the deal. In all, he said, GE is investing around $300 million in Ohio and “the resulting taxes the state will receive will far exceed the tax credits provided to GE.”

That response, I think, misses the point – GE should pay its own bills without taking welfare.

Many figures in the Good Jobs First report are from disclosure reports some states make. Others come from news accounts and company announcements.

Total revenue losses are higher than the report states. First, some states hide the costs. Phil Mattera, the research director at Good Jobs First, said he lists the cost as zero for states that hide the numbers.

Good Jobs First wants to end these diversions, but failing that recommends mandatory disclosure to the workers as the first reform. I concur. It’s the first step in ending corporate welfare as we know it.


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Sources: Reuters, Youtube, Google Maps

Mitt Romney Loves For-Profit Colleges/ Student Loan Mill Scams! (Video)

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Sources: Youtube, Google Maps

Obama's 2013 Budget Boosts Higher Education; Shuts Out For-Profits/ Student Loan Mill Schools

5 Things President Obama's 2013 Budget Does For Higher Education


1) Rein In Higher Education Costs. Tuition & Fees, Student Loan Mills (For-Profit Schools)

President Obama's FY 2013 budget would create a $1 billion "Race to the Top" fund for colleges. In addition, Obama is seeking a $55 million to fund the "First in the World" program for colleges that "encourage productivity and efficiency."

Obama is also proposing to increase federally funded research at universities in certain areas. The National Institutes of Health would see no funding increase, for instance, but new policies would increase the money available for grants by 7 percent.

Other research areas would see between 1 percent and as much as a 110 percent increase in funding grant spending.


2) Boost Quality Of Education Spending At Community Colleges.

Obama's budget offers an $8 billion proposal to encourage colleges and businesses to work together to train 2 million workers in high-growth industries.

Obama would include financial incentives to ensure that students find permanent jobs. Inside Higher Ed reports the money would also support paid internships for low-income college students.


3) Restrict Spending At & Shut Out Most For-Profit Colleges Which Are Nothing More Than Student Loan Mills.

Some of the president's budget initiatives would shut out for-profit colleges. Obama would enact stricter rules on for-profit colleges. For-profits would not be eligible for money from the "Race to the Top" or "First in the World" programs, nor would they get any research grants.

During Obama's tenure, for-profits have increasingly come under scrutiny by the administration and been subject to investigations by Congress.


4) Increase Pell Grant Funds For Middle Class & Low Income Students Seeking Bachelors & Associate Degrees From REAL Schools NOT For-Profits!

The maximum Pell grant award would be bumped up by a hair to $5,635, an increase of $85. Pell grants have not been adjusted to the cost of college over the past 30 years, but were spared during 2011 budget negotiations.


5) Increase College Student Work Study Grants By 15% To Allow Additional Eligibility For More Middle Class & Low Income Students.

Obama's budget would increase spending on the federal work study program by 15 percent. The president is also calling for suspending a student loan interest rate scheduled to double this summer.

Inside Higher Ed reports the funding formula for the Perkins federal student loan program would be "revamped" to push colleges to keep net tuition low and provide "good value." That value would be based on the ability of graduating students to get jobs and pay off their loans, as well as a school serving a higher proportion of low-income students.

Obama is also requesting a 390 percent increase in teacher education assistance, upping the allocation from $41 to $201 million. This is particularly tailored to train more science and math teachers.


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Sources: AOL, Associated Press, Huffington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

For-Proft College Student Loan Defaults Skyrocket! Scams! Cosmetology Schools Too!

Student Loan Defaults Reach Highest Level In More Than A Decade

Students at for-profit colleges are more than twice as likely to default on federal loans as their peers at public institutions, according to new data released Monday by the Department of Education that also shows the highest percentage of students defaulting on loans in more than a decade.

The overall student loan default rate increased from 7 percent last year to 8.8 percent -- the highest rate since the government released similar data in 1999. An outsized share of that increase came from the for-profit college sector, which had both the highest percentage of defaults and the greatest increase in defaults, compared to public universities and private nonprofit schools.

Defaults at for-profit schools jumped from 11.6 percent to 15 percent this year, as opposed to an increase of 6 percent to 7.2 percent at public institutions and 4 percent to 4.6 percent at private nonprofit schools, raising questions about the degree to which for-profit schools are preparing students for careers that will allow them to pay off debts.

Because the government must track loan repayment over two years, Monday's data represents the first full assessment of students' ability to repay college loans in the Great Recession. And the numbers were bleak: the overall student loan default rate increased at the highest rate in two decades.

"We do think the economy is a big factor in the growth of these student loan default rates," said James Kvaal, a deputy undersecretary of education. "Another trend worth highlighting is the growth in for-profit colleges. Many of those colleges offer excellent, innovative programs, but we do also see disproportionate default rates among students who are enrolled in those programs."

For-profit colleges have been conspicuous beneficiaries of the economic downturn, as many of the publicly traded corporations that own such institutions expanded enrollments rapidly as legions of unemployed Americans looked to college as a way to improve their fortunes.

The high number of student loan defaults at for-profit institutions has prompted heightened government scrutiny in recent years, amid evidence that some schools aggressively market their programs to students but fail to deliver on the promise of careers. For-profit schools typically cost nearly twice as much as public colleges and universities, and students on average graduate with much higher student loan debt.

Because of the high costs, students at for-profit colleges borrow at much higher rates than those who attend public or private nonprofit schools. According to an analysis of federal education data by The Institute for College Access and Success, 92 percent of students at for-profit colleges took out student loans in the 2007-'08 school year, compared to 27 percent of students at public colleges and 60 percent at private nonprofit colleges.

For-profit colleges have also aggressively targeted minority students. Black and Hispanic students make up 28 percent of undergraduate students nationwide, but they represent nearly half of all students in the for-profit college sector.

"When you see 15 percent of borrowers at for-profit colleges are defaulting, its important to remember that almost all students at those colleges are borrowing, so that shows a much more significant problem in that one sector," said Debbie Cochrane, program director at the Institute of College Access and Success.

Nearly half of all student loan defaults measured by the Department of Education could be attributed to students at for-profit colleges, even though students at such schools represent less than 28 percent of all borrowers.

The federal government measures student loan default rates as a way to gauge student success, and to determine whether certain schools should be eligible to receive federal student aid dollars.

Student loan debt is among the most difficult to discharge, persisting beyond even bankruptcy. Borrowers in default on student loans can be subject to wage garnishment as well as deductions from federal income tax refunds, and they are ineligible to receive federal student aid in the future.

"What is really sad about this is that most of these people are done -- this is their last chance, because they have now defaulted," said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. "That will follow them to their grave. You can default on your house, but you can’t default on a student loan."

The Department of Education data released Monday is a snapshot of students over two years: the government tracked those who began repaying loans between October 2008 and September 2009, and measured whether they defaulted on those loans before October 2010. A loan is considered in default if no payment has been made after 360 days.

In a statement, Brian Moran, the head of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, which represents for-profit colleges, said he was "disappointed" to see the data but noted, "we believe that the default rates will go down when the economy improves and the unemployment rate drops."

"Despite today's disappointing news, we should remain focused on the overarching missions, which is to help individuals rise as high as their talent, ability and ambition will take them," Moran’s statement read.

Under current regulations, schools that have student loan default rates in excess of 25 percent for three consecutive years can face sanctions or lose access to federal student lending programs. Five schools were subject to sanctions this year, four of which were for-profit schools.

Beginning in 2014, the Department of Education will start to analyze student loan default rates over three years, as opposed to the current two-year window. Data from the Department of Education shows that many more students default in the third year after entering loan repayment. And some schools have actively managed their default rates by putting students into loan deferment or forbearance plans that prevent defaulting within the two-year window, but do little beyond that timeframe.

"That’s a good thing if that helps those students manage their student loan responsibilities, but in some cases it may serve just to delay the default and increase the amount of the loan," said Kvaal, the deputy undersecretary of education.


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Sources: ABC News, Huffington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Taliban Leader Impostor Received Big Buck$ From U.S.

Taliban Leader In Secret Talks Was An Impostor


For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the repeated appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.

NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from across the border in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge.

The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.

The episode underscores the uncertain and even bizarre nature of the atmosphere in which Afghan and American leaders search for ways to bring the nine-year-old American-led war to an end. The leaders of the Taliban are believed to be hiding in Pakistan, possibly with the assistance of the Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars in American aid.

Many in the Taliban leadership, which is largely made up of barely literate clerics from the countryside, had not been seen in person by American, NATO or Afghan officials.

Doubts were raised about the man claiming to be Mullah Mansour — who by some accounts is the second-ranking official in the Taliban, behind only the founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar — after the third meeting, held in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. A man who had known Mr. Mansour years ago told Afghan officials that the man at the table did not resemble him. “He said he didn’t recognize him,” said an Afghan leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.



The Western diplomat said the Afghan man was initially given a sizable sum of money to take part in the talks — and to help persuade him to return.

While the Afghan official said he still harbored hopes that the man would return for another round of talks, American and other Western officials said they had concluded that the man in question was not Mr. Mansour. Just how the Americans reached such a definitive conclusion — whether, for instance, they were able to positively establish his identity through fingerprints or some other means — is unknown.

As recently as last month, American and Afghan officials held high hopes for the talks. Senior American officials, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, said the talks indicated that Taliban leaders, whose rank-and-file fighters are under extraordinary pressure from the American-led offensive, were at least willing to discuss an end to the war.

The American officials said they and officials of other NATO governments were helping to facilitate the discussions, by providing air transport and securing roadways for Taliban leaders coming from Pakistan.

Last month, White House officials asked The New York Times to withhold Mr. Mansour’s name from an article about the peace talks, expressing concern that the talks would be jeopardized — and Mr. Mansour’s life put at risk — if his involvement were publicized. The Times agreed to withhold Mr. Mansour’s name, along with the names of two other Taliban leaders said to be involved in the discussions. The status of the other two Taliban leaders said to be involved is not clear.

Since the last round of discussions, which took place within the past few weeks, Afghan and American officials have been puzzling over who the man was. Some Afghans say the man may have been a Taliban agent sent to impersonate Mr. Mansour. “The Taliban are cleverer than the Americans and our own intelligence service,” said a senior Afghan official who is familiar with the case. “They are playing games.”

Others suspect that the fake Taliban leader, whose real identity is not known, may have been dispatched by the Pakistani intelligence service, known by its initials, the ISI. Elements within the ISI have long played a “double-game” in Afghanistan, reassuring United States officials that they are actively pursuing the Taliban while at the same time providing support for the insurgents.

Publicly, at least, the Taliban leadership is sticking to the line that there are no talks at all. In a recent message to his followers, Mullah Omar denied that there were any talks unfolding at any level.

“The cunning enemy which has occupied our country, is trying, on the one hand, to expand its military operations on the basis of its double-standard policy and, on the other hand, wants to throw dust into the eyes of the people by spreading the rumors of negotiation,” his message said.

Despite such statements, some senior leaders of the Taliban did show a willingness to talk peace with representatives of the Afghan government as recently as January.

At that time, Abdul Ghani Baradar, then the deputy commander of the Taliban, was arrested in a joint C.I.A.-ISI raid in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Although officials from both countries hailed the arrest as a hallmark of American-Pakistani cooperation, Pakistani officials have since indicated that they orchestrated Mr. Baradar’s arrest because he was engaging in peace discussions without the ISI’s permission.

Afghan leaders have confirmed this account.

Neither American nor Afghan leaders confronted the fake Mullah Mansour with their doubts. Indeed, some Afghan leaders are still holding out hopes that the man really is or at least represents Mr. Mansour — and that he will come back soon.

“Questions have been raised about him, but it’s still possible that it’s him,” said the Afghan leader who declined to be identified.

The Afghan leader said negotiators had urged the man claiming to be Mr. Mansour to return with colleagues, including other Taliban leaders whose identities they might also be able to verify.

The meetings were arranged by an Afghan with ties to both the Afghan government and the Taliban, officials said.

The Afghan leader said both the Americans and the Afghan leadership were initially cautious of the Afghan man’s identity and motives. But after the first meeting, both were reasonably satisfied that the man they were talking to was Mr. Mansour. Several steps were taken to establish the man’s real identity; after the first meeting, photos of him were shown to Taliban detainees who were believed to know Mr. Mansour. They signed off, the Afghan leader said.

Whatever the Afghan man’s identity, the talks that unfolded between the Americans and the man claiming to be Mr. Mansour seemed substantive, the Afghan leader said. The man claiming to be representing the Taliban laid down several surprisingly moderate conditions for a peace settlement: that the Taliban leadership be allowed to safely return to Afghanistan, that Taliban soldiers be offered jobs, and that prisoners be released.

The Afghan man did not demand, as the Taliban have in the past, a withdrawal of foreign forces or a Taliban share of the government.

Sayed Amir Muhammad Agha, a onetime Taliban commander who says he has left the Taliban but who acted as a go-between with the movement in the past, said in an interview that he did not know the tale of the impostor.

But he said the Taliban leadership had given no indications of a willingness to enter talks.

“Someone like me could come forward and say, ‘I am a Talib and a powerful person,’ ” he said. “But I can tell you, nothing is going on.”

“Whenever I talk to the Taliban, they never accept peace and they want to keep on fighting,” he said. “They are not tired.”


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Sources: Fox News, MSNBC, NY Times, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

Florida Activists Exposes Banking Industry Foreclosure Docs Scam

Florida Activists Read Between The Lines On Foreclosure Paperwork

Nearly a year before the national furor over foreclosures began, Lisa Epstein, a nurse, ran into three other amateur sleuths who separately were investigating shoddy practices at mortgage companies.

While meeting for the first time in November at an old one-story law office in this city, the four strangers compared notes and began to piece together the scope of the problem: All over the United States, big financial firms might have been using fraudulent paperwork to evict struggling borrowers from their homes.

Now tight-knit, the group is largely responsible for setting off the growing firestorm over foreclosures.

Epstein, a Fairfax County native who became an activist after she lost her job and became unable to pay her mortgage, launched a grass-roots movement against the country's largest banks, which are facing the prospects of billions of dollars in soured loans and legal expenses.

Joining her were Michael Redman, whose foreclosure blog drew the White House into the controversy, and Thomas and Ariane Ice, who run a boutique law firm that was the first to depose "robo-signer" Jeffrey Stephan of Ally Financial's GMAC mortgage unit in December.

In addition to trying to educate the public about the issue, the group had also been quietly passing along stacks of problematic documents to state and federal regulators, lawmakers, judges and law enforcement officials.

They pointed out that document processors such as Stephan had admitted in sworn depositions that they had signed off on up to 10,000 foreclosure documents a month, even though they had not reviewed them as legally required. They also shed light on foreclosure cases in which the paperwork appeared to have been backdated, forged or improperly notarized.

Now, at least five major mortgage companies have frozen some foreclosures. Attorneys general from each state have joined forces to investigate, and a federal task force is considering criminal charges in the matter. Some bank stocks have fallen on concerns that the issue of flawed paperwork could be a coverup for something even more serious. And economists worry that the fragile housing market, where one in four houses on sale is in foreclosure, could take a devastating hit.

Although the uproar over foreclosures might seem sudden, for the activists, it was a long time coming.

Epstein, 45, a George Mason University graduate who moved from the Washington area to Florida for the sunshine 13 years ago, first began to suspect something was wrong in February 2009 after she was served foreclosure papers without any acknowledgment that she had applied for a loan modification.

Redman, 35, said he knew there was a problem as early as January 2008, when he was trying to help his fiancee fight foreclosure and noticed that one of the key documents that proved ownership of the loan had suspicious signatures.

The Ices' eureka moment came late one night in early 2009 when Ariane was looking at the 700 cases in their database and noticed that a lot of the problematic paperwork had been signed by the same people.

As the four of them continued to investigate the issue, the months became filled with self-doubt.

"Plaintiffs' attorneys were scoffing at us; judges were laughing. You get to the point where you think, 'Maybe I'm the crazy one,' " said Thomas Ice, 50.

The group members, who are on the east coast of Florida, where nearly half of the homes on the market are in foreclosure, was soon joined by like-minded lawyers, homeowners and activists on the west coast. Together, the growing movement began to organize events at bar association meetings, host happy hours for distressed homeowners, and follow prominent public officials wherever they were speaking to get their attention. They launched Web sites to get the word out to homeowners' attorneys around the country.

Larry Schwartztol, a New York-based staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, has been working with Epstein's group to investigate whether Florida courts violated due process by short-circuiting normal procedures in foreclosure cases. He said the research the group is doing is "extremely impressive" and "indispensable."

Although there was no formal organization behind their effort, each of the activists took on distinct roles.

The Ices and seven other lawyers at their firm began deposing "robo-signers" at major mortgage companies, and, in an unusual move in the competitive legal industry, they began distributing the transcripts online.

Homeowners' lawyers nationwide began using the documents to defend their clients. Thomas Cox, a lawyer in Maine, saw Ice Legal's deposition of Stephan, the Ally robo-signer, and decided to depose him again for a case in his state in June. Cox was able to get his client's foreclosure judgment vacated.

Redman, who had been working in marketing for the online department of a local car dealership, set up a Web site, 4closurefraud.org, where he aggregated and analyzed key court documents related to faulty foreclosures. It was an instant hit - the Huffington Post of foreclosures - with Redman's snarky commentary, use of large pictures and graphics to explain complex subjects and his apparent glee - signified by an animated laughing "Jerry"- when he discovered a new way to attack the banks.

It was Redman's Web site, which is now being funded by a local lawyer, Carol C. Asbury, that took the lead in drawing President Obama into the foreclosure controversy this month by making a major issue out of a little-known notary bill, several lawyers around the United States said. Redman said that a reader had e-mailed him about the bill that had sailed through the Senate and was sitting on Obama's desk. The bill would make it easier to foreclose because notary signatures would be valid across state lines.

Epstein, a single mom who once worked as a cancer nurse, became the group's liaison to homeowners, setting up an online discussion site for them to vent their frustrations and debate strategies.

For months, she fired off up to five letters a night to officials, judges or anyone she could think of after her daughter went to sleep. Her letters were prone to hyperbole, but her explanations of the potential for fraud in various steps of the foreclosure process were laid out. In one, she wrote to the Florida Supreme Court: "I am outraged by the perfidious harvest poisoning the financial and emotional well being of individuals worldwide due to the appalling opportunism of Wall Street's historic, unrequited love affair with mortgage backed securities."

The first major lender to take corrective action on foreclosures - Ally Financial, which is majority-owned by the U.S. Treasury - has declined to comment about what prompted it to freeze foreclosures Sept. 20, but Epstein, Redman and the Ices say they and others who are defending homeowners applied so much pressure on the company that it would have been difficult for it not to act.

On April 28, one week after the four activists had staged a rally at the courthouse in the state capital, they had their first major breakthrough: The Florida attorney general's office announced an investigation into a "foreclosure mill" law firm called the Florida Default Law Group for allegedly presenting misleading or false documents to courts.

Knowing that the law firm had been hired by some of the nation's largest lenders, Epstein and Redman went to the local courthouse and began delving into its filings.

It wasn't until last month that their work began to draw national attention. The Florida Default Law Group confirmed in court filings Sept. 7 that the foreclosure documents that had been signed by Stephan, the robo-signer, "may not have been properly verified."

Redman posted the news on his Web site on Sept. 14. "ALL OF THESE AFFIDAVITS FROM THESE CHARACTERS ARE INVALID IF CHALLENGED!!!," he wrote, predicting it would affect "HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CASES!!!"

One week later, Ally Financial announced that it would halt foreclosure sales in nearly two dozen states. At least four other major mortgage companies followed suit.


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Sources: Fox News, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Foreclosure Ruins Consumer Credit For 7 To 14 Years

After Foreclosure: How Long Until You Can Buy Again?


Walking away from a mortgage you can still afford to pay has consequences; everyone knows that. Your credit score is shot and it can be impossible to get credit.

Some homeowners, no doubt, believe that the credit score hit is worth getting out from a deeply underwater mortgage. They may owe, say, $500,000 when their house value is only valued at $350,000. And, they figure, there's no way it will ever be worth what they owe so it's better to get out from underneath the burden.

After default, they reason, they can raise their FICO scores by paying all their bills on time and eventually finance another home purchase.

Don't count on it.

While homeowners who default due to economic hardship, such as a job loss or divorce, normally must wait two to five years before buying a home again, walkaways may face double that time.

"It could be well over seven or eight years before [walkaways] are able to obtain a mortgage to buy a home again," said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association.




How Foreclosure impacts your credit score

"Credit scores are only one component of a complete credit decision," Brinkmann said. "[In these cases] credit scores are not a good indicator of their willingness to continue to pay their mortgage."

But future underwriters will scrutinize their records very closely, and if they find no precipitating factors leading to the defaults -- no job loss, no health issues --the repaired credit score won't overshadow the black mark of a walkaway.

"If you made a strategic decision to default on paying your mortgage, it will work against you," said Bill Merrell of the National Association of Review Appraisers and Mortgage Underwriters.



Merrell, who teaches underwriting, said banks are looking at several factors in determining whether to grant mortgages: the amount of money borrowers have in the bank; employment histories; payment history.

However, banks may be far more lenient if the default resulted from factors somewhat beyond the borrower's control, such as from local economic problems. "They'll give you more consideration if it's job related," he said. But, he added, banks look at strategic defaults "very negatively."

That said, it's not impossible to get a loan. Banks still want to make interest payments, so they might be willing to gamble with a walkaway.

"It might be a little more difficult for them to borrow, but [banks'] drive for market share -- to profit from making loans -- will trump that caution," said Keith Gumbinger, of the mortgage information publisher HSH Associates. "I don't think we'll see a full denial."

It's hard to foresee the state of mortgage lending six or seven months from now, let alone seven or eight years into the future. So lenders may look at applications from one-time strategic defaulters and say, "Yes, they walked away but it's a whole different market now," according to Gumbinger.

Even so, lenders may require more from borrowers who walked away than those who didn't.

"To the extent they could get a mortgage," said Brinkmann, "they can count on needing a heavy down payment."

The lenders may ask for 30% down or more. That would provide enough collateral cushion that the bank could get all or most of its money back in a foreclosure.

Strategic defaulters might also be charged higher interest rates, even above the levels other borrowers with similar credit scores would receive.


Sources: CNN, Video Credit Score

Black Homeowners Hit Hardest By Foreclosure Crisis: Black In America

Housing Crisis Hits Blacks Hardest

The Foreclosure crisis has hit Blacks harder than any other group in America and it will be tough for them to regain their footing in the housing market.

Blacks' homeownership rate has plummeted nearly 6 percent to 46.2 percent since its peak in 2004. That's more than twice that of any other racial or ethnic group, as well as the nation's rate as a whole, which fell only 2.3 percent, according to U.S. Census data.

Also, among recent borrowers, nearly 8 percent of blacks have lost their homes to foreclosure, compared to 4.5 percent of whites, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. Latinos, who have also been pummeled by the mortgage meltdown, came in a close second behind blacks in foreclosure losses.

The consequences are devastating. Fewer blacks own their home now than any other racial or ethnic group and that makes it even more difficult for them to achieve financial security and attain wealth.

"We built the middle class on homeownership," said Marc Morial, head of the National Urban League, which works to empower the black community. "How many people have built their business with the equity in their home? How many people have sent their kids to college with the equity in their home?"

The loss of homeownership is more than the difference between a mortgage payment and a rent check, experts say. Purchasing property is the key to building wealth, which not only allows people to improve their quality of life and provide more for their children, but also gives them a cushion during tough economic times.

Billions and billions of dollars were stripped away from a community that already had lower levels of wealth than white communities," said Debbie Bocian, senior researcher at the Center for Responsible Lending, which estimates blacks will lose $194 billion in wealth through 2012 due to the mortgage meltdown. "It exacerbates all the socio-economic divides. The consequences are intergenerational."

Subprime lending and unemployment

During the housing boom, nearly seven in 10 Americans owned their home, a gain of 7.8 percent from a decade earlier. Black Americans saw their home ownership rates rise twice as fast to 49.1 percent, thanks in large part to easy credit.

But many of those new mortgages -- which often came with low teaser rates that would adjust upward after two or three years -- would prove unaffordable.

Overall, blacks were 150 percent more likely to get high-cost loans, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. Even when they had similar income and credit scores as white borrowers, blacks were about 30 percent more likely to be steered to expensive mortgages.

When home prices started to fall, borrowers found themselves trapped in subprime loans. And since so many people in the black community had these mortgages, they suffered disproportionately in the early stages of the mortgage meltdown.

Now, the foreclosure crisis has now expanded beyond the subprime market. More and more people with stronger credit backgrounds and more stable mortgages are defaulting on their loans because they've lost their jobs.

But here too, blacks are at a disadvantage. Black unemployment stood at 16.1 percent in September, the highest of any group and 6.5 percentage points above the national average.

"The unemployment rate in the African-American community is sky high," said Chris Herbert, research director at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. "That's certainly behind their high foreclosure rate."

Tight credit going forward

It's tough for anyone to get a mortgage these days. But it's even more difficult if you are black.

Nearly one-third of blacks were denied loans in 2009, compared to 13.1 percent of whites and 25.6 percent of Latinos, according to federal data released last month. The disparity can't be explained solely by differences in applicants' incomes and loan amount requested. Even when these factors are the same, blacks are still twice as likely to be turned down, a Home Mortgage Disclosure Act report found.

Nearly 49.8 percent of blacks had their refinance applications rejected, compared to 21 percent of whites and 41 percent of Latinos.

These stats mean that many blacks can't shift into lower-cost mortgages in order to save their homes, nor can they purchase their first property and boost homeownership rates.

"Credit constraints are a real concern," Herbert said. "While there is a need for tighter underwriting standards, we have to be careful not to go too far and unnecessarily limit access to credit that helps families manage their finances and build wealth."

One solution that the National Urban League is pushing is more homebuyer education programs. First-time purchasers who go through a course that teaches them about budgets, debt, home maintenance costs and risky, expensive loans are less likely to default, experts say.

"We need a fundamental commitment to housing counseling to prepare people to become homeowners," Morial said.


Sources: CNN